It's kind of like the word pick six. I don't that just, like, happens in a few years ago. And now everybody says it much. Now they, like ESPN, is like, pick 666

And when it doesn't happen there, like, we could really use a pick six,

right? Totally. Just No one said that 10 years ago.

Welcome to Season six. Episode four of Acquired The Podcast then. Hey, I think you're on autopilot. Yeah, Sorry. Muscle memory. All right, listeners, we're coming to you. In a time of enormous change and upheaval, the Corona virus has spread around the world challenging global health systems, bringing economies to their knees and changing daily life for everyone seemingly overnight. Given this Ah, it just seems irresponsible to stay business as usual over here and put on our normal acquired episodes for you all. So we're changing. Inquired for the first time ever,

we're taking a pause from normal episodes. The world doesn't need acquired. Right now, people normally tune in to hear us talk about stories behind great technology companies and what goes into building them. But these aren't normal times. What the world does need right now is stories of great leaders and how they and their organizations are responding to might be the biggest moment of change we've ever seen. So we're gonna take everything that we put into acquired over the years, our format, our infrastructure, um, and the way we can reach all of you and we're gonna put our full weight behind this. So starting today we're pausing, acquired, and we're launching. Adapting. Adapting is a serious all about doing just that,

showing leadership and changing to fit what the world needs right now. Now, what it needed last week. So with adapting, we're gonna take a shallow down of a more shallow dive at the beginning of each episode into the history of an organization. But our focus is really gonna be on the president and on the future, not the past. We also won't be grating. Adapting requires taking risks and putting yourself out there and anyone who's doing that right now is forever in a plus in our book. Yep. Yeah. David, um, I think we were just talking about this, but I'm excited about this. It just feels right.

And, uh, in this moment to do this totally. Listeners were making some important changes to the acquired community. If you haven't joined our slack, you can sign up on the acquired website and find all the announcements there. And we're doing some sort of new and ah, pretty cool things in there. If you're not yet a limited partner, now is the time to join. In addition to LP, episodes were adding ah, community component to the L P program. So last week we had our first group zoom call with everyone who's shut in at home, and it was really fun and therapeutic to get to talk with everyone. So we've decided to make it a regular monthly thing as part of the limited partner program.

So we'll be announcing more details on that in the LP show, and in the meantime, you can sign up at glow dot FM slash acquired by clicking the link in the show notes below. And lastly, David and I feel very strongly that money should never be a reason that a single person can't become an acquired LP. So we were talking about this beforehand, especially when introducing this new sort of community hangout component. If you can't afford a subscription, especially as we all respond to this pandemic together. Even if you already are an LP, Just shoot us an email, Introduce yourself and and we'll take area. Yeah, we feel super strongly about this. We want everyone who wants to be part of this community to be able to so shoot us. No,

we, uh we owe an enormous thank you to our banner sponsor, Silicon Valley Bank. David, do you want Thio talk about as Phoebe this time? Changing everything totally is new. Uncharted waters for acquired here. Um so SPB has always been the bank of the innovation economy and by the way, didn't write this. We wrote this and it's times like this where that really becomes clear. They've been just incredible partner to us. It acquired here since day one. And in this moment have been beyond supportive of us. We e mailed them and we told them about our plans for the changes we wanted to make here. And their response was an instant. Yes.

And how can we help? We're super lucky to have them as partners. And every entrepreneur who's listening right now should feel the same. So here's the message they did ask us to read, which is Innovation happens when status quo solutions won't do As the world fights Cove in 19 Silicon Valley Bank pays tribute to all the innovators, healthcare providers and scientists, social workers and take out chefs, policymakers and philanthropists. Generous, driven individuals working around the clock to keep people alive, find a cure and help the world cope with the unimaginable. Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies and their investors and has for more than 35 years. It knows that innovation requires adaptability, flexibility and unrelenting passion for finding solutions. Today, more than ever,

SPB salutes innovators everywhere. Learn more at spb dot com slash next. Amen. And thank you guys. Yeah, thank us, Phoebe. Now what is today's episode actually about while we were doing an episode on a topic that we never thought we would do on this show a local restaurant? But it is so much more than that, indeed, and we think our guests words are very inspiring and super important today. So without further ado, please enjoy our conversation with Mark Can lists of Seattle's Can Lys restaurant. All right, listeners. Most of you are aware that restaurants are among those hit the hardest from our current health crisis.

Careless is leading the way in adapting to provide a product in need delivery, food, saving jobs and ensuring the continuation of the business through trying trying times. Many are asking, as a city, country and a global community, can we do this? And as Mark said in The Seattle Times earlier this week, Hell, yes, we can do this and we're going to do it with burgers and bagels. So ah, to introduce Mark, I'm gonna borrow, um, a line or a little bit of Mark's bio from the cannolis website,

because I find the pros just poetic. Mark and Lis is the second of three sons he grew up in a restaurant family. He joined cannolis in 2003 after graduating from Cornell University and serving as a captain in Air Force Special operations. He met his wife, Anne Marie Well opening famed restaurant tour, Danny Meyer's fifth restaurant blew smoke in Manhattan. Returning to Seattle, Mark spearheaded the generational transfer and brand modernization that has garnered the family business national acclaim as one of the finest restaurants in America. He now owns and operates can List with his brother Brian. He and Anne Marie reside on Queen and with their three Children. And, as for Can list, Food and Wine magazine has called it one of the 40 most important restaurants in the last 40 years. They have received 22 consecutive Wine Spectator grand awards and been nominated for 15 James Beard Awards and won three of them. Welcome, Mark.

Thank you. It's good to be a luxury. When you write your own bio. You can kind of make yourself sound good. I hope I haven't inflated that in any way. But but

thank you. I was gonna say the most important thing for for Ben and for me is I know both of us have had many special memories at had cam list. So thank you guys

know I'm honored to be on the show.

All right, David, take us in history and fax. Yeah, well, so for anybody of our listeners who are in the Seattle area, probably many who even many who aren't you already know a lot about can list. But Mark, can you give us a little bit of the history? I mean, it's a very, very special place. This isn't just another restaurant. Maybe. Can you go back and talk about your grandfather's story and Hawaii and Pearl

Harbor? Sure. You know, we Yeah, we're gonna go all the way back. I run this restaurant with my brother Brian, and we very much feel like this is the tale a couple different grandfather's. It's of amalgamation of four generations of cameras is doing restaurants are great grandfather for Teddy Roosevelt. Um, after his presidency on an African safari was picked up at a hotel in Egypt and invited to come along and be a steward on that whole thing for a year and 1/2. So really, it starts there. He and my great grandmother would come to United States somewhere. 1909 1910. They started restaurant Stockton, California Attn. That time and had a bunch kids.

One of them Peter cameras, um, started this restaurant Camels in 1950. So that was my grandfather. He would pass away in the seventies, and my mom and dad ran this for 30 years. Brand. I have not been doing it since 2003 and in so many ways we feel like we're just getting the hang of it so slow learners. But more last 100 years of trying tow cook for

people, there's there's a pretty cool military history with the restaurant and starting with Peter to

rate yes, and then on the other side of the family are a whole bunch of folks who have served in the armed forces. And that is just continues to be something that we're really proud of in this family and something that we've many of us have chosen to do and Andre represent. I think some of the sweetest years least for my own life and I would say the same is true from a dad and my grandfather and my brother. So I was in the I was in the air, Force it with Brian. Dad was the Navy grandfather was a Marine for 43 years on anything you could do that anymore. But back then you could And, um, so we have Yeah, that's just been a part of our family story. And to be completely honest, a very large influence on the way that we lied last. You know, yesterday we're running this crazy driving through a good cars everywhere, shut down traffic, and I get a,

um, I got a phone call, and I have hearing it so that the thing just comes, like, straight into my head's as if like the phone is ringing in your brain. So I just answered because I thought it was our road team. And it was the colonel that I worked for 25 years ago. Karma, Mueller and Amanda just had such a remarkable influence on the way that I lied. And it was random. I haven't talked in years, and I was a Colonel Miller. No way. I've been talking about you, uh, everyone,

because in so many ways, I feel like you prepared me for this and not just it's not about adapting your company, but the leadership. I think the way the military teaches you to surprise your people, it's just, you know, I just learned so much in my in my time service. So that was that's just been a gift to us.

That's great. So the first iteration of Cam List the restaurant was on Honolulu grew out of the USO after Pearl Harbor, right?

You know, he left the place in Stockton. He had grown up there, and he wanted nothing to do with restaurants with his parents were doing the ends up in Hawaii. He's still in dry goods. When pro Harper happens, you remember zeros flying over. He was playing tennis in the morning. Like everybody. Like so many people in Honolulu at the time, you can all headed to the base, tried toe, do what they could. My grandfather had quite a healthy self esteem just code for you know, he sounds like an entrepreneur. Yeah, There you go.

That's the thank you. Yeah, that's a nice euphemism for a large ego. And at some point, he finds himself talking a lot of smack inside the US out about the quality of food. And Chef gets so upset they can't throw the Taliban says, You think you're better job, you try it. Which, of course he does. And by the end of the war, he's running all of the food on base for the U. S. L. It's about between 8000 meals. So maybe in some way,

this drive thru is us getting back to our sort of, um e don't know high volume of roots, if you will, but, um but that's what happened then, right after the war opened a restaurant on a beach that was a little less known before the war on DSL. Certainly then, before now, called Waikiki. So he had the restroom. 1947 is called a boiler, and then he came. He came to Seattle on in 1950

and mark just a context that for our listeners a little bit when you say getting back to our high volume roots for folks are not from Seattle can Lis is fine, fine dining. What is normal volume look like? And, uh, what is the adapted

volume look like? I feel like I live in a bubble and I don't really understand the real restaurant business, but in the world of Okay, so let's just try to understand fine dining for a second. I think it's a funny term. We consider fine dining just to be the most considered form of caring for somebody with with food and hospitality. It's like so for us were considered to be a massive fine dining restaurant in the world of fine dining. You know, 12 15 tables is pretty standard. We have 33 But on a busy night, the most guests we conservers somewhere around 150 to 200. I have 100 and 15 employees to make that happen. So we are a model of inefficiency and that's just six dinners a week. That's all we're doing. So I say that because I just want people to know just exactly

like and not open for breakfast, not open for lunch.

No, no, no, no, Yeah. 115 people figure out dinner,

and there's always, if not, maybe there's like a couple hours a day where there's someone not there. But when you talk about that 115 people, it's like 2 a.m. debate bread or something A

little more hours a day. We don't use our kitchen, so it's 20. It takes us 20 hours Thio open for what is essentially five hours of dinner. Time service s a lot of obviously goes into that. Yeah, sure. You're baking bread and setting things up some time to take a couple days. But today we served, You know, about 1200 people through the drive through. We served about I don't know someone. There were range of 300 people for breakfast. Tonight. We'll send a couple 100 dinners out for delivery, so it's a much different impact for us. We're not exactly set up for it.

So we're trying to figure that out as we go. But today was a day of rest for us. It felt so every day this week, we've opened a new restaurant concept. Um, we started on Monday with a drive through Tuesday. We had a big goals, and yesterday we added at home delivery. So today we're just sort of refining some of the systems again. And I was kind of nice, just, uh, just around them and see how

we could tweak. So let's get right into, You know, this show is adapting its now 70 years that your family has run Cam Lis, fine dining. And in two weeks, really, since he started planning, you've thrown that out the window, and now you're doing these three different things, like, can you walk us through? When was the moment you realized that this was gonna happen

and you needed to change? A couple weeks ago now, my wife and I were in New York City doing something for the James Beard Awards, and we got the news that Seattle had its first case and back to the hotel, and she started talking through like, You know, this thing's coming. It's here. It's here in Seattle. Um and what does that mean? It was a need for a family was mean for not just our marriage and our own Children, but our extended family I have parents are in their seventies. Um and what does it mean for for the restaurant family, for the staff, and a couple days later, back at home, we had a meeting as a team,

and we just said, You guys, let's let's really think through this little bit While we were having that meeting a King County governor, I can't remember who it was, but someone official announced they had this left Livestream and kind of came on and said, It is much bigger deal than we thought, and it's like at first you just kind of had its like, the sucker punch to the system. You've got the wind taking out a little bit. And then pretty quickly we realized that it would be just as risky to do nothing as it would to do something really radical. And if we were if we were gonna live into our values. Uh, you know, everyone's well, that really is probably gonna cost you something. And in this way,

it was gonna cost shutting down what was still a profitable business for the unknown of opening up three nuance. And the reason we're doing three is because again, it just took that many ideas to get all of my staff upto having all the hours that would have normally have. And that was the goal here. So, um, we started with the drive through For those that don't know, we're a fine dining restaurant looking this direction. But if you turn around, we're on a really busy road. You know, that's not ideal. No one would planet out these days, but we just said Okay, what do we have? What,

What? Starting with what we have to be thankful for. And then what? What assets are out of disposal here? If if we started from scratch, how would we play this? And, um, we were I remember watching the live stream were also huddled on the couch there. The team. There's seven of us. This is all in the first in this meeting. This is like in the meeting, and we do these like three hour off sites and we goto one oven. Whoa, somebody's homes where you like.

I kind of feel what it's like to be welcomed into their home personally. So are sitting on Marin's sofa and which is not 77 person sofa. It's like a three or four person. So we're all kind of huddled and watching this thing. And, yeah, I think it just it just hit us that, like, the game isn't up like Wait a second. This isn't over. This is just beginning. And I think we'd all gone in with this sentiment of helplessness. If we're honest, maybe hopelessness. I think there was a a feeling of Okay, I gotta batten the hatches.

I gotta hunker down. I got, you know, and protect, protect, And that's a lousy strategy in a lot of things. Soccer being one of them, like you see in sports all the time. When, when, when entire teams of switches to defense and loses their offices like suddenly, you're like, Don't do that. Wait a minute. I keep playing your game, and for us,

we're like, we're gonna keep playing our game. We just need to admit to the game changed in the game now, Currently today, Mrs. Two weeks ago was no one understands the six foot rule, and no one understands what is socially, socially acceptable. We don't understand if we should be shutting down schools and public places or if that is, you know, building a fear that right. So this is happening so quickly, but so we just wait,

go At that moment that, like the game had changed,

we just got the sense that it was going T o. Yeah, it hadn't yet, but it was like the writing's on the wall, and nobody wanted to actually say that out loud, But it felt that way a couple of weeks ago. So,

Well, I can tell you from the outside the way it it sort of felt is you made a more drastic move earlier than most places. Like I think in the next week, a lot of places started trying to figure out what does it mean for us to do delivery? But I will say from the outside, the way it looked was and frankly, part of what inspired David and I for this was, Oh my God, that was decisive. And that was severe and extreme and risky, like you. You know,

you guys, I wish I could take credit for that. Let me tell you where a lot of that credit belongs. First off, we have an incredible board of directors and some advisors who are just a remarkable sounding board thrust. Both of our wives were really key. It's a sort of speaking into how we how we how we were perceiving the world on. I think in this time it was a time of just great perception trying to understand and make sense of what we were hearing, how it pertained to us and our team. But really, when we've watched this with the executive and we said, you know this thing could work has to say there's a chance the boat is taking on water and there's a chance it might sink. And also there's a chance is a lifeboat on the end. Well, someone just go to the end of the ship and see if there's a life. If that's kind of what that meeting felt like and somebody came back and said, you know it is turning that there is life on the good ship like we could all get in it,

right? And so it was like So we sat on that as a team for about 24 hours the next I rode 48 that two days later I was having dinner with our staff, and we're all sitting around having family meal, talking this through, and I just said, You guys, let me just tell you where my head's at. Um, I'm scared to tell you because I don't know what it means, but this is what we're thinking about his team. And it would mean all of you need to re volunteer to work here. They would mean all of you is using to be in a position, choosing not to be laid off or temporarily furloughed, choosing to actually continue to do this thing. And would any of you be interested? And not only that group of sort of five or six of us sitting around the table,

but the next night, in a staff meeting, announcing it to the entire team. This is up to you. You don't have to do this on every one of them saying we're in you know, put me in coach. And I think that was just such a boost of encouragement to us is like if you guys were in worrying and close do this right had, like, that sort of sentiment to it was like, Okay, um, why not? And I think at some point you say to yourself in any time of crisis, if I have the ability to help, why am I not doing it? And that is what it felt like to us.

It felt like this could be and encouragement to the city. It was clearly an encouragement to the staff and for us, just a way threw away that and untested, untrue right away. But, um, way give it a world

that's awesome, Coolest. I want to talk about in a in a sec about communication and language and the language you guys using you have always used, but particularly now is really inspiring. But before we get to that, can we go back to the three concepts you guys were doing breakfast the bagel shed, drive through lunch and then delivery for dinner? Where did they come from? There's also this

is 1/4 concept coming jump super stoked about. But yeah, I can kind of walk you through all three of those. The 1st 1 was the was the drive through. We saw that is being the biggest revenue generator way. Have a ridiculous minor labor here. It's the most expensive thing, and we knew this. One of these concepts have actually work, and so way just geographically. If you understand the way this restaurant works, you can pull right off of the street right under our pork a share. You can stay in your car and you can roll right on down the driveway. And it was like That's what we knew we needed that cleanliness. They're the ability to not have any contact with the guest, but still sort of be facing them. And so,

yeah, we were embracing our inner drive for as a fine dining restaurant. It was just like, because this is us. Come on, let's just let it out of the bag. Chef can cook a remarkable burger, and we've always joked about doing this sort of traditional salad bars. The camera salad isn't Dogo item and, like, why not like, let's just two burgers and ice cream sandwiches and salad. Todo It's like like I know sometimes that's all you need.

Can you talk about average ticket price for each of these three concepts? And

somehow that was dollars. So you know what? We have designed this thing not to make money. I think it's a little bit weird to be pride. CIA's tricky. This is tricky thing. I don't think there's any unethical anything unethical about making money in this time. In a certain sense, we have a duty to do so, but mostly as a as a means of protecting the staff. And to be clear, I don't think there were only four days in. I don't know if we are. That's to say the bigger concepts clearly does not make money. It's labor intensive. We don't have the equipment to scale that in any way such that we could. We could move that to be a profit business.

We could raise the prices, but that's just feels dirty. So the point again is to keep people employed. So with birds would probably make a little extra. Bagels were definite losing with dinner as we scale that that'll be profitable and somehow if we could get to break even, even from the onset. That's what that's what the goal was. Was like it be amazing if for the next three months cameras could not lose money, I think that'll posture us really well coming out of this thing on the other side. And I do think of it as a few months, not just a few weeks. So, um, get bagels came out of the idea of four would be really busy for lunch are expediter happens to be this incredible woman from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She's a baker, and she makes a ridiculous bagel on.

Chef is from Brooklyn and he was out. She was like, That's the best I've had in New York City or we haven't have a bread oven in a shipping container And it was like a no brainer. So we just opened the bagel shed, and we're doing, you know, everything. Bagels with fried eggs and homemade sausage and um, G's.

And can you sell the bagels as an add on to dinner for, like, breakfast at home the next morning?

They're very good idea. We sell out of bagels in under an hour, so it's a full time crew ate making these things, and it lasts. Several idea lasts an hour. So we actually thought about intentionally slowing the line so that because again, three ideas to keep everyone employed here. But but no, we've been blowing through them too quickly. So right now we're looking at taking over another bakery that is closed, and maybe we can use their space and cascabel a higher somewhere.

I did see something is like a dude some message on your Web site this morning. Like, unfortunately, bagels are sold out as of 8:37

a.m. Yeah, yeah. Going So the last concept that just doing family Millot home. You know, we cook an amazing family meal for the staff. That's the meal that twice a day chef prepares for a team. And we always joke about, like one of the best restaurants in the city actually being campuses, fanning out like it's so good that pastry chef is making cobblers and the bartenders and I'm making homemade. So does and Chef is like, Hey, this is my mama's meatloaf and this is like in Schelotto from Nicos and Pressure and Perfect all day. It's so good and it kind of kills us. The rest of city doesn't get to see what these guys are capable of outside of fine dining. And so we just saw. Okay, well,

that's a no brainer. Like, why don't we just keep making family male? We don't need a big menu. Delivery is tough to figure out and making a transition like this. I think if you can keep it simple, you should. On dso we offer one thing tonight. The very first night it was Castle A because we had all these dry aged Doc's write what we do ducks and more arrive a farm saying Are you gonna take delivery of ducks? Going forward? You need to say Yes. So tonight it is a rabbit, Popeye and glazed carrots and it's had for lunch. It's insane. It's so, so good.

So we just thought Shoot. We can bake all that stuff here, pack it up, throw a bottle of wine in it and my servers who used to take food from the kitchen to the table and just taking it to the parking lot right on down the street, a little way, so it keeps them employed and keep my kitchen cooking all night long and kind of fun.

That's so cool. How technically, How did you make that happen? You guys adapted given on tac. The, um, reservation the ticketing system for a while. How did you do You work with talk to make this

happen. Guys talk awesome. We call them early on, and we're like, we have this crazy idea, and we're actually trying to catch the system. It's so talkers. Reservation system, those that don't know those guys are awesome. And we were trying to see what get and dwarf the reservation system into a delivery system. And we just figured out and they called, like you guys. Stop it all. I'm a second. We can We can do this. Give us five minutes. Five minutes later,

they called back, and I said we stood our company down. We're turning it back on. We just called everybody in there in Chicago, and we're just gonna work on this. So you have the platform and they cranked out working around the clock for a couple of days, and we were launched. So that is a mechanism that any restaurant in the country look, not everybody could do drive through just the physicality ofhis locations in work. But any restaurant company could do delivery. And now that we've got the software for it, it's just it's not, you know, over. Be tricky.

Uh, can you talk through any restaurant the country can do? Delivery. I'm sure there's a lot of folks that that own restaurants that are listening to this. What does that take?

It takes lowered guts, and it takes just that kind of good old fashioned restaurant scrappiness that every restaurant tour already has. If you're in this business, I guarantee you have what it takes because it's just it's just the same thing it takes to run a restaurant. It's it's that it's a little bit of, um, of the willpower just to make it happen. That's what all of us were going through. So all we did was figure out a menu, and we've launched a website. So someone that knows what to do on the Internet, that's not me. But our design team drip a little logo, which is not necessary. We threw a little splash page on top of camels dot com, which is also not necessary. You could just post on Instagram having to switch to delivery.

So appreciate you supporting us doing this. You can do various versions of it or it's pretty. It's pretty fancy or servers have it all on their phones to get the maps. They get the texts, we can do drop offs, no contact drop offs. We could go out all again, talk made all that possible. But you can keep it really simple. And I mean, it takes boarding some boxes and some to go containers coming up with one thing that holds hot really well and letting your constituency know that tonight's a great night for takeout. So, yeah, we sold out three nights worth of takeout in about 90 minutes.

Wow, one question that I have that I'd be remiss if I didn't ask and I'll give a little context for listeners. So careless is innovative, not just in the way that over the last 60 70 years you guys have changed fine dining, which we haven't talked about on this episode. But Mark's given some great talks that you can sort of read about and the evolution of fine dining and canvases rolling it. But also in doing these wild experiments that you would not expect the finest dining in the city to also have a shake shack pop up in the parking lot before there was a shake shack or you would not

have expected way. Can we uncover that a little bit? Yeah. Dig into why you wouldn't expect a fine dining restaurant to do that. Yeah, definitely. One of the reasons I think this transition has been impossible for us is that we practiced this kind of thing, and by that I don't just mean events in our parking lot. I mean, if you want to be a restaurant that is around, let alone relevant or do you mean to the conversation? You're doing a fair amount of this every year. Anyway. You could always ask Brian and I How come you guys haven't opened a second restaurant on my coat? You just don't know it, but we open a second restaurant about every 18 months. I would say that's how often the systems inside of cannolis are changing.

Andi, those air being re written by new employees and employees that have been here 20 years. Three idea is that there's probably a better way to do it in the way that we're doing it. We just kind of believe that. And so, um, I think if you want to matter, you need to earn that right. And to earn it, you gotta be working all the time and opening a restaurant. That's really good. And tonight we're good. Tomorrow will be better, and that's that's not news to anyone. I think what happens? I bet that's to say that's not a strategy that no one's heard before.

If you're in business, you get right and maybe thank you to the Japanese who made that really popular concept in the late eighties nineties. But like we're all sort of thinking that way, what happens is it's really easy. Get lazy. It's really easy to start to devalue that as the thing is working. And of course, if you go too far, that may be your undoing, things that still had a useful lifespan inside of them and say, Hey, to take assistant down. That would have been amazing flex, you know, foreseeable future. So that takes a little, I don't know, sorting through. You gotta be careful there, but you're welcome to businesses

and less listeners think that uh, you know, we're just talking about a one time thing opening up. Shake shy, like I went to your restaurant last summer and when I say a restaurant, I mean parking lot for the Hawaiian Nights luau at where? Listeners. It's the largest hot tub you've ever seen. It's trying for a few. It's and it's up on, like a second story deck overlooking, like you guys opened a little pizza shop and like a multi story like hanging out

with a swim up bar way, which we, I think I think, created. And then we also had So we built a couple of tiki huts on DDE. Have? Yeah, yeah,

is that this story is at my right. He bought the swimming pool

on Amazon. Well, know So for we like to test things out on staff parties. On the goal of staff party is to throw one that the staff would willingly come thio if they had no association with the restaurant. Right? So you just said, Look, you guys, it's a true day off for the true night off. Do whatever you want and also where to be turning this party over here. It's like totally like no expectation. Come on, Lee. We just talk about it. So anyway, yeah, some point we were throwing a luau.

Oh, yeah. We had covered the parking lot and sod because we're like, it's not cool to throw a party in a parking lot cement and wouldn't be close dressed. So we saw that thing over and we threw volleyball party, made a pig roasting, and somebody said at some point, wherever luau needs a beach. So we brought in sand and then I went on Amazon. I'm like, No way you could buy a pool for, like, $2000. Well, that's cheaper than you know. In the world of staff parties,

this stuff adds up quickly. So anyway, about a pool and we filled it up on Ben, it's just kind of like went from there. So then that was a really successful party, and we were thinking about fun, things we could do over the summer. And we thought, Why don't we just throw the staff party for the city and honestly, you guys, I thought like a few 100 people would come like who goes to a parking lot of a fine dining restaurant to hang out in a program pool. Right? Tickets? Yeah, 1200 people came a night like it was nuts, and all of them waited an hour or two to get in,

so that caught us by surprise a bit. But it was also a ton of fun of a deejay on top of a shipping container and underneath your bacon, the best pizzas and roasting pigs. And I don't have another. But it was good. It was tons of fun. So we do like to just sort of think through these things, and I think it's it's a little bit of good exercise. Look, just cause we're fine dining doesn't mean we're not thinking of 99 other ideas to do and us. It's kind of like the former one version of putting out a sedan. That's like, Why don't we go push this as far as we can see what happens and every one of these projects finds its way back under our media, every one of these projects influences what we believe about hospitality and you need that stuff. You'd be inspired by people and you'd be inspired by Yeah,

that's fun. All right, now, before we finish our conversation with Mark. We'd like to thank Wilson Sonsini, the official legal sponsor of Season six of Acquired and adapting. Wilson Sonsini is the premier legal sponsor to technology, life sciences and growth. Enterprise is worldwide, as well as the venture firms, private equity firms and investment banks that finance them. So thank you to Wilson Sonsini. So as we start to wind down here, that's that's the question on my mind is I know it's only been four days, but, um, of the three restaurants you talked about and forth that will keep under wraps for now, what do you think might make its way into Can Lis when we live in a normal world

again? Um, here's what I hope makes its way into can us? I hope that what comes out of this is a visceral reminder of how like we all are. And if there's anything that I think we've learned so far, it's that our understanding of the human spirit is limited at best. And it's on Lee when, when you come to me and say, Mark, I think you got this man. I reflect that back to you and say, Look, then, um you got this right like that, that's that's what happened. Something really powerful happens there and the whole mission of this company, which is,

I know a really weird mission, but it's it's to inspire people that turn toward one another. And when we saw the disease spreading and I am not talking about Cove it 19 I'm talking about the amount of fear, the amount of discouragement when we saw that spreading, and often for a really good reason. This is not either, not insignificant days. This is a good, overused but good word. This is unprecedented for the entire world to go through something together where no one gets to say it doesn't apply to me right When something like that happens, I think we have a responsibility to remind ourselves of the truth. And the truth is, we don't know what we're capable of. We, the cameras team, we,

the city of Seattle, we, the United States of America. We, the citizens of this rock that were floating around on, and I hope that we understand that better on the other side of this thing, and that's what we're learning. That's what we're learning inside this building. I don't know if we'll we might not be able to this tomorrow. Maybe this will go for months. I don't know, but, um, every day I tell the team I was like, Hey, look,

you're gonna want to go home and crawl under your covers and read your phone, and it is important to do so. But when you wake up the next morning, you go outside, you physically go outside of your house, your apartment, you look up at the sky and ask yourself the question. Is it still up there? Did it fall? It's still up there. You can be thankful for that. And you start with one pure thing for with you say, All right, the sky didn't fall contrary to the way I feel having medal headlines. It's still up there. I hear a bird tweeting.

I see a neighbor walking down the street. You know what? Let's start with what we have. Let's go from there. And let's ask ourselves the question. If this is what I have, what can I do with it? And I don't know, maybe what we get this whole thing is that as a discipline, as a practice as a reminder that I don't know. Maybe that's a reminder that we need right now, and it gets reminder that I needed. And I think it's reminded of my team needed. And I wish you could feel the difference inside this place before and after we made this decision before. It was a feeling of helplessness. And after it was a feeling of hope before it was a feeling that Theo,

overwhelming weight of this thing, was too much. And after it was the understanding that I had a role to play and then even just enduring, even just enduring a little bit might be my role. And I think when we tell those stories, then we started to remind ourselves the truth of who we are as people, and that's pretty cool. That's, um that's why we wrote on that website. We got this Seattle It was the most poignant way I could say to a city that needed to hear it. We're capable of making it through

Well, I cannot think of a single better way to leave. Uh, leave this episode and leave our very first episode of adapted. Um, and without line. So Mark. Thank you. so much. Thanks for Thanks for having me. Anything else you wanna tell listeners or tell him, uh, you know where they should go? Get some great food.

Do you want to tell us to do something? Yeah. I think they have the ability, even though it doesn't feel this way to make a difference. What we've been talking about here is my restaurant. And you know what you don't have? You don't have my restaurant, and you probably don't have a restaurant to dismiss this as someone else's story in a city that you don't live in, I think would be a great um what would make me sad? I think to hear this and to know that if we're crazy enough to give this a world, maybe, You know, maybe some of your crazy is okay too. And I hope it gives them permission to think optimistically. I hope it gives them permission to smile at a neighbor, keep it six feet away. I don't care.

You can still smile. And so that's not insignificant. It's important. And it's gonna take all of us remembering that about ourselves, remembering that that is who we are. So this is a story about our country on DeLarge. Lee, This is a story about well beyond our borders. How like we all really are. Oh, my God. Amen.

Let's all go Do not exactly what you're doing, but do what we all can t

o think competition only makes us better. But you're gonna have some Steve competition. The burgers are pretty good.

Well, my it is It is on my calendar to come. Ah, um tomorrow morning I think hopefully around 77 32 the bagel shed and pick one up. Say

what's going on through. I want to see her.

Thanks so much, Mark. Listeners, We will catch you for the next one. Thanks. See you next time.