The hospitality industry is no doubt one of the hardest hit due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Restaurants are closing worldwide left, right, and centre, which means that years of dedicated, hard work have sadly gone out the window and blown away with the icy breeze. Quickly pivoting to curbside pickup, delivery, meal kits, and subscription boxes, restaurants everywhere are pulling at threads to stay afloat during these tumultuous times. And if anyone knows their way around opening restaurants or restaurants at all for that matter, it’s powerhouse restauranteur, CEO, and all-around badass, Janet Zuccarini.
Janet has been a force in the food and hospitality sector for going on 20 years so it’s safe to say that she knows a thing or two, or like, everything. Known for being the owner of Gusto 54 Restaurant Group and as a judge on Top Chef Canada, Janet holds nothing back and she tells it like it is. We had a chance to chat with Janet herself about the effects of COVID on restaurants, but also what it’s been like pivoting business models to reflect this new normal that we’ve all been thrust into.
See also: How the Reyna Restaurant Brand Stayed Relevant During the Pandemic
Blair Stutz: It’s just crazy to think back to March how we really didn’t expect it to hit as hard as it has. You know, we all thought things would be reopening in weeks. I mean, what was it like when you heard about the lockdown for you and your restaurants?
Janet Zuccarini: Well, back in March, I was first on the bandwagon to kind of say that we are screwed and give me the two-year plan for being absolutely decimated. And you know, there were some people on my team that were a little more optimistic and being like, “Oh we’re just gonna be shut down for two weeks and then we’ll be back.” I said, “That is absolutely not going to happen.” I went to a really bad place but I was being realistic.
BS: As someone in your position, you really have to be.
JZ: Sometimes you just have to be and the earlier you start planning for that, the better you’re going to be. Let’s take the worst-case scenario and plan around that.
BS: That’s the mindset to have. I can’t imagine how it must be for restaurants right now that are struggling. Do you have any advice for those restaurants?
J: It’s really survival of the fittest right now and all about renegotiating where you can renegotiate. If you can renegotiate with your banks if you’ve borrowed money or if you have a mortgage – Like I have a mortgage on several buildings, so working with the bank to cut me a break and they have.
And the rest of the restaurants, I have landlords and it’s working landlord by landlord to say, “Let’s be in this together to work it out and if you cut me some break right now, I’m going to be the best tenant for the next 20-30 years.”
I have a certain track record. I opened my first restaurant 25 years ago, and I’ve never closed a restaurant, so I’m kind of using my track record to say – you know, every landlord wants a great long-term tenant, so I’m promising that if they’ll just help me through. And you know, the government has helped with some rent subsidiaries but we knew we had to join any coalition to tell the government what we need.
Steven Branco: That’s a really interesting perspective. I think just hearing you there, it’s like an “a-ha” moment because I don’t think that’s the first thing for most restaurateurs to think about. I almost feel like, in conversations with some people, everyone thinks that it’s a fight for the subsidiaries and they think they’re competing but what it really is, is that you’re all stronger together, as cliche as it sounds.
J: Yeah, I think in the world whether we’re talking about business or humanity, we’re all a lot better if we work together with one unified goal that’s going to benefit everyone in the end. People can really see that if you help restaurants and small businesses now, then everyone is going to benefit. The government will benefit from people being able to pay their taxes and helping people get back on their feet.
BS: Speaking of getting back on our feet, you have just opened up Azhar during all of this. How long had it been in the works for?
J: We started Azhar probably a little over a year ago, I would say about a year and a half, and we were too far along under construction when the pandemic hit. So we were almost three-quarters of the way done, and some of the construction projects went back to the landlords, and I just said, “Listen I need to pause the project, we need to get through the pandemic.”
But a restaurant like Azhar was too far along with the construction to even say that we’re going to wait until the pandemic’s over. So we did get a break from the landlords to hold off as long as we could, and then we were kind of forced to open. But again, with the help of the landlords cutting us a break with the rent, we know that we’re opening to – Right now, we have a marketplace open, where we’re selling spices and bread and little gifts and then we’ll open to takeout and delivery. But we know we make a fraction of the revenue opening a restaurant like that, or any restaurant operating with takeout and delivery, you can only do a fraction of your pre-COVID revenue.
SB: You’ve done a really great job of pivoting and looking at all your avenues to try and stay afloat, I think that’s what everyone’s trying to do in all this. You’ve opened the marketplace but you’ve also incorporated these meal boxes into several of your different restaurants. Can you tell us a little more about that and how you approached it?
JZ: Since the pandemic hit and we went to takeout and delivery, we had to start to think, “What are some of the alternative revenue streams?” So in the beginning of March, we started selling groceries, we started selling essentials when the lineups were too big at the grocery stores.
And then as the pandemic had changed, we evolved our operation within the pandemic but we still had to come up with new ideas because we were only making a fraction of our pre-COVID revenue. So I think people are starving for experiences, like you can’t go to a concert, you can’t go to the theatre, so let’s try within our restaurant group to create experiences.
So we have this subscription model, where you can buy all the experiences or just one, and that is buying a whole meal kit and then having access to all these executive chefs depending on what meal kit you buy. Whether you buy the Thai Meal Kit, which then Chef Nuit Regular will show up on a Zoom and take you through a cooking class.
And you know, we’ve involved all the executive chefs, and you can purchase all these different experiences. Since we have a Jamaican restaurant, we have an Italian restaurant, we have Thai restaurants, now we have a Middle Eastern restaurant – we have all these different cuisines that we think can create some really great experiences. And it’s selling really well, although these are just, again to use your word, ways to pivot and keep searching for what your customers want, that’s all you have to keep doing. What do people want right now?
BS: You’re literally giving folks the opportunity to travel through food!
JZ: Exactly, and you know, we’re like scraping the bottom of the barrel to have these experiences to feel like we’re transported somewhere and especially right now in Toronto with the winter, people are just further locked inside their homes. People are craving these experiences.
SB: It really shows not only the calibre but also the type of chefs and teams you have. I mean, especially for an executive chef because they could easily let their ego get in the way and be like, “I’m not helping, I’m not hopping on Zoom.” But everyone’s realizing that you just have to be creative and either you do it and stay afloat or you don’t and have no revenue.
JZ: Yeah, we see the number of closures, the number in the United States is over 100,000, I think it’s about 130,000 restaurants have closed. Thousands and thousands of restaurants have closed permanently in Canada. If you have any kind of weakness, if your sales were slightly soft going into the pandemic, you’re going to have a very tough time. And even people who have been historically very successful are suffering right now.
SB: Not an easy place to be right now.
BS: No, absolutely not. Have you gotten into any cooking-at-home or quarantine cooking? Did you get into sourdough bread or like, banana bread was like blowing up the internet.
JZ: I actually started my whole journey when I was in Italy at 18 and I was cooking for myself and cooking for my friends, and my friend would always say, “You should open up a restaurant.” That wasn’t in my head when I was going to university in Italy, but I really connected with a passion for cooking and eating well.
And then I moved to L.A. five years ago and I stopped cooking. I just decided that I’m done, I’ve done enough entertaining, I’ve done enough – I just felt like I’m done with cooking. I’m going to eat out, I’m going to explore restaurants, I’m going to make that the number one thing I do and five years ago, gave up cooking. And now of course the pandemic hit, I’m forced indoors and I kind of reconnected to this passion that I had at a very young age.
So it’s been absolutely fantastic for me going to the farmer’s market here, and really building up a repertoire. Like, last night I cooked a Japanese meal, and I don’t traditionally cook Japanese food, but I’m getting into different types of cuisines like I’m cooking Middle Eastern food. I’ve been in a relationship for three years and my boyfriend has never experienced my cooking. And now during the pandemic, the love, I feel like – “You love me at least 30% more when I’m cooking for you.” Because as we know, the way to a man’s heart or anyone’s heart really, is when you nurture them when you cook for them, it’s a very nurturing and loving thing.
BS: Absolutely. You show your love through food. So you’re based in L.A. now, what’s it like been working with your team that’s based in Toronto?
JZ: You know, I’ve been here not quite full time, I do spend some time in Toronto, but we’ve learnt to switch to working over Zoom calls or phone calls for the last five years, so the pandemic didn’t change much for me that way.
I work kind of on my own, and I’m the visionary for the company, so I’ll be looking forward to like, “What’s the next project? Do I buy a building, rent a building? Where’s the location and chef going to be?” I assemble the whole team, so I’m always kind of a little bit in the beginning working on my own to set up the project, and then my team comes and brings it to life.
My way of working hasn’t changed since the pandemic hit. And you can accomplish a lot with phone calls and video calls as we see now, as everyone sees now.
BS: So as we mentioned, you’ve done Caribbean, Thai, Middle Eastern – basically you can say you’re taking over the world with your restaurants. What made you want to expand outside Italian cuisine?
JZ: Each restaurant has its own story but I do have to connect to a passion. So for the first restaurant, I went into a partnership with Jeff and Nuit Regular with Pai, and I lived in South East Asia for a year and spent a lot of time in Thailand and I love Thai food and I have a real connection to Thai food.
And I love Nuit’s cooking so much, that I felt like I wanted to go into a partnership and do what we can with the company which is backing it financially so we do the financing and then we plug in our business systems and training which we’ve been developing for 25 years. And so, therefore, we allow someone like Chef Nuit just to focus on her cooking and we take care of the business side of things. So that was how that happened and we went into Thai restaurants.
And then the Jamaican restaurant, is again – as a child, my family and I would go to Jamaica on vacation and so I had a connection to Jamaica. One of my best friends is the Chief Cultural Officer of my company, Angela Lauren and we were talking about how much fun it would be to create a transporting experience with a restaurant, and take Torontonians out of their winter by transporting them to the Caribbean with a restaurant, so that’s how Chubby’s came about.
And it was this connection and also friendship, that made the restaurant happen. Now with Azhar and Middle Eastern, it was Chef Stuart Cameron coming to me and saying, “I know you’ve got Nuit and well, you’ve got me with Middle Eastern.”
Three years ago, I took a trip to Israel, and travelled all around Israel and fell in love with the cuisine, and I came out of that trip saying, “One day I need to open a Middle Eastern restaurant,” So I knew I wanted to do it, I knew I had a connection and passion for the food, and so that’s how that happened.
So I’m not setting out to do all these different cuisines, it’s not what I set out to do, but I need to have passion and a lot of the time, the chef is coming to me. The opportunity presents itself, but I won’t take the opportunity unless I have a connection to it.
BS: Yeah, it has to speak to you. Do you have a certain cuisine you have your eye on next?
JZ: Well, the next restaurant we’re opening is in downtown L.A., it’s called Gusto Green and for me, it’s about the future of food, and eventually when it’s legal, we’ll be infusing it with CBD and while it’s not legal, the food is infused with adaptogens to really help your performance, physical and mental, and also focusing on the power of mushrooms. So basically it’s a health-focused restaurant.
BS: That is seriously cool and so revolutionary. Has it been different navigating the pandemic in L.A. than it is in Toronto?
JZ: It’s almost the same. There have been slight differences. Let’s say, like how the government has been helping small businesses and restaurants. The programs are different, yeah, but at the end of the day, they’re almost pretty much the same. As I was saying earlier, lockdown – You know, when you have the opportunity to have Vitamin D, it’s just a lot easier. I feel for everyone in Toronto, I really do, and the East Coast. It’s just harder when the days are grey and cold, and you don’t feel as comfortable to be outside as much.
My life hasn’t really looked that different, I have the ability to get outside. And I play tennis, it’s my passion, so I’m able to play tennis everyday, so that really helps with your mental health. Other than that, you know they talk about L.A. being the epicentre of the virus right now and the numbers are really high, but I haven’t changed the way I live, I’ve been living very safely. And I may go to the grocery store but I even try to limit that and I’m just trying to be safe, so I don’t think it would look that different whether I’m in Toronto or L.A.
BS: What made you want to expand into the US with your restaurants in the first place?
JZ: Honestly, was really just wanting to get out of winter. And at a certain point, I wanted to expand out of Toronto and I thought, “What better place to expand to than a place that has sunshine?” It’s crazy how great the weather is in L.A., you know, we’re animals and Vitamin D and sunshine, I don’t care what your set point of happiness is, you’re at least going to be 10 to 20% happier in the sunshine.
BS: How many countries have you travelled to? Anywhere next on your bucket list after COVID?
JZ: I have been an avid traveller my whole life. I have not counted the countries but I have done a lot of travelling and I’ve been to most of the continents. I would call myself a foodie, of course, and I love Japanese food, but I have not been to Japan, so that’s number one on my list.
BS: That would be amazing, I know we all can’t wait to travel again. Out of all the cuisines, what’s your favourite food or meal?
JZ: I think people connect a lot to their childhood food, and in my household, I grew up eating very well. My father was as good as any chef, and he would make this pasta with homemade tomato sauce – The pasta is rigatoni alla’amatriciana, so it’s a tomato sauce with a crispy guanciale and Felix in Los Angeles, and Evan Funke my partner chef, he does a version of that. So I’m lucky to be able to get that pasta out here and that’s my main comfort food.
BS: What are some items always in your fridge or pantry that you cannot go without?
JZ: A great quality olive oil, lemons, different salts, and I always have things like San Marzano tomatoes, capers, Italian tuna, things with which I can whip a meal together. Usually it’s a lot of Italian items.
BS: What’s a surprising fact about you that might surprise our readers?
JZ: I was a child actress, and I’ve done 60 commercials and musical theatre. It was a career from the age of 4 until my last commercial at the age of 17.
BS: You have built up quite the powerhouse company. Do you ever look at what you have accomplished and think, “I’ve made it”? What do you think was your breakthrough moment?
JZ: I think it was with Felix in Los Angeles, and when Esquire Magazine named us the number one new restaurant in America. It was the best accolade that I’ve received as you know, a Canadian woman coming to Los Angeles, being a complete unknown and then creating something that received that level of an accolade – Number one in America, not even in Los Angeles – I don’t know if it’s like, “I made it” but it was something that – you know, I was just a little bit in disbelief and so happy.
BS: That’s definitely a moment for sure. If you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?
JZ: I think it’s something I would tell myself even today, which is to not sweat the small stuff. When something upsets me, it could even be a parking ticket, and I’d be all, “Oh God, what a waste of money,” and I’d have that kind of reaction and then I slow down and say, “Will I be upset about this in 5 years?” If anything happens to me, and if it will not upset me in 5 years, then it’s just kind of pointless. I think that when I hear people kind of on their deathbeds say repeatedly is, “don’t sweat the small stuff.”
And you know, you want to make a difference in this life and in this world, but you also just have to enjoy yourself and be happy. It’s so fleeting and we don’t know how long we have on this Earth, so we just have to wake up and be grateful for what we have.
Feature Image: Jake Rosenberg
