The Ledger
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Starr: Further tipped minimum wage hikes will make restaurant survival impossible
“I think at a certain point, especially with tipped employees, I don't know if it should keep going up, because, I mean, it's going to be impossible for restaurants to really keep, to stay in business.”
Starr: Modern Economy Leaves Little Room for Bootstrapped Entrepreneurs Without Wealth
“The way things are constructed now, there's very little room for entrepreneurship. Unless you have A lot of money, or your family has money. I mean, just to have an idea, and have virtually no money, it's hard, man. It's hard. It's not the same country.”
Live Nation monopolizes music profits via venues, parking, and ticketing fees
“Nowadays, the act gets everything, and then the promoter, which is really basically one promoter, Live Nation now, they own a lot of the venues, they get the parking, and they, because they own Ticketmaster, they get that ticket charges.”
Starr previously believed restaurants fail if not packed on opening day
“I used to have the same theory about restaurants. If it wasn't packed from the day I opened the door, we're gonna fail.”
Starr: 20-25% Restaurant Profit Margins Are No Longer Possible Today
“You know, the same guy that was able to build a restaurant and open it for 90,000 dollars was able to make a 20 or 25% profit. Today, not possible. Today, between the rent, labor cost, this cost, that cost, that regulation, this thing, that thing, whatever thi…”
Starr: Buddakan's Food Was A Bit Of A Knockoff From China Grill
“Budokan, I got scared with Budokan, because Budokan basically wasn't that novel. I mean, really it was like kind of a little bit of a knockoff food-wise from China Grill.”
Stephen Starr: A restaurant can fall apart if one dishwasher leaves
“One guy could decide, that's it, I'm leaving, and the whole restaurant falls apart that night.”
The Continental grew revenue from $3,000 to $100,000 per week
“And this little restaurant that did 3000 dollars a week, being this previous owner, eventually ended up doing a 100,000 dollars a week.”
Starr: STARR Restaurants requires landlords to co-fund new locations
“By the way, when we open new restaurants, I'm not financing them myself anymore. We go in, landlord wants us to open, they have to put up a good significant part of the money now.”
Starr: The optimal restaurant model is 85–95 seats turned 2.5–3 times
“There's a sweet spot of around, I think around 85 to 95 seats. Try and turn the tables two and a half, three times, and I think you're gonna, that's the best model right now.”
STARR Restaurants sold $10M in gift certificates in 36 hours during COVID
“So I said, let's do, buy one, get one free... Buy one, yeah, one gift certificate, get one free. Well, in like, 36 hours, we did like, ten million dollars.”
Starr: Restaurant buildout and kitchen equipment costs tripled post-COVID
“COVID happened, everything doubled, the air conditioning. What used to cost 600,000 is now 1.8000000. They said, oh, it'll come down. It didn't come down. Kitchens, 500,000 dollar kitchen normally, 1.5 1000001.8 million.”
Stephen Starr built out The Continental in Philadelphia for $90,000
“So I did the whole thing for 90,000 dollars.”
Starr: Chefs rejected equity offers for salaries when opening The Continental
“I tried. They all turned me down. They just wanted a salary.”
Starr: Ideal STARR Restaurants exit would be an acquisition by LVMH
“The perfect exit is to be acquired by a company that has some sort of a synergy and relationship to what you do. My fantasy, you know, we run the Louis Vuitton restaurant in New York City. Would be that LVMH come in and acquire star restaurants or part of us.”