Test of Thyme Episode 1: Welcome, Who We are

hello everybody hi everybody Marcus and Jamie here well hello and welcome to what we think might be a new podcast new show some new content not sure um I've been doing in the weeds did in the weeds for a while uh pre-covered I interviewed restaurant owners and um you and I have done a little bit together of course you and I own a restaurant together we

own Aroma time together yes and people keep admiring our success our marriage um I wonder how we work together I wonder how we do it I wonder how we do it and so a lot of people have encouraged us over the years and you've done some speaking stuff yourself where you've like fully wowed the crowd about you know just the couple preneur thing so people have

been encouraging us to do this couple preneur angle of podcasts information information yeah just information so we're gonna say maybe this might be episode number one episode number one of we don't know what yet right so let's start with the basics of who we are and then I have a question you don't know yet because I'm going to pop on you and that might be the

fun part of this that means I can pop questions on YouTube you pop questions on me too yeah so all right um we just want to say a little bit about us you know when we opened all that kind of stuff sure so uh Marcus and I opened Aroma time Bistro um in Ellenville New York so 90 miles north of New York City um in 2003

um actually Christmas day of 2003 was our first day of serving meals um we were a soup kitchen that day and then our first actually being open night was New Year's Eve of 2003 into 2004. so we are celebrating our 20th New Year's Eve um we're going into our 20th years which our 19th anniversary and our 20th uh year of being in business uh here we

are very Farm to Table we are very conscious about where all of our ingredients are coming from down to the salt on the table even including the bar so um we we pride ourselves on the bar we love to support Independence small companies and um that's super important to us great so you want to take it from there so you can elaborate a little bit Yeah

grandparents so we're gonna be grandparents very soon very soon my daughter's 23 and we are having a grandchild she said it's the first and only well that's what she says that's how you hold the baby in your hands I think we all say that as women I'm never going through this again especially if you have an awful pregnancy so kind of difficult for her so we

were talking about um uh becoming grandparents and how exciting it is and um and going to the next step in phase of our lives right you know we've raised our kids our son also plays division one baseball um we should travel a lot so we travel a lot so this is going to be a nice Balancing Act between um our daughter our grandson because she's having

a baby boy and our son yes so it's going to be fun it'll be interesting um it will keep us young I can't wait to run around after him and uh it's exciting it's gonna be exciting to watch our daughter become a mom so yes so that's true part of like the next phase as well right in terms of like talking about all this this fun

stuff and and also balancing balancing our lives with balancing a grandson and our children the restaurant and the restaurant and our win of course we have a couple other businesses as well we have a travel business so we do a lot of traveling we take guests away um if you're watching this VIP Winery vacations right back on the back screen there um that's our travel business

so we take people look to Vineyards and now Mezcal distilleries in Oaxaca so vineyards in Italy Spain California New York northern Mexico and Valley Guadalupe and now Oaxaca is for Mezcal so that's one of our business businesses also a DD business here in the Hudson Valley we've sent people around to drivers around to drive people who they um can have fun at wineries breweries and distilleries

not worry about DWIs we send responsible drivers they drive your car yep around and get you back safely we do Luxury Airbnb rentals so we have luxury Airbnb uh rental business uh we have four properties right now four luxury properties in that portfolio that um like that's some nice money uh some of those properties uh pools hot tubs beautiful amenity is really really amazing really amazing

with the crank it up a notch because we're restaurant tours we have access to a lot of things that normal hosts don't have access to uh so we've cranked it up a lot uh let's see I think there's one other so when we coach other restaurants we sure do we go to the restaurants um our next book is getting ready to come out on covid and

how we um everybody needs to eat yeah and how we figured out the ins and outs of being successful uh during covid and getting people from Foods yep because they're already in their teeth yeah we have a lot of stuff going on I'm sure we have a lot to talk about um so in this episode I got a question for you so I was on Facebook

the other day and I saw a comment of advice to new restaurant owners okay and the common theme in the thread was um don't do it with your spouse no don't open a business with your spouse don't remember the spouse or family um don't do that so interestingly enough you know we just got back from Oaxaca Mexico and in Mexico families all work together and so

Italy too the culture is very interesting and very different um you know I asked one of the um at one of the uh palenque's I asked one of them um The Distillery owners how they feel about working with their family and they said they've just been doing it right like that's just what they do your family your family works with you you've been doing this for

how long um you know years and years and years Generations four generations we saw four generations at some distilleries at one of the pottery families four generations of women there making pottery and they work together every day and they spend time together outside probably then you know of work they live together some of us so you know our culture here in the United States is is

a little bit different you don't hire your staff because you don't want to um put a wedge between you if something goes wrong um that want our families working with us but you know our daughter works with us our son has worked with us and um some there have been some battles and stressful you know situations but for the most part I mean obviously we've worked

through them because they've been around for you know 20 and 23 years um and we've worked through them you know at the restaurant so what kind of advice would I give other restaurant tours is that what you're asking so so I guess I guess I'm going to tell you my answer to that no I don't agree with your answer first oh you don't okay because I

commented okay I would like to answer and see if we're similar okay okay so advice to so there's two parts of the question I guess first part is what do you have a new advice but so the second thing was I posted or I commented on the part where there was a thread on don't work with your family don't work with your spouse you'll get divorced

there was people coming they're getting a divorce you know people are got divorced all that kind of stuff they've lost thousand divorce so really the the more the question is here what is your feeling of working with your spouse okay that's more the specific question so we've worked together for 20 years I think there's been ups and downs um I think there's definitely more UPS Marcus

and I really at least I really enjoy working with him I believe he really enjoys working with me um we complement each other very well you have some strong um some strong areas and I have some strong areas I have some weaknesses and you have some weaknesses and we kind of blend those together and um and it works together um I wouldn't change it I think

I think there needs to be for new people if you haven't been doing this for a long time when we were young when we started right we had young kids we kind of knew what our roles were um you have to set roles how young were we oh gosh 28 and 30. I mean 30. so that's young right so we're we're 47 and 49 now and

that's Young you know to start beginning to work with your spouse but I think you know there's been definitely ups and downs um I think we push each other I think we work well together I think we know our roles um we we talk a lot I think it it depends I think you have to have really good communication um and I think uh I wouldn't

change it I mean I guess that would be the the what I would say about that I wouldn't change working with you um there are times where you know of course we don't agree on something and that happens what's gonna happen no matter what it's happening on marriage or or yeah that's gonna happen with with two business partners that are together it's gonna happen with with

a restaurant manager and a boss I always told you like we cannot agree on everything no Even in our relationship like if we agreed on everything and we did exactly the same thing on everything we'd be the same person and that's boring so we both bring things to the table that that are important that are really important in our business um in all of our business

and I think support is the biggest thing supporting each other um I know for me that has always been a difficult thing not that I never supported you but allowing you to make some decisions some high ticket dollar decisions um because I was always afraid of money I was afraid that we wouldn't have enough because there's been so many times you know throughout the many years

that you reduce that there was struggling we didn't have enough money we didn't have enough so I think I think that's really important I think there's a few things that people get divorced over and money is is probably one of the top I mean there were times we cashed out a life insurance policy a small life insurance policy to get buy and pay bills we took

money out of our daughter's bank account one winter to do payroll it was eight years old it covered it covered the week in payroll right um and it was just enough to get us back to another week and in the very very beginning you know I always said we didn't have enough money we opened that restaurant with 65 000 in 2003 and I always said every

night there's more money coming in there's more money coming in there's more money coming in and there was always more coming in just not enough I feel like it was ever enough it wasn't wasn't enough sometimes there's a lot of times our first five years there just wasn't enough money you find yourself working harder and harder and harder and harder so and that's where the marriage

breaks that's where that's where things go wrong and I think that it actually brought us closer closer together I would agree it made us work harder for our dream and our passion and so let's get this let's really set the record straight on this I'm a professionally trained Chef I am not I was the one who went to culinary school I was one who did wanted

an apprenticeship I was one who worked in Europe at a Michelin three star for beer Kaufman I was the one who busted my ass I always loved food and I always loved going out to eat but I never knew what it was like to work in a restaurant I was a teacher before I raised our kids I was a stay-at-home mom for the first four years

of our daughter's life and then we opened our restaurant so you know I think there were times where I was upset like how did we get here right because this isn't what I wanted to do but once I realized that we had the same passion and the same dream and it came together then I realized that we were where we were supposed to be at the

time right so prior to this I had a great job at a country club I worked four months out of here five months out of the year the seasonal Country Club got paid like I was working all year um I would have been you would you were you were you would have gone back to school teaching uh when Courtney was old enough and basically um I

would have been a stay-at-home dad in the winter and you would have been a stay-at-home mom in the summer and it kind of would have sought back and forth but I don't think it would have worked because of our personalities I think we needed to be on the same page not opposites from oh I agree and for me especially because I found myself I couldn't work

for anybody anymore right I didn't want to work for anybody I knew what I wanted on food I knew what I wanted personally to as far as my career I got water sounds good I knew what I wanted from my career I knew when I did the food I wanted to cook under the one I wanted to serve I knew the path I wanted to take

so working somewhere would not have fulfilled that for me and that's when I might have not been the person I am today and that's where we might not be where we are today right well everything always happens for a reason right so what was your answer on that was that very similar so I'm going to reveal my answer to end this episode okay so but it

was a two-part question so we have to answer the second part I'm just going to answer this the second part about working together okay I'm gonna address that so 2003 to 2008 we struggled terribly we should have filed bankruptcy every year right um 2008 2009 we kind of saw the light um it wasn't until 2012 where our account was like hey you got some extra money

you should probably spend some money at the end of the year it wasn't much was ten fifteen thousand dollars but you know when your accountant says that after 10 years of being open like I finally got extra money after 10 years I should go to buy a new oven or something you think you've like you're like oh my God I'm there success for there and and

as things go along then we opened up another restaurant along the way and that was a terrible situation with a partner and best friend and that ended we lost a ton of money in that um we lost our house through that it was it was a bad very bad financial situation so it took us almost 12 years where we were really in great shape financially the

restaurant I mean in crazy numbers awesome like four times what we did the first year it was great and all of a sudden we go to take the next step and fall flat and lose a ton of money and like we're back at Ground Zero again we're finding ourselves like we're like we're out of money again and it's just it was a terrible situation and then

we worked out of that and pre-covered up to 2019 we're back again we're better than ever 2020 um amazing covet hits and we bust our butts we didn't know what was going to happen we didn't know what's going to happen we bust our butts 2020 was the best year 2021 was better 2022 is even better than the previous two years we worked different worked hard we

wrote a book about it and that book's going to be coming out I told I told heiver today I said we're going to print two days we talked about we worked better work better smarter we did things we normally would not have done which we had to talk about that in the book The Books coming out I literally messaged hybrid and I said we're going to

print in two days everything's ready we're going to print in two days so that's going to be great awesome so um my name gonna be on this book yeah of course just making sure so my answer to that question was I said I've built we've built our Dream business and our Dream Life yeah that's what we've done so working together we love the trouble we travel

a lot we travel extensively um we keep great food we drink great wine we've met a ton of amazing people in and out of the restaurant we have tons of great friends our network is just amazing um we live our passion every single day with everything we purchase everything we do everything we express is our passion and we get to help people we get to help

farmers we get to help people eat better we get that we get three to educate to educate people you know I mean throughout the course of these years we built a hundred thousand subscribers on the YouTube channel you know we've gotten out there we've gotten out there a lot we've got lots of write-ups on us um people know who we are and I said we've built

our Dream business and our dream life together like this like that what else more could you ask for what else more I mean money is not an issue like it used to be um you know somebody actually talked me out of the other day of even like wanting him to do a TV show because I've always wanted to do a TV show and they're like you

guys are in such a great place right now like your lives will change not that we have a TV show off but we've had TV show casting calls over the years they come in a lot because that's what you wanted that's what you thought you needed and I think I think you thought you needed that and we haven't even had this discussion because you see that

you see the the the guys on the TV show and you want to be like that and you want your name out there for that but you know what your name is going to be out there for other things our names our names for other things but you don't need to have a TV show to be successful right I've already reached 30 million viewers on YouTube

right right successful restaurant we have the we have people that trust us our restaurant yeah and you're not working for somebody else right so we don't want another location no we're not interested in another location what are we doing we would but we're not looking for one we don't want one we don't need another location a lot of restaurants open locations second locations so they think

they need to make more money right because they're not making enough money in the first locations which we thought in the beginning and right so we don't need other than what we have all this what we have um we've downsized our house we think we're we're minimalists to a certain point on our living spaces we don't need this huge home anymore um we have a huge

office we have a huge office and we have reviews office we own our restaurant building almost out right now after 20 years um we have an amazing situation so we'd like to share this journey with you absolutely and Inspire others and help others and that's really what I love doing is I love helping people and showing people the way I I go to a restaurant I

love talking to the owner of their manager and like giving them advice and this and this and this you should you know and say oh why don't you do this this I love helping people I don't like to see people struggle like we did there's shortcuts to be taken and there's people to get the answers from and the help from and I've been dedicated which is

why I wrote the first book 50 mistakes that business restaurant owners make is because I saw people struggling I said these 50 things you do these 50 things this will change your restaurant I guarantee you and people like oh my gosh this is amazing this kind of stuff it'll change your restaurant the first 50 steps in there that's that's you know the second book such simple

things that'll help change your marketing of your restaurant and this last one is to say hey you got through covid here's what worked here's what didn't work here's how you move forward here's how you don't move forward here's what we did here's our blueprint to not only surviving covid a pandemic but to having our best years ever and it was a subsequent building our Dream business

along the way so I like that yeah wow so that was a great so join us for more episodes we're going to talk more and more about different things that go on in our restaurant things to help other people we're going to talk about relationship um relationships working there's a couple of it as a couple preneurs right we are a couple preneurs we enjoy um pushing

each other um to different levels and limits and what else we want to talk about our family yeah um a bunch of stuff lots of stuff we're basically talk about building our Dream business absolutely and helping other people do the same thing that should be the name of our podcast dream business building your dream business building your dream business as couple manures I love it love

it love it we weren't sure what the name of it was going to be but there we go maybe we'll fine-tune it a little bit um and that's gonna be it for today all right everybody all right have a wonderful day and go to restaurant growthsecretsuniversity.com you'll find tons of information over there on how to create your dream restaurants and have a great glass of wine

tonight yes absolutely