The Business of Butterworth's, the Hottest New Restaurant in Washington DC

SPEAKER_2 (0:02)

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Joe Weisenthal (0:18)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:23)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:24)

Tracy, we were down in DC several weeks ago. We were at that IAF conference, and we had a great meal when we were in town.

Tracy Alloway (0:30)

We did indeed.

Joe Weisenthal (0:31)

It was a really good meal.

Tracy Alloway (0:32)

Yeah, we went to a place called Butterworth, which is getting a lot of buzz, has been getting a lot of buzz for a while, and sort of serves, I don't wanna say farm to table, cause that's not really it, but like an emphasis on organic, maybe like rarer cuts of meat. I remember we had bone marrow.

Joe Weisenthal (0:52)

Which you love.

Tracy Alloway (0:53)

I love bone marrow. The first time I ever ate bone marrow was at an all-you-can-eat buffet in Las Vegas. So it wasn't even the best bone marrow, but like I ended up with a mountain of empty bones on my plate.

Joe Weisenthal (1:05)

I think both of us like sort of rich, fatty food.

Tracy Alloway (1:08)

I would say it's like sucking the life force out of an animal. It's animal essence.

Joe Weisenthal (1:13)

We had really good fries, which famously, and we'll probably get beef tallow, no seed oils, very hip these days. I'm pretty sure we had something with foie gras, which I love. I seem to recall there was some left on the plate, and I was like, does anyone want this? Can I take this bite? Can I take this bite? I cannot resist foie gras. Anyway, it was a really good meal. I love doing restaurant episodes because, or talking about the food industry, because if you want to understand the economy, both in the short term, like where we are in the cycle with food costs and labor costs and how free spending people are, they're a great snapshot. And at any given time, they're just this perfect combination of labor costs, inputs and rent, which is like the whole economy there.

Tracy Alloway (1:55)

There's also the supply chain issue, right? And we did that whole episode on Cisco, the dominant food supplier to restaurants in America. I doubt Butterworth uses Cisco for obvious reasons, but where they actually source their ingredients is a really interesting topic.

Joe Weisenthal (2:12)

Right. This is what I was going to say, which is that they're this perfect combination of the snapshot at the moment and then the big structural things of how the economy works across the cycle. So I really like restaurant episodes.

Tracy Alloway (2:23)

There's also an interesting cultural element in this. And everything is cultural and political nowadays, including the restaurant business, because Butterworth's has been described as a sort of right-wing MAGA hangout. So we should talk about that. Yeah.

Joe Weisenthal (2:37)

I'm fascinated by the DC scene because it has like, oh, they're like Democrat bars, Republican bars. I don't, do they mix?

Tracy Alloway (2:44)

You got to declare your political allegiance before you walk in.

Joe Weisenthal (2:47)

It's so, and actually there's something really profound here because I feel like this is happening to brands of all types, right? Is this the right-coded brand or the left-coded brand? It's that everybody in DC-

Tracy Alloway (2:57)

People have to choose sides.

Joe Weisenthal (2:58)

You have to choose sides. But anyway, it's funny, you know, because we were there and our producer, Kale, is like, we should go to Butterworth's house. I was like, oh, there's the MAGA restaurant. Great, I want to check it out. But when you go in, you know, it's not like there's, you know, you wouldn't know it.

Tracy Alloway (3:10)

People aren't wearing red hats and stuff.

Joe Weisenthal (3:12)

But you would never know it at all. You would never, like, at least the night we were there, I didn't see any, like, White House notables that I recognized, although apparently they do hang out there from time to time. But it's not, like, designed. It looks just like a very nice, normal restaurant, a real good, great dining room.

Tracy Alloway (3:29)

So there is a bit of a clubhouse element to it. We should talk about the overall design because it is pretty unique as well.

Joe Weisenthal (3:35)

Well, when I tweeted, I was like, oh, we had a great meal at Butterworth's on Twitter. All these people respond because apparently, whatever. Anyway, it made the connection with the chef and owner of the restaurant, Bart Hutchins. We really do have the perfect guest therefor to talk about Butterworth. We're going to be speaking with Bart Hutchins. Bart, thank you so much for coming on the Odd Lots podcast.