Adam Weisblatt's Love of Restaurants: The Found Oyster, Hermon's, Queen's Raw Bar Man

**Jordan Okun** (0:03)
Mad Food, I'm Jordan, Max is here, and so is Adam Weisblatt, co-owner of a bunch of restaurants we are fans of, including Found Oyster, Hermon's, Rasa Rumah and Queen's Raw Bar, to name a few. Adam has a new book coming out, titled For The Love Of Restaurants An Insider's Guide From Daydreams To Opening Night. And every time I get a chance to hang with and speak to Adam, I love how engaged and passionate he is about restaurants and the food industry. He's a total pro and natural, so we had to have him on, I think, Max, right?

**Max Shapiro** (0:38)
You know.

**Jordan Okun** (0:39)
I know.

**Max Shapiro** (0:39)
We know that we had to have him on.

**Jordan Okun** (0:41)
Adam, welcome to Mad Food.

**Adam Weisblatt** (0:42)
Thank you guys. Cool. It's great to be here, dudes.

**Jordan Okun** (0:45)
Thank you so much for coming in.

**Max Shapiro** (0:48)
He wrote a book. Unbelievable. I can't believe... What an accomplishment that is.

**Jordan Okun** (0:53)
Would you like to write a book one day, Max?

**Max Shapiro** (0:55)
About what?

**Jordan Okun** (0:56)
I've written a book. Adam's written a book. Why don't you write a book?

**Max Shapiro** (0:59)
I have to figure out what I would write it about. And if I could actually write it.

**Adam Weisblatt** (1:04)
Keep it short, is I think the key. Pictures?

**Jordan Okun** (1:07)
Pictures?

**Adam Weisblatt** (1:08)
I mean, you did just describe mine.

**Jordan Okun** (1:10)
You're a writer on Substack now.

**Max Shapiro** (1:12)
That's a new fact.

**Jordan Okun** (1:14)
You want to go to Childe? He has no pictures.

**Adam Weisblatt** (1:17)
Max can write. He can write.

**Max Shapiro** (1:18)
He can write.

**Jordan Okun** (1:19)
He has no pictures.

**Max Shapiro** (1:20)
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

**Adam Weisblatt** (1:22)
I've been reading his writing. You have prose.

**Jordan Okun** (1:24)
He's got chops.

**Adam Weisblatt** (1:25)
Yes, he does.

**Max Shapiro** (1:26)
Thanks, man. Thanks, guys.

**Jordan Okun** (1:29)
Adam, opening a restaurant seems so easy. Why spend so much time and energy writing an entire book about it? I don't understand.

**Adam Weisblatt** (1:37)
There are so many books over the years that are either memoirs about restaurant life or about hospitality and how that can change other businesses or your life in one way or another. But I did always feel like there was this huge gap of a book that was what to do if you're just working day to day in a restaurant and you want to own your own place one day. What does that process really look like? Because you learn hospitality and you learn service. You learn to cook every day by just working the job. Like the best way to learn that stuff is to get paid for it, right? But even as a general manager and as the executive chef, even if you're opening a new place, it doesn't mean you signed the lease. It doesn't mean you wrote the deal or raise the money. Doesn't mean you negotiated for all the contracts and all of the vendors. Doesn't mean you had to deal with all permitting and dealing with the state and city and the country and following all these rules. And I knew that was something that was a really boring material. So it had to be told in a way that was readable. So my point was make it short, illustrate it and tell a story, which the book is about the story of Found Oyster, but really also how you go through the process of opening your own spot.

**Jordan Okun** (2:36)
Yeah, I mean, it really is a how to guide step for step on what you will go through or what you and Holly and your partners went through at Last Word Hospitality, opening Found Oyster. But there is also passion behind it to where, yes, read this if you're going to open a restaurant or if you have opened a restaurant and you want to open others or just for camaraderie or whatever. But also, there's some good passion there as far as just like, you don't know what's coming.

**Adam Weisblatt** (3:08)
Yeah.

**Jordan Okun** (3:09)
COVID could be coming.

**Adam Weisblatt** (3:10)
Yeah.

**Jordan Okun** (3:10)
A fire could be coming.

**Adam Weisblatt** (3:12)
Yes.

**Jordan Okun** (3:12)
And how to persevere and how to press through in something, in an industry, that is damn near impossible. Hence, all the bad restaurants and small businesses that have come and gone.

**Adam Weisblatt** (3:27)
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I think you have to really care about the people, about restaurants if you're going to stay with it for a long time because the work itself is exhausting, you know, and you don't get days off and the holidays are days that you work, especially. And so, for me, it was never necessarily that I loved waking up in the morning and always working in a restaurant. Just when I tried other fields, I missed those people that I did that work with.