Hey, everybody. Ryan Gromfin here – author, speaker, chef, restaurateur,
and founder of TheRestaurantBoss.com.
And I want to share with you a story. You know, I had
this amazing training plan for you today
on key item inventory, it's called a key item report.
Excuse me, it takes five minutes a day to do and
it will help lower your food cost and keep track of any misuse or mishandling or
theft of your most expensive ingredients in your restaurant. I have this all planned for you today
and then I got an email this morning that an industry icon had passed away.
A chef that means a lot to me.
I want to tell you a story about how I met this person and
someone that means more to the industry than they would ever have meant to me,
but Charlie Trotter from Chicago passed away yesterday
very suddenly, or on Tuesday I should say, very suddenly,
very abruptly, and it's just very unfortunate
because the industry lost an icon, someone very, very special. If you don't know Charlie Trotter,
if you don't know of him, he had a restaurant called Trotters in Chicago that was a very,
very popular restaurant, a very successful restaurant,
but he was so ahead of his time when it came to food
preparations and presentations.
His food was just gorgeous. I mean they were works of art.
You should look at some of his books.
Just google his name. It's all over the internet right now.
But I was young, I was 19 years old,
it was my first day doing an internship in Dallas Texas,
and at the mansion on Turtle Creek,
and I was using the restroom. I had just changed into my uniform; I was super nervous.
I don't know anyone in the hotel, I don't know anyone in Texas.
I'm very far away from home. It was my first day there
and as I go to use the facilities before I start my shift,
I look over and I see a gentleman standing next to me who looks
very familiar to me and I'm processing this in my head and I come to realize
like that's Charlie Trotter standing next to me.
At the time, he was one of the most famous chefs in the country
and so as I go to wash my hands and he's doing the same,
I look over and I see on his chef coat, it says Charlie Trotter on it.
So now I know, I'm like that is definitely Charlie Trotter.
I was so nervous; I was so scared to introduce self to him
that he was walking about three steps ahead of me into the kitchen.
This is a very long hallway I will never forget this how long hallway
that we would walk down to get into the kitchen.
I'd never even seen the kitchen at the mansion on Turtle Creek
yet today was my first day working there.
And as I walk into the kitchen, I see Jacques Pepin,
Julia Child,
Dean Fearing, and then Charlie Trotter's a couple steps ahead of me.
And I'm like, what is going on here?
This is my first day at the Mansion on Turtle Creek as an intern and
I've got these amazing industry icons in front of me,
and I wish I had a picture to show you, but we went on to have an incredibly fun evening
and I got to help out and there were some great pictures of me with Julie Child and Charlie Trotter.
I just don't know where they are, but
you know it's very sad to me, it's sad for the industry today
and it got me thinking about our mortality today when I read that email
about a man who loved what he did so much.
It consumed his life, it was his life, he was
the restaurant, he was a chef,
and he loved everything about what he did and it just showed,
but he closed his restaurant about six months ago,
voluntarily closed his restaurant in an effort…
(I have to assume in an effort to sort of maybe spend more time with his family)
I don't know the details of it, but I just can't help but thinking and this is just
my opinion I don't know the details, but I just can't help but thinking that
there's no coincidence that six months ago he closes the restaurant
that was his namesake, that was him, that was part of his core identity
and then six months later, he suddenly passes away with
no suspicion of foul play or drinking or drugs, abuse, or anything like that.
And you know,
I just… this is the message that I want to get out there for everyone.
This is what I dedicate my life to, this is what I do because I saw myself
going down this path of
just being involved in the restaurant so much that I was ignoring everything around me,
that my restaurant needed me and I needed to change,
I needed to figure things out. I was not going to live the life
of my restaurant owning me,
of the restaurant becoming me;
I wanted to be my own person and the restaurant was a huge part of that,
and that's really what I want to express to you guys again today.
This is what I do, this is what all the videos and everything that I teach is about.
It's about you finding your freedom,
it's about you developing the systems in your restaurant,
in your business, in your life so that
you can walk away from it once in a while.
You can go on a vacation, you can go to your kid’s soccer games,
you can take your wife out on a date, you can go
see a movie on a Saturday night instead of being enslaved in your restaurant.
And the way that we do that is through systems.
You know, you always hear me say that we manage systems and develop people.
And again, I just wanted to share this little message with you.
So, I have a call to action today. You know, in memoriam of Charlie Trotter,
for him, for yourself;
I want you to think of someone or
a relationship in your life that you have been ignoring,
that you have not been cherishing, that you have not held onto a pedestal
and really
loved this person as much as you know you should, and I want you to do something today.
I want you to call them and tell them you love them,
I want you to write them a note,
I want you to send them flowers,
I want you to do something today right now
that just shows this person how much you love them and how much you care about them.
And I just… that's what's so important in life, that
the relationships are so important. You know, restaurants can come and go,
but if we don't hold on to and cherish our relationships and if we don't make time
and make our relationships a priority,
you know unfortunate things like this can happen and Charlie Trotter leaves behind
a wife and children,
and it's just… it's sad that at 54 years old, this happened to him.
So again, I dedicate this video to Charlie Trotter.
I hope that someone out there is touched by this and takes some action and revitalizes
a relationship or puts a spark into a relationship that wasn't there
a few minutes ago because of this,
but Charlie Trotter, I thank you for what you've done for the industry.
I thank you for paving a road
that we young Chefs get to follow that we young restaurateurs get to
follow along
and you will be missed and I thank you for having the opportunity to meet with
you or to meet you and work with you
that one clandestine day in my life. So thank you, Charlie Trotter.
May you rest in peace and best wishes to your family that you leave behind.
Thank you, everyone. Have a wonderful day.