Disrupting Hospitality: How To Run Successful Restaurants and Music Venues

Intro  0:00

Welcome to the Growth + Exit podcast, where owners of privately held middle market companies talk about founding, scaling, and exiting their businesses successfully. Learn how to maximize and monetize your business on your own terms, let’s get started.

Heather Bennett  0:31

Hello, I’m Heather Bennett, your host for the Growth + Exit podcast, featuring middle market owners talking about founding, growing, and exiting their businesses on their own terms, past guests include Jody Jankovsky, founder of Black Line and author of Technology Intelligence, Philip de Souza, founder of Aurora and hotlunch.com and Scott Markman, founder of The Monogram Group. This episode is brought to you by Newport LLC, a team of seasoned C-suite executives helping CEOs of privately held companies grow, de-risk, and exit their businesses successfully. Newport LLC is the winner of the prestigious Inc. magazine Power Partner Awards, recognizing elite B2B companies. To see the list of the entire set of winners, go to inc.com/power-partner-awards To learn more about Newport, visit us at Newportllc.com or find us, of course, on LinkedIn. Before introducing today’s guest, I would like to thank Kevin Helpin for introducing me to Robert. You can find more about Kevin Helpin on the Newport website, of course, and also on LinkedIn, Robert Gomez is a veteran Chicago restaurateur and multi-concept founder, known for building some of the city’s most beloved neighborhood dining spots. As the owner behind Beat Kitchen, Subterranean, and several other long-running venues, he has spent decades shaping Chicago’s food and music culture through creativity, grit, and a deep understanding of what brings people together. Robert has a successful track record of turning scrappy ideas into enduring businesses, often revitalizing spaces and communities along the way. His entrepreneurial style blends hands-on leadership with a sharp instinct for trends, making him a very valuable and very standout operator in an industry defined by constant change. Robert, welcome to the show.

Robert Gomez  2:33

Wow, what an introduction. Thank you, very kind.

Heather Bennett  2:37

So, so let’s get right into it. How does one decide they want to enter the restaurant business.

Robert Gomez  2:43

Oh, what an insane decision for anyone, especially back 30 years ago when I started not really having any experience, not having any experience in it. So, when people ask me they’re interested in a coffee shop, I remember a friend of mine saying that I’m like, work in one, work in one first, know as a simple employee, but with your brain, start observing the good and the bad, so that you’re not making the same mistakes, you will make mistakes, but you know it would have helped me tremendously had I done that, so I, I did have my own concept. I was so nervous to do it that I joined a group who were opening subterranean, and so it immediately struggled. I paid to be part of that partnership. It immediately struggled. The city started giving us problems, and they all disappeared. There were three of them, and now I’m running it. I’ve been running it by myself for 29 years. They lasted. I’m being generous by saying they lasted a year into it.

Heather Bennett  3:54

So, okay, so that’s the first one, which, which is a really, really cool space, a really innovative. What after doing that, knowing how hard that struggle was the first couple years, so how’d you decide to do it again?

Robert Gomez  4:13

10 years later, I was finally in a position to grow. A lot of that was because of the equity in the building, Wicker Park finally blew up for four years. It’s like, oh, this neighborhood is gonna take off, and we’re in there, like, when, when is this thing going to take off? And then it exploded. You’re like, okay, wait, slow down, slow down. There aren’t enough people coming to the neighborhoods to support all the businesses that suddenly, like, we got to be in Wicker Park, so it was visionary to go into Wicker Park at that time. 30 years ago, it was the wild west, like homelessness, where the homeless people were the ones you’d see the most on the six corners. It was even people were afraid to come to the neighborhood, and some found it a great. Venture to go into the neighborhood, and so we wrote it out. The subtraining itself was a full-on restaurant with, like, an event space upstairs, and over time it just seemed like there was a demand for live music. And let’s dedicate the problem with dedicating a venue to live music is, you give up party business, you’re booking bands six months in advance, so somebody comes to you with a great party in December, and you want to take advantage of that, like, well, you’re already committed to a live show, but we went that route, I went that route, and then finally was in a position to buy another venue, I knew the owner of Beat Kitchen. The city was this was after the porch collapsed, so there was in right, it was residential, but when that happened, I knew they’re going to be all over apartment buildings, right? There’s just always this knee-jerk reaction, but they’re also inspecting venues. Actually, I’m going to correct myself here. e2 e2 happened where people were rushing to get out of a venue, one of the doors was locked and they trampled over each other and a few died. Then I knew they’re going to come after venues, and they did, and Alan, the previous owner of Beat Kitchen, was tired of it. He’d had place for 10 years, and I knew that we knew the same talent buyer. He put us in touch, and it took like two years, but we finally settled on a deal, and I was able to buy Beat Kitchen from him using the equity of subterranean building to to leverage that that purchase,

Heather Bennett  6:46

all right, so you see, you do it again, but let thinking about both of those two venues. What are some of the early struggles about building a restaurant or a venue business?

Robert Gomez  6:59

So be kitchen also has food, it is more of a restaurant than subterranean, much more, and so, and it has a party room up. What you learn quickly is that you’re running three different businesses that are trying to, you’re trying to find a way to coexist, and there’s always going to be one of those that dominates, and live music dominates. So, when a family wants to come in and have dinner at Beat Kitchen, they might be scared off by some goth kids that are there for a show that’s coming. You know, I mean, you have to find people who are willing to be okay with that and flow with it and market yourself that way, so people aren’t coming in and being surprised, and it’s a challenge, because you can’t hire too small a place to hire three general managers. You need to rely on a GM that can handle most of that, and I’ll handle the rest. You start dividing up responsibilities as best you can with it, because there’s.. it’s a small venue. A capacity at Beat Kitchen is 275 at subterranean is 375 so we’re not talking about huge shows that are bringing 1000s of people, right? And the biggest challenge is having a show every single night, and in some cases three times. The ideal world on Saturdays, you have a matinee, an afternoon, and an evening show, all all three separate, where you’re clearing the room and starting over, but that’s, you know, you had six other days and nights of the week to book as well, and then now there’s two venues, so it’s 700 shows, I mean, that’s that’s a lot to ask of talent buyers, so I have a team of talent buyers that are always looking for bands, creating contracts, who’s touring, what’s the risk evaluation in itself is a huge challenge, and that’s just one piece of these businesses.

Heather Bennett  8:54

So, how do you find, like, what makes a good talent buyer? Because I mean, this is, it’s like you said, it’s so much more than a restaurant business, so we could get back to that aspect, and like managing the food with when we talk later about some of your more recently acquired businesses, but with talent by like, how do you know what’s going to work, what’s going to be successful?

Robert Gomez  9:17

Well, so there’s two things there. What is required? The first thought I had is resilience. When a show is bad, the bartender doesn’t hesitate to either give them a dirty look or to say, you know, thanks for nothing, because there’s nobody buying, right? It’s either too young of a show or it’s just a type of audience that isn’t consuming. But when it’s busy, they never turn into town buyers. They thank you, that was great. You know, it is a, it is a thankless role. So, resilience is paramount, like they, and it’s true. I would say also, for owning a venue, you just have to be stubborn, resilient, and a. Little bit dumb, you just not smart enough to say, why am I doing this? I could be doing so many other things. Oh God, it’s so true. And it’s partially true with town buyers too, because of that. But knowing well, it’s evolved back when I was doing it, I was listening to cassettes and truly taking gambles like you didn’t have, now there is data, you know how many people they had in Denver, you know, you know how many people they had in their last tour, so you’re you’re doing the math, and so are they, meaning we’re dealing with the agent that represents the band, and so it’s a bit of a dance, but you know you have much more data to work with, so it isn’t about what music you personally like. It’s about who’s going to bring an audience in today’s world. Before, that’s all you’re worried about. Now you have to worry about who’s bringing an audience that’s actually going to consume both food and drink, and that’s changed because people are drinking less, so there’s greater pressure on shows. There’s greater awareness on our part, like we can’t afford to do this. We just had another Christian rock show, and notoriously they just don’t drink, and that’s but the business model is the band gets the door, we get the bar, so without them consuming food and drinks, like it’s not worth doing the show, and that’s new, that’s a very new development within my industry that we’re all crying about, like, oh my god, I used to sell two and a half drinks per person, it’s 1.8 now, that’s a radical difference,

Heather Bennett  11:39

okay, so, so just for fun, what are some of the bands you decided over the years to gamble on that ended up really paying off?

Robert Gomez  11:49

Well, yeah, right. So some some bragging rights here.

Heather Bennett  11:53

Say, this is your time to name drop. Go for it.

Robert Gomez  11:57

And when it’s really fun is when they do get to a much bigger level, and they do a shout out. So, Lizzo played three times in subtrade, the first time to 50 people, by the way, and then, and was like third, very first in the lineup. There’s two above her, then she was in the middle, she was direct support, we call it, and then she was a headliner. She sold out a show at Congress, so 5000 people, and did a shout out. Thank you so much, Subterranean, for sticking with me. I was like, oh my god. A friend of mine happened to be taping at that time, and she sent it to me, like, you just got the greatest shout out. Luminess did it at Wrigley Field, gave Subterranean a shout out, so when stuff like that happens, it’s just like that kind of makes it all worthwhile. It seems crazy, but it’s what you’re there for, I think. What I get most excited about are bands that we never heard of, and it’s not even a sold-out room, but especially when it’s sold out, and the people that are there know the words to every single song. There’s only 300 people. We use this language, like, what’s a band worth in Chicago specifically, because they might do better in other markets, but Chicago’s super competitive and music lovers. Lollapalooza started throughout the country, including Canada, and they couldn’t afford that. They were to pick one spot, and it became Chicago. And it isn’t because of our politics, it’s because of the music lovers that are here. So, there are more venues under 500 capacity in Chicago than any other city, I think, in the world, but certainly in the country, so it’s super competitive. Bands begin their route plan in in Chicago because of that. So, though they’re not going to start the tour necessarily in Chicago, but it’s the first location they hone in on. And then, where are they going to go before and after? Then they start to map out the rest, because they’re probably going to get paid the most in Chicago, because we’re all competing against each other, so, so we call each other frenemies. I have no problem reaching out to any other venue owner, asking them for advice, asking them if my employee can go to a show. We’re super friendly in that way, but we compete fiercely. So, anyway, sorry, I think I took us on a whole different path than

Heather Bennett  14:23

no, well, I think the important thing is, is as a venue owner, as a business owner of a venue that plays music, you don’t do that unless you have a passion to support up and coming artists and to support the arts, I mean, there has to be, you have to have that in order to commit to it, because even like you said earlier, just why would you get into the restaurant business? Like, there has to be a passion behind wanting to make a difference by supporting artists.

Robert Gomez  14:51

Yes, if you’re going into it because you’re thinking to make a lot of money, you’re going to be extremely disappointed. I’ve always had to. Other things to make sure we could keep it going, like I was just telling you, was on a call for Taste of Chicago, so you know, I entered into all these festivals with our food, so we do about 10 street festivals, including Lollapalooza, Suenos is this coming weekend in Grant Park, and so that keeps you know, like, that’s a whole nother racket, but it’s a source of income, you gotta be able to creative and find different ways to create income.

Heather Bennett  15:31

Okay, so let’s talk food. We’ve talked music. Let’s talk food. Tell me about the food of your restaurants, and how do you make money selling? Like, what are the keys to success there?

Robert Gomez  15:46

So, well, let me tell you about the evolution. We started out with the kitchen already was an established restaurant, casual. It is a gritty looking bar, so when people come in, they’re not expecting, and amusing venue, so expectations are low, because most music venues have disappointing food. I can’t think of another one that has food worth that I would actually want to go eat out, but Beat Kitchen is that, so be catches people by surprise, because it’s a small place, and I started to leverage that, like I mentioned, we went into festivals, but with the festivals I was able to take that experience of my team and open up on the Riverwalk, which is a whole nother world, but it taught me that you could do a lot with with very little resources, like on street festivals, you don’t have access to water, you don’t, you’re dealing with a generator and propane in the Riverwalk. There was only electricity, there was no propane. So we had to get creative on what can we do, and how do we keep it safe for employees, and especially customers, and that that got us into a high volume of food constantly when I was on the Riverwalk, and then, and being there opened my eyes to Navy Pier, so we were still more in the casual or faster food service when I got onto Navy Pier with the Kitchen Cantina, Cantina is strictly a Mexican concession, and it does extremely well. The Riverwalk did great. So, here I am doing better at downtown renting spaces versus the buildings that I own. It’s just the foot traffic is already there. I mean, it’s like being a food vendor in Lollapalooza. There’s 150,000 people there. You’re going to do okay unless your food is that bad, you know what I mean. But it’s get smart about how you can serve faster. How do you maximize that opportunity within the short window time that you have? And we’ve always been among the top vendors there, but the river walk that opened my eyes to Navy Pier, came to Cantina, and then I walked through what used to be Rivas, which is where I am now, and it’s a monster, and it was a, a, it was a stretch for us to do this. I did have experience before, because I opened an Irish pub in Forest Park named Molly Malone’s, and it was a full restaurant, dedicated restaurant, 290 people, we could sit, and it had an event space up, similar to what we have going on here. We started out with the menu that we knew, and over the three years we’ve morphed it into a Mariscos restaurant. I was nervous to go head to head with Rivas, that was a seafood Italian-based seafood restaurant. I just felt like we’re going to, we’re always going to be compared. It’s always going to be like, is it as good, or is it? And by going Mariscos, it’s Latin infused, it’s creative, it’s different, the flavors are different, and I never hear the reference of comparing us to reboots. We do have the highest Google rating here on Navy Pier. We brought something different to Navy Pier. It really needed, you know, when you think of Navy Pier is such a tourist destination, people still think Bubba Gump is here, Margaritaville is here, not knocking these businesses, but it’s kind of gives the reputation of that’s all for tourists. You’re not expecting a fine dining, accessible seafood restaurant to be here, and we’ve done that, and rave reviews. I have a brilliant young chef. I should have started there. So, my partner was a cook at Bead Kitchen. I moved my chef to the Irish place, to Molly Malone’s, and he was already a cook there, so he took over the kitchen and. He’s one of the most ambitious people on the planet. He’s the one, like, you’re already in Wicker Park Fest. Why don’t we do food there? So he started me in this whole festival business. When I went to the River Walk, I’m like, you need to be my partner. So when I came to Navy Pier, he’s my partner in both of these businesses. His son has always been with him at his side. He’s 23 now, and he is the chef of Bar Sol, and a brilliant young chef. The food is phenomenal. He’s just doing such a, such a great job with it. I love coming in. He’s like, ‘Here, I created a new dish I want to try, and then you know we go back and forth on the flavors of presentation, and it’s just been, it’s been a ton of fun, and that’s that’s where it gets rewarded, you know, we can actually have fun doing it, it’s been a stressful year, but it’s been working with him and developing the menus, and that’s been rewarding,

Heather Bennett  21:00

and that’s a, you know, an important thing, you talk about hiring the right people, so you have vastly different hiring needs. I mean, thinking about who’s going to work at Lala, who’s going to work at the festivals, who’s going to work at Subterranean, who’s going to be a bartender, who’s going to work at Beat Kitchen, who’s going to work at Bar Sol, I mean the staff is incredibly different, and you have to get it right, because get like in a food and a restaurant and a venue situation, who you hire can make the difference. So, how, how do you do? I mean, people come back to restaurants because they love their favorite server, they’ll wait to be in that person’s section, so, so, how, or they’ll go to this one bar, because they know that that bartender always makes the perfect drink. So, how do you find the people to hire? Like, what do you look for when you’re hiring people across all these very different situations that you know is going, they’re going to work

Robert Gomez  22:02

just to show alone. The band is greeted by a production manager. The next person we’re dealing with is a sound engineer, and it really starts their experience. It really starts with the two of them, and then they deal with the rest of the staff, security. It is not. not just finding that’s that’s key, but it’s also developing, and we’re all going to make mistakes, but How do we learn from that? How do we do better? And again, in 30 years, that has changed so much, because you get quickly shamed online, and they, and they’ll say, like, they were so mean to me, I forgot my ID. What’s the big deal? Like, you can’t get in without your ID, right? Why are you shaming me online? Because you’re the dummy that didn’t bring their ID, but then they go off, and then other people start commenting, yeah, security did this to me, like, oh my god, okay, what do we learn from this, and this is a simple example of development. So, the person that complained about it was really trying to say they didn’t have to be so mean about it, right? I get it, I didn’t bring my ID, but they didn’t have to be so mean about it. They caught me drinking, they threw me out, they didn’t have to be so mean about it, was somebody else’s comment about, and, and I come from a world when you’re in this for 30 years, where the city would just badger you, try and catch you, buying you, you know, so you really almost create a police state with your security, but it’s really, it’s not, it’s not like that anymore. So, newcomers to it, people in their early 20s, and now we do all ages shows in 17 plus shows, so there’s people that they never understood that mentality. People closer to my age, they, they get it, because as customers, you are also aware of how frightened bar owners were about losing their license or being in jeopardy with the city, that’s not, that’s not today’s world, so it’s like, okay, How do we balance this? I mean, there is a kinder, gentler way of doing all of this, and still being firm on our rules, and that’s been the last nine months, nine months ago, this started, this conversation started when people were commenting, like, okay, this needs to evolve, you always evolve, and that’s just security, so it isn’t replacing them with someone else. It’s like, okay, I know you guys are the nicest people in the world, I’ve known them for years, we’ve been working together, I know they’re capable, they just don’t see themselves through the lens that others are seeing us, and so that’s where I had to help, and again, that’s the security bar staff, you know, it’s been just staffing in general has been a huge struggle when you come down on immigrants like the way. That has been done, and you’re not allowing for a legal flow of immigration, right? You’re cutting off and pursuing those that are already here, but then not allowing a legal registry. Now you’re really short on labor. I had, we just posted a job for cooks, and usually over a dozen people would would come, three people replied, and none of them showed up. Like, how do you run a restaurant? It’s, it has really gotten terrible, and, and therefore you have to start plucking from other restaurants, and that’s a good way to find people, but you’re literally saying, I’m a Navy peer, I can pay you more, and I know what it’s like, because at Be Kitchen, I can’t do that. I can’t pay something. I can’t go out and say, I’m sure I’ll give you 2020-$2, an hour to do the dishes, like, but that’s what’s kind of.. that’s what’s the reality of for businesses like mine. You can’t find enough. I am literally.. we just had a conversation yesterday where we’re gonna have to reduce the menu, because we don’t have enough staff in the kitchen to support the expanded menu. It’s the reality, you cope and you adjust, but one of the things you mentioned earlier that you would ask about is what were surprises in my in doing this, and I’m going to shift gears a little bit, because he quickly thought about it, I’m like, politics, I’ll go back 30 years, so people aren’t like, oh, you’re just anti this or that, but 30 years ago, Daly put it in his head, well, it was true, there were 5000 liquor licenses in Chicago, and he was embarrassed by that number, but there were this is 30 years ago, you gotta remember Wrigley didn’t really have any bars, it was Wrigleyville, was not Wrigleyville, and there were a lot of people wanting to do that, but then that would mean issuing more licenses, so his philosophy was, whenever there’s an opportunity, let’s take them away, especially the neighborhood ones, that’s where he really targeted the mom and pop, the ones have been there forever on the side streets that are surrounded by neighbors, and I get the logic, but if you caught in crossfires, like we, like I was 28 years ago, it’s like they sent out.. I didn’t know the city had so many departments, the Department of Environment, sure, I knew they had a building department, but I didn’t realize how many factions of the building department, there were, and that they could all show up at one time. The fire department, like I was friendly with our fire department. I sold them the notice that I got, like that came from downtown. I’m like, I don’t even know what that means. You’re the fire department, like I’ve never.. it didn’t come through us. That’s telling you that came from downtown politics. Politics is the most surprising aspect of being in business, because the decisions that they make impact us on a day-to-day basis. You put tariffs on imported goods, or all my seafood is imported, so not only is my cost of labor going through, my cost of goods are going through the roof, and this is all just within the last year and a half, like I was looking at 2020 beginning of 2025 like this is gonna be great. We did so well in 24 the economy was strong, like there was no reason to think that we’re gonna take a 20% drop, but all my businesses dropped, that’s sales part of it, but then the expenses went up, like it’s like this perfect storm, and it’s been, but it’s, but it’s true. Politicians decide where we live, like the neighborhood I live in is because I know it’s safe, you know. I live in the city, I, the schools, it’s a great local school, like, and that’s all political decisions that are made at a local level, state level, and national level impact how we survived COVID because of the grant. It was a Save Our Stages grant, is what it was nicknamed. We led that effort, me and the other venue owners. I was talking joking about how we’re frenemies. We came together, formed an organization named Civil Chicago Independent Venue League created a national group once COVID hit, because we knew we had to, we had to campaign for this nationally, and then campaigned for this grant that is officially called SVOG Shuttered Venue Operator Grant, and the music venues advocated for this, so Live Nation didn’t get a bite out of that app. It was only meant for independent venues, but theaters got the benefit of it as well. Bowling out, for some reason, they got it. Movie theaters, this was a big, big grant, a $10 billion grant that we could all access, and it truly floated us through Covid. Many of us, most of us would have, would be gone if it hadn’t been for that grant, but again, that’s a political decision that allowed us to sustain ourselves. Most of the decisions they make go against us, but for Chicago, I grew the. Most after Daly left, and before this current administration, from Rob to Life, I was able to grow and expand. They had very little political opposition. In fact, I had a lot of support. Get to know your alderman, get to know your alders, try to get to know the mayor, but know who you’re surrounded by, because you’re going to need them, and that would be if there’s one thing I can offer people, it’s just like, don’t, don’t think politics is just something that doesn’t interfere, it interferes all the time, and it has an enormous impact, and you have to work

Heather Bennett  30:38

it, yeah, and that’s, you know, consistent with a lot of business owners across a lot of industries. There’s a lot going on right now. All right, so basically, you’re being, you’re convincing people it may not be the best idea to start a restaurant, so in so many words, but we’ll, we’ll get to a different viewpoint of this, how so? Given that you have been a trendsetter, and you’re definitely what I would call an industry disrupter for restaurant business, for music venues, for hospitality, what? What do you see changing in the hospitality industry, in the restaurant industry going forward?

Robert Gomez  31:20

Oh, wow, so there’s only so much you can charge a customer, right? I mean, with all these costs going up, it’s hard to.. I want to believe that it’s temporary, but if there isn’t.. if they don’t get their heads together and come up with a way to allow immigration in a legal form, you know, whatever your politics are like. Then make it a work visa, just get the bodies in here, so that we don’t have to keep charging more and more and more, and fewer and fewer people. It works, it backfires. So, I don’t know, I don’t know how to navigate this in a way that is sustainable. I’m literally negotiating with Navy Pier. The lease, I’m like, I’m.. this has been a very, very difficult window, and I didn’t anticipate it. There was no reason to anticipate this a year and a half ago. You know, Art Smith is a famous chef. He’s here on Navy Pier. They’re struggling just because you have a famous name behind it. That certainly helps. It gets you your Instagram following, and people will pay more attention to your business if you do have somebody of some off of some TV show. We’re doing it more grassroots, like I’ve always done, and people are loving our food and responding really, really well to it, kind of winning customers over one at a time, but I don’t know what to, I would wait at the very least wait until things stabilize, because this isn’t a sustainable time. Had I seen this coming, I wouldn’t have opened this to be impossible,

Heather Bennett  33:03

but I mean, thinking about you, you’ve obviously been doing this for four decades, so there’s a certain sense of resiliency and grit that it takes to last that long in this industry, so I have no doubt that you’re going to get through it. Okay, so we’ll flip the question. What are you excited about this next year for your business?

Robert Gomez  33:28

You’re catching me at the key time. I’m excited that the season is finally here. Winters are rough for all my businesses. Nobody comes in Navy Pier, so it’s a rough road, you know. But you know the season is coming, and here we are, Memorial Day, so I’m looking forward to it being a better year than last year. You know, we’re smarter, we’re doing things to help adapt to the situation, but I am excited about this season, and to really really rock it, so that we can buffer next winter, but that’s always the case. It’s cyclical. It’s always been like that. It was just more surprising some level of shock the past year. So we’re smarter now. I’m looking forward to getting through this more successfully than last year,

Heather Bennett  34:26

and definitely, you know, I’m excited to hear how many different ways you’re approaching serving the customers through all the different venues and the festivals and the different restaurants, and like I said, you’ve been doing this for decades, so clearly you’ve found a way to make this work, which is really exciting. I have one last question, but before I ask, I ask, I want to point people to your website specifically, we’ll say Beatkitchen.com or to reach out to you through LinkedIn, or honestly, I. I want to encourage people to simply go try visit your locations, so be kitchen, be kitchen cantina, Bar Sol, you know, Navy Pure, subterranean, underbar, and of course, at the festivals, as you said, we’re starting the season, and with any tourist-focused timing and seasonality, it is very fun to be right at the beginning of that season, and to see what’s going to happen, but it’s a good time. I think it’s going to be a good year. I could feel it. So, final question, what is one hard lesson that you’ve learned over the years? I know you’ve tried, but like beyond that, we’ll say maybe something in the financial range, something that you didn’t expect when you were growing and developing all of these restaurants and locations.

Robert Gomez  35:53

Well, I guess the lesson that I can offer is equity. It’s kind of. it’s interesting, because you know, 30 years ago, and then 20 years ago, I bought the buildings that Subterranean and B Kitchen are in, and the equity of those properties have helped me grow, and, including purchasing a few apartment buildings, so, and when you’re looking at opening a bar or restaurant, you’re not thinking equity, you know, you’re not thinking about that at all. But that’s been an important piece. Having said that, my businesses downtown, where I’m renting, are more profitable, but so you know, I guess I have a nice balance of both, and that equity is always something I can turn to when needed, and so it’s, it’s critical. I just did it to build out here on Navy Pier, tapped into one of my buildings, and took out a construction loan, if you will, a line of credit for it. So I think that’s an important piece of the path to give yourself that sense of security, equity is a key piece of it.

Heather Bennett  37:08

Absolutely, and I found that with talking to business owners, some of the most surprising ways to build a business come through interesting equity or partnership relationships, and definitely real estate. There are a lot more ways to utilize real estate to help grow a business than people understand, both before, like, while building the business, but even after you exit. It’s very interesting to think about the fact that it takes money to run a business, but where that money comes from can be many, many different, many different ways, many different people, which is important. So

Robert Gomez  37:44

you mentioned partners, pick them very carefully. If you’re like me, you’re going to end up doing the bulk, if not 100% of the work, and you still have this partnership. There needs to be to your point of the show, an exit strategy, if that is the case, someone needs to be able to take over. I lucked out that they literally disappeared, and I just, I just ran it. It’s just over over time, their shares, but they still, our shareholders are minimal now. That was some creative financing there, but you know it’s I would not have expected back to surprises that my principal and best partner was a cook, started out as a cook, but he by far has been the ideal part, and not from an equity standpoint, that’s that’s my role, but from getting it done, whatever it is, is going to get it done, and so it’s been, that’s been a life changer. Now, his son is my chef, you know, so it’s like, like family, it truly is. We’re family, that’s that’s been great, much different than previous partnerships that I’ve had.

Heather Bennett  39:06

That says so true. I talk all the time about finding the right people to do this with, because it’s not – this is not an easy industry. Growing any, building any business from scratch is not easy, but if you have someone to go with you on that journey and help you. It makes a huge difference.

Robert Gomez  39:26

Absolutely, it’s impossible to do all of us by ourselves. Literally impossible.

Heather Bennett  39:33

I’ve been talking with Robert Gomez, founder and owner of Beach Kitchen, and so many more impressive venues, and I’m guessing he’s not done building great places for people to enjoy their time and have great food and enjoy terrific music. Robert, thank you so much for sharing your experience and journey. Thank you for building these amazing locations and for sharing these experiences with Chicago and the world beyond. Appreciate.

Robert Gomez  40:00

Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk with you. I really appreciate

Outro 40:08

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