I'm Opening A Restaurant.
I Really Mean It. *Cam'Ron" Voice*
Con·viv·i·al
/kənˈvivēəl/
adjective
(of an atmosphere or event) friendly, lively, and enjoyable.
I used to believe that the pinnacle of personal success was owning your own business. Having the autonomy to make money at your discretion, set your boundaries, and have the freedom not to have a boss seemed refreshing and the ultimate “you’ve made it” signifier. The older I get, the less jaded I try to become. A reverse curmudgeon, have at it, as most people get more rigid as they age.
However, I have completely reversed my previous belief that owning a business is the best professional idea. I witness this firsthand with people I know who own a business.
They eat, sleep, and breathe work.
That sounds like hell to me. Having set hours where you go in like a mercenary and get your job done, get paid fairly, and have some savings, and most of all, peace of mind to fall back on— is the ultimate flex.
Not working a job where not only do you have to worry about all aspects of your business, but that ultimately all that you put into it, hours-wise, you get back out (and not necessarily always the case). It’s a convoluted mess.
Yet, the one type of business that always piqued my interest, and still does, is owning a restaurant.
Restaurant investment and ownership has single-handedly led to the downfall of many former athletes and public figures, and is commonly thought of as one of the worst overall money dumps. Yet, I love food, the communal aspect of it, and curating an experience, using a meal as a form of expression on the plate.
Starting as a pop-up, R&D’ed by friends and family, that then sprouts into a modest brick-and-mortar. Not too big of a venture, is it?
A good corollary is what Pizzeria Sei is doing in LA. From Smorgaborg (local weekly food festival), to a small, less-than-30-seat, counter-style restaurant in a neighborhood where you’re more likely to find Hasidic jews in hats walking around than hot girls in Alo Yoga sets.
The problem many restaurants have is twofold:
They try to do too much too soon.
They don’t have a clear vision. Restaurants are important third spaces. Why is Balthazar in New York the hottest seat in town despite having fare more comparable to Outback Steakhouse than La Bernadin?
It’s the vibe, the ambiance, the ice-cold martinis, where you can eat at the bar and not look like a fish out of water. That aura coupled with damn good food, and a “you’re gonna eat and drink what I write on the damn menu” ethos spearheads the space.
The Modern Profitable Food Model:
Take a look at the “hottest new taco spot in New York.” I know, most of you reading this are from the South or Los Angeles, where taco trucks, great regional Mexican, and Tex-Mex cuisine are the norm. A former Cosme and Puyol alum (both of which are rated in the World’s Top 50 and Michelin-starred in their respective cities, and are, unfortunately, eloquently put, mid).
The idea is simple.
Hot chef with a good PR team = Check.
Centralized location with a goddamn Yves St. Laurent billboard drawing eyes for free = Check.
Huge organic TikTok presence = Check.
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Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserWhen you order, you take your ticket and hand it to the staff, which comprises a plancha (griddle) chef, a hand-pressed taco lady, and a mise-en-place person. That’s it, fam. Overhead costs an arm and a leg because it is New York, of course, but everyone else is paid under $17 an hour, the ingredients are good in the meats, but everything else, from the salsa to the tortillas, is cost-controlled.
I Digress..
Really, retiring and making sure my family is financially stable is it, but at one point in my life, owning a restaurant was a dream.
Having a space where you can cook the food that you hold true, serve patrons alcohol that you would drink yourself, and have a physical plot of land that’s less of workplace, where you dont have to worry about stats like ROAS, but a communal part of town people go to to let loose is and was a goal of mine.
I get it, most restaurants are money dumps, close within a year or two, and harbor some of the worst work-life balance workplaces in all industries. For long, I dreamt of the idea of a coffee house turned small plates natural wine bar at night, but then again, a lifetime of working my 20s and 30s for something the plebs in Vegas would look past at? Nah. You’re better off starting a mid smash burger spot, b.
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Nevertheless, it is not a harm to dream. So this article is my hypothetical dream of a restaurant. A full autopsy. From the playlist to the plates, if you gave me 750k of capital, leeway, and a strong front and back of house, this is what I'd do:
Something Raw:
Leche de tigre base, not ahi, thinking halibut or a delicate white fish, or hokkaido scallops with golden berry aguachile.
Much like a nice glass of bubbles, a crip Pilsner or a fine aperitvo, you want to get your feet just slightly wet before diving into heavy foods when dining. Ceviches and aguachiles are perfect starters because they’re inherently light and bright, which primes the palate without overwhelming it.
Their acidity and chill temperature make them especially refreshing, particularly in warm climates or before a heavier main course. The citrus (typically lime) cuts through the richness of any previous bite and wakes up your taste buds. I'm thinking a Hokkaido scallop offering with a green apple aguachile swimming in a leche de tigre.
Much like a nice glass of bubbles, a crip Pilsner or a fine aperitivo, you want to get your feet just slightly wet before diving into heavy foods when dining.
Ceviches and aguachiles are perfect starters because they’re inherently light and bright, which primes the palate without overwhelming it. Their acidity and chill temperature make them especially refreshing, particularly in warm climates or before a heavier main course.
The citrus (typically lime) cuts through the richness of any previous bite and wakes up your taste buds. I'm thinking a Hokkaido scallop offering with a green apple aguachile swimming in a leche de tigre.
Leche de tigre or “tiger’s milk” is made by slightly blending fish trimmings, onion, garlic, ginger, coriander stalks, and chili. Then this is passed through a sieve and pressed to get as much liquid as we can. The reason why it looks milky is that the fish trimmings denaturalize with the lime, and it gives a white-ish precipitacion. It’s delicious in Peruvian ceviche.
Large Format Meat/Seafood:
Food writers, critics, and "foodies" alike have a contentious relationship with restauarteur David Chang, his opinions, and his opinionated food takes, but one thing is for certain—he knows how to run a damn restaurant. From Noodle Bar to Majordomo, all of his concepts have remained relevant and buzzy years after their openings. One such dish that encapsulates the success of Momofuku is its Bo Ssam.
Priced at a hair under 200 dollars, the slow-roasted pork shoulder dish is served with lettuce, rice, and a slew of condiments. It's a guarantee to draw some wows when you order it, and at very low stakes. Bone-in pork shoulder is dry rubbed with generous amounts of salt and sugar, then cured overnight. The cost to procure such a dish is low, the eating experience is interactive as you're encouraged to make little lettuce tacos, it's fairly healthy, and it can appease a small group of diners.
For my menu, I'm going to opt for a whole fried fish, in the same vein as one of my favorite South Bay restaurants, Coni Seafood.
Something Pickled on the Side:
Pickled items add acidity and sharpness, which balance out rich, fatty, or heavy flavors in the main dish. For example, A fatty braised meat feels lighter with a bite of something sour. A creamy sauce is cut beautifully with a crisp, tangy pickle. This contrast resets the palate, helping each bite feel fresh and exciting. Skip the bread bowl. More banchan, please.
4 Natural Wines:
A huge, bombastic wine list is cool and all, but people suffer from decision fatigue. A tightly curated list of an orange, carbonic red, riesling, and a grenache noir covers all the bases, pairing-wise. Nothing that tastes like socks, nothing so heavy that you feel like you got bludgeoned in the cerebrum. Porch crushers and juicy reds.
On the contrary, the spirits list will be expansive, featuring a diverse mezcal, tequila, rum, gin, soju, whiskey, and liquor selection. These will be available neat, on the rocks, or with sprigs of different sparkling/herbal waters (such as rose water) in a highball format.
Cocktails will all be naturally sweetened, as simple syrups will have no place in their bar. An amaro/digestif cart will be rolled out alongside coffee service after the meal.
Two signature drinks will be a buy one get one free “Spaghet”- a Miller High Life, amaro combination, and one “fish bowl” drink of champagne and vodka with watermelon juice a la:
Something Slow-Cooked/ Braised, Vaguely Texan and Vaguely Persian:
Lamb Neck:
Maybe a mish-mash of the aforementioned two? Lamb neck Fesenjan + Pulled Pork on Savory French Texas Toast?
The flavor journey starts with a meticulously spiced rub—cardamom, allspice, black pepper, and sumac—melded into a pomegranate molasses remoulade that slowly caramelizes as the lamb roasts low and slow for 12 to 16 hours. Afterward, it’s finished in a wood-fired oven until the edges are gently crisped and aromatic smoke clings to the meat.
When it hits the table, it’s clear: this isn’t a meal for utensils. Served with a warm stack of pillowy Texas Toast and an array of sharp, spicy, pickle-packed condiments (torshee), and Texas BBQ sides like potato salad, fried okra, and cole slaw, the experience is entirely hands-on.
Tear the bread, pull the tender lamb straight from the bone, and build your perfect bite with tahini, crunchy pickles, and a hit of pomegranate sauce. Then, when the meat is gone, use the toast to mop up every drop of those rich, smoky juices.
This is food meant to be devoured, savored, and shared—right down to the last smear on the plate.
A Wild Card Dish:
The only caveat to a dish qualifying to be a child card is that it must be a cut that is typically not eaten frequently: fish cheeks, sweetbreads, beef tongue, hamachi collars, or one of the most underrated cuts in the game: salmon steaks. The sauce is a key component that will draw in even the most squeemish of eaters, we’re talking something along the lines a sweet potato miso butter, or a lemongrass galangal coconut milk reduction.
2 Simple Desserts: One “Icy” + One “Cake-y”:
Bring back the parfait.
Sticky Toffee Pudding. ‘Nuff Said.
Something Rice or Noodle-based:
Persian jeweled rice with pork shoulder or lamb. The cranberries and raisins complement the smoky notes of the barbecued pork shoulder perfectly.
An Upsell:
(See above dish but with oxtails), caviar on top of flatbreads, lobster claws.
Broke Boy Sushi as thee Appetizer:
Portuguese sardines with hot mustard, chilis, pickled ginger, lardons, served with toasted nori.
Curator of Vibes:
The scene I want to create consists of lots of drinking, leaving the meal being full enough not to go home and make a bowl of cereal, but also being light enough to fuck. The soundtrack will be a focal point—from 80s pop, goth, Italo-disco, 90s alternative, to everything in between. Not loud enough where you have to yell at your significant other, but not faint enough where you have to squint to discern if we’re playing Sheryl Crow or the newest Pitchfork-approved flavor-of-the-month indie band.
I took the 4th of July holiday off writing-wise, computer-wise (besides buying pointless clothing priced at under 20 bucks on eBay), and boy, was it glorious. We’re so bacc tho, the fingers work at 2 a.m., so this newsletter a lil’ longer than usual.
3 Things:
1. Best Thing(s) I Ate + Drank:
Empirical Cilantro Liqueur
This comes from the same brand that made a Doritos liqueur!
In all honesty, it tastes like raw-dogging a stem of cilantro and chasing it down with a handful of cherry tomatoes, but then five minutes later feeling fuzzy and hangover-free the next day? Yeah… a French neutral spirit makes it very clean, albeit very overpowering in cocktails due to the ingredients label listing tomatillo flavor as one of the ingredients.
However, I cracked the code.
4 ounces of sparkling wine
1 oz vodka
1 oz Dolin Blanc
1 oz Empirical Cilantro
1 whole lime
Add ice, stir vigrorously, enjoy. I call it the Farmhouse Spritz. Almost no sugar, fresh, and not your average cocktail.
2. Best Thing I Ate: Peaches & Cream
There is no better signifier of the season than fruit. That’s why I am basking in summer stone fruits— white peaches, white nectarines (we don’t discriminate), donut peaches, nectarines, plums, and stone fruit of all shapes and sizes.
Add some cinnamon/spices, good olive oil, lemon, and bake or air fry for a modest 20 minutes, and you have a mushy, delicate base for a riff on peaches and cream.
Cream = So Delicious Coco-Whip, or your favorite ice cream, cottage cheese, full-fat Greek, or labneh to your liking.
It was also #TacoTuesday, so I also threw in a flank steak with Birria seasoning that was equally as fire.
I got this at the mercado that closed down in fear of ICE. Sad.
3. The Boys are Back in Town:
I don’t know many bands that can gravitate a fanbase like Oasis. Whether you like them, hate them, or are lukewarm about them. They are one of the few bands in the world that dictate an emotional response amongst their fans. It has been almost 2 decades since their last show, and they’re about to go on a whirlwind tour in the coming months. I can only surmise, Arctic Monkeys, Gorillaz, The 1975, Metallica, Foo Fighters, Deftones, The Killers, and Pearl Jam are putting together a crowd like this. This is the state of rock music today, and while all those bands mentioned are wax and wane in popularity, they lack the polarization that Oasis has.
Maybe it’s the fuck you attitude of Liam. Maybe it’s the good-cop-bad-cop energy of the band, or the fact that “Champagne Supernova” is just so damn good and encapsulated the 90’s that even if the rest of their catalogue is a tad bit overrated, that one song and album puts them on a pedestal that other bands lack. It could also be that they haven’t tarnished their legacy by putting out new music.
Oasis has stuck to their guns. Their music isn’t ground breaking like Radiohead, nor is it genre-bending like the Glastonbury headliners 1975, but it means something especially to the British syche.
I am no one to comment on these matters, nor do I think Oasis is that amazing. Hell, I like Pulp better than them.
Yet, their continued honesty, sticking to their roots, and not giving a shit mentality is punk AF, and I love it.
Best New Songs of the Week:
2025 has been mid, but wake up! The Clipse album we all needed dropped today, and as I do edits, this song hit home. Clipse is a brotherly duo, and the death of their mom hit them hard, as witnessed in this song. I could never imagine such a bleak day, but we all have to come to grips with death. They do a great job putting it in perspective in this song:
And the sample in this song: C’MON BRUH:
Sample:
This is why I love hip-hop so much. But have fallen outta love recently.
Nonetheless, I envision Malice and Pusha as my brother and me. It hits home.
If you know us.. you know who is who.
When you’re a kid, you get the old “Use Your Imagination!” trope almost daily. I don’t agree with it, you gotta stay grounded, but there is a case for cosplaying certain mundane parts of life for something greater.
I'll Leave Y'all With This:
Frank Rosenthal came to Las Vegas in 1968 for the same reason so many other Americans have - to get away from his past. Las Vegas was a city with no memory. It was the place you went for a second chance. It was the American city where people went after the divorce, after the bankruptcy, even after a short stint in the county jail. It was the final destination for those willing to drive halfway across America in search of the nation's only morality car wash.