Emeril Cooks Celebrates NOLA Dining

broker's studio. So delighted. Welcome, Thank you, thanks for having me. How are you doing. I'm awesome. You're awesome. You get a lot going on, well, a lot going on because we are you know, we We just debuted a couple of weeks ago the Tailgate Show on Roku, and now Friday we debut the Emerald Cooks. It's kind of like a kind of like the Essence of Emerald Show. But speaking of the Essence of Emerald, that just wasn't enough of them, so they bought the Library of Essence of

Emerald and Emerald Live. So you now have an Emerald channel on Roku that you can just go on and stream when you want and catch maybe some old Emerald Live shows or some new Emerald cook shows, which also just speaks to you, like how much content you have created over how many years. It's it's been a few years. I'm not trying, no, no, no, no, It's been a few years and a lot of content and it continues. You know. It's just like it doesn't stop because the

restaurant business doesn't stop. If once you stop, then the customer stops, the excitement stops, you know, the creativity has to keep going on and you have to keep driving every single day. So that's that's the message of the staff every day. Let's get up today and let's try to do a little bit better than we did yesterday, and let's make it exciting so that the guests are

excited to come back. Well, it's interesting, I mean, I mean, I want to get back to the program in the show and in just a minute, but before we do that, I want to get an update from you about what's been happening over the last couple of years. Um, because when we do SEP in the morning, and speaking of sometimes things do stop. And we saw the world shut down during the pandemic, and I know that the fact of the restaurant industry so much you had to close

some restaurants during the pandemic. Talk about what the last two and a half years for like for you? I? You know, I was closed for a little over two years. Um uh do you ever think about that? It's amazing? But you know that's good. There's good and bad, right, So A good thing is is that it gave me a chance to really be at home, which I never really had a lot of time to be at home with the family. It gave me a chance to really sort of dig in my inner soul to say, Okay,

where are we here? And you know, where do we want to go? And how are we going to get there? Because some things are great and some things on so great, And so what happens to close seven restaurants? Um, we have five open now, not counting the amazing uh B Shrow at sea at Carnival Cruise Line soon to be two. We're announcing that next week we're going to do our second uh emeraldst B Strow on a new ship called Celebration, where the first restaurant is on Mardi Gras. Go figure.

But getting back to the rest strump business. It was. It was a difficult time because there's no revenue coming in. But I kept my staff for for the five restaurants. So, um, you know, that's expensive, very expensive, and obviously a very a big commitment to the communities that we're in too. In Las Vegas. How many people is that? Well, I went from a little less than eight staff members right now we have just a little under eight hundred. So but I don't know where they went. That's that's the

other thing. You talked to restaurant tours and chefs. It's like, you know, the labor pool out there. Talked to Danielle, talked to Erica Pare, etcetera. Where do they go? It's like, you know, I talked to my doctor friend. He's having trouble getting a nurse. You know, it's just it's crazy. We've talked about it with the economist market watchers. It's just like, how is it persistently that so many people have just kind of left the workforce and stayed out

of it. And some of it I get of retirees and sort of that's not necessarily the case, but you know what his his's the thing is that, um, the majority of those people went retirees or even close to being retires. They were you know, they were young people, twenties, thirties, forties, right that you know, still had a lot in them and a lot more to go. But I just don't it's it's so difficult these days, uh, staffing supplies, purveyors.

I mean, it's still you still today. I mean we're we are working on a renovation project right now, and um, you don't have to order stoves like a year in advance, you know, ten months in advance. Because it used to be like you could pick up the four O case six months, six weeks, you know, boom. Now now it's it's not like that at all. It's it's all the way around. So it's still as persistent problems. It's it's

it's difficult operating out there. But you know what, what what what you have to do is you gotta pull back the reins and you gotta go back and say okay, and then you got to go to the team and say, right, how are we going to do this better? And how are we you know, we've already passed survival, right, so we're already passed that stage gate one is gone, so you know, how how we how are we going to get there? I have to say, I'm in the k on Twitter is saying please tell him my wife and

I missed his restaurant in the South Beach. Yes, yes, we had a great restaurant, a couple of great restaurants in Orlando as well. But you know that you gotta do what you gotta do, said Bam. I'm just gonna tell you. I'll make it. I'll make the story really quick. You're ready. Because there's there's a lot that we do.

Back in the old days when I was doing Essence of Member, we're doing eight shows a day, and so you guys know television, it's unheard of to do eight shows a day, Okay, unheard of, right, So being a food show, we do three four shows, try and get for lunch, we had we had what we called a shift table, So all the food that we cooked, we'd put on that table because the staff wanted to eat it. That's that's that's why I would be yeah, that's all right.

So we would come back after after the lunch break, and all of a sudden, it's a very tiny crew, you know, four camera, one stage person, people in the control room, etcetera. And all of a sudden the camera people, you know, they need all this food. All of a sudden, I'm like I'm losing them. And so Bam came about waking everybody up to like, yes, can I get your attention everybody, because we've gotta got three more shows to

do it? Did I'm hoping my producer Paul Brannan is not listening, because he's going to be like that when we're not paying attention. Exactly, take it away, Paul, he said, starting tomorrow is gonna be doing. You had a question, Oh, I know, I'm just I think that's just fantastic. Um, so, how do you feel about the way that kitchens are portrayed in media today? You think about a show like The Bear, for example, that got so much attention. Yeah, I mean, you know the world has changed and so

is television. Right so you know, we're we're in a place right now where people are really thriving on this competition stuff. And um, you know, I could have been there. I've been I'm a guest guest John, a couple of them, you know, Gordon and Top Shelf, etcetera. But um, I didn't want to be in that arena. That's just not the arena that I want to be. I want to

teach people how to cook. I want to I want to take the I want to take the you know, just the whole intimidation factor out of like what what cooking is, or what shopping is or what wine is. Right, all right, hang on a second, Emerald, bam bam. Now come on, bam bam. Thank you. We're gonna come back with the Emerald Legazzi. Emerald Legassi is still with us, you know, um well owns restaurants. He's a chef, has been doing it for a long time. He's also a

host of Emerald Cooks and Roku. There's a bunch of programming all of his going on Roku. Um, where do I want to start. We want to talk about Cruse ships. I want to go back there because you guys you got deals with Carnival and your food, your restaurants. Right, it's my It's really my food, and it's a it's a remarkable experience working with the staff. You know, first of all, it's worldwide people, so from all over the world. The kitchen staff Pom and at least from India. UM

it's been an absolute pleasure working with them. Of course I'm a huge fan of the president, Christina, and of course Arnold, who's really a driving force. But it's been a remarkable, remarkable experience working with them because it's not just about like, Okay, here here's a dish that you

can do. It's about training, training manuals, working with the kitchen team, the food and beverage team, and then doing a really really awesome job executing because what they do really well is execute well how do you So, how do you do that when it comes to consistency in a floating city as you've described it before, Carol, but also you know in Las Vegas and Florida, how do

you do it? Yeah? So it's it's not easy, but you know what, um, you know, I've been, I've been to the route where I've had many many restaurants, and obviously since the pandemic and by choice, I've really tailored that down to now where it's manageable. Great people, great team. Can't win a Super Bowl without a great team, right, It's not just a quarterback, So you can't. You can't, you know, you gotta have a great team and great leadership.

Um so, Um, you know, I just tried to remind the staff every day that we're gonna get up and we're gonna do a little bit better than we did yesterday. And um, it's it's a constant it's a constant movement. It's every day we're just pushing and pushing and pushing, whether it's service or whether it's the food, the seasonal menu, etcetera, etcetera. It's just it's it's a constant, constant push. But once you're in it, and that's I've been in it since I was ten years old, so you it's very hard.

Once it gets in your blood, it's very hard to you know, to you know, I thought at times that I wanted to do something else. Wow, I'm gonna become a wine guy, you know, gonna you know whatever. It's No, it's not gonna happen. No, No, it gets in. It gets in your blood. And uh, you know, I have I have four kids. Um My son is the only one interested in the business. And uh, the girls are just kind of ones a c p A you know once Uh also valuable when you're running a business. Yeah,

you know, one does make up massage. The other one is a senior in high school soon to go to college. So they're interested, but they're not interested. And you know, many times the girls have told me, you know, dad, why do I want to do this? It's that's it's too much work. Okay, What do you cook at home when you're with your whole family? It depends. I'm a very seasonal kind of weather kind of guy. I love seafood, I love fish, So that's usually what kind of comes

to the top. But it could be a great roast chicken, it could be bowling as it could be uh, you know, it could be after after spending, but after spending they have spending twelve hours, you know, shooting cooking. Do you actually want to come home and cook? What do you order out? No? Do very very rarely. I don't need I don't really eat fast food, and I don't really very very occasionally do we order out? Mostly Vietnamese food in New Orleans has such an incredible Vietnamese population and

such incredible Vietnamese food. So that's really I guess that would be called ordering out, I guess right. And having far and bombies and and rolls, you know, spring rolls delivered to your house. Maybe that that's love New Orleans. I do. Yeah, well, I moved there in a D two to take over Commander's Palace. I fell in love with the city, the architecture, the music. Of course I have a little slight background in music, so that that people yeah later um, and then all of a sudden,

I just fell in love. The food is just it's one of America's greatest food cities. In my opinion, I think people in New Orleans, even after the pandemic, eat dollar for dollar to eat better than most places in the world, and certainly in this country. Uh. It has you know, hundreds of years of traditions, so you know, it's not just about Creole or Cajun and so there's a lot of history. There's a lot of tradition there.

And now you know, you add all of the ingredients and techniques from other cultures that are influencing you know, the city besides you know the Cajun and Creole aspect of it, and it's really really just a remarkable food city. It really is whether you whether you know, whether you go down the street and just have a simple poor boy or whether you go to a traditional classic place like Antoine's or Commander's Palace or Galatoise, or whether you go to one of the you know, the more modern

restaurants like Susan Spicer or Emeralds or whatever. It's it's just it's really it's really a remarkable place. I think New York, um and New Orleans is really what's really happening food cities. Uh, in my eyes, at least, that's that's what's happening. I used to be able to say other cities, but since the pandemic that I put the brakes on on that. Well, you know, and I do wonder when you look at um big issues that are

facing the food industry. You know, we've talked a lot about supply chains, right with Russia, the invasion of Ukraine, and you know, um costs, climate change, innovation, There's some disruption going on a lot of it. I mean, what do you think about what's front and center for you? Someone who has been so innocent's scutting. It's gotten very very hard, very difficult to operate. Restauranateurs are having a hard time because courser through the roof, labors through the

roof if you can find them. Um, you know, I'm really tired of everybody blaming everything on COVID. It's like, people, let's get over that right now. Okay, forget it, it's gone. It's not going away. Okay, I'm sure in a couple of weeks there's going to be another variants that's gonna you know, that's gonna happen or whatever. It's not going away, So face the world. But quit making excuses about why is it taking me a year to get a stove instead of like six weeks or eight weeks like before.

And the first thing you want to do is, you know, is blame everything on on COVID. I'm just really tired of that. Um, it's like enough enough. I mean, let's let's get over it. If we haven't figured out at this point in the world how to live with it, we were in trouble, maybe you should go bury yourself under a tree. I mean really and truly, it's you know, it's just come on, let's just move on. It does make you wonder, like why we haven't figured it out.

I've got thirty seconds left here. Oh no, I'm staying for another segment. I told you you're gonna come back with your son, and we have a bottle of line and we're gonna do um last night. You want to leave with our audience? Um, really and truly and I'm not one to like just you need to really check out Emerald Cooks on on on Roku channel. It's an

awesome show. It's very personal because the guests that I have on on Emerald Cooks, it's the shrimp person, it's the oyster person, it's the two ladies that are making sucking exactly and and it's really uh and a lot of these people, especially the Tailgate show, never been to New Orleans and so that's what makes it even more special, very special for us. On this Wednesday, Emerald be Well, thank you so much, Thanks so much for having me. Emeral Legassie. This is Bloomberg