Chef David Hill & Chef Todd Johnson

Chef David Hill (00:29):

Okay, welcome to another episode. We are on episode nine of Chefs & Lambos with Chef David Hill. And today we have a guest that's a big restaurant chef. We haven't had too many restaurant guys, so this will be exciting. Chef, go ahead and introduce yourself.

Chef Todd Johnson (00:46):

I'm Todd Johnson. I'm chef owner of Nosh on Naples Bay, which is a new restaurant. We've only been open for five months now. And we are in the Naples Bay Resort in Naples, Florida.

Chef David Hill (00:58):

And I've seen a lot of posting on social media, Facebook, there's a bunch of posts on Instagram, and I can tell you the food looks amazing.

Chef Todd Johnson (01:07):

Oh, thanks.

Chef David Hill (01:07):

I'm definitely looking forward to coming down and checking you guys out. I was just going to ask you about, let's start at the beginning with your career as a young person growing up, what drew you to be a chef or what inspired you to get into this whole business?

Chef Todd Johnson (01:22):

I've always enjoyed cooking ever since I remember as five, six years old, turning on a TV, Julia Child's, always been attracted to it. Whenever I'd go to my grandparents' house, for me to hang out with grandma, I had to hang out in the kitchen because that's where she was and she's a great cook. And my first restaurant job was at McDonald's when I was 14.

Chef David Hill (01:50):

Wow. I've never had a chef admit that.

Chef Todd Johnson (01:51):

Yep.

Chef David Hill (01:52):

You're the first.

Chef Todd Johnson (01:55):

When I was 15, I still worked there and they threw me the keys to be a shift supervisor, which is crazy.

Chef David Hill (02:02):

Wow.

Chef Todd Johnson (02:03):

And then after being there for a year or two, I ended up at Pizza Hut, and again-

Chef David Hill (02:10):

Covered them all, all with the fast foods.

Chef Todd Johnson (02:12):

Yeah. I worked there for almost four years and one year into it, I had the keys to the restaurant and that's where that's go at the end of the night when the parties busted up, "Hey, let's go to Pizza Hut. I got the keys to the restaurant." But I've always ended up in high volume restaurants and always ended up in management, not because I wanted to, just they saw me as being responsible, I guess.

Chef David Hill (02:40):

Okay.

Chef Todd Johnson (02:42):

And I met my wife when I was 19, 20, working at the Olive Garden, opened in Naples and I opened that kitchen as just a line cook. But that was my first taste of real cooking because they actually made stuff from scratch. And my wife had worked at the Olive Garden of Dallas, came down to Naples to be a waitress. And that's where we met and been together ever since. And my dad kept bothering me, telling me, "You need to go to culinary school," and I'm like, "I don't know if I... We have a one year old kid, I'm married. How's that going to work?"

Chef David Hill (03:28):

Yeah, yeah.

Chef Todd Johnson (03:28):

And he's like, "You'll figure it out." And he kept bothering me and I kept saying, "I can't do it. I can't do it." And he said, "I just heard they have an advanced standing class at Johnson & Wales in Miami," which was their brand new campus, and he said, "You can get your degree in just over a year if you pass the test, and have some recommendations and stuff." So I went, just so he'd really so he'd stop bothering me. I didn't really see it would be possible for me to do it. And I took the test. It was 80 questions long. And after the test I'm like, there is no way I passed. And there was stupid questions on there.

Chef David Hill (04:06):

You didn't understand a lot of it.

Chef Todd Johnson (04:07):

I didn't know what roux was. I didn't know what a maître d'-

Chef David Hill (04:09):

A shinwa, you probably didn't know.

Chef Todd Johnson (04:12):

Yeah. I didn't know any of that stuff. And so I felt like I just didn't pass, and I passed.

Chef David Hill (04:18):

Wow. Okay.

Chef Todd Johnson (04:19):

I think because of more of my experience in restaurants and my recommendation, I had some really good recommendations from past managers, and they needed to fill the advanced class.

Chef David Hill (04:33):

Gotcha.

Chef Todd Johnson (04:34):

So luck had it, I got in there. And then I freaked out. I mean just learning how to make this stuff, stocks and sauces and meat cutting class. I was just like, it was amazing.

Chef David Hill (04:51):

So you loved it.

Chef Todd Johnson (04:52):

Absolutely loved it.

Chef David Hill (04:53):

How did you like the instructors.

Chef Todd Johnson (04:56):

Overall, they were great. There was one that was really tough.

Chef David Hill (04:59):

Kind of mean. Some of the chefs can be.

Chef Todd Johnson (05:03):

Yeah. It was more of a... So meat cutting class, normal class is nine days, you go to one to seven. And because we were advanced class, we had seven days of it, so we really didn't have enough time. And at last minute the meat cutting instructor got pulled to Providence to the main campus. And so we had our stocks and sauces instructor and he was a vegetarian and it was just a really bad... Basically we had this kid in our class and he was a straight A student, I mean, he was a genius and he got a C. So we knew we were all in trouble if he got a C. And nobody passed the class, but they had to pass us because it was a bad mark on the instructor. But all in all the instructors are great.

Chef David Hill (05:51):

Okay.

Chef Todd Johnson (05:52):

The dean, Chef Dean Nograd. He was the first certified master chef, and tremendous wisdom from him. I think at the time, this was '94 when I graduated, I want to say he was in his mid to late eighties. So he had amazing wisdom.

Chef David Hill (06:10):

I bet.

Chef Todd Johnson (06:11):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (06:11):

I always found the old school chefs to be very grouchy and kind of bullies. Because I went to culinary school, too, that was back in Michigan, but I don't know, some of them just seemed very uptight and just mean.

Chef Todd Johnson (06:24):

Yeah, I think they have the attitude like they've done it all, they know it all and just do what I tell you kind of thing.

Chef David Hill (06:32):

I was thinking they're just burned out and just upset they didn't make enough money or something. You know what I mean?

Chef Todd Johnson (06:37):

That's where a lot of them end up.

Chef David Hill (06:38):

Put too many hours in and now I'm a teacher right now. I don't know.

Chef Todd Johnson (06:43):

Yeah. I had a few of those too.

Chef David Hill (06:45):

But when I went to school, what I really enjoyed was everybody was there because they wanted to be there. You know what I mean? Everybody was super serious. It seemed like everybody was very eager to start their careers. You might meet a guy that's like, hey, I'm going to be a catering guy, another guy, hey, I want to be a pastry chef. They all had different goals, but same business.

Chef Todd Johnson (07:09):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (07:10):

So I thought that was really cool, kind of bouncing ideas off your peers. I don't know if you kept in touch with some people from school or not really.

Chef Todd Johnson (07:17):

Not really. I was kind of there to get my degree and get out. Because I was married, I had a one, two year old son at the time and it was tough because I would go to class from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM and then I would work. Worked at the Outback and a couple of country clubs. And so I would be there in Miami from Sunday night till Thursday. And as soon as class got out Thursday, I booked it home to Naples.

Chef David Hill (07:52):

Wow.

Chef Todd Johnson (07:53):

And then I worked a double Friday, double Saturday and then Sunday brunch.

Chef David Hill (07:58):

What a sacrifice.

Chef Todd Johnson (07:59):

In Naples. Yeah, it was tough.

Chef David Hill (08:00):

I mean, geez.

Chef Todd Johnson (08:01):

There was times I honestly, I didn't think I was going to get through it.

Chef David Hill (08:05):

Was there ever times where you were like, is this really worth it? Am I doing the right thing? Were you kind of thinking those things?

Chef Todd Johnson (08:13):

I'd never really... I don't remember having that feeling, but I remember having the feeling like, I don't know if I can do I can really get through this because I left the dorms because I felt like an old guy in the dorms, because at the time I was 23 and most of the kids were right out of high school and I didn't want to be different. I felt like their father, you know what I mean?

Chef David Hill (08:38):

23.

Chef Todd Johnson (08:41):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (08:42):

That's funny.

Chef Todd Johnson (08:43):

So I left the dorms and I shared an apartment with four guys, and the complex got condemned because there was a fire in the elevator and the owner of the building wouldn't fix it. So they kicked us all out of the building and I'm like, what do I do now? So I started sneaking back in the dorms and then I got caught doing that, so then I had to work for the school for an hour and a half. The president liked me. Thank God.

Chef David Hill (09:07):

Gotcha.

Chef Todd Johnson (09:09):

But it wasn't easy for sure.

Chef David Hill (09:11):

When you think back of working in those fast food situations, would you say you learned a lot about consistency and how to manage?

Chef Todd Johnson (09:20):

Yeah, I think at the time I kind of regretted. I'm like, oh, I should have worked at fine dining before the age of 24. And at the time I regretted it, but looking back on it, it really I think was the best way because it really taught me volume, it taught me how to work with people, management skills, labor cost. I mean I knew all that by the time I was 15 years old.

Chef David Hill (09:47):

That's awesome.

Chef Todd Johnson (09:48):

And when you take those skills and you plug it into the culinary world, you can excel a lot faster.

Chef David Hill (09:57):

So you kind of enjoyed those numbers and kind of learning all that.

Chef Todd Johnson (10:00):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (10:00):

See, I was more of a, hey, let's just cook. I don't want to do get out the calculator, do fractions and break down recipes. I hated that.

Chef Todd Johnson (10:08):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (10:09):

It's all in the head. It's all in the mind.

Chef Todd Johnson (10:11):

That's right. Yeah.

Chef David Hill (10:12):

I don't know. I'm just free flowing kind of guy. But I always hated it when they were like, "Hey, take this quiche recipe and let's make it for 80." I'm like, what? You know what I mean?

Chef Todd Johnson (10:23):

Yeah, yeah.

Chef David Hill (10:23):

How am I going to do that?

Chef Todd Johnson (10:24):

Right.

Chef David Hill (10:25):

But yeah, I was never a fan of that, but I mean, it's very valuable stuff. If you're going to open a restaurant, you need to know every little piece.

Chef Todd Johnson (10:32):

Yeah, you do.

Chef David Hill (10:33):

In your case, it sounds like you are a Jack of all trades where you can do everything, right?

Chef Todd Johnson (10:37):

Yeah, luckily. Luckily. And once I learned how to cook from properly going to school, I excelled pretty fast.

Chef David Hill (10:46):

Okay. When I moved down here, I just want to say, when I recognized you was the Gulfshore magazine, you were someone who was very featured quite often, I want to say maybe around 2003, 2004.

Chef Todd Johnson (10:58):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (11:01):

I believe it was Rumrunners maybe around those years.

Chef Todd Johnson (11:04):

Yeah. That was the fourth restaurant that I was partner in.

Chef David Hill (11:08):

Talk to me about that leap from learning your schooling and going into owning your first place.

Chef Todd Johnson (11:14):

So I worked at Bistro 821. Well, first I was an executive sous chef at Chef's Garden, and that was at the time considered one of the top restaurants in Naples. And it was low volume and I liked working there. And the chef quit and I thought I was going to be the chef. I was 24 at the time. And the owner, Tony Ridgeway, he said, "No, you're not ready." He's like, "I'll make you chef de cuisine, but you're not going to be the executive chef." And at the time I was really... thought he was wrong and-

Chef David Hill (11:48):

You were angry.

Chef Todd Johnson (11:49):

I was angry. So I put my notice in. And he was right a hundred percent, but I didn't see it at that time. So I actually took a demotion from executive sous chef to sous chef at 821. And they were doing much higher volume, lower price point food and I was like, wow, this is killer. And it kind of brought me back to where I started with the more of high volume food, but still nice. But instead of doing back then $40 entrees, you're doing $35, $30 entrees and less components maybe. So after about a year and a half of working there, I approached Michael Hernandez, who owns... he was the majority owner, and I said, "Hey, I want to open up my own restaurant." And he's like, "Do one with me. I'm looking at something in Fort Myers." And I'm like, "Okay." And that was Bistro 41. That's how that evolved.

Chef David Hill (12:45):

Did you come in with capital? Did you have some money?

Chef Todd Johnson (12:52):

I came in with a loan.

Chef David Hill (12:53):

Okay. Gotcha.

Chef Todd Johnson (12:54):

So he loaned me the money to have 15% ownership and took a huge chance on me. And at that time I was never an employed executive chef. So I went from a paid sous chef to chef partner.

Chef David Hill (13:08):

You basically bought yourself a job.

Chef Todd Johnson (13:10):

Yeah. Well, I risked my house and everything for it. And Jeff was a front of the house partner in the same situation. He owned 15%. I had 15%. And took a risk on a restaurant in Bell Tower Mall and it paid off.

Chef David Hill (13:31):

Yeah. That's a great location. I don't know what's happened recently, but it seems like it's off the mark now, but back in the day.

Chef Todd Johnson (13:38):

Yeah. Bell Tower's off the mark. Then, it was just starting to get upscale, they just brought Saks Fifth Avenue in, they just did a huge remodel on the movie theater. And we were super excited about being there.

Chef David Hill (13:53):

And then how many years into that, where you moved on? How many years did you spend into that?

Chef Todd Johnson (13:58):

So a year after opening that we opened... the three of us opened up a restaurant in Tampa, in Hyde Park. We were opened up a restaurant in Naples in the Waterside Shops called Aqua Grill.

Chef David Hill (14:08):

Wow.

Chef Todd Johnson (14:09):

And so we had three restaurants.

Chef David Hill (14:10):

Waterside Shops.

Chef Todd Johnson (14:11):

Yeah. We had three restaurants at the same time and the Michael wanted to get out and retire. So he sold his shares to a pharmaceutical group and Jeff and I didn't kind of like that mix so we said to that group, we Said, "Why don't you buy us out as well?" So they bought us out. Michael went to Montana.

Chef David Hill (14:34):

Were you okay with that? Or did you kind of like, I'm not done here, I want to keep going with this.

Chef Todd Johnson (14:37):

We gave it a shot.

Chef David Hill (14:39):

Tried with them for a little bit.

Chef Todd Johnson (14:40):

Jeff and I gave it a shot with them and they just did not know the restaurant business.

Chef David Hill (14:45):

Yeah, probably not.

Chef Todd Johnson (14:46):

And they pushed their weight on some decisions that just made no sense at all. And we felt like we had to do something on our own. And so we took a year off. That was 2002. And then 2003 came and we opened Rumrunners as the senior partners.

Chef David Hill (15:04):

That's what I was going to say, when I got here was shortly around that time, and all I could see was Rumrunners was getting a lot of exposure in the Gulfshore magazine and all the local. It seems like you guys got a lot of press.

Chef Todd Johnson (15:16):

The timing was right. The developer had just blown up Cape Harbor and the housing market was just gearing up to be as hot as it is now. And because of that, the restaurant was super successful.

Chef David Hill (15:33):

Would you say that was one of your largest restaurants?

Chef Todd Johnson (15:36):

Oh, by far.

Chef David Hill (15:37):

So tell me about how many seats capacity. Tell me a little bit about it.

Chef Todd Johnson (15:40):

So we went from 150 seat restaurant with Aqua Grill, Mia's and Bistro 41, to 350 seats.

Chef David Hill (15:49):

Wow.

Chef Todd Johnson (15:50):

And because of that, we actually said no to the project at the time, twice.

Chef David Hill (15:56):

Because it's too big.

Chef Todd Johnson (15:57):

It was way too big, in our mind. And at the time it was a building with dirt floors. That's it. On the water. So the developer twisted our arm and said, "I'll make you a deal you can't say no to," and he goes, "You guys can do what you want. You guys can name the restaurant what you want. You can do whatever concept you want." And he gave us a loan to get it fully furnished and up and running." And we did. We went through a few hard times with 2008, 2007 housing crash and then the BP oil spill. And there was a couple of big blips on the radar, but we always strived through it.

Chef David Hill (16:40):

When you opened, do you recall, was it always packed?

Chef Todd Johnson (16:43):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (16:44):

Were you always filling them? No problem.

Chef Todd Johnson (16:45):

Yeah. Opening day was an... yeah, it was a nightmare. I never thought, we honestly never thought we'd fill that restaurant.

Chef David Hill (16:52):

And it happened.

Chef Todd Johnson (16:54):

Because it had four dining room, four sections, it had two outdoor sections and then it had two indoor dining rooms, and we filled all four.

Chef David Hill (17:05):

Was there a private room for private parties or no?

Chef Todd Johnson (17:08):

We had a room that sat 120 that could mock as a private room.

Chef David Hill (17:12):

You had it made.

Chef Todd Johnson (17:13):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (17:15):

So it's, with all this, there must have been so much growing pains, a lot of sleepless nights, I'm imagining.

Chef Todd Johnson (17:21):

It was huge growing pain.

Chef David Hill (17:22):

Or maybe you had a cot in the back room and you slept there and you never went home.

Chef Todd Johnson (17:26):

Yeah, we definitely worked. We worked 14 hour days, seven days a week. I took the recipe book and threw it in the canal after the first day. I'm like, this isn't going to work. We were cutting our fries from scratch, marinara from scratch, making mozzarella from scratch.

Chef David Hill (17:42):

That never lasts.

Chef Todd Johnson (17:43):

And thinking that we were going to do 300 dinners tops.

Chef David Hill (17:46):

Yeah.

Chef Todd Johnson (17:47):

And we were doing 600.

Chef David Hill (17:50):

What was it like back then as far as getting talent and having staff, what was it like? Was it okay, pretty easy, or was it very difficult to find?

Chef Todd Johnson (17:58):

I thought it was difficult at the time, but looking back, nothing to complain about.

Chef David Hill (18:03):

Right. I'm just saying I've talked to some people and they say right now is almost one of the worst.

Chef Todd Johnson (18:08):

Yeah. I can't even imagine how bad it is now.

Chef David Hill (18:12):

Well, I don't want to get you off track. So tell me about, with that restaurant, did you feel, back then, did you had a goal of like, I'm going to sell this place, I'm going to open another one, let's expand this? What were your goals when you were in that place and you felt like you were hopping?

Chef Todd Johnson (18:31):

It was one of those situations where it was sink or swim. For sure. And so our short term goal was to get that thing running and to accommodate the 600 dinners a night. We're doing 600 lunches a day and we were doing unbelievable numbers.

Chef David Hill (18:54):

Can't imagine the alcohol sales. Geez.

Chef Todd Johnson (18:58):

Yeah. The alcohol sales were so big we got audited right away.

Chef David Hill (19:01):

Oh, I see that.

Chef Todd Johnson (19:02):

The state of Florida just couldn't believe.

Chef David Hill (19:04):

I believe. Anything on the water you're going to make some money.

Chef Todd Johnson (19:07):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (19:07):

You know what I mean? That definitely helps.

Chef Todd Johnson (19:09):

So it took us two years to tame that horse.

Chef David Hill (19:12):

And then what changed?

Chef Todd Johnson (19:16):

We opened another restaurant across the street called The Joint, and then a gelato shop, because he built two 15 story high rises, and so we had to expand the restaurant to accommodate Cape Harbor. And to accommodate Cape Coral, was growing significantly then, too. So we kind of felt like we had to do it because if we didn't do it, somebody else was going to. And so we thought, well, you might as well compete against yourself. So we created some totally different concepts, much smaller restaurant. We had some really good people working for us. Really good staff. I'd say when they Rumrunners ended for us, 18 years later, we probably had 15 employees that had been with us for 10 years or longer.

Chef David Hill (20:13):

Wow.

Chef Todd Johnson (20:13):

At least 15.

Chef David Hill (20:14):

Did you actually live in the Cape when you were there?

Chef Todd Johnson (20:16):

No.

Chef David Hill (20:16):

Where did you travel from?

Chef Todd Johnson (20:17):

No, I lived in Naples pretty much the whole time.

Chef David Hill (20:20):

Oh wow. What a drive.

Chef Todd Johnson (20:21):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (20:21):

That's a commute. Did you have a lot of backups with that bridge?

Chef Todd Johnson (20:26):

I kind of got lucky because I was going against the traffic. So most-

Chef David Hill (20:33):

The timings that you were going-

Chef Todd Johnson (20:33):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (20:33):

Okay.

Chef Todd Johnson (20:33):

Yeah. So I was going into the Cape when most of the people were leaving the Cape to work Fort Myers, Naples.

Chef David Hill (20:38):

And what drove you out of that business? Why did you stop there?

Chef Todd Johnson (20:43):

So my partners and I became kind of unsatisfied after 18 years later unchallenged.

Chef David Hill (20:54):

Was business still booming though, or slowing down?

Chef Todd Johnson (20:56):

Business was very good. Yeah.

Chef David Hill (20:56):

Okay.

Chef Todd Johnson (20:56):

Business was-

Chef David Hill (20:56):

All the way till the end.

Chef Todd Johnson (20:59):

Yeah. Actually the last year we were there was the biggest year we had.

Chef David Hill (21:04):

Okay.

Chef Todd Johnson (21:04):

Which is pretty monstrous. Usually when restaurants are 18 years old, they usually go slightly downhill.

Chef David Hill (21:09):

Right. Because there's always new competitors coming on.

Chef Todd Johnson (21:12):

Yeah, exactly.

Chef David Hill (21:13):

And those always get shined for a couple months.

Chef Todd Johnson (21:15):

Right. But, the nail and the coffin was our landlord just didn't simply renew our lease.

Chef David Hill (21:24):

Oh. See, I didn't never knew that.

Chef Todd Johnson (21:25):

Yeah. So he told us six months before our lease ended.

Chef David Hill (21:28):

Why do you think that was? Just greed?

Chef Todd Johnson (21:31):

I don't know.

Chef David Hill (21:31):

Maybe he was jealous.

Chef Todd Johnson (21:32):

Greed. Yeah. That's the problem with the location that's as good as that.

Chef David Hill (21:37):

Right.

Chef Todd Johnson (21:38):

It's on the water. And so, yeah, that's my opinion. But I was kind of glad, to be honest with you.

Chef David Hill (21:47):

Was kind of the rents and everything going up every year where he was trying to discourage you guys to get out?

Chef Todd Johnson (21:54):

We had a good rent structure. We did three five year leases with him. And so when we were trying to renew the last five year lease, we weren't getting calls returned and so we kind of saw the writing on the wall. When we got informed that the lease was not going to be renewed, I was actually relieved because now it forced me to do what I always wanted to do. And that's a passion project of what I'm doing now at Nosh.

Chef David Hill (22:27):

Right. So if I remember right, this was totally during COVID, right? Was the opening.

Chef Todd Johnson (22:35):

The opening of Nosh, yeah, it was when COVID was blooming with Delta really hard.

Chef David Hill (22:43):

Okay.

Chef Todd Johnson (22:45):

Which was kind of tough.

Chef David Hill (22:46):

Yeah. So talk to me about when the pandemic started. Where were you? Is it, I'm guessing the planning and kind of...

Chef Todd Johnson (22:53):

So when the pandemic started, we were still at Rumrunners.

Chef David Hill (23:00):

Okay.

Chef Todd Johnson (23:00):

That was-

Chef David Hill (23:01):

2020.

Chef Todd Johnson (23:01):

Yeah. That was a shock for everybody. Oh my God, we just got shut down. And that day had just gotten a $20,000 food delivery.

Chef David Hill (23:11):

Geez.

Chef Todd Johnson (23:11):

Because it was a Friday and it was right after St. Patty's day in March, which is your busiest.

Chef David Hill (23:17):

I remember that. So many people missed out on that money. All those Irish bars, I felt so bad for them.

Chef Todd Johnson (23:22):

But I mean typically in this area of Fort Myers, Lee County, Collier county, that's the busiest 14 days of the whole entire year because the Red Sox come in for spring training, the weather's at its best. And when we got shut down, it was tough. I mean, we had to put everybody on unemployment, including ourselves, and we carried everybody's health insurance for that whole time just not knowing when they'd let us reopen or anything.

Chef David Hill (23:52):

So what was the period like? Was it kind of your shut down for a little while and then you reopen and just kind of do to-go stuff.

Chef Todd Johnson (23:59):

We were shut down for a while, and of course you don't know when you're going to reopen so it was really scary. So the only thing we could do was we fed all of our employees, every day we did family meal.

Chef David Hill (24:10):

Beautiful.

Chef Todd Johnson (24:11):

We had 75 employees at the time.

Chef David Hill (24:13):

That's amazing.

Chef Todd Johnson (24:14):

And so we burned all the groceries.

Chef David Hill (24:17):

The 20,000 you spent.

Chef Todd Johnson (24:18):

Yep. And fed our employees every day, helped them through the unemployment process as best we could and guiding them how to do that online. And then we went into cleaning mode and we ripped a lot of equipment out, did some high tech, high pressure washing cleaning so when we did reopen, which we still didn't know when that would be, we would be looking a brand new restaurant again. So we did a lot of touch up painting.

Chef David Hill (24:52):

Nice.

Chef Todd Johnson (24:53):

And then when we finally got the go ahead to open, we removed half of our tables and chairs.

Chef David Hill (25:02):

Because you were trying to do the spacing.

Chef Todd Johnson (25:03):

Yeah. We were trying to get the spacing-

Chef David Hill (25:04):

Keep everybody safe.

Chef Todd Johnson (25:05):

... and trying to gets and trying to be safe and had the staff wear masks.

Chef David Hill (25:10):

Did you have any of those situations where the staff came in and one got sick and then the other got sick, or as a chain?

Chef Todd Johnson (25:16):

Fortunately we didn't have that issue.

Chef David Hill (25:19):

I heard of some stories like that.

Chef Todd Johnson (25:21):

There were some nightmare stories, but fortunately we didn't have a breakout.

Chef David Hill (25:24):

Well, that's good.

Chef Todd Johnson (25:27):

Unfortunately it got political with the whole mask thing.

Chef David Hill (25:30):

Oh yeah.

Chef Todd Johnson (25:31):

We would have customers come in and say, "Hey, I'll give you $20 if you take your mask off," and just silly stuff like that. And we're just, all we're trying to do is be the safest restaurant we can be.

Chef David Hill (25:40):

Yeah, you got to keep people safe. I know a lot of people on social media were kind of dogging the restaurants for the servers wearing masks, but I'm like, okay, that's your opinion, but if you're like 70, 75, you're going to want your servers acting like they care about your health and try to be safe.

Chef Todd Johnson (26:00):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (26:00):

So it's tough, you got to try to keep the common people happy.

Chef Todd Johnson (26:05):

It is. And then there was a lot of pressure from media saying that restaurants should make the customers wear masks. And we were like, oh no, you're not going to have a 16, 17, 18-year-old hostess tell a doctor or an attorney or somebody who's making a good living to put their mask on. That's never going to go well. So we didn't take that approach. But we had our staff wear masks until the middle of summer and then we went option only for our employees.

Chef David Hill (26:39):

Okay. So technically what year and months do you remember when you actually got out of the Cape Coral restaurant?

Chef Todd Johnson (26:46):

So our last day at Rumrunners was Christmas Eve.

Chef David Hill (26:51):

Wow.

Chef Todd Johnson (26:51):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (26:52):

What a day that.

Chef Todd Johnson (26:53):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (26:53):

That's wild.

Chef Todd Johnson (26:54):

Yeah. Our lease ended the 1st.

Chef David Hill (26:56):

Was that kind of an emotional, how did you feel about it?

Chef Todd Johnson (26:58):

It was tough.

Chef David Hill (26:58):

I bet.

Chef Todd Johnson (27:00):

It was emotional. It was funny because we worked it up to the last day and we were on servers and on cooks for, hey, if they didn't do something right, we were there and on them. In their minds, hey, this is your last day, what do you care if something's cold or what do you care if the service isn't topnotch. And my partners and I have the attitude if we're here working, it's going to be all or nothing.

Chef David Hill (27:29):

Right.

Chef Todd Johnson (27:30):

And so we made sure the service and the food was, it was the Rumrunner standard till the very last, till we locked the doors.

Chef David Hill (27:37):

I've been involved in maybe two restaurant takeovers. And what happened from my recollection was the owners would never tell you. You'd be working until that last day, that last hour and they'd be like, "By the way, we're closing, we're done. We sold the place." And I remember feeling kind of bitter about it, but as an adult now I kind of get it, because if the word gets out, everybody's going to quit and go find a new job.

Chef Todd Johnson (28:03):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (28:04):

So you took the approach that you let everybody know, it sounds like in advance a little bit.

Chef Todd Johnson (28:08):

Yeah. That was a really tough decision because like you said, you don't want to tell everybody, hey, guys, six months we're done.

Chef David Hill (28:17):

Or two months.

Chef Todd Johnson (28:18):

And then they all bail on you.

Chef David Hill (28:19):

Right. You need have to run.

Chef Todd Johnson (28:21):

Because you need staff to run a restaurant, but you also don't want to be that guy that just locks the doors and your employees are tugging on the door next day. So we, about after probably two or three weeks after we found out, we pulled in a mandatory meeting with our staff, and that was tough.

Chef David Hill (28:44):

And would you say everybody stayed or were those some people that left?

Chef Todd Johnson (28:49):

We lost three people out of 75.

Chef David Hill (28:51):

Wow.

Chef Todd Johnson (28:52):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (28:52):

So that goes to show you that you're great to work for and you're good people. I mean, you know what I mean?

Chef Todd Johnson (28:57):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (28:58):

Your staff really trusted you. So that's really great that you could share it with them and they're like, hey, we'll be here until the end. That's awesome.

Chef Todd Johnson (29:06):

That was probably the second hardest meeting I've ever had in my life.

Chef David Hill (29:09):

I believe.

Chef Todd Johnson (29:10):

The first hardest was telling everybody they had to go on unemployment.

Chef David Hill (29:14):

When you had that meeting and you were telling everybody, did you say to people, now, look, I have a plan, I'm going to open a new place, everybody stand by? Or at that moment you didn't know what you were going to do?

Chef Todd Johnson (29:25):

No, we didn't know what we were going to do. We were just a hundred percent honest with them. We said, look, we know you've heard rumors that Rumrunners was for sale, because all those rumors were going around, and this person was going to take the restaurant over. So we said the rumor's not true. Rumrunners is not for sale. And we were straight up with them and we said that we're going to be here till the very last day, we hope that you do the same, that you're here with us. If you're not, we understand. And yeah, it was tough. It was a 20 minute meeting. It wasn't dragged out. It was just an honest meeting with everybody.

Chef David Hill (30:10):

When you go through something like that, were you already pre-packed up, ready to leave the next day? Or did you have to go back, get all your knives, get all your stuff, or were you already planning like, hey, I ain't coming back tomorrow?

Chef Todd Johnson (30:20):

Oh no. I didn't pull my knives out of there until I think 15 days before Christmas Eve.

Chef David Hill (30:28):

Okay. Okay.

Chef Todd Johnson (30:28):

Yeah. So it was business as usual that very night.

Chef David Hill (30:38):

Okay.

Chef Todd Johnson (30:38):

Yeah. So we were Rumrunners just like we were the first 17 and a half years we were open, all the way to the end.

Chef David Hill (30:41):

When you look back at your career so far, would you say that was your most successful moment?

Chef Todd Johnson (30:47):

Financially, yeah. But culinary-wise... culinary-wise, too, I guess. We did a James beer dinner with some other chefs in town, Herald, Norman Love organized it. And chef from The Ritz and Chef Fabrizio from Sea Salt. So there were some great moments, but it was, I'll be honest with you, it's really hard doing five star food when you're doing six 1200 covers a day. So no matter what anybody tells you, the quality suffers when you're pumping out those numbers.

Chef David Hill (31:25):

Okay.

Chef Todd Johnson (31:25):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (31:26):

And then when you're done with that whole restaurant thing, when are your juices flowing again? Like, hey, I'm ready to do another restaurant. How long before the time off?

Chef Todd Johnson (31:38):

So the juices didn't start flowing until for me personally, until I found the location.

Chef David Hill (31:43):

Gotcha. And which is a great location.

Chef Todd Johnson (31:45):

It is.

Chef David Hill (31:46):

Killer.

Chef Todd Johnson (31:46):

Exactly. I knew where I didn't want to be more so than where I did want to be. I know I wanted 150 seats. I knew I wanted an open kitchen because Rumrunners was not, it was closed. I knew that I wanted to be in a good location, but not necessarily on Fifth Avenue or Third Street or Mercato.

Chef David Hill (32:09):

Right.

Chef Todd Johnson (32:09):

Because that's high tourist, high rent. So I didn't want to be a part of that. And so finding a spot took me about a month, which seemed like a year. Once we got that location dialed in, then you can dial in the concept. And the concept was my dream concept, and that's high end.

Chef David Hill (32:36):

But was there fear on your part that you're still kind of dealing with the COVID stuff? Were you kind of like maybe I should wait?

Chef Todd Johnson (32:41):

No. No. I've never had second guesses with opening. Nosh was the seventh restaurant that I've opened as a chef partner. It's one of those things where you just jump in the deep end of the pool. There's fears of course.

Chef David Hill (32:59):

Sure.

Chef Todd Johnson (33:00):

But there's never second guesses. You just go full speed and stay in your lane and be true to the concept.

Chef David Hill (33:10):

And then what about, what's it been like as far as finding good employees, staff, has it been easy or very difficult? What can you tell me about finding the talent?

Chef Todd Johnson (33:21):

So, finding talent's been difficult, but compared to other restaurants, not difficult. I don't know if it's luck. I don't know if it's my reputation, timing. I have no idea what it was, but we found some really good people right off the bat. We got my brother, Matt, we got him hired on as a front of the house managing partner. We hired a younger guy who had tremendous amount of, even though he was young, he had a lot of experience with Darden group, with Capital Grille, Ocean Prime, so we hired him as a general manager and just kind of took it one step at a time.

Chef David Hill (34:05):

So you got some good bones.

Chef Todd Johnson (34:06):

We got some really good bones. My wife designed the front of the house. She did a great job. And things just fell into place, piece by piece.

Chef David Hill (34:18):

And in the kitchen, as far as the consistency and finding guys to put out your vision, it's been okay as far as that?

Chef Todd Johnson (34:26):

Yeah, again, I got Richard House, who he worked for me at Rumrunners for four years, maybe five. And then he had left because he felt like he wasn't growing anymore. And when somebody feels that way working under me, I actually champion for them and I follow people who leave. So he left, he worked for Brian Roland for a while. He worked for Charles Mereday for a while. He became... I actually helped him get an executive chef job for Sandy Stillwell. He worked for Rosy's Tomorrow. So he really got to see a lot of different things and he did tremendous growing after he left me, and I was lucky enough to get him back when we opened Nosh. Wow. And so he's the chef de cuisine there.

Chef David Hill (35:16):

See, there you go. You got people from the past that you know can trust and they have a lot of integrity. So you probably can get away and take a vacation and not worry about the place burning down.

Chef Todd Johnson (35:27):

Not yet. Not yet.

Chef David Hill (35:29):

So it is kind of still a very stressful thing.

Chef Todd Johnson (35:31):

Yeah. Yeah. It's self-inflicted stress. Social media has been absolutely tremendous for us.

Chef David Hill (35:40):

Absolutely. I see the posts all the time.

Chef Todd Johnson (35:42):

The reviews have been-

Chef David Hill (35:44):

People are very supportive.

Chef Todd Johnson (35:45):

Yeah, very supportive. And that kind of checks you. You're like, okay, now, thanks to social media, they put you on this pedestal, which is fantastic, but now you got to live up to that pedestal because there's thousands of people reading these reviews. Now they have an expectation when they come into Nosh. And so now you can't be the new guy. After five months, you can't have the excuse, hey, we're new, sorry we screwed up. And so it puts a lot of stress to perform at a high level, but I think it's stress that you need.

Chef David Hill (36:24):

But that kind of pressure and what you're feeling and what you're thinking, does that kind of keep you up at night, you worry a lot? Are you kind of a worry person?

Chef Todd Johnson (36:33):

I normally sleep pretty good. But with this restaurant being a hundred percent owner, or 50/50 with my wife and I, it's definitely a-

Chef David Hill (36:43):

It changes things.

Chef Todd Johnson (36:44):

A change, yeah. Because now it's all on you.

Chef David Hill (36:46):

It's all on you.

Chef Todd Johnson (36:47):

Yeah. So there's been some nights where you wrestle.

Chef David Hill (36:51):

Well, I know you're going to do well. Everything looks to be going well, but I have to ask now that you're doing this and you're in it, what's the next plan? Is there going to be another restaurant or do you have another goal? What do you think's on the horizon?

Chef Todd Johnson (37:05):

There probably will be. But the main focus now is, in my head, and I don't know if this is right or not, but in my head, anybody can do a great restaurant in five months. You're the new guy and.

Chef David Hill (37:21):

You get a lot of attention right away.

Chef Todd Johnson (37:22):

You get a lot of attention. And so my goal now is, and me being in this business since as a chef partner since I was 26 years old, this is a marathon, and so my goal is to really make this restaurant one of the best restaurants in Naples and then go from there.

Chef David Hill (37:42):

Well, I just want to share one story I had. I kind of have a negative attitude about restaurants because when I was a kid, I was maybe in my early twenties, and I was in a restaurant, it was a family own thing and there was a younger guy who was a manager, that was built to do everything, front of the house, kitchen if you're short, he would do everything. And the story was, he was going to take over the restaurant. It was going to be handed down. I don't know if he was going to make payments to the previous owner or whatever. But what happened was, underneath him, the other owner sold it and that guy didn't get it. And I was there when this transaction happened. So what the guy did is he came in there with his wife and his kids saying, "What's going on? I thought I had a job." Just to kind of rub it in that other owner's face. "You just put me and my family out on the street. Here I was doing 80 hours a week for you. You are using up my youth to make you rich and you lied to me."

(38:49):

So that always stuck in my head, that my understanding this is a young man's game and you have to put in a lot of your youth, a lot of your energy into these places. And I just seen a lot of disrespect to these chefs that they use and they dangle the carrot. One day this is going to be yours, or you're going to run this place one day and I'm going to step away. And it never seems to happen. And I just kind of feel like this is one of those businesses where there's a lot of lies sometimes told, and there's no contracts. You're just going to believe somebody's word that things are going to go this way for you or things. And that's kind of why I took myself out the grid. I'm out on my own. I don't have no backup plan, no nothing. I'm just off on my own and hope somebody calls. And luckily it's worked out for me, but I do feel for a lot of these chefs that you have to be cautious of who you work for and who they are as people, because sometimes they'll promise things that just are not going to come to light.

Chef Todd Johnson (39:54):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (39:55):

Have you ever witnessed anything similar or heard about stories like that?

Chef Todd Johnson (39:58):

Yeah. I've heard stories like that and I've coached a couple of younger chefs that had talent that kind of got kicked to the curb. They would go above and beyond what their job description was, which was just executive chef, and they would really self promote the restaurant. And so I've always coached them, don't undervalue yourself and invest in yourself and borrow any penny, every penny you can and take that risk because the younger you are, the easier it is to risk. It gets harder as you get older because-

Chef David Hill (40:38):

That's true.

Chef Todd Johnson (40:38):

... you get stubborn and start thinking about retirement. When you're 26, you're like, well, I'm not going to... I can't lose my house because I only have 5% equity into it. You know what I mean?

Chef David Hill (40:50):

Yeah.

Chef Todd Johnson (40:50):

So you just go for it. So I've coached a lot of young chefs and just say, have value, put some value into yourself.

Chef David Hill (41:03):

Right. You got to build your name.

Chef Todd Johnson (41:05):

Yeah. Build your name and borrow every penny you can.

Chef David Hill (41:09):

I mean, look, that's great advice. I couldn't have said it better. I mean, investing in your self is the one thing you can always kind of lay your hat on.

Chef Todd Johnson (41:18):

Yeah. I mean, I wish some of these kids would kind of understand that when they go off to college, because it's so expensive, and just say, look, this is an investment in yourself. And so if you want to skip school and you want to not study and you want to go to these parties and stuff, it's your investment.

Chef David Hill (41:40):

Right.

Chef Todd Johnson (41:43):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (41:44):

Well, I just want to say thanks for coming, chef. I definitely appreciate you and I respect you and I think you're off doing amazing things as usual. And I mean, I think your career's set solid. I mean you're not going to fail anytime soon. You're doing awesome things.

Chef Todd Johnson (42:00):

Well I hope not, but you never know. Nothing's guaranteed.

Chef David Hill (42:03):

You're as good as gold.

Chef Todd Johnson (42:05):

Yeah. I appreciate.

Chef David Hill (42:06):

But I'm definitely going to come in and see you soon, as soon as I slow down a little bit.

Chef Todd Johnson (42:10):

Yeah.

Chef David Hill (42:11):

But anyway, again, thanks for coming and I really appreciate you being here.

Chef Todd Johnson (42:14):

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Chef David Hill (42:15):

All right.

Chef Todd Johnson (42:16):

It was fun.

Chef David Hill (42:16):

You have a good one. Thank you.

Chef Todd Johnson (42:16):

Thanks.