Adam Weisblatt

Adam Weissblatt, co-founder of Last Word Hospitality and author of For the Love of Restaurants, joins me to share his Five Rules for Opening a Neighborhood Restaurant. We talk about trusting your gut, treating your landlord like a true business partner, and making sure you can deliver on what you promise. After opening seven restaurants of his own, Adam offers an honest and practical look at what it takes to turn the dream of a restaurant into a place that can become part of its community.What I find most inspiring about Adam is his willingness to openly share knowledge that took him years—and plenty of hard lessons—to earn. For more people to succeed in this industry, we need more people willing to follow his example and let go of the gatekeeping that has kept so much valuable information out of reach. Sharing what you know does not diminish your own accomplishments; it gives someone else a better chance to build something meaningful of their ownIntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m chatting with Adam Weissblatt, the co-founder of Last Word Hospitality and the author of For the Love of Restaurants, An Insider’s Guide from Daydreams to Opening Night, which comes out tomorrow on August 11th.He’s here to share his five rules for opening a neighborhood restaurant. He talks about the importance of trusting your gut, how by building the right team sets you up for the right success, and that by being honest with yourself and those you’re working with allows for a long existence in any community. It’s a great conversation for anyone who’s ever dreamed of opening up their own space from someone who has walked the walk and opened up seven of his own spaces.The Neighborhood RestaurantSo let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Adam, always great to see your smiling face. Thank you for taking a break from your restaurants and hospitality group and congrats on the book, The Love of Restaurants, which comes out tomorrow.Yes, sir. Tomorrow. It used to be that a neighborhood restaurant was a bit of a backhanded compliment.Rise of the Neighborhood RestaurantHow has that perception and term shifted over the last few years? As the economy struggles, people are looking for familiarity and they’re looking for comfort. A restaurant is the ultimate form of being able to go out, have a big night out, but then maybe not spend as much, including just on the simple realities of getting to and from. What it costs to get in an Uber or gas or everything like that.It all factors into how people make decisions about where they’re going to eat. Now, maybe more than ever, people are looking for that neighborhood comforting place and want a place they can call their own. That’s really good.The SearchYour group, Last Word Hospitality, has specialized in neighborhood restaurants and has seven different spots in your portfolio. What is the through line that ties them all together and makes them a part of their individual communities? We’re always just looking for beautiful spaces that represent a cool aesthetic of that neighborhood. When you take an old building that’s been there since the 20s or 30s and it’s been uncared for and you put love into it, that already starts to show people that you really genuinely have pride in what you’re doing and that matters.For us, we partner with people on each one of these projects. I love that. Every time you walk into the restaurant and you ask, who is the owner, the chef and the GM are going to be part of that team of owners.You’re going to have that constant connection through the people in the space to ownership. I think that really matters and draws a connection between community. Being able to be a authentic and literal part of the community from the space to the people in it has been something that’s defined your career and approach to building these different spaces.For the Love of RestaurantsThe book, The Love of Restaurants, I remember you telling me a