#94: Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug)

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [00:00:00]:

As a restaurant owner, you can never take for granted, you know, the people that support you and make you know, allowed me to make the food that we make, and and it taught me just the biggest lesson that I would I would always wanna use, you know, his would and local food and support people in my community. Because that's really the most meaningful thing. Let's discover the Cleveland entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:31]:

We are telling the stories of its entrepreneurs and those supporting them. Welcome to the lay of the land podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern. And today, I had the pleasure of speaking with chef Doug Katz. For the past 25 years, Doug has focused on creating fulfilling experiences for Clevelanders to enjoy. As chef and owner of Zug, Jimmy, and Amber here in Cleveland, his driving purpose is to spread joy through meaningful experiences and shared passion. Doug is also a chef and partner of provenance at the Cleveland Museum of Art as well as the former chef and owner of Fire, Food, and Drink which operated in Shaker Square for more than 20 years. Doug is passionate about using fresh, high quality ingredients with integrity, and throughout his career has been celebrated for his unwavering support of local farmers and food artisans. He advocates nationally and internationally for sustainable healthy in local food systems, and frequently consults with media and civic leaders on local food initiatives. He's an advisor for seeds of collaboration tahini and smart soda. He also serves as a chef ambassador for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program, which promotes environmentally responsible fishing and fish farming, and he is also a consultant for perfectly imperfect produce, which aims to reduce food waste and improve healthy food access. He also serves on the board of the countryside in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and has held leadership positions with destination Cleveland and Cleveland Independence, an organization of 90 locally owned restaurants that nurtures and promotes local independent restaurants. Esquire magazine named Zug, 1 of America's best new restaurants in 20 20. And back in 2014, the prestigious James Beard Foundation nominated Doug for Best chef of the Great Lakes region. Doug's passion for his work is genuinely inspiring. It's hard not to be a huge fan of Doug if you've gone to any of his restaurants and witnessed the care and attention he and his team provide to create the best experiences. I loved hearing about Doug's passion for food and his journey to become 1 of Cleveland's most renowned restaurant tours and chefs. Please enjoy my conversation with Doug Katz.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:55]:

So we were at a on the a few weeks ago for my birthday with my family and and my very loving and Court of mom did her very mom thing and and mentioned to you that I I run this podcast and that we should connect here to share your story. And so with with much gratitude to my mom, here we are. Sincerely, though, I I have been excited to to have you on for a while now as the creator of some of my favorite Cleveland experiences and home to to some of my favorite Cleveland memories. So thank you very much for for coming on, Doug. Excited to to speak with you today. Thank you. I'm excited to connect. Appreciate it. Awesome. So I think there's a there's a lot to cover here with with your breath of experience in in in food here in Cleveland, but I I'd love to start with, you know, maybe the the origin story, if you will, and, you know, where you developed a a passion for food and and kinda, you know, take us through that that journey.

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [00:03:54]:

So let's see. When I was about 7. I remember my brother often saying to people as as he would introduce himself or or people would ask him class and he was my older brother, about 2 years older. He would they'd ask him what he was going to do when he grew up, and he would always say he wanted to be a chef. And I think I liked that answer, and I used to say that myself just sort of copying what he said. And I think for me, it stuck. For him, it didn't. So back then, I sort of just I think I was able to prepare my whole life to be a chef because I kept telling people that's what I was going to do. And so I started eating immediately a lot. You know, every food experience is what I remember. Every food that I ate at that age, and I just started eating whatever was in the refrigerator to the point of excess. But I certainly got a I think an understanding of all food at that age because of all of the food that I did eat. I was not in the sports. I was you know, I came home and I, you know, just raided the fridge and I would sit and watch television and my mother was an amazing cook and she would take cooking classes, and she would share that experience and her passion for those experiences with us at the dinner table. My father at that age also, he was into his garden. We had a little we had a house in in Shaker, and he we had this little garden that was maybe, I don't know, 10 feet by 4 feet and that he would just work on all season. He would, you know, pick out his seeds, and he would plant them, and he even created this piping system that he drilled holes into connected into our hose so that he could water his plants. He had tomato plants and cucumbers and peppers and basil, and he had these little apple trees. And literally, it was such a small space, but he just maximized the yard. He also planted flowers all over the yard. So he was always outside, you know, working in the yard. But at the harvest time or, you know, during the later summer, he would always bring in his vegetables, and he was so proud. And he pickled his vegetables, and he would they'd slice the tomatoes and salt them and serve them with our hamburgers. We'd make tomato salads with the basil. He would pickle the peppers and the tomatoes and the cucumbers. So always sort of using that food. But at the same time too, you know, all I think about is my mother cooking, and we would sit at the dinner table. We would finish this huge dinner, and then we would always talk about, okay. What are we going to have for dessert? So we'd go up to the corner where there was this amazing doughnut shop, and we would get doughnuts and bring them home and eat those. And, you know, every memory I have is a bad eating, pretty much. Yeah. Live live tea. I think they really instill bed interest

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:44]:

at a very early age. Wow. So I'm gonna get very hungry through this conversation. I just realized. At at what point in your love of food did it turn from a love of food to an interest in cooking?

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [00:06:58]:

Yeah. I would make breakfast with my father on Sundays, and I would do you know, I would make I'd help my mother with dinner, My mom had cookbooks everywhere, and I would sit and I'd read through the books and backing up a little bit. You know, my mom, as a reward to my brother and I at an early age, she's said to us that 1 time we were allowed to pick a day and stay home from school and make a dinner for the family. And I still remember being able to do this, and I was so excited that I don't even remember what year this was. But we planned out the menu, and we read through the through the cookbooks and wrote the recipes and went shopping. Of course, the day that I was I had chosen to do this, I woke up and I was sick and I had the flu or something, and I wasn't really able to do any of it, so my mother ended up doing it. But I think she just made it so fun, you know, that that cooking experience, and it's it started me up. So at around 15 years old, I tried to get a restaurant job. I went to Zach Brule. He had a restaurant called Z contemporary cuisine. Which was in Shaker Heights at the Tall Office Building by Van Aiken. And I went there, and he said, well, what experienced have and what you know? And he I had no experience, and he said, well, I'm not hiring you with no experience. You have to go get some experience. And so I went and I went to a play called Suje, which was a sushi bar in Cleveland Heights that I also knew about, and I love their food. And I talked to Hiroshi Suji, who was the owner who currently now owns hopefully, I said it was Shojiro, and now he owns a restaurant called Shuhay. And so I went there, and I asked him for work, and he hired me. And I was able to be a busboy. And the best part of that job was every night at the end of the night, I would watch all the sushi platters. And any extra sushi in the sushi bar, I was able to eat the leftovers while I was while I was while I was while me, Sue. She tries and then at the end of the night, the whole restaurant staff would sit down to a meal when everyone in that kitchen would prepare an element of that meal. And so we had steak and rice and kimchi and all of these different things that the staff would make, and I just felt like such an adult and so independent. And I just loved it. But, of course, I still wanted to work for Zach at Z. And so after about a year, I went back to him and I said, now I have experience. Can I work here? And he hired me and loved that experience walking around this restaurant and there was so much energy in the kitchen and so much energy in the dining room and people would come and eat this food and just loved him and loved this experience. And he did such an amazing job, and his food was pristine and delicious and I think it just inspired me to always, you know, wanna do that too for myself and have a restaurant. But as I was doing that, I still was little bored and wanted to do something other than my homework. And so I would read through the cookbooks, and I thought to myself, I should start a catering business of some kind. So I would read through the books, and I wrote out menus. And my parents would entertain their friends and have them over, and I would cook for them and Then 1 of my parents' friends decided to have a dinner party at their house, and I asked if I would do a party for them, and he had a wine cellar. And And at 16 years old, he asked me if I could research all of his wines, you know, the ones that he chose for this dinner. And pair the the wines with food and to do and do a multicore dinner for him and his wife. Course, I never asked him how much he would pay me or anything. I just was so excited to do this. And so spent about 2 weeks researching the wines and prepared a menu. Ended up doing the meal, prepared everything in my mom's kitchen, and they, you know, helped me get it over to the house and I had a couple friends help me do the dinner. And at the dinner was a a food writer who was she wrote for Friday magazine, which is part of the Cleveland playing dealer at the time. She wrote an article about the dinner and said how great it was. And so from that article, people started to call me and say, would you do a dinner at my house? And so I started catering in high school. And at first, it was maybe once a month, I would do a party or maybe once every 2 months. And then it just was so fun to do this, and I hired my friends to help. And by the end of my senior year, I had done a wedding for about 90 people in Brat and all for this woman who and I had my parents helped me bring all the food, and I had probably 10 people helping me in the kitchen. And just I think really gained confidence that I could do this. And then I went to college. I went to the University of Denver for town restaurant management, and would come home in the summers and let people know that I was going to be catering again, and I would book the the weekends for those summers before I got home, and I would ask my friends if they could help. And so I really just started a business for myself and just was so I I just loved that independence, and I felt like I was a real adult. Yeah. Oh, that's incredible. I mean, you were really able to start to take it seriously quite quite young. For sure. And, you know, I think at first, you know, I I had a real battle with food, I think. And I still, you know, I feel like finally, I'm able to manage that battle, you know, through my weight, but I I was always a kid who 8 and 8 and 8 to fill myself up, and I think it was something that wasn't so healthy. And I think throughout my career in food, I've really learned to address that. And it's I've made it such a positive, I think, through my career that has really helped me turn that around for myself.

Jeffrey Stern [00:12:26]:

So at at what point in your experience with catering do you begin to you know, think about, you know, wanting to start a restaurant, you know, a destination, a place for people to to go.

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [00:12:39]:

So I think the catering experience you know, I I forgot 1 important story. My parents, my dad had a roommate from college who came to visit, and they were taking their son to Cornell for hotel and restaurant management school. And I was probably 12 at the time, and they stayed with us. And and my parents told me he was going to hotel and restaurant management school, and I thought, oh my gosh. There's a school where you can go work in a hotel or work in a restaurant. That was so cool. And so I always thought that at the back of my mind. And, you know, knowing that when I was applying for colleges, I at the University of Denver and Michigan State, so all hotel and restaurant management programs. So I knew I was going to start there, but I ultimately knew I wanted to go to culinary school at the culinary Institute of America, and I'd always sort of thought of this. I I had heard about the Culinary Institute, but I knew I wanted to go to college to really get a background in business as well because I knew important. If I wanted to open a restaurant, I was going to have to have that experience behind me. So I started the at the University of Denver. I went to school over the summer couple summers to finish a little bit early because I really wanted to go to the culinary toot and start that off as fast as I could. And so I finished in January of my senior year I just couldn't get there fast enough, I guess. And so once I got there, this was January. I was in Hyde Park, New York. I don't know if you've been in Hyde Park, New York in January, but it is the most depressing, the coldest, the most lonely, terrible place that you could be. But I was so excited to start culinary school, and I started in it felt so different than college. It was a much more vocational experience. Really a shocker to realize what I was going to be doing And the feeling you have in Upstate New York in January is really the feeling you have when you're in a kitchen. You just feel like you're sort of in this dungeon or in this no windowed room or, you know, you're and you're working and working and working so physical on your feet all day, and I have to say it gives you really the great perspective of being a chef because that is it it gave you that reality, which I think when I was in in college and I was doing these parties, you know, I was the the movie star or I was the theater. You know, I was the star on the stage. Now you realize what the job really is, which is peeling the vegetables as fast as you can and start paying these vegetables and cleaning up the whole kitchen and mopping the floor on your hands and knees and and getting yelled at by the chef and all of these things, which still didn't diminish my passion for it. But you really get a taste of what the business is about and how important it is to work hard and and as someone who really wanted to be liked by everyone. And, you know, I was in the perfect career for myself, but it was 1 of those challenging eye opening experiences starting culinary school. And then after culinary school, I moved out to Portland, Oregon, had read through some of the trade magazines, and there was a restaurant opening I had known of this chef. His name was Corey Schreiber, and he owned a restaurant in San Francisco. And I had heard about how he had this restaurant with Tandoor ovens in it, and he made amazing food. He was written up in Food Arts Magazine, which at that time was just this really great magazine. Talked about what all the chefs were doing and he was moving back to his hometown in Portland, opening this really cool neighborhood restaurant with an open kitchen with wood fired equipment. So he had a tandoor oven, and he had a pizza wood burning pizza oven, and and it said that it was opening about a month after I graduated. So I wrote him a letter, he called me back. He said, you're welcome to move out to Portland, but I don't really hire people from across the country. Know, you have to come out here to Portland, Oregon. And, you know, if you're willing to come out here, you know, I'll interview you. And if you're right for the team. I'll hire you. And so, of course, I did that. And he hired me for, I think, 8 dollars an hour after culinary school, which I thought was really great. The restaurant was finishing up. I was so excited because it was a new restaurant, and we got to unpack all the pots and pans. And we had all these training sessions and just felt like that, you know, what I loved about catering was, like, I was just so independent, and I was able to work in this cool restaurant that was getting all this, you know, with this really famous chef and loved the menu, and he showed us how to make all the dishes, and I got to work the pizza oven. You know, I would say there, I really learned about local food. We out in Portland, there's an island called Sobeys Island where they grow a lot of the produce. So we would have vendors come to the back door with arugula. They we would have fishermen who would load, like, a whole halibut on the top of their car and had 11PM. Someone would not on the restaurant on the kitchen door and say, would would you like this halibut? And the chef would look at it and buy the halibut or you know, the berries or all these different things. It was so unique to me because at the time in Cleveland, you know, when I was growing up, there wasn't really that opportunity to buy local food. And so it was exciting to see that connection and the passion that that kitchen had. And so I worked there for about 2 years. 1 of the best parts about this job is you can move to the best places in the world. And so I picked up and I, you know, I gave notice, picked up and moved to Aspen, Colorado beginning of a ski season and and they always hired people at the beginning of the ski ski season. So that was a really you know, whereas Portland taught me a lot about local food and and just simple food and using the equipment and the local ingredients. Cooking and Aspen, you know, there's you rely on the airplane flights and the trucks that will bring you your food. And if the the roads close or if there's huge snow storms, things like that, you can't really get food. So the chef at this hotel was really focused on the dishes. They're the menu items that he created. He would put, like, 20 items on a plate, and it was just this most beautiful designed plate and so many components to the plate. But it wasn't really about the local tomato or the local -- Right. Right. -- cucumber or any of that. It was much more about what can I do to just make this plate look the most, you know, so beautiful? So I did that for another 2 years, and then I thought it was time to move out of that and come back to Cleveland. And I really was on a visit to Cleveland. Not sure what I was going to do, whether I would move to another city, but I decided to interview with these 2 guys who were opening a restaurant in Beachwood called Moxie. And those guys had owned 1 of the best restaurants in Cleveland called Lopez Y Gonzales. They also owned Cafe Brio. They were the restaurant guys in Cleveland. I mean, they They just did such a great job. They were really snoozy, had great food, and just always remembered them from my childhood just growing up that they were the the restaurant people in Cleveland. I set up an interview to meet them, and we had a great discussion. And I think then they asked me to do a tasting for them, and so they had owned AAA catering business in a hotel at the Embassy Suites. And so I went there to prepare the food, and they did had a group of about 8 people come to the hotel and I put out all the food for the tasting, and they loved the food and wanted me to be the chef. And this was going to be a 220 seat to run, it was 9000 square feet. It wasn't built out yet. It was 1 of these things I wasn't really sure I could handle, and I was not really prepared to do it, and they said that they really wanted me to, and they would give me all the support. And not many people probably go to an interview and try and talk people out and hiring them, but I tried to do that. But they kept saying, no. We really want you to do this, and it ended up that I just did it, and I kept moving forward. I created the menu and the prep sheets and, you know, help them design the kitchen. You know? So it was just an unbelievable experience, and I was so lucky to work under them to them. Is Brad Treblender and Craig Summers. Worked there for about 2 and a half years, had an amazing sous chef, had an amazing team, loved the experience, but I was really worked being hard for them, and I was really excited to have my own place at a certain point. And so in 2000, had read an article that these developers were redoing Shafer Square. Shafer Square was a nostalgic place for our family. I mean, my again, my parents would talk about going there when they were little, and it was just this great shopping district that had, like, an FAO Schwarz there, and they had Higbee's and I think all these you know, it was sort of this they talked about it as it was the best place in the world and there was, you know, even tree lighting every year and just felt like a really great great community. And so these people were renovating the whole square, putting about 30000000 dollars into it, and I thought that's where I wanna open my restaurant. I met the landlord there, and I told him he said, what kind of restaurant are you gonna do? And thought of all my experiences, and I had always dreamed of having my own I certainly I could tell them easily that I wanted this open kitchen, that the kitchen was gonna be the centerpiece of the space, that you know, I love the windows that looked out onto Shaker Square. You could see the rapid transit running through it and the historic buildings, and I could just visualize the patio, and we are gonna do brunch and lunch and Of course, I was gonna put a tandoor oven as the centerpiece of the kitchen because I had worked with that in in Portland, and we had a pizza oven as well where we were gonna do pizza. And just really, you know, could visualize the whole thing, and they were really excited about it. Luckily, got my father and my father-in-law to give me some money to started up, but I had saved a lot of my money from my jobs, you know, from babysitting onward. So I was able to put some money into it as well. And my my my wife and I would sit with the architect every week, and we would talk to him about, you know yeah. He would present us with a plan, and we would dissect it and talk about how well, maybe we do this. Maybe we do this. And how do we fit all this together? And we put a party room in so we could do little parties it was just the most fun process and just to sort of sit in this space and see it come to life. And then we started building out the space and it became the biggest nightmare of my life because you needed a construction degree, which I had no idea I needed. Every week, there was some issue oh, we needed to do a new sewer line, and we didn't know that because we didn't know we until we uncovered it in the floor or the pizza oven couldn't fit through this store. So all of these things where I thought I had laid out a budget perfectly, and I've done all this work to really prepare myself you know, every week, there were challenges and and issues. But, of course, you know, as I learned on my overnights and in culinary school and all the hardships, you know, I think that it prepared me to take all of this in and just roll with the punches and and do it. And finally, we were able to open and June of 2001. Really just I had a great team, and people have just loved it from the start. It was very simple. Cooking as I would tell my wife she would always listen to what I how I'd explain the food. And she said, that is not simple, but I always thought it was simple. But And I have the original menus, and I think to myself, wow. That was super simple because as the years went on, it got more complex.

Jeffrey Stern [00:24:10]:

Yeah. Wow. What a what a journey. So you always had in mind that you wanted to start your own restaurant. I feel like as you you went to these different places, Were were you approaching those experiences in kind of an explicit apprenticeship kind of way, like, to learn and and just absorb as much as you could? Or was it just kind of serendipitous, the opportunities as they arose, or was it always with this end in mind that, you know, I'm going to start my own place someday?

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [00:24:41]:

I think it always was in my mind that I was going to open my own restaurant. What was my dream restaurant? I think I thought of that every day, and I think I created my own luck and my own path. And though when I look back, there was much more intention than there actually was. I think that applying to colleges and applying to this internship and applying to this job, I sort of think because of my passion and because of you know, all the reading I would do or all the socializing and all the I think things just came to me and they seemed right, and so I would go after those opportunities. The and that sort of created my path. And I don't think that I really looked at any other paths. I I was very sort of specific to I'm moving to Portland, Oregon. Where am I gonna work? Going to the culinary institute as fast as I can. You know, I'm going to Boston. You know, there were I sort of knew and I knew I was going to only spend 2 to 3 years in a place because I really wanted to get on with what my ultimate goal, which was which was to open my own restaurant. So I think it seems like it was much more intentional than it actually was, and I think I'm very lucky that things worked out the way they did. But, yeah, I think it was all leading up to opening fire. But I think also along the way, I didn't know what I was going to learn. I didn't know that I was going to have a passion for the Tandor oven or for brunch from the Boston Harbor hotel or for this product or that product or loving to cut this vegetable or loving to use these local ingredients. I just sort of knew that you know, I was exploring, and there were certain things that I love doing. There were certain things I didn't, and the only way I knew was through that practice and through exploring and experiencing things. And so I think that's what the fire became the combination of all of that. All of those experiences. And even with Moxie, like, it was too big of a restaurant. I didn't like the largeness of it. So I I certainly you know, when I was going to open my own restaurant, it was much smaller and more intimate. It got a little bigger than I had anticipated because I realized through doing the financials that if it was too small, I wasn't going to be able to make it work. But, yeah, I think it just was through all of the time and all of the practice, and I was lucky to know so early what I wanted to do that it really helped me create a path for myself. Yeah. And fire was, you know, when I think of the menu, it wasn't I didn't set out to use local food. I set out to do a really quality job with the technique, and I wanted to educate all the cooks. And I wanted to show the cooks in Cleveland how to prepare food in a way that I hadn't really seen in Cleveland in the way that I had experienced my my education. And I really wanted to be the person who yeah. I was at Moxie, I was 1 of the youngest people in that kitchen. I hired people who are 50 years old. And they would work in that kitchen for 2, 3 weeks, and they'd say, why am I listening to you? Why are you telling me that that's the wrong way to do this? I've done this for 20 years. And I would say to them, you know, this is how we do it. And if you don't wanna do it, then you don't need to work here. But I just really knew what I wanted, and and I think I gained the confidence through that. But at Fire, I knew I wanted to have it be a teaching kitchen and and showcase the kitchen for the community and showcase how important the kitchen is in the restaurant experience. I don't think it had been done in that way at that time. As often. And 1 thing that I neglected, and I was lucky to hire a sous chef who really cared about this, you know, there's a farmer's market right outside my front door. And when I opened, the restaurant. I didn't really plan to use local food to the extent that we did eventually. And he really taught me every Saturday, he would go to the market, and he would bring back some, you know, products. He'd bring back apples or he'd bring back you know, cheese and things like this. And and I always just thought, you know, it's I love that he does he does that, but I just could never imagine using this food in the restaurant? Like, how are we going to have a farmer deliver this food? How I mean, do they have more than 3 pints of apples? Do they have more than a pint of tomatoes or a jar of pickles or so but he would always do this, and I just thought it was so great. And so we worked on that. And the first product that we bought from the market was Firewood because I felt that that was the most consistent. That was the thing that I didn't have to worry about I didn't have to worry if it went bad. You know, it was something that we really needed because we we had this tandoor up, and then we would light the fire every day. And it was a fun story to be able to tell people that we bought that. And we bought some other products too when the strawberries would come out or the asparagus. We would do certain specials and use that product. But, really, my love for local food came from the wood purchasing when I was maybe 6 months into purchasing the wood, we got onto a schedule where every 3 weeks, we would get our wood delivery from Ray, the wood guy. And he would come to our back door with his wife and his daughters, and they would all, you know, unload the truck and bring the wood into our basement and it was just this process I sort of took for granted because it was like any other food delivery that we would get. They'd bring it to the door and we'd unload it and wasn't a big deal to me at the time. I was happy to support this guy because my sous chef really liked going to the market. And and then 1 day, he didn't show up. On Saturday, and we were down to maybe 5 pieces of wood. And as the owner, as this, you know, young guy who was like, you know, we I was really I wanted to make sure that all of our systems were in place and that everything was perfect, and I was sort of young chef. I wouldn't say I was a Yeller, but I was certainly someone who wanted everything. I was the control freak chef. So he didn't deliver the woods. So I called. He didn't I called again. He didn't answer. Literally, every 5 minutes I was calling, I left messages. He didn't call me back. This is Saturday. We had to go buy wood from a grocery store just to have enough wood for that night. Sunday, I call him. Monday, I call him. No response. Tuesday, he comes to my door with the wood delivery, and I'm so angry and just can't believe that he didn't call me and I say, Ray, what happened? And he's with his daughter. And I I get a I actually get a little emotional about this because he tells me that his wife was hidden ahead on collision on Saturday and died. And it immediately made me realize how as a restaurant owner, you can never take for granted, you know, the people that support you and make you know, allowed me to make the food that we make and and it taught me just the biggest lesson that I would I would always wanna use, you know, his wood and local food and support people in my community because that's really the most meaningful thing. And if I'm gonna feed people and you know, nurture people. You know, it's it's a sort of a cyclical thing that, you know, for me to have not, like, taken that relationship for granted and to think that he wouldn't have shown up with our delivery, you know, or that, you know, I would think that, you know, I just I couldn't believe that I had I was so heartless. And so he really just taught me you know, that I needed to care about every person, you know, in that, you know, restaurant and anyone who bought, you know, we bought food from and I think it instilled that in everyone who worked for me, and it created the fulfillment, I think, for me and my restaurant. And it also, to this day, I mean, we talk about pet story all the time when I tell people that -- Yeah. All the time. I don't always get this emotional about it, but something about that, it just always sticks with me. And I think that's what I need to instill on all the people that work for me. Our jobs and our workplaces and our lives, we I think take those things for granted. And I think as a restaurant, our job is to offer hospitality and to you know, offer this place where people can have fun and same and the employees, you know, offering them a place that's supportive and So I think that was probably the biggest lesson that I learned, you know, even more than skills in culinary school was to really just treat people with respect and to care where our food came from and to, you know, always, you know, be supportive, you know, and know that the business can't, you know, take you know, can't be more important than the the community and the people that make it all happen.

Jeffrey Stern [00:33:45]:

Yeah. Wow. That's that's a powerful.

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [00:33:48]:

But that drove me. I mean, honestly, after that point, I could not buy enough local product. I didn't care if I made a profit. I didn't and, honestly, it showed through fire. Like, we would buy it from farms, and we would go have our employ you know, our employee party at 1 farm, and we would you know, go to another farm and learn about this. And every you know, we would have field trips and learn about local food. And it was the most fulfilling experience in such a you know, it's a place where people may have left there, but, you know, always you know, if you were an employee there and, you know, you're someone who stayed a bit. I mean, even if it was really, really hard or you left because you may have had really bad days or, you know, to move on. I mean, people always just look back. I I it, and I think they look at it as a treasure opportunity for themselves. And I'm so proud that we were able to create that as sort of our flagship place and certainly wasn't without its challenges. We had fire there and we had, you know, all different things. So fire it was always busy. You know, we we actually had our ups and downs in terms of business. Shafer Square went through some rough times. The the landlord handler, it back to the bank at 1 time, and my wife and I ended up running our merchant association for a while. Stores closed. It was sort of AAA rough time. We had to close for lunch. We had to fire some of our staff because we just didn't have the income. That was in year 3 or 4, and we really learned, I think, how to run a business more effectively, more fiscally, responsibly at that point. But we were able to rebuild, and we had a big catering business that we would run out of our fire kitchen to really maximize our income. But it was getting too big, and we needed to find another space. And so it happened that this diner was available in Cleveland Heights that had been 7 different businesses. And I read an article that it was owned by this bank, I knew they had a kitchen in there because I had been in there, and so I asked to see it and it had the most amazing kitchen. It was, like, a great catering kitchen. And so I offered the bank the lowest amount you could think of, and they accepted it because no 1 else wanted this building. But it was perfect for me because I needed just this kitchen. And so we got an architect in, and we decided to reopen the diner side as a cloud sickle diner, and then there was another diner. So this was a 19 48 diner on 1 side, and then there was a 19 52 diner on the other side. We decided to make that diner a bar car, which was gonna be this really cool speakeasy bar with a lock door, and you'd ring the bell. And the bartender would buzz you in and he'd gone it was just, like, no windows to the outside, just this really sexy room with bank ads and really dark space, but really cool cocktails and just really fun. But that sort of supported we the catering business was in the kitchen, but then we had the diner during the day and when we had the bar car running at night. Really fun idea. The diner and the bar car really never made great money. We were sort of trying to work that out over, like, you know, 18 months we were open and we were really struggling because it just we didn't have enough seats in the diner, and then the bar car was a little too private, and people didn't necessarily use it or know about it effectively. But we kept trying to tweak it and make those work. And with catering, luckily, we're bringing up income in to support those businesses, but it was, you know, difficult. And I'd say after 2 years, we had finally sort of come up with a great menu that worked in the diner. We were really seeing our revenues increase, and the and the community was really supporting it. I had an employee who 1 night comes into the bar car, smashes the door open, pours alcohol all over the floor, and lights it on fire, and burns it to the garage. My wife and I get a call or I get a call from a security company saying that they got a fire alarm alert or something. And I had luckily, at that time, I had a On my phone, I had an app that showed me the diner, and I could see and I saw this haze of smoke in the -- Oh my god. -- in the visual. This was 4 in the morning, and I'm, like, freaking out. And I'm like, I've never seen this before. And so we've run up there, and luckily, I live about 5 blocks in the whole diner was in flames. Luckily, we had a video -- Wow. -- of the whole thing, and it showed what he had done, like, knocking out the cameras and It was you know? Well, obviously, that's traumatic. That's crazy. It was pretty traumatic, but at the same time, it was I think this business really taught me how to, you know, be a survivor, and I think I just looked at this as it was like losing electricity or having my cooler go down or, you know, the things that happen in the restaurant business, I think, prepare you for any emergency or any issue. And so I think I just when these things happen, I'm able to really be cool and calm and collected and and just go. And so we went through this process, and I think to this day, I think it still is just something that happened. And we got through it and we rebuilt, you know, we what we could, but the, you know, the bar car unfortunately burned to the ground. So we made that a garden. But our catering business was doing really great, and the we decided to close the diner. I rented to a coffee, concept called rising star coffee who now has the front space, and we just used it as a catering kitchen for the longest time. If I go back to fire, having the tender oven, I was able to we we've used it for roasting meats and fish. That was our main focus, and we cooked some Indian some in that oven, but we really didn't ever use it for Indian cooking in the first few years. But my kids went to school with an Indian student, when they were 3, they're now 19, and they their mom had us for dinner, and she made the most amazing Indian food. And So I said to her, would you come to fire and do a dinner? We have a Tandor oven. This was in, like, 2004 or something. And she said she would, and I said, well, we could have a small dinner in our party room. I'd love it if you, you know, help me create a menu, and we can do the production, and she was really scared because she had only really cooked for her family. I said we would, you know, help her through. And so we prepared the menu. We started marketing the dinner, and then 2 to 3 days, we not you know, we had about a hundred and 20 people who wanted to come to the dinner. And -- Wow. -- so I broke the news to her that it was a hundred and 20 instead of 20, and she was ready to, you know, kill me because she and I said, don't worry. We'll just produce all of this for you. I'm So over 3, 4 days, you know, she came into the kitchen and we learned how to toast and grind the spices and how to prep all the ginger and the tomatoes and the garlic and all of the different dishes. And we really transformed Fire's Kitchen into an Indian kitchen for the weekend, and it was so well received. We ended up doing several of these dinners over the years. And that's the backstory too. You know, once the diner had this fire, I was trying to think of other ways to utilize the diner. And so in addition to catering, I happen to be just home 1 day cooking you know, at my house, and I was making an Indian curry in 1 of my pops in the kitchen, and I was, you know, sorta I hadn't had coffee yet. I was just sorta the onions, the garlic, and the ginger, and I added my spices that I had toasted. And the smell just woke me up, and I just felt this euphoria of, like, you know, as I was cooking. And I thought, everyone asked me for recipes. Like, they always want to know how to make this and how to make that And I smelled this, and I thought to myself, this is what people want, really. They just want that magic of, like, they want to know that their house smells good, that the onion sateng and that's that sound and, you know, they have this beautiful pot and it's like they just want that's what they want. And so I thought if I could package this for people, you know, and sell this. This is what people really want. They don't really want me to give them my 3 page recipe on how to make something. They just want it to be sort of easy for them. So I created these spice and recipe boxes where we would toast and grind spices. We'd create we created 12 different spice blends 1 was Indian, 1 was Latin, 1 was South American, 1 was Jamaican, you know, all different using all different products. And on the back, of the boxes that have the ingredient list that you'd take you'd take the box to the store and you'd find all the ingredients you needed, and then you'd take the box and you'd have this recipe packet. I'm sorry. You'd have this recipe card, and then you'd have the spice packet, and you're able to just make that recipe, and it gave you all the Insta and all the equipment you needed, that kind of thing. It was super you know, some were simpler than others, but was really fun. And at the holiday time, I would do the holiday shows and people would buy these and give them a stocking stuffers and gifts for people. They were great for me to do cooking demos in the in the public realm and We had a website where people could order them online. And then at fire, we sold them as well. So when people came from out of town, they would buy them and take them back. And it was a great idea. It was something I had really a fun time doing. It helped us maximize the efficiency in the diner because the catering team really worked on the weekend, and so this gave them an opportunity to fill the spice packets and do all of that during the week. But it really was not you know, I learned that you have to sell so many of these, and you have to market them like crazy. You know, at the holiday time, you're gonna sell them, but you're not sell most of the rest of the year. So it was something that I just kept going for a while. But because of that experience, it really guided me to realized that I my next restaurants, I really wanted to have an more of an ethnic take on my restaurants and to really give people more of a global world experience. And fire had that little element, and as the years went on, we did dabble in Moroccan and Indian. And, you know, we added some and things to our menu that had some more of that those flavor profiles. We also did a lot more vegan and gluten free. Dishes at fire over the years, and those were really because of all the the hospitals and the diets in our community. You know, the the ethnic foods really lend themselves to those diets. And so all of that knowledge, as you talked about my culinary path, you know, all of this, it seems so and, you know, like, I had a plan, but I don't know that I really did. But I took all of the stuff that we were learning and combined it And though the Spice boxes didn't work, I did an analysis and I saw, okay. The Indian 1, the South American 1, and the Middle Eastern 1 were pretty popular. These were the ones that and so we really took those 3, and we thought to ourselves, okay. What should we do? And I'm Jewish. So the first, you know, 1 I thought of was to do this sort of Israeli style restaurant, which is now what Zug is. And also, of course, Indian was my first inspiration, but I was super scared to ever do an Indian place because I felt like it was so complex. And how could I do an Indian place. But, of course, that was popular, and that was another 1 I wanted to do. And South American was the third. So, of course, in March, of 20 20, the pandemic hit. Well, I I should take a step back. So, we decided we found a space in Cleveland Heights that was this small space. It wasn't going to take a ton of build out and money to do and thought it would be a perfect opportunity to open this Israeli concept. And so my business partner, Todd Knight, went to Israel on a food trip. And in a week, we went to about 80 restaurants and had the most amazing experience. A friend of ours lived there, and he showed us around. And though I knew some of the dishes and the foods that I wanted to do, it just really gave me a concrete idea of how I wanted the restaurant to feel and look and you know, the just I wanted it to feel like Tel Aviv and but I wanted it to be my take and definitely a fusion. And so we opened that in November of 20 19 and people loved it. And they loved the shareable small plates, and we really tested all of our foods for many months and really just felt like it was a home run-in terms of what we had created. And I'm lucky because I had a great team behind me who was able to take that time to help me do that. And they're still with me today, but we launched that. And then, of course, in March of 20 20, pandemic hit And we had the closed zoo, which was, like, going gangbusters just, like, crazy. And we had to close fire, and we didn't think we were gonna have to close for more than 8 to 12 weeks. We just sort of thought, you know, it was gonna be temporary, but it as we had that fire. And as we had all these trials and tribulations over the years, I mean, on March fifteenth, I went to the staff at fire, and I said we're gonna shut down. We feel that's the best thing to do. And -- Yeah. -- let's come back June first, and we'll, you know, reopen. And at Zug, I said, you know what? We're gonna close for in person dining, but this is a perfect concept to do for takeout and delivery, and we're gonna, you know, create this takeout delivery model just so that we can keep people interested in what we're doing, and I would do all the delivery because I have nothing else to do. And we had a great filmmaker who was our social media person at the time. And so she created these amazing videos and stories tried to make it really fun and positive even though we were going through the pandemic. And just every day, we would post and talk about how you know, we're delivering and we're doing this, and it just really built an excitement around what we were doing. And it was so great that we decided we have this time right now with you know, we're only running Zug. We weren't sure what was going to happen at Fire, and we decided this is the time to really explore the Indian concept and the South American concept. And so we actually named them. We created menus for them. 1 chimney, which is short for chimney churri, which was our South American concept. Yeah. Sort of a taco concept. And then the other was AMBA, which was our Indian inspired. And so we first launched Jimmy in June of that year using the diner kitchen because, of course, there was no longer any catering because no 1 was catering. We had cooks to the cavaliers for 3 years doing all of their food for their pre and postgame meals and for their airplane flights. I mean, we were just so busy with catering and, of course, all of a sudden, just stopped. And so we knew we had to do something to survive in that building. So we launched chimney in June. And what was great is Toast, our our platform that we used in the restaurant, was really helping us That platform just made it easy to get the orders online. We were able to deliver through that platform. Get all the, you know, the address information, all that kind of stuff. Right. Right. And it was super popular. We did that from June until October, and then in October, we launched Ooma. As a the ghost and these were ghost kitchens that we ran just out of the diner, and we would only do delivery and takeout. And we ran both of those for about a year and a half. And then we happened to find a spot for Amba in Ohio City. And the only reason we did that 1 first is because we were searching for a building and happened to find building with the tire mural on the side of it -- Yeah. -- which spoke to me about, you know, Indian, and we did a whole design for it. And I mean, I will say the pandemic was the hardest time in our lives. We closed fire permanently, you know, we decided to hire an architect and build out, you know, this and have this amazing designer who helped us with Zoom. To create it, and we opened AMBA last May. That was when we closed the ghost kitchens pretty much, and we're still looking for a spot for chimney. The journey has been long and and difficult, but also the most fulfilling career I could ever imagine. And I feel so lucky.

Jeffrey Stern [00:49:46]:

Yeah. We covered so much ground. Paul, for 1, just thank you for for sharing all this. I it's a it's an incredible journey. 1 thing I do wanna ask about related to all that is the overlap between, you know, restaurants and and food as kind of a culinary art and and the and the business side of it. Because it it just seems that it's very they're very parallel in a lot of ways, and it it's a lot about survival ship. But, you know, lessons that you learn from the kitchen that you think have helped in business and and how, you know, where where that can go both ways?

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [00:50:20]:

So I think when you're young, you think to be a business person, you you know, really it's all about what you learn in school and all the financials and all the you know, that education. But I think what it it truly is is about the confidence, the making decisions, caring for people, you know, really being you know, I always go back to the things you learned in kindergarten. You know, those to me are the most important things in business. Yeah. And I think it's all about your you know, your reputation, your character, your you know, you everything is about the steps, and, you know, you start here and you go the next step, next step, next step, next step, next step, next step, next step, step, and it's all about the practice to me. You know, you can't speed something up that isn't you know, you have to really take the time and you know, I tell people in the kitchen, it's about the 5000 bags of onions that you've peeled. It's not about, you know, knowing that you've peeled 10 and now of sudden, you can dice the onion. It's about roasting that chicken a thousand times or more. It's about making that curry you know, the thousand plus times. It's about talking to these guests every night and seeing their gestures and seeing the you know, it's about the detail and about noticing everything, really. When you're in it every day and you're immersed in it and you're part of the team and you're you're able to see the nuances, that's what teaches you the most. And when you're able to be a part of these catastrophic things that happen and you're able to get through those. And when you're able to get the accolades once in a while, and that helps you get through to the next thing. It's I think it's all about using every experience as a learning experience and not putting too much weight on the negative things that happen, but also, you know, and learning from everything that you can. And, you know, I mean, every customer that has ever told me, like, we did something wrong or we we undercooked their steak or overcook their steak or this was cold or, you know, this wasn't right. I mean, it, like, kills me for a month or a year or yeah. Whatever. And, I mean, I do everything I can to just win that person back, and I think that my success in business is about the humble, you know, side of myself and I don't ever wanna, like, leave a situation where there's any bad blood or you know, I always try and repair a situation. I always try and get through it. It doesn't mean that I'm you know, I haven't messed up some some situation or I haven't caused a huge problem, but I always you know, go back and I try and repair that or I try and address it. I never leave things open to faster because I just think you have to just come to terms with what happens and you have to address the mistakes and you have to know that you're gonna make them, But I'm also a perfectionist, and it's hard for me to not, you know, have things be perfect. And I think the people around me have taught me so much about the things that I don't have in myself, like being patient and being a part of the team and letting others you know, contribute, and it can't always be that perfection. And and even if I think it's perfect, it's not perfect. It's just what I see. So I think letting other people in and letting other people drive the ship and support. And to be honest, like, I think this year has really shown me you know, I I have this team who you know, I can tell you there's someone who's been with me for 16 years and 14 years and 12 years and 10 years, and those are the key people on my team. When I look back and I think, like, at 2 years, I wasn't sure this person was gonna make it. And then at 3 years and a 4 and it's to think that I've had this longevity with these people. That is the only reason that I feel like I'm a success in business, and it's about that team. And to people, you know, that are in our community that support us. And in business, I think it's it's a grind. And I think my entire life have I've had those grinds, and I think that that has made me strong enough to be able to deal with anything that comes my way, but also to stick with these things and to always look at that bright side and to always be positive because there's always going to be a bright side, and there's always gonna be a negative. And I could focus on all the negatives, but I know that that negative is gonna lead to something positive or I'm gonna be able to change it around and make it a positive, that's gonna make everyone's life in my business and my, you know, career so much better if I can help people do that for themselves and help people do that within our business.

Jeffrey Stern [00:55:09]:

Yeah. That all resonates. I'm I'm curious how you've thought about this difference between, you know, the the chef's, like, creative expression -- versus the cook's, you know, practice of the the skills, the requisite skills.

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [00:55:27]:

My job in the business, I think, is that visionary and that person who offers that excitement and that, you know, it's in my head to create Zug, and I think it's important for me. I mean, people I drive people crazy when I'm with them. The ones who are part of my team because I just am talking and talking and talking about these things and dissecting them and and I think I wanna get what's in my brain out into my team's mind, and I think everyone on my team sees things differently. And so when I'm able to share that with Cameron, who's my chef in the kitchen, who's much more systematic and organized and understands you know, how to get he's, you know, he's I'm the visionary. He's the architect. I'm the sort of dreamer person who's like, this is what I wanna build. And then he figures out how to build it. And then Todd, who's my director of operations or he now he's my business partner. He's the 1 who operationally puts it all into play. And then Phoebe, who works with Todd, really takes you know, what Todd sort of sees as the organizational structure, and she really drills into each area and helps communicate that to the employees. And then I'm always sort of there with the customers and with the chefs and with Phoebe and Watad, and I'm always reminding them of the important things that I see in my head, like, you know, with the food or the you know, and I'm always thinking about the guest, you know, perspective on these things, and I'm really the representative of the guest. And the person who's coming in. But I think when all of these people when we're all in sync and we all understand everyone's role, I hit them with every angle of these ideas that they really can own it for themselves and bring the operational ability or, you know, they bring those ideas to fruition.

Jeffrey Stern [00:57:27]:

I'm very interested in getting your perspective on is, you know, maybe taking a a step back and up from the, you know, your individual contributions to to the space, just how you are thinking more generally about, like, the evolution of the Cleveland food scene and and, you know, where we are as a as a city as it relates to, you know, our offerings where we do really well, where you think, you know, there are areas we could do better. And just your your whole perspective on on the Cleveland food scene.

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [00:57:57]:

That's a that that'll be a long answer, but not like any others haven't been I think if I start back to when I opened fire as my restaurant, I was always craving that restaurant that really taught people who wanted to be chefs and wanted to be cooks in the kitchen who really wanted that Yeah. And I feel like that that was always missing because it was always about the business, and there was never that opportunity to really teach people the career and the techniques and all of those things. And so as much as I could, I always wanted to try and do that in my restaurant. And I think, unfortunately, most cities across the country have had this problem and especially in Cleveland. Cleveland has know, when we were in those recessionary times in the 2000 eight's and even the 2000 four's, 5, 6, seven's, you know, in Cleveland, we were sort of in this period where real estate was really low priced, and there was a lot of talent working in restaurants, and I think there was this drive from line cooks and from people who had been in the business who thought they were prepared to do more than they actually were prepared to do, were able to they were given opportunities because of the development that was happening in Cleveland. And so I think developers were giving these cooks opportunities that they weren't quite ready for, and maybe they were ready, but I think what happened is we grew too fast, and we opened all these restaurants in our town. And it was really exciting. But I think there wasn't that understanding of how to keep your team and how to develop your team. And we also didn't have the the number of interested employees to really support all of these places. And so what happened is all of a sudden, we had all these places and we had all these needs for cooks. And we were starting to, you know, bring in the dishwashers as our you know, prep cooks, and our prep cooks is line cooks, and our line cooks were the chefs. And much like I think back to, like, the I don't know, even in the thirties, forties, fifties. I mean, some of the people in this business work 60 years in the same role. In 1 restaurant for their entire life. And I think, you know, how I got to be a chef at the young age that I got to be a chef, I always have felt guilty for that Like, I should have spent 40 years being a line cook before I became a chef. And that there you still couldn't learn all the things there are to learn in the business. And so I think as I look at that the last 10 years and I think how many restaurants opened, and then we you know, just to see how difficult it was to find employees and to find staff who would stay, it just made us all weaker. And we were sort of dividing out our armies. You know, we didn't really have any expertise in these kitchens, and so there wasn't anything holding the teams together. And so the customers were putting a lot of pressure on these experiences too, and the chefs couldn't really handle that, and neither could you know, the the cooks couldn't handle it, and the servers couldn't handle it. And it became this career that was just so hard. Not to say it wasn't hard already, but it was much harder because we just weren't prepared for all of the dreams and visions that these, you know, that we as chefs had, but we were given those opportunities. And so where I think it left us is that we had a lot more mediocrity in our food scene at a certain point. I think at first, we had a lot you know, we were so lucky we had all these great places to go and all of a sudden -- Yeah. -- but it didn't survive. For very long, and then the pandemic hit. And then, you know, when was working and all these places that were already weak, you know, had some issues and even the strong ones you know, couldn't survive. And so now I think we're in a period where we've really taken a step back. We've lost, you know, if not half of the people in this industry. We've lost certainly a ton. And I think we're slowly you know, for us, we had to close fire. We had to close you know, we sort of did all of that so that we could move forward in a new way and in a new exciting way. And, honestly, we wanted to retrench or we wanted to start back sort of small and grow more strongly. And I think for us, it's been working really well, but I can see that in in our community currently. Like, there just there aren't as many places that you you'll go out for an experience, and it's not an experience that we you know, you'll go and you'll be so excited, and then there might be some disappointment because, you know, maybe 2 of the cooks didn't show up or maybe you know, the dishwasher in shop. I think that's our time as there isn't as much structure in these restaurants, and it's harder to run them. And so I think we've lost a lot of the growth that we had, you know, before the pandemic. But I think we're now I think we just need to sort of redirect and grow in a much more calculated and slower way, and I think we can get back to a a level of quality. But I think we are lacking in quality in our food scene, and I wish that we were able to get back to a level where we were able to educate the next generation and find those people that are interested. We've also added so much bad publicity in our business, you know, like, I don't know many people who want us you know, there there are money less people who wanna even join in this business. I think we've also just even for high schoolers and for you know, we're not creating that experience to excite these people to want to join this business. Because we sort of just talk about how terrible it is and how, you know and it is has gotten pretty difficult. Right. But I would say that I'm excited about what we're doing in Cleveland, and I think in Cleveland, we're lucky because we are a small enough community. That can support the ones that are taking chances and are growing, and we can work together to rebuild and create experiences that we want. I love Cleveland because we're we are this small community that you can really find so many great food experiences and so many and you can connect with the owners and the people -- Yeah. And I think if we lived in bigger cities, you don't you don't get that opportunity.

Jeffrey Stern [01:04:26]:

Yeah. No. I I think that that all makes a lot of sense as well. I feel like I would be somewhat remiss if I didn't ask you about, you know, some of your not of your own, but of your favorite, you know, Cleveland eateries.

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [01:04:39]:

Well

Jeffrey Stern [01:04:39]:

Oh, no. We we can do it in the so the the the closing question I have for everyone is for their favorite hidden gems in Cleveland. Things that other folks may not necessarily know about, you know, if you wanna frame it in that way as well. Yeah. I just love you know, when someone puts passion into something, You know, I just love supporting that.

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [01:04:58]:

I mean, there's so many of these experiences. I mean, when I think of, like, Sosie's own Melissa Corey, who works so hard and, you know, has her shop. And she it's such a passionate shop when I think of Ramon Ramat Wylie who has a doomed spice at Van Aken, and I think of the Roaming Biscuit. I love Shonda, and you know, I Karen Small and Eric Williams, you know, Karen Small from from Juneberry and Eric Williams from a mocho and Jill Veda from Salt. You know, I love these places. I I love Batuky, Carla at Batuky, and Mark Arell from Vero. You know, some of these pizza places, you'll reown and sense pizza. And I'm probably saying too many. But I think what I really love is supporting the people that really are in their businesses and who care about you know, sort of their community and showcase that. Vinny Cimino too from Cordelia. It's endless really and I hate to leave anyone out because I have so many I love you know, I'm just lucky, but I have so many friends in this business. Zoma. I love, you know, Zoma and Leroy at Ethiopian. I mean, he's just such a great guy, and I love that the flavor of that food.

Jeffrey Stern [01:06:21]:

As as many challenges as there are, as you've mentioned, there is quite a it's quite a robust and and strong scene that we have here. It's true.

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [01:06:29]:

And I and I didn't say larder, and I didn't say a Leah, and I didn't say Cleveland tea revival or beet jar.

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [01:06:45]:

Parnell's. We should just have it. I can just keep saying them for, like, 2 hours. Well, Doug, I this was incredible. I just wanna thank you again for for taking the time and and coming on. My pleasure. And 1 thing I should say too is, you know, I I just became a mentor for Global, Cleveland. There's a program called Global Rising. It goes along with my journey, but I think, you know, it's so important to when I think of being a part of this mentorship program where there are new people coming to Cleveland and they're young entrepreneurs who are a part of you know, Global Cleveland has this program where they sort of have seminars and and they helped the new people in our community get settled and And if they have some entrepreneurial passions, they help them move those along to become more part of our community, and I'm I just have loved participating in that. And my mentor or my mentee is a gentleman named Aaron George, and he started a company which will supply restaurants when they have emergency needs. So, like, if on a Saturday night, you know, you're out of this lettuce. You can text this number, and he has this team of people that'll go out and get you the product that you need. And I just think of this idea and this person who, you know, has worked so hard to get to cleave on them to be a part of our community and and developing this entrepreneurial business for himself and for his team. I'm just so honored to be a part of that, and I'm so I feel like it's a program we're so lucky to have in Cleveland. So certainly wanted to mention it as well.

Jeffrey Stern [01:08:25]:

Yeah. I appreciate the plug and -- Yeah. -- you know, I'd love to have him on the podcast as well.

Chef Douglas Katz (Amba, Chimi, Zhug) [01:08:33]:

Called SupplyNow, his his company, so you have to talk to him. Amazing. We'll connect for sure. Yeah. Well, if if folks had anything, they wanted to to follow-up with you about What what would be the the best way for them to do so? So my email is d k at chef douglaskatz dot com. And you can find me also at amba. And if you follow us at amba underscore CLE on Instagram or at ZHUGCLE on Instagram. You'll see what we're doing there, and you can always message me at either of those plays. This. Look forward to talking to all of your people.

Jeffrey Stern [01:09:13]:

That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show. So if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffrey at lay of the land dot f m or find us on Twitter at pod lay of the land or at sternJEFE. If you or someone you know would make a good guess for our show, please reach out as well. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us read the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land