Geoffrey Zakarian: An Iron Chef Adds Content Production to His Menu

the coveted Iron Chef title. For the past four years, Zacarion has steadily been expanding his activity as a content producer. He founded corner Table Entertainment with partner Jared Keller in that put him in a good position to produce content for Food network parent Discovery and the fledgling Discovery Plus streamer,

which has a voracious appetite for shows. Zacarion, in our interview discusses the differences between launching a restaurant and launching a TV In his mind, there's no question about which task is harder. He also reveals that the company has cameras on the ground working on a documentary with Tribeca about the pandemics devastation of New York's restaurant scene or capturing it as it actually happens, he says, and that's all coming up today on Strictly Business. Welcome back to

Strictly Business. Here's Jeffreys, a Carrion chef, entrepreneur and head of Corner Table Entertainment, a bustling production company that is right there in the nexus of food and content. Jeffrey, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, Cynthia. It's lovely to talk to you. We've talked before and

it's always it's always a pleasure. I love you had your finger, the true finger on the pulse of what's happening in the world of media, because it's an all important world that you know, no one seems to be able to live without, especially today. It is it is just like the food world. It is an incredibly dynamic business where you never know where the next hit, the next great idea is coming around the corner. I've always

been a fan of your appearances on Food Network. I always really get the sense that you are speaking as a as a both as a as a culinary as

a decorated chef, but also as a businessman. And it's in that context that I wanted that we want to talk about um your evolution as a TV personality and as now for the last couple of years been increasingly active as a producer behind the scenes with Corner Table Entertainment, and would I would love to start by just asking you what you obviously have become one of the most recognizable faces on a food network, and I can only imagine that that has been good for your business overall.

But what was it that made you in seen? What is it that made you decide to plant your flag and launch Corner Table Entertainment and start your own production entity. Well that's um. I don't know if it doesn't all, it doesn't work seamlessly like that. It's sort of like comes in bits and pieces. So I can only get telling you that as a TV chef, and as someone has been on a lot of shows Chops since two thousand I believe ten or whenever White started, I can't remember.

And then we've had so much success with those shows. What happens is, um Cynthia, as you you start to get in everyone else's head and you start giving your opinions on what will work and what won't work. Correct, So as you're asked by the producers, what did you like about this? What did you like about that? That that airs well? This areed well, this didn't do so well.

I think we should do more of that. And what happens is you have this sort of conversation with the people around you and the producers and the executive producer and EP be how's your talent and you're not back on the scene. You're right up there and they want to know how it felt and they see the results from from the from the ratings right, And what happens is you're actually then producing or co producing. You're like, okay, we're gonna have this idea. What do you think you

run up by your test that you do it? So that's it's as simple as that. Honestly, it's just things work. You're asking more direction, you're asking more, you know more, what you think works, Like, tell me why you would like to do this? This work better? That was great, it was a great idea. Let's do it again in different ways. So it really is a creative process based upon doing a couple of things right and getting good

feedback right. That's the base of everything. And like you said, TV is the Food Network and everything else, but especially food is all about content. If you don't have content, a story of beginning to lead a competition, show stand and stir um uh, some sort of holiday theme. Uh, there's all kinds of things. But you know, the Kitchen

is evergreen and extent that every year and follows the season. Uh. And some shows like Chopped or really every green we could you know, you can send you know, other than throwing a Christmas show on in July, you can show show this chop any time of the year. So for us, it's just a very you know, Jared and I launched it in two thousand and SEVENTI is a natural sort of ideation about all this creative stuff we've been talking about with our executive producers and Food Network, Like we

talked with David Zaslaw, Kathleen Finch, and Courtney White. They run it, and you know, they need all this content for Discovery Plus, and they need all this content for Food Network. So it's just we've been around so long and we've been doing this, we know it works, what doesn't work. So they asked us to help with content, and we decided to just like put it out there. And we actually had a great run with the telephones

that we did in the pandemic. It was just the timing and we like, you know, we just did it um and we produced it like everyone else did. And it was sort of like a nice test, a way to test the production keeping abilities and what worked and what didn't work. We found out some partners how to edit and all that stuff. So ow and behold. We raised two an a half million dollars with to one national, one local, and you know, now we have this production company.

So it's it's not how we sat down and said, what's the five year goal. It was not that at all. It was like, we have these ideas, let's let's start like writing them down on paper and pitching them because they need content. So it all comes down to that. But I love that part of it because that's still creating, you know. So you like the you like the idea stage. You like being in the at the germ of the idea of that what you're going to execute. It's so wonderful.

And everyone anyone else that does this for a living, what I do in that same in a different profession, we'll tell you the same thing. Say creating music, and uh, it's writing a script, and it's it's so fun to sort of collaborate and then see it happen and then either fix it or do more of it. So that's

sort of what we're really loving. And what's great about it, Cynthia, is that I was allows me to continue to cook, continue to do the shows, have a behind the scenes sort of inventory of stuff that like, oh boy, this would work right here, this would be a great way to like take one of these shows that we haven't on Brain and let's do a segment on the kitchen. Let's do a seven minute segment. Let's try it and see what happens. You know, we don't have to spend

any money. We're all there. Let's just do it. You have their own incubation lab right there. So that's what like, we're doing a lot of and you know, we we just shot a sizzle. We're doing a restaurant documented with Trybic of Productions. Were very excited about that. Um And it's all because of just this natural sort of consultation with the producers and the people there, because ultimately, your boss now is now your collaborator because they need content,

unique content to stay in the year. You love to do content. You're a professional. That's been doing Cookie for forty years. You've seen just about everything, and you've been working on a show that's very current. So how do we keep how do we put into a beak or shake it and come up with a great new cocktails. So that's that's really what we do and what we're doing. So UM, we're very excited about it. Um and you know, I were just at the beginning. You know, we haven't

even started. I mean, Bobby Flay has been uh producing his shows sort of I think fifteen years or twelve years at least. M What was it? Was it the kind of thing did you have to get it? Did it sort of start very small? Or did you line up? As you said, you did not have a five year plan, but did you was it the kind of thing you had to line up some backing or some financing? Did

did food? And we just partnered with with bstv Um one of our partners in the in the kitchen, and they sort of helped us along and we showed us the rope and we just went, you know, we did these ideation meetings and we just came up with some great shows and we do sizzle reels and it's a very simple process because it was so already are you doing it? So basically it was we didn't have to really raise all this capital, like let's just start real small.

So basically, Jarrett um Tower, myself and my wife Margaret and the four of us, we just did it. We you know, just huddled, got it together, wrote it up, met with someone who's who has all the capability of doing that, just like we did the telephone. You have to find someone that is actually in the editing booth and has all you know, people on the grounds and people doing the documentaries, you know, boots on the ground,

and so that's how we started. At one point in time, we're gonna probably have boots on the ground also probably

a big fancy office if they ever open. But in the meantime, you know, we're just going along with what really is important, which is this content, you know, the idea and how to get that idea to the film because there we all give we all have you know, expertisees and the people that in the editing who's not necessarily understand what we're talking about and what we're talking about we don't necessarily understand when when production telling us about like the budget and how we work it over

four days and how you know breaks and how we have to do it, and how we have to shoot it in the state because of this and not going in overtime. So it's all that sort of like nice shared value and shared common cause that we don't have to be an expert in everything. Well, we're really good at content and really good with ideation. So that's that's

why we're very excited about it. Do you, um, how would you compare the process of you know, assembling that team, executing on you know, just settling on ideas, you know, setting the goal, executing to those goals. How would you compare launching a show or a telethone like the telethone that you've done, to launching a new restaurant or setting up setting up a new business that was in the you know, in the in the core cooking world. Well and in a restaurant, you know, it's it's far more

difficult to get the ball across the line. For the very re and is you have one goal. You you come up with a piece of paper, a plan, You've sold it to someone that has investment. It's gonna put three million dollars stay in a restaurant. That's all you're doing. It's that one thing, and if it doesn't work, you're screwed. So if they don't like one show, we have another one, and then have another one. You might do three or four pilots and none of them, none of them get

picked up. But it's a very fluid um sort of roll. So I would say the pain is far greater and the physical um you know, brick and mortar world of opening a restaurant. And I mean that because you're literally on your feet a hundred hours a week. The first three months are like having a wisdom tooth pulled every minutes. Uh. It's just it's it's crazy, nutty and volatile, and you know, rife with problems and and legal stuff and lawsuits and

all this stuff that comes at you. Uh, because people are just like, you know, crazy in this world of restaurants. But that's the way they're so exciting. But what they do provide is they provide a vivid, sort of peaky dish of possible content that you can't imagine is gonna be there until you actually see it happen. So this, you've you've created this, this I don't know vacuum where stuff happens. Now you're managing it. Now it's a full time job. Now you're waiting for the critics to come.

And now you hope it works. Now you hope it makes money. Now you have to try to pay your investors back. So there's so much content that you get out of that. Plus you get a marquee that you wouldn't necessarily have if you weren't in brick and mortar. It doesn't mean that you can't be in the restaurant business, and it can be in a production business and not

being a restaurant business. But if you're in the restaurant business, the movement to the restaurant the producing business is a far more fluid and creative and fun experience because it's very little downside other than getting rejected all the time, which is normal, you know, right, just like I said, no, that's a no, that's a yes. And if it hits,

it hits, you know. But you I would imagine that that experience of of launching your own businesses in the in the circumstances and the fraud nature that you described, like that that is training for combat. That is training for the the insanity and and you know the one thing producers have to do most is think on their feet. It sounds like you've you've been there, uh you know back there. You know you've been there with the line cooks, and you've been there at the front of the house.

And you know, I had had all those experiences. And you know, the funny thing is is with a restaurant, you open up with the menu right and you you you go through these tortuous processes of getting in a chef and a menu and you think it's great to food and all that, and you know, and then someone in the restaurant said, you know what I really want to gott can I have like a I've just wanted to a piece of You know, you have this, man, You've done right, it's tested, it's prompted. What it means.

You test everything and you bring it and you make five hundred of them. You've got the recipe done that you order to that recipe, so you have not no ship left over in the box. You know your inventory is perfect. You don't have you know, poor crimes when you don't in the inventory where you don't need poor pranks as it's money, so money, very perishable money. To be one of these books, because it's two d fifty dollars. Right, So it's like, you don't need the books that you're

not gonna read, so get rid of half of them. Right. So you know, you do all this work, you get the man. You think it's brilliant and unbelievable, right, and then someone comes to a very valued customer summon. That is someone that you who has a restaurant or someone that is in sort of a business that he goes out a lot and he orders, like you know, he's on a diet or something whatever, and he orders, can I just have a grill piece of chicken with some

some French fries? I want a chicken free? And it's not so as a chef, I make it. I'm like, sure, I'll do it, no problem. So you make it and then that guy sees you eat it, and then guy, can I have that? Can I have this? And then that becomes the best seller. You gotta put it on your menu. You had no intention of it, and this thing you thought was gonna go gangbusters, cells you know, so there's no telling how the restaurant works, and you need to react to the customers. So the customers starts.

Using a restaurant is more of a barring grill versus fine dining. It's a bar and grill. Now, you're not gonna force someone fine dining. You didn't see it. It didn't see it coming. The time was such they really felt more comfortable as this, and they used it the order and started to get different. And so they hit these seven, seven out of twenty items with them big sellers. They had nothing to do with your fancy pants. Right, So you do. You've gotta listen to that and get

off your high horse. It's very that's what you do in the restaurant world. Right, So your customer is always right, Well, no, they're they're always going to use the restaurant their way they want to use it. So you have to be available to change that. It's far. There's two different things. That's a great point brought up. The customers ares right. The customer when sort of putting forth in opinion or putting forth a critique of something. I'm talking about asking

for something they want to eat. I'm not talking about that's that thing, that's that that's the make it and give it to them. I'm talking about the critique or this or this is not right or right that I want to like this, and blah blah blah. The customers usually you have to treat them like they're always right, but they're usually misinformed. Right, I want my soup hot.

I wanted boiling hot. You can't eat boiling hots. You know, that's not a critique, that's just just that just doesn't make sense because you you pale it your tongue wild scorch okay, even at a hundred and twenty degrees which is very warm. It's fine stuff like that. You have to be really intuitive and that's what you have to do in producing. So with trying to figure out what the customer is intuitively going to be drawn to. That's relevant, it's fun, and it's watchable on the first five minutes

because that's the key. You gotta ground. And then they're there at the last five minutes when there's a finale or the reveal they call it. You know, advertisers look at the first ten. In the last ten, they don't give a shit about the rest of it. They don't really. Then you know that once you hear it here, you're probably gonna watch the whole thing. That's what's the measure of engagement. It's kind of the fascinating part that I've

learned is that's you really have to have that. So you have to have a wow and a reveal, but you have to have a wow in the reveal. Be authentic, right, So when the customer comes in, if you feel them complaining and they're authentic, you take it seriously because you know that five or ten or fifteen more people are saying the same thing. And you can lose customers out of like not listening to that one critique that you you've you heard it and it was authentic and you

check it out and they were right. Most customers don't just complain to complain. Most customers have a legitimate misinformation, a complaint, or something is actually wrong. There's those three things. So you have to learn about all of those. And the best way to get customers that are piste off back is a call them up or email them say come on back, we made a mistake. We're so sorry that right away. If you let it sit, they're never

coming back. Once they come back. Once they come back, your best customer, now they know the chef that's to make you good fun. I'm like, come on, I'll make you and they spend money and they're happy like they're your best customers. So that's is a big difference in the two, but not really. I mean, I'm still trying to keep that customer happy by balancing the relevance, their experience, the lighting, the music, and keep them coming back. It's

all entertainment. It's all It's like Hollywood, You're just you. It's a it's a movie. There's three breakfast luncheon, did a three Curtains shows a day. There's no difference. So that's why it's such an easy sort of jump. We need to take a quick break, but we'll be back with Jeffreys A. Carrion discussing the details of the new documentary he's working on for Tribeca. And we're back with Jeffreys A. Carrion. What was it that made TV happen for you? Was it something that you aspired to as

you got successful? I guess I was in two thousand seven, Um, so that's an eight. I got it. I got it. I was in a restaurant, you know, I had great reviews and I was working in restaurants. Food that was was going gangbusters. It was about I mean now it's still was thirty years old, so it was about ten. So it's like it was about eighteen years old, seventeen years on Flay and you know, um uh Emeral Lagassi

and you know there's some Tyler of Florence. There was some mon key players, and that it really hadn't gotten nuts yet, but it was on the on the verge. Sure, Iron Chef had started. And in two thousand and nine I I Can approached some and said, we know, we'd like a judge on we we're casting for the show called Chopped. And I'm sort of like on the show, I'm very serious, but I'm not a serious character at all. I'm like, I have fun. Then the kitchen is really

who I am. That the Chopped is like, you know, show them, you know, to serious show and we have to be serious. Yeah, but they as it chopped and I'm like, I heard the word. That's sort of like it was like a little juvenile. First, I'm like, okay, what's the premise. I'm like, well, four people will get

a basket of foreign reading. I gotta make an appetize in twenty minutes if they you know, whoever, losers gets chopped in there's three and two and one and whoever wins get tent oil of dollars the winner, and I'm like, like, okay, I thought it was corny and cornball. I really didn't like it. And then they said, and the host, and it's a dog. In the original uh pilot they did there was a dog really not kidding they fed the

losing dish to the dog. Wow. I wonder why that never took off, never made it didn't even get it, didn't even get to the sizzle reel. So offut of it comes, Jeff. I would imagine the chefs on the set were like, what the heck? I think I did the pilot with Alexe Born and Shelley Rock and dispirit over myself. I think those are the three my brain is gonna probably it's one of the I know is Alex and Rocco or me and Rocco and Alex. I know Alex was there. They might even Scott Conan too,

I'm not quite sure. Well over a few days and I was paid nothing. It was like, you know, if you want to be on the show, it's like two fifty dollars, but that's if they pick it up. So I needs he said no, um, and then I want to show. And I was the guy that was very chef be because I was the I think one of the most experienced chefs on the show. And I was the serious one. So I had the glasses and I was I was the one. Every one something was mean

and so I mean it works. So I just kept being like mean and tough and you know, I don't care about your story and the food sucks, You're out. Um. I wasn't Gordon Ramsey, but I was a more genteel version version of him. Um. Uh So that was two thousand nine, and you know that we've just done let me, we've done on my uh seven hundred episodes we've filmed and I just got booked for two more and um, you know there's twelve judges. All the original judges are

still there. Uh. So it's been like a juggernaut. And then you know it's one of the highest rated shows on on TV. And I think just the ad Reverend Malone in the last ten years has been extraordinary for Discovery and that which was um Script Scripts, which was now Discovery. That's basically the intro to that. And then from that show two years later, I was I was

asked to do Iron Chef. Did you find the work of being on TV, being on camera, speaking, speaking in temp extemporaneously did you find that Did you find that easy? Was that? Was that a learning curve for you to be on TV? It was a learning I found it easy, but I got better at it because I learned how to forget about the camera. And when I saw some pictures of myself just doing like, you know, not even when I cameras rolling, I didn't know it was rolling.

It was actually I was like, well that's very natural. Let's do more of that. And so I started to just like become myself. And I worry about like anything other than authenticity because people really see it now and I think that they understand the authenticity. That's what they like it. Because I speak to like their mistakes. I speak to like my shortcomings. I speak to like like I'm really lazy. I don't want to do all this prepping and it just it's not worth it and play golf,

you know what I mean. So I talked to people like they like to be. They want to hear because normal, most normal people are gonna actually spend three hours a day prepping a meal. Okay, unless you're in Italy and you have nothing else to do, right, and you have all this produce and you can take time to do it. So I think it for busy Americans and for busy people. Um. I it was authentic, but I learned that, I mean it sounds weird, and learned to be authentic. I learned

to relax authentic at the same time. Um, but it took time. I was very natural speaking because I have a lot of information that I want to get out. That's easy for me. But the being authentic and then being authentic under pressure, and then be authentic under pressure on the show live what people are interrupting you is the hardest part of everything. You know, you really need a sense of humor because you'll get in your own head and you'll you'll you're a short circuit. You'll forget,

you know, that's just what happens. What's it been like being at Food Network in the last couple of years after the Discovery deal went down, enlarged, you know, kind of just enlarged the scope of the bigger company. And they've been doing a lot with streaming of Food Network content specifically, and now they have Discovery Plus, of which Food Network and Cooking is a huge, huge cornerstones of how have you got any sense of what that could

mean long term for Food Network for your brand? I mean, I know David zazzels have it, has a vision, he's a real is one of the smartest people I've ever met. And he and Kathleen Finch and Courtney White, I mean Courtney and Kathy had been there for years. I have

a great relationship with him. And then when he came in and he's pushing Discovery Plus in the streaming, he did it all coalists around this timing, and it's been just an incredible ride, I'm sure for the stock and for the company, But I think that what he brings to us is this this horizontal integration of HDTV and

all the shows. So like you know you have you know, you can build a home, and then the home comes in the friend is the home, let's stock it right over the pantry at home and the home goes over

here and like we're gonna demolish the home. Another HB TV show and then you know there's another home that comes through here, Well, we're gonna electoral party, and this one on this so we have all these people around us that are basically fomenting lives around the household and and and and you know, landownership and and homesteading, you know, and so we're in the homesteading business. And David realizes that.

So he's tying empty together and he's trying to cross Polly, HDTV and the twenty seven channels just in that in that genre, there's so many. So we can have some Discovery personalities now on um the food you have a guest from you know, Vanilla Ice and the Vanilla Ice Project comes on because he loves the cookies, come making wings on the kitchen. But this, this integration is fantastic. There's clearly a deadliest cash for network crossed over just

waiting to happen. It is, it is, and it's gonna happen. You can just see it. And then we have Shark Week and all that. So that that's what David has done. And you know, he's he doesn't mess around. This guy goes at warp speed, you know, literally, so he makes breat mistakes too. I don't know what they are, but I'm sure there are. We don't worry about it. But this Discovery plus it's like, you know, you see it's everywhere there's you know, seventy five or sixty five episodes.

I mean, it's like unbelievable. I'm on a programming content, so it's the same thing. It's like, but you we're on a rocket ship because of where we're placed in that whole Discovery world. And like I said before, the one thing we're lacking is we're always lacking new Town new content. So it's just so it's like it's like a voracious animal just keeps eating up the content because like keep beating the thing and it never gets fat, just always coming more and more and more. It's like

a marathon run, right. So it's I need more, I need more. I need more than five people, and there's twenty people, and there's a hundred people that need more, and so we're at a hundred two thousand people that need more stuff all the time. And it's so hard to get one thing off the ground. One thing takes probably unless it's so unless it's a remake of something that work before, you just plug and play and you're like, I'm gonna try it again, because it was it's twolve

years ago worked and we we shelve it. Let's let's let's put some new bells and whistles on it. Let's try that. We do that once in a while, but the real good things take time. Is a meeting, and there's another meeting, there's another meaning, then there's okay, what

do you think on the show? Is a sizzle, and there's a green light, and then there's a production and that's like two years, you know, and so it's like it's like writing a book from you need a lot of balls in the air to keep that, to feed that here. And so they have we have reduced the time because they need to reduce the time. So, you know, before it's like two years to find Now it's like in two months, if you don't have a sizzle, it's like,

let's go. So what we love that because that's like sometimes you think too much, you know, Like I said, a person with the chicken fries, just put a chicken frying of manu and they're gonna sell. I do know that. Obviously in the wider world, and particularly in the culinary world, there's been a lot of pain in this pandemic, a lot of shutdowns, a lot of painful job losses. Do you. I know you've done great work with your telepons on the hunger issue. What is it? Does America need a

martial plan? Does there's something that that you can think of, can that can help the sector that is so beloved and so important to the fabric of communities? Any any thoughts? You know, that's great that you let off with that, that that we're on both sides of the coin. I'm sharing of U the food counts for City Harvests and I'm on the board and a wonderful organization. That's great, almost

ten years that I'm doing that. And you know, when you can do a telephone and raise a couple million dollars and deep people that day or the day after, that's job. I mean there's people who may thybe get fed right away. So City Harvest has done a hundred million pounds this year, which is like double what they normally do in the whole year last year. So it was like incredible what they did. Um And so all we have to do is try to feed the beast and give more money to him if we can do,

because it's expensive to hire trucks and coreguration. But you know, in the mean and in the midst of all that they had to move their location. Who knew the pandemics a getting hit and it was supposed to move in artist you know, like oh my god, and all that fell through. So it's been a real mess. But that was a job one. Just get some food to people, good food, vegetables. That's our mantra, no crap. We actually

reject a lot of stuff. We've talked about you can have, you can have the like the you know, the the sugar laden cereals. We don't need those, um. So that's great that we have to do that. The other side of it is, um, you know, we're producing this documentary with Rebecca Um, which we're doing so that we really tell the story of why this restaurant industry is so vital, and I tell it from a New York standpoint. We

hired Mathamelely to do it. We did, you know, crazy about Tiffany's and pays had the car Alisle was too great, the documentaries um, and you know, Kate karg is involved and all that. So it's been really this it's a love letter. It's a love letter to New York with a real sharp needle to poke people into seeing look what's happened. This is this can't go on you. Something has to be done because they shut the switch out on us. We didn't you know, we didn't have a flood.

You know, eleven was one monster's day and maybe a monster's month. But then everything went like this because you had finality, and finality coupled with money and the grid of the Americans and people in New York City just went like this. This is pandemic shutting off. It was worse than anything I've seen in forty years. Come back, no finality. You don't want to. You know, you're on your you're in your out, you're off your cup, you're

on your clothes, you're open, you're inside your outside. You can't. It's just a disaster. So we're trying to document this and show what how beautiful restaurants are, what they've fulfilled the people, and just you don't feed people feed their souls is like what people take all their angst out. They just where they put all their passion. That's where

they spill the beans. That's where they fall in love and signed contracts that they do all this stuff in conjunction to us feeding And what's more intimate than giving people food that they putting them up. Know any other profession as that intimate, maybe some some forms of acting, but this is substance, a very basic in the jobs is form some jobs in New York alone, restaurant is it's the largest employer. So we're writing a documentary. It's gonna be. It's happening right now. People are on the

boots with with with cameras. We started about twelve weeks ago and again quick turn around, a couple of meetings, boom, let's get cameras. We've get some heat, seed capital, go out in the streets. Who we talking on We called chefs. Of course they all said yes, and you have these incredible vin Yes, I saw it. I was touched, and that's just like a little bits and pieces. I saw it, but um uh, you know, it just captures such a

critical moment. So we are capturing as it actually happens, and we so hope to be on the other side when it comes out. I think point to I think that's what little really come to do. Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts. We love to hear from listeners, and please tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business