NY Launch Pod: Welcome to the New York Launch Pod, the New York Press Club award winning podcast highlighting the most interesting new startups, businesses, and openings in the New York area. I’m your host and New York attorney Hal Coopersmith and this episode we are talking about the restaurant industry in New York. It’s certainly a hot topic these days, and we’re talking to Mario Vivas who started a restaurant in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only that, he started a business at the Turnstile food court located in the Columbus Circle subway station at a time when subway ridership was at an all time low. Here’s mario
Mario Vivas: I think that when it comes to small business, especially in New York City is about getting people’s trust again. And you can never go wrong with there’s nothing negative. Even during the crisis, people always are going to search for a delicious place that is going to make them feel good
NY Launch Pod: But before we go to the interview, if you haven’t already remembered to sign up for our monthly newsletter for unique content and insights at nylaunchpod.com and subscribe to the podcast on your favorite listening app. And we have a sponsor: Rezcue, New York State’s premiere residential rental compliance platform. Have you rented out residential property in New York State? If so, odds are you are not compliant with the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection act enacted by New York State in 2019 and if you don’t follow the law, your tenant may be able to legally stay in the property beyond the length of the lease plus many more consequences. Rezcue is designed to solve all of those problems and more. Simply go to Rezcueme.com and enter in some basic lease information and Rezcue takes care of the rest, so you can relax and be a more profitable landlord. That’s Rezcueme.com. And with that, let’s go to the interview.
NY Launch Pod: So you have a very interesting story. When did you move to New York?
Mario Vivas: I moved to New York in 2012. I moved from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
NY Launch Pod: Why did you decide to move to New York in 2012?
Mario Vivas: Long story short. I think I was bored.
NY Launch Pod: You were bored?
Mario Vivas: I was more into the routine and the type of life that you could take in Buenos Aires. It’s a very traditional city. I think it’s not a coincidence that a lot of people, European and in South America, life can be a little bit repetitive and very based on routine.
NY Launch Pod: So why New York as opposed to anyplace else?
Mario Vivas: Well, I think New York, when I moved 10 years ago, it was, will be still be I think like one of the cities where you can find anything you want, if you’re into the arts and the theater, the diversity in the city, it’s out of this world. And I think that was the biggest attraction, but I also believe like there is like a side B on new Yorkers. It’s not so much about the city itself. It’s about the people that lives in the city. I always saw New York as a city where you can be anything you want to be. And when you step here, you can even start a new life and everything needs like, um, on your hands, you’re the writer of your own story. So you’re able to kind of reinvent yourself. So I think that the idea of reinventing myself started since the day I moved here.
NY Launch Pod: So you were thinking about reinventing yourself. Did you think about reinventing yourself to open up a restaurant?
Mario Vivas: No. I never thought I was going to end up in this business actually, when I moved here, um, my first job was acting gigs and I was doing a lot of events. I will be bar bartender, and then I will say wardrobe assistant for Broadway shows. And I have like a thousand jobs a day and it was fun, it started like an adventure. And I think that I found myself, um, during the years.
NY Launch Pod: So you were doing all these sorts of odd jobs. How did you get to starting a restaurant?
Mario Vivas: So I think like my, my first experience was working for a wedding planner here in Brooklyn, and she has been in the business for almost 20 years and she was amazing. And I think I learned a lot from that and from the organizing and logistics perspective and I got to get a lot of experience up to one day. I was like, I can totally pull this off. I can do this myself. And it took me a few years, but I think that I started having little insights of what it was about. After a few years, I think I also collected the people that will be interested in hiring me. So I tried, I started doing catering for small companies and private events, and I think that led to being a restaurant owner.
NY Launch Pod: So you, uh, gained experience in all of this learning the restaurant business. What were the steps you needed to take to starting a restaurant? Because I know it is pretty intensive.
Mario Vivas: Yeah. Especially during COVID. And I think that this it is like a whole new chapter in the whole food industry. You have to not only be smart and quick with decisions, but also be flexible. I think most restaurants didn’t survive during the pandemic because they were not flexible in the way they approached business. And they weren’t just used to it. I mean, no one saw this coming, of course, but I believe that one of the things that made me decide to go into the restaurant business, it was the idea of finding a niche. I really wanted to bring Argentinian food to the city, which is not a big community here in New York City. Most Argentinian food business are in Queens where there is a huge community, but not here in Manhattan. So because of that lack of business, I saw a big opportunity there.
NY Launch Pod: And how do you develop the recipes?
Mario Vivas: Well, I think everything came out together in the right moment. If I take you a year ago, everyone was closing their business. And I think that that was one of the key decisions to just act quickly and go to the source and try to be resourceful while people were trying to get rid of stuff, I was buying all the appliances and equipment for my restaurant. And also because of my background and coming from a South American country, I think that every time we saw crises or something going on, we always saw opportunity. So it was actually in those moments where you would, you see like the development of a new idea, but also starting a new chapter.
NY Launch Pod: So you were running towards the fire while people were running away. What does that lead to now? Because cities obviously coming back seems like office workers are coming back. How do you reflect on the decision now? Particularly when it was a time when everything was a time of fear?
Mario Vivas: I think I was, like I said before, I think it’s all about timing. For example, one of the most fascinating stories that I have while building up my business was that I went to a coffee shop that was around my corner in my apartment here in the city and they were closing after 25 years. I love the food in this coffee shop. I would have breakfast like five times a week. So when the owner told me he was closing, I did not only purchase his appliances, but also ask him, “Hey, what are your chefs doing? What is your staff doing?” And he told me there will be unemployed. So I’ll be like, well, you can tell them, starting November 1st, they got a job and I hire everyone there that lost their job. So I think it was also taking the risk, but also trying to find the right people that were looking forward to keep working. I remember like me talking to them the first day and telling them how I was going to be allowed my team. And they, they fell in love with the project and they are here working till today. Now during the pandemic, I found myself like in another dimension, I never thought we will be building up this store and we will get like resumes slide under the door, like tons of them weekly. And that was a big impact. I never realized how many people were looking for a job until I owned a business. I think I prioritize people that had experienced in the business, people that work in hotels that were in furlough or people that were working in restaurants and bars, you don’t stop. It was, it was very tough to, to pick because there were so many interesting profiles and so many people that were looking to work. I just tried to prioritize those who, who have experience and were able to keep up with a project that was growing during the pandemic.
NY Launch Pod: So you can see the tangible benefits from going the other way. When, at the height of the pandemic, opening up a restaurant, getting labor, which is now problematic, getting appliances when a lot of people are selling them. But I want to talk about this in terms of the real estate decision, you decided to open up your restaurant in Turnstile, which is the food court in the Columbus Circle subway station. You opened up a restaurant in the middle of a pandemic when no one was taking the subway in a food hall with no foot traffic.
Mario Vivas: I think that very in the back of my head, I always had the hope that everything will come to normal. It will be not the normal we used to be, but it will be eventually a new normal. You don’t win if you don’t take any risks at all. I mean, even when I moved to this country, I didn’t have any security of anything and I still did it. I’m still here after a decade, but I think it was also a lot of finding the right moment. And starting from small, I didn’t have the expectations of growing fast. I didn’t have the thirst of doing money right away. I think it was almost like starting from scratch and, you know, baby steps, right. To grow and go week by week and try to see a small business from the small perspective and grow from there. I think that America always has this perspective of a big economies, kind of like a go big or go home. And I wish it could be like that. But I think that when it comes to small business, especially in New York City is about getting people’s trust again. And you can never go wrong with there’s nothing negative. Even during the crisis, people always are going to search for a delicious place that is going to make them feel good
NY Launch Pod: So how many empanadas were you serving during COVID in the subway station?
Mario Vivas: Daily or weekly?
NY Launch Pod: You can choose.
Mario Vivas: Well, we ate a lot of empanadas because we’re testing recipes like crazy the first month. So we ate so many, of them, I don’t know, know amounts, I guess like between one hundred and three hundred. I think the first week we sold like 30 empanadas. So it’s nothing.
NY Launch Pod: Right. There’s not a lot of foot traffic. So, so were you scared at that time while you, you had just invested a lot to open up this restaurant?
Mario Vivas: No, I was never scared. I saw it as an, as an adventure. I was like, okay, you can always fail. You can always go bad. I, I saw the other side of the story. I always thought it could not work, but we were surprised. I think that we had this, the first impact of having a very positive thinking when we got closer to Christmas, there was kind of like a very internal domestic tourism going on here in New York in Christmas. It was not as busy as it used to be, but that flow of visitors gave us, like, hope because we saw really good in, in December. And of course, January and February are slow months here, but we never lost. We never had like a negative or losing marks since we opened.
NY Launch Pod: There’s a lot of talk now about the future of the restaurant industry, labor, real estate, all the factors that go into your business, where do you see the industry going and your business as a result of everything that is happening?
Mario Vivas: Well, I definitely think that everything’s going to go into a smaller scale. Um, most restaurants used to have like this huge menu options. I think that’s going to start being more, uh, well today they call it niche. Like if you want to go into some direction like seafood or, or, or Asian food, or these fusions like Peruvian, Asian, which is such a trend now, I mean, everyone is going to start going into smaller menus. I don’t think that we’re going to be dealing with this steak, seafood all together in one menu. It’s very risky on matters of produce and even staff to prep all that. I think everyone’s going to go into a smaller scale. It’s funny because when you see New York, when this city was founded, you always had that big Irish or Italian last name that is into the root, that is into to the, the bakery or the breads and everything is going to come back to that, I believe, and it’s going to start having more identity again, which is a good starting point for such a context and this type of crisis, because it is a crisis. It’s an economic crisis. Uh, small business are going to be hurting the most. And I think that only the ones that can negotiate with landlords and can we direct their menus on their way. They are parts of the business. They’re the only ones that will be able to survive, but it always goes back to their reinventing yourself thing. I think that you have to reinvent yourself, or in my case, and Criollas led New York, reinvent, you know,
NY Launch Pod: So where do you see the future of Criollas?
Mario Vivas: I, I totally see us growing around the east coast. I would love to bring our product to different towns or cities that are not so familiar to them, empenadas. I think that we would love to have more like a boutique approach and be smart in the way we grow. We need to grow but grow small. I don’t think that I would like to industrialize my , my empanadas, and just throwing into the machine. And I don’t think that’s my direction for now. I love fact that we do a handcrafted product. So I would love to keep that as a trademark. And I would love to open different locations in a small scale.
NY Launch Pod: Well that is a wonderful note to end things on. Mario Vivas, thank you very much for stepping onto the New York Launch Pod and sharing your time with us. How do people find out more about you and Criollas?
Mario Vivas: Well, you can come to Instagram @criollasbaked and you can find us at Turnstile, which is located on 57th Street and Eighth Avenue, right by Columbus Circle station. Um, we’re there Monday through Saturday. So just come check it out.
NY Launch Pod: And if you want to learn more about the New York Launch Pod, you can follow us on social media @NYLaunchPod or visit us at nylaunchpod.com for transcripts of every episode. And if you are a super fan of the show, Mario, are you a super fan of the New York Launch Pod?
Mario Vivas: Yes, I am now.
NY Launch Pod: He is now. And if you’re a super fan like Mario, yes, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It is greatly appreciated and does help people discover the show.
