Mike Finsilver of Tall Trees Cafe

**Chris Best** (0:04)
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Best Practices. I'm standing out in front of Tall Trees, the year and a half old sandwich shop right out here on Livernois.
It's raining outside, and the cars are whizzing by, and I just finished a great interview with Mike, the owner and proprietor of Tall Trees.
One thing we forgot to talk about in the show that Mike really wanted to raise awareness of is a thing called Meals for Everyone. And if you visit this cafe, if you want to bring in a donation of some feminine hygiene products or anything really that could help baby wipes, money, even cash, that would help. Dale is his partner. He comes in and prepares food the last Sunday of every month and kind of distributes them to people in need. But yeah, Mike really regretted not mentioning that during the show and wanted me to highlight that. But yeah, thanks for tuning in for another great episode. We're really proud of this one and enjoy the latest episode of Best Practices. Well, Mike, thank you for doing this meeting with me and taking time out of your precious time off.

**Mike Finsilver** (1:19)
Dude, heck yeah. I'm sorry to hear this morning working.

**Chris Best** (1:24)
I had to talk to you because I've been watching you guys do business now for what? How long has it been?

**Mike Finsilver** (1:30)
It's been just over a year and a half.

**Chris Best** (1:33)
And how's it been going?

**Mike Finsilver** (1:35)
It's going good.
Yeah, I just feel like we just keep getting busier, busier. Looking at the numbers, it's like there's definitely some slumps and stuff, but overall, we're just like up last year. It's been a real trip.

**Chris Best** (1:52)
From my perspective, and I already had the conversation with Max, I think this is so fascinating coming from my little weird sector of retail. And having never run a restaurant before, and I'm not understanding the business, but I understand that it's historically a very challenging business to be in. And you two, Max and you, have seemingly defied all of the statistics and the reasons not to do something, and you just did it.
And right out of the gates, seemingly, just like we're crushing it right away.

**Mike Finsilver** (2:32)
Like we're both, you know, we're like outside of the normal model just a little bit. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's pretty much standard restaurant, but there's certain things about it that are not. Yeah. It's almost like smaller scale to make it more manageable. Yeah. You know what I mean?

**Chris Best** (2:51)
It's, that's what I really wanted to talk to you about is, obviously, it's why, you know, what this whole point of this podcast is, is kind of to inspire other people. Sure. And talk to the actual owner and operators and find out what the magic is, because it's, it really is, in a way, it's like alchemy, what you, what you've, when you do it right and you do something right, it's like you're kind of not printing money, but you're turning something into gold. You're turning like delicious sandwiches into gold.

**Mike Finsilver** (3:20)
Yeah. It's like, it kind of feels like you're making something. Yeah. Yeah.

**Chris Best** (3:23)
You know what I mean? And it's, to me, it's like super interesting. So number one, congratulations on the fairly immediate success, which is most restaurants and businesses don't experience that. But I wanted to talk about the why, and why do you think, you kind of touched on it a second ago, but the why, why do you think that you guys both experienced? Obviously, you have a good product.
That's the starters, but I don't think it's just the good product. I think it's so much more. Do you have thoughts on that?

**Mike Finsilver** (3:57)
Yeah. I mean, I think that one thing that Max and I have in common is that we come from this culture of hospitality. Yeah. We have like, I mean, we've known each other for a long time from just working at restaurants.
We've been friends since probably like 2014 or 2015 Oh, really?

**Chris Best** (4:14)
I didn't know that.

**Mike Finsilver** (4:15)
Yeah.
My roommate at the time worked at, or two of my roommates at the time, worked at Chartreuse. It's like a restaurant in Midtown. Yeah. I've been there. And Max was a server there. And so he would like come over to my house after their shifts and like drink beers on the porch and stuff when we were like, you know, in our 20s.

**Chris Best** (4:35)
Sure.

**Mike Finsilver** (4:36)