Felipe Riccio: Kill the Entire Menu Twice a Year

Josh Kopel (0:00)

I'm going to ask you a question that might sting a bit. How many holiday parties do you have booked for the month of December? Not like, how many do you expect? It's how many are on the books right now with the deposits collected and the contracts signed. And for many of you, I worry that the answer is not enough. And here's why that matters. I think that the companies that are going to throw those parties are picking their venues right now. This is a sweet spot between August and September. And by the time you start thinking about December, the decision has already been made. You're not losing those parties in November. You're going to lose them this month. And that's why I built the Private Events Engine. It's a simple three-part system that leverages AI to do most of the work for you. And this month in the Marketing Masterclass, I'm going to walk you through it. It's going to show you how to package events, how to get in front of the people that are booking them, and how to close them without discounting. And you get the whole thing for free. So show up to this month's Marketing Masterclass. Go to restaurantbusinessschool.com today to sign up. Now here we go.

Felipe Riccio (1:08)

At its core, Marge has this idea of exploring the Mediterranean. We do that with two different menus a year, where the entire menu changes. Is it a winning formula? No, probably not. But we would continue to get better at operating it and making it work for the team and for the guests and for the city.

And you think we learn from it.

Josh Kopel (1:28)

Welcome to FULL COMP, a show offering insight into the hospitality industry, featuring restaurateurs, thought leaders and innovators. Served up on the house.

What if the only reason your guest came once is that nothing changed after they left? Today's guest is the chef and partner at Goodnight Hospitality in Houston, Texas. It is restaurant March, his tasting menu restaurant. The entire menu is thrown out twice a year and rebuilt around a different corner of the Mediterranean. And he's 12 seasons in. And he'll tell you that it's probably not a winning formula. But what we unpack today are the elements of that formula that win. In today's conversation, we get into why a concept nobody can repeat back to you will never travel, how disciplined and paperwork or would buy a chef creative freedom, and what it costs to close a restaurant for two weeks, twice a year on purpose. If your guests like you, but they don't come back, this is a great place to start.

Felipe Riccio (2:34)

So I've been cooking since, you know, I haven't done anything else but being in restaurants and kitchens. I wanted to be a lawyer growing up. Both of my grandparents were lawyers.

And so I said, you know, I'll be a lawyer and maybe own a restaurant. Should have stuck with that plan, but I ended up taking Intro to Criminal Justice as a freshman in high school and hated it. Like, absolutely like enjoy it. I was like, what is this? This is not what I want to do.

I didn't know this at the time, but I mean, years later, I realized it had more to do with sort of that teacher, you know, and just that not a good teacher, not a good mentor.

And so sort of I was like, oh man, I don't want to do this anymore. Well, if I want to own a restaurant, I should learn how to cook.

Josh Kopel (3:16)

And I grew up around food.

Felipe Riccio (3:17)

My grandmothers and my dad, they're great cooks. So I grew up around food and restaurants. My parents were in hospitality, but more of the hotel side.

And so I went, OK, well, I'll go to culinary school. I'll talk to my high school counselor. And she said, there's a culinary program, but you got to be a junior and a senior to take it. And I said, OK, cool, well, I got the whole, all of my sophomore year to learn as much as I can. You know, and when you fall into this world, it's so vast and the history of it and, you know, there's just so much around it that I really know headfirst. And, you know, truly haven't looked back since. Most of my career has been in Houston, which is awesome. I took a break for about three years, three, four years, and I did wine, which was also sort of, it kind of marks that division of, you know, those eras, right? As a young cook, you know, learning, just hustling, but then sort of stepping back, which now I recommend to all the young cooks. I'm like, find something else that you enjoy. If it's restaurant-related or hospitality-related, great. If it's not, they'll make you a better chef or a better Psalm or whatever. So I ended up doing wine for four years. That's where sort of the genesis of the partnership comes from, you know, from this wine bar here in Houston. But in between there, I ended up moving to Europe, and I spent a couple of years mostly in Italy, a bit in Spain, and then came back to the States for a little bit and did some stodging around. But it was very deliberate. I stodged recently for two years, knowing already that I was going to come back to Houston and open the restaurants. And so it was very intense, but very deliberate.