S2 EP 17: A Conversation with James London of Chubby Fish

You know, how how thinking back to during construction, I ask every owner this because I know it's true for me.

How has owning your own restaurant been different than you thought it would be?

So for me, it's really not that different than what I was doing before.

And the reason I say that is before if i wanted the fan belts on the hood exhaust changed then i had to go do it okay you know i could wait but if we needed to open for service i was going to get up there and i was going to change the belt right and if we needed a plumber to refix the toilet to the floor I'm not going to wait for someone.

I'm just going to pick up the phone and I'm going to call our plumber and get them out there.

And, you know, certainly there's other things that go into it.

There's HR, there's, you know, the benefit stuff that go into it.

And that's something that I didn't have to deal with before.

But for the most part, you know, I've always, every restaurant I've ever worked at, you know, from the time I was young, I took ownership in it.

And I really wanted it to be the best possible restaurant it could be.

And I really would put everything I could into every single one of those restaurants.

You know, in New York, I slept on the banquets just so I could be there at 7 a.m. to start prepping.

You know, I just loved it so much.

Every single one of those restaurants, I took so much pride in.

And at the end of the night, I would go home and I would look at all of our review systems, Yelp, Google, et cetera, because I was so invested in it.

I cared so much.

And so I wanted to see if there was a good review.

I wanted to see if there was a negative review so that I could share it with my team.

And so really the transition wasn't a, wasn't a big one for me.

It was kind of a lot of the stuff that I was already doing.

Let's say story of resilience and grit, my friend.

So chubby fish has now become this zeitgeist of, I mean, I literally, I travel a lot.

I can't be anywhere in the country where somebody isn't mentioning your restaurant, wanting to eat in your restaurant, having eaten in your restaurant.

Um, All the accolades have come, you know, maybe some were nominations and not awards.

Are you surprised by that?