the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_124839: 0:11

Hello everybody, and welcome. You are listening to the Restaurant Guys. I'm Mark Pascal and I'm here with Francis Shot. Together we own stage left in capital Lombardi, restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. We're here to bring you the inside track on food, wine, and the finer things in life. Hello, mark. Hey buddy. How you doing? I'm great man. How are you? I'm doing wonderfully. I, I, I had something happen that. That I'm a little concerned about yesterday. Uh, you look, you look concerned. What's that? I'm a little concerned. Okay. So, you know, I have an Uber Eats account. I do. Right. So my kids will occasionally use my Uber Eats account'cause you know, a couple of'em still live with me and Okay. So they order from Papa John's on my Uber Eats account. What, what? I see this charge come through. I'm like. Papa John's. Why? Because occasionally my kids have, there are certain things that my kids have no taste about and they accept Papa John's pizza as acceptable. I need you to call the lawyer and cut them out of the will. Write the F now. Well, I gotta tell you what I'm really worried about. What? I'm worried that my Uber eat account Velv Vita cheese will be next. No, I'm worried that my, you know, Vel vita cheese in the right places isn't the worst thing in the world. Now I've gotta cut you out of the road. You know, on the melting nachos. It's not, it's cheese. It's not cheese. It's not cheese. We totally agree. It is not cheese, but icho, it's go back to your kids. So what I'm really worried about with the Papa John's. Yeah. On my Uber account. Yeah. It's a blemish on my permanent record. It's like the credit score of good taste. You have just gone down a hundred points. Like somehow, somewhere, somebody's gonna see, that Papa John's was ordered on my account and think that I ate a piece of Papa John's pizza. Wait, now, hold on a second. Now I don't have kids, so I don't know. This whole new generation, your kids can just order stuff on your account without telling you. Yeah. Sure. My dad was like, go mow a lawn or something. No, no, no. You wanna, so let's say they're taking care of the dogs. We go away. Oh, we go out for dinner. They're, they're doing something for, for good for the house. It's true. If I were doing something, my dad would've said, go mow a lawn or something, is what would happen to me. Get your pennies out of the jar that you keep in your room. Well, that's why you became such a bitter adult. I'm not bitter. You know what I have to, I, I, I, I love my dad said, he, he really, um, was about when, when I was a kid, I mean, geez, I got, I didn't, I never got an allowance. My dad was like, no, I didn't. I didn't get an allowance. My dad was like, here's where you can make five bucks. There's where you can make five bucks. Yeah. I had a paper route when I was. 12 or 14. Yeah. 12. I got one as soon as you could get a paper out. 13. I was the worst. 13 I was the worst Goddamn paper boy. Yeah, we were terrible. Oh my God. It was terrible. But my dad, the first you wanna know my first business, my dad, who was a civil servant his whole life was not a businessman. Um, we were out and. I'm always fascinated with machines. I was a real boy about that, you know, like mm-hmm. And so we'd go to garage sales and I loved eight old, eight millimeter cameras, super. Eight cameras. Just any old. Tell me more. Pinocchio, I wasn't a boy on the sports field. I was the boy that the other boys beat up on the, on the sports ball game. But, uh, but as far as you know, I was a tinkerer and. I had a neighbor who put out on the garage. So they put up this big ass snowblower, like I would consider it today as an adult man. It had like three forward gears and it had its own reverse and it was just, and um, I just wanted it and it was like, uh, 90 bucks or something, or 70, whatever was a lot of money in 1977. Um, and I was like, dad, can we get that? Because. I would, I shoveled the mm-hmm. He down helped me when I was small, but my job was to shovel us and the lady next door out and, um, we used to go and shovel snow for money and I said, you know, I can make a lot of money on that. He's like, yeah, but you don't have 90 bucks. Mm-hmm. I think it was 175 bucks. Those things were more expensive back then. And, um. He said, I'll tell you what son, they're like 900 bucks now what he talking about? Used in a garage house. Yeah, but massively expensive. All right, well that was, but hundred 75 bucks was a lot more money back in the seventies. Yes, absolutely. It was a lot of money. And um, he said, I'll tell you what son. You've got, whatever I had, he said, I will buy this. You're gonna contribute what you have. And then until you pay me back half, I get half of everything you make from snowplowing and you know I will own half. And for that you will always do our house and the lady next door So that was my first business venture and I paid my dad back over the next winter. And you know, I was the only kid in town with his monster snowblower. So I hired a couple of kids with shovels to get like the walkways and the sides and went plowed through the whole neighborhood. And everybody hated me and I had all the money. It was great. And I said my own business one day and I opened a restaurant. And that's the whole story. Hey, I hope you've enjoyed this show. And I'm, it's not over yet. So you know what my first job was? No. So you talked about the paper route. Yeah. Except. All the paper routes were people had them already. my, you had knocked somebody off'cause you were an Italian from Nutley. No, when my parents got divorced, my father moved in into an apartment about a mile away from my house. Uhhuh and the apartment didn't have any paper boys, Uhhuh. they had this deal, Uhhuh, you could make$5 for each person you signed up. Oh. To get Newspaper. So you weren't a regular paper boy. You were like the agent of the paperboy. So I did. So I created my paper route. I love that. By going from apartment to apartment to apartment. Unfortunately, then I became the worst paper boy in the world.'cause you know it. You go to football practice now you gotta go deliver newspapers. It's seven o'clock at night. Does anybody want their newspaper at seven o'clock at night? No, dude, they're supposed to come before school in the morning. No, no, no. We had, it was a Harold News. It was an afternoon paper, but you were supposed to deliver at three 30 in the afternoon, but. You know, some days I just couldn't deliver at three 30 in the afternoon. Yeah. That, that's not really an excuse. Like if you had an employee, it's like, oh Marsh, some days I just can't come to work. You, I can't believe that those people put up with you at all. Continued to get the newspaper. Yeah, it was, well, they didn't actually get the, they got it, but it, their, it was their morning read. They continued to pay you for getting the newspaper every day. Yeah. Speaking. Let's talk about sucky jobs when you're kids. When I was 14 or 15, I got a job at Sandwiches Unlimited. which was illegal'cause I wasn't really allowed to work at Sandwiches Unlimited. And he's like, okay, here's, here's your first job. You have to cut the onions and the tomatoes and the lettuce. But the onions was in an windowless room in the back and you'd cry your eyes out and it stung. I'm sure that wasn't good for me. OSHA would have a field day with that, but I did that for a year. So a couple of tricks for people who are cutting onions. One, refrigerate your onions. Mm. Get them nice and cold. They will not, they will not make you tear as much. True. Two, cut onions next to running water. Running water will absorb some of the, gas from the onion so it doesn't get into your eyes. Third tip is if you look online for, we'll even link in the show notes, a place where you can look how to cut onions while leaving the root ball attached. So it really minimizes the amount of oil that comes out until till last minute, the fine dice. And on my last little piece of advice, hire some kid to cut your onions for you. Go, go watch TV in the other room and come back later. Anyway, we'll be back in just a moment. We're interviewing. Eric Sheer, uh, he's from Asheville. He has the, uh, independent Restaurant Association down there and some cool stuff. And it's time for us to see what's going on in North Carolina. Stick with us. You're listening to the restaurant guys, and as always, you can find out more about us and even. subscribe@restaurantguyspodcast.com.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 7:50

Hey there, everybody. Welcome back. Today's guest is Eric Scheffer. He is one of the defining voices in Asheville's food scene. Originally from Brooklyn. Eric walked away from a successful career in television and advertising so long ago to pursue. Food, wine, and hospitality. In 2000, he transformed the Savoy into a nationally recognized fine dining destination in Asheville. After the financial crisis of oh eight, he reinvented his vision with Vinny's Neighborhood Italian, followed by Jetter Ray's Oyster House. And quite interestingly, he founded the Asheville Independent Restaurant Association now with more than 150 members. Eric, welcome to the show.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 8:27

Thank you very much guys. Nice to be with you.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 8:29

Asheville's a pretty cool place, man. I've never been, but I keep reading, you know how it's a really top quality of life, place to live. What's with the restaurants in Asheville and what brought you there?

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 8:39

Well, it's quite interesting, um, when I decided to, uh, hop out of the entertainment business, which, um, if, if I hadn't done it when I had done it, I don't know that I'd be able to be sitting on a. Podcast with the All right Now and talking as we are. I don't know if I'd be alive. Um, but I decided just to, to give everything up and I found this, um, a friend of mine was living here in Asheville, great little town in the mountains of, uh, Western North Carolina. uh, just, just on a wing and a prayer, my wife and I decided to everything up in Los Angeles and move to Asheville and see what it was about. Uh, at the time we moved here, there was. Four restaurants in Asheville. it was a sleepy town, but I was seeing something taking place, and that was a lot of people. It was, uh, and six, but a lot of people were leaving big cities and doing what I was doing and rediscovering themselves and finding a, a, a, you know, a new journey for themselves. And, being in the restaurant business was something in my back pocket. I always had it. It was something that was just, uh, influenced by my upbringing and where I grew up and such. And so I got to Asheville, I took my time and looked around and waited for the right moment. And, uh, you had mentioned in the opening, I opened up my first restaurant. The Savoy and Asheville has been this, you know, growth in Asheville has been. Incredible. Uh, over the first 10 years the city grew, uh, exponentially. And what was happening is people were coming here that I knew wanted a different way of dining other than with all due respect, you know, Western North Carolina,

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 10:20

what do you mean a different way of dining?

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 10:23

these people had money. People

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 10:25

Uh,

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 10:25

here, uh,

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 10:27

well,

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 10:27

had money

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 10:28

the people in LA definitely had money

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 10:31

People in LA had money. Correct. So it was, it was, it was those people, that were, you know, moving to places like Asheville and, starting to, uh, relocate themselves in, in the country and get outta bigger cities. And I knew these people were used to having fine dining experiences. And so that's, the bullseye I went after.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 10:50

how did it work? initially out of the gate You purchased a, a restaurant, right? And then made it into a fine dining destination.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 10:56

Actually it was called the Savoy. It was a, quite frankly, sort of an, uh, a Greek Italian, uh, sub pasta. Kind of a joint, if you will, you know, uh, plastic tablecloths and pink walls and stuff. And, yeah, I went to the owner who I knew was, uh, quite tired. He'd been in the business for a while. And, my daughter had just been born in fact, and I needed to get the engine started. I needed to start doing something to, uh, to bring some dough in. And I knew him through, uh, quite frankly, the Jewish community. And I, I saw him, at the synagogue one day and I approached him and I said, I got a deal for you. we sat down and, um, I told him my story and what had happened with me. My daughter was, uh, in the hospital for the first six months of her life. And, uh, he opened up his heart and, uh, he wrote down a number on a, on a napkin and said, if you can gimme that much money, I'll, uh, sell you the restaurant. I said, I can't give you that much money. I said, I can give you in literally$47,000 that I had sitting in the bank. and then you can finance the rest for me. uh, long story short, he did, and we took over the re or I took over the restaurant and, um, started to change the menu. From day one and started to refine the food, give it more, um, cosmopolitan feel, if you will. Um, and after the first year I saw that people were like, clamoring for this stuff. We, uh, then redid the entire restaurant, white tablecloths. Really amazing wine list. I won Wine Spectator awards every year that we were open. started bringing in young chefs out of like Charleston and, uh, even New York and such that were coming outta schools and wanted opportunities. Had them start standing, uh, side by side with me on the line and cooking and inventive. And, uh, so we just, you know. Every six months, we were elevating our cuisine and our level of service, uh, to where we were, uh, you know, the top fine dining restaurant in the southeast for a while.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 13:03

And where'd you get your base for this? Where did that come from? where'd you learn to cook, learn to do all this.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 13:07

I, I'm a self-taught cook. Um, I, I did these short stints when I was in the, uh, entertainment business. I'd go to Europe, I'd go to France or Spain and or Italy and take these, you know, two, three week courses. Get my chops that way, but mostly everything was self-taught, but I owe a lot of it to my dad. My dad was a pretty, um, pretty well-known guy in the advertising business, and so we traveled a lot and I traveled with him a lot, and I ate in some of the greatest restaurants in New York and Chicago and San Francisco and in London and such. And food was, I was a chubby little kid. I mean, food was my thing. And, uh, I, I just was marveled, just marveled at. The, the dance that happened when you went into a restaurant between the service and the chefs, and the greeting of, you know, when you, when you were greeted at the front door and how that made you feel. I always knew I wanted to do that. I wanted to make people feel that way one day.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 14:02

Eric, you're gonna be very surprised by this, but I also was a chubby little kid. I was a skinny little kid, which also will surprise you for entirely different reasons. Um, but you know, it's funny, our stories have a, a, a similar path. We came into New Brunswick, New Jersey. we were, we had worked in other restaurants in New Brunswick and we wanted to bring a more for, because, you know, I will tell you that right now with the internet, I think that the whole world is kind of caught up with each other. I mean, you, you see what the food is in every other restaurant in the world, just on Instagram. At least you can see what it looks like and read the stories and see a video of it. But back in those days, and you know, when you were in Nashville, North Carolina, a lot of the people around Nashville, I mean some of them were LA transplants who were looking for that sophistication. Mm-hmm. But I think there were a lot of people, including a lot of staff who'd never seen that food before because there was no Instagram, which to see it. Well, you know, you really had in, in that time period. I mean, I remember talking about California cuisine, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. New York had its own cuisine. Chicago had its own thing going on. Uh, a French cuisine, Italian cuisine, all, all these little sub areas had their own cuisine and they hadn't integrated yet. Well, I think French and Italian still have their own. Wow. But I mean a regional American cuisine. Yes. To your point.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 15:14

Yeah, but what what what was also happening was it was the beginning of the quote unquote farm to table movement. Right. And you know. Slow food movement. So that was, for me, that was great.'cause Asheville capita has more farms than most cities in the country and more farmers' markets and such. And so from almost the time we opened, pickup trucks would show up at the back door of my restaurant and farmers would just bring me their wear. So yeah, we were, we were experimenting and having fun. And I had a real seafood driven, Sort of way of cooking. I, I grew up, while I was born in Brooklyn, and when my dad hit it big, went out to Huntington Long Island, and I, I, I grew up on, on the North Shore of Long Island. So, you know, it was, it was all about seafood and, and, just, you know, Italians, you know, taking seafood and doing stuff with it and, and, and the Puerto Ricans and such. And so I, I paid a lot of attention to that.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 16:06

One of the things we always say, you just touched on something really, uh, that we come back to a lot, is if you get most of your deliveries from an 18 wheeler from the major food groups, you have a very different cuisine than if you get most of your deliveries from pickup trucks and you know, you definitely wanna go to the pickup truck driven restaurant. So what was, what was it like for the local people from Asheville? How did they receive the restaurant?

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 16:30

It was fascinating actually, uh, Asheville at the time, uh, regionally, it was centered where we are and we had a, a fantastic hospital system here so. Most of my clients in the beginning were doctors and lawyers, who had come from somewhere else. Um, and they started getting the word out to their friends and other people that were living around here, and people were marveled

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 16:55

That, but that's really how it happened back then. Okay. There was one foodie in a group who knew a lot about food, knew a lot about wine, knew a lot about cuisine, and he drew other people to your restaurant. That's, it was that guy that everybody listened to said, oh, where's the cool new next place to go? And that, and there was one guy who knew and he just brought people and more people and more people.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 17:19

Absolutely. And I had a, I was, uh, my dad taught me about wine when I was very young and I had an amazing wine list, and you couldn't, you couldn't buy the stuff I was selling, uh, in most stores around here. And, and you know, in those days, uh, again, doctors and lawyers and professionals were. Fancying themselves, as, you know, wine connoisseurs or, wine geeks and, and I gave them what they wanted. it was a very symbiotic relationship.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 19:31

I would like to interrupt this restaurant guys restaurant focused podcast to, um, bring out one notable thing from your past, among many, among many notable things, but to two guys our age. you were a producer of the Cindy Lauper girls. Just want to have fun, uh, music video. Is this correct?

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 19:48

Yes, I was, Lou Albano, uh,

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 19:51

We need to know was, was Lou Albano as much fun as he seemed like he was.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 19:55

He was a madman and he was a very, very, very sweet, kind person, and so is she. It was one of the best experiences I've ever had in my life.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 20:02

So, so tell us about, making that transition and what the, the kind of, from the highlights of your, career in LA and music production and, and making the move to, a rural environment.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 20:12

Well, you know, at first it was a culture shock, uh, obviously, and, um. It's funny, my wife is from Argentina and when we moved here, people in Western North Carolina have a pretty heavy southern accent, she would go into a bank or a store and come home crying because she couldn't understand what they were saying. So,

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 20:31

Yeah.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 20:32

you know, so that was, that was that, that was a, that was a, that was an interesting shift in shock for us. The other thing was, um. I, I, when I first moved here, I don't have hair now, but I used to have a ponytail and earrings, and I was, you know, I was a, I was a Hollywood dude, and people would stare at me and, um, I went into a bank one day to get a, a, quite frankly, to get a loan for the business and nobody would talk to me.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 20:58

Really?

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 20:59

And

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 20:59

you have a little rubber band on your beard? Did you,

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 21:01

no, I didn't do that. I promise. Um, but I, uh. I went home and I, and I, and I, and I shaved, I took out my

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 21:10

oh,

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 21:10

I shaved my,

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 21:12

you.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 21:15

I needed the money.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 21:16

You know, it's funny, I never sold out and I used to be a skinny guy with a shot leather jacket and a Harley Davidson motorcycle and a little swoosh haircut of my hair. Yeah. And I did not sell out. I just fatted out. The hair fell out, I got fat, the jacket didn't fit anymore, and I sold the bike. You know what I mean? I never consciously sold out. I just, I just kind of fell out, is what I did.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 21:36

No, I'll have to admit I consciously sold out. I, I knew I needed to get a loan

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 21:40

Dude, I got the cash when I was still had the motorcycle though, so everything was kind of cool. Like I had some more progressive bankers here in New Brunswick, I guess. So Asheville though has gone through it a little bit in the last couple years. so I was down in 2024 visiting a friend of mine who lives on Lake Norman. Uh, and we went to the Rutgers Virginia Tech game. So we, so a bunch of fraternity brothers went down to his house, and he said, yeah, I live on Lake Norman. It's a great place to live because it doesn't matter how much it rains, nothing, nothing bad ever happens here. And I swear to you, he is like, nothing bad ever happens here. You know, we have dams upstream and just it's, it's completely safe from, from anything that could go wrong. One week later, her Hurricane Helen comes. I'm back in New Jersey going, oh my God, how could that possibly be the same place that I was just at?

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 22:31

You know, all of us had just gone through COVID. All of us had also just gone through, I don't know if you know this, a year before that Christmas time, we had this deep freeze, which we just went through again. uh, the, the, the, uh, piping system in, in Asheville is sucks. It's old. so a bunch of pipes broke. So there was a bunch of us out without water, so we had to shut our restaurants down. And then comes this thousand year flood, which was just like monstrous

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 22:58

Yeah.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 22:59

On one hand, it was also an an, an amazing testament to, for me, the restaurant community here in Asheville, how we all came together, how right away we were on the phone with each other. We were trying to all figure out how to take care of the people that worked for us. How to feed people. I had a relationship with, uh, uh, Jose Andres and, um, and, and, and some of his folks. So they contacted me and we, we mounted, since I had four restaurants, we were able to mount every restaurant, um, by bringing in water, putting water tanks outside of our building, having plumbers, plum our buildings and start cooking food for the community. once we got that settled, then I started going around to all my restaurateur friends and saying, look, this is what I just did. Let me help you set up the same situation for your restaurants, you'll have potable water and you can open up your doors and you can start cooking. You can feed your staff. And so it, it was this amazing gathering of, people, you know, there's people in this town, it's very interesting, you know, like a lot of restaurant towns, you put your head down, you cook, you work hard, you know the other restaurateurs and you come across each other and you're cordial and stuff, but you really never have a conversation.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 24:14

I mean, crisis does that, right? I mean we, but we've gotten together with the best time to bring everybody together in the restaurant community is during crisis, and it's happened a whole bunch of times.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 24:26

Absolutely. So it, it just brought us all together and, and, and it, it really proved to me the resilience of of, of what. The restaurant community in any, in, in anybody's town can pull together when you really want to. And if you think about it, what do we do? We, we feed people and we, you know, we give'em food and drink the two things that sustain life. So if we can come together on a level of, and I, you know, I've never been the guy, they always say to me, oh, you know, so and so open up a restaurant and he must be your competition. I don't look at it that way.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 24:56

Yeah.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 24:57

at

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 24:57

You know, it's funny, I think that in when we started in the restaurant people business, a lot of people did look at every new restaurant that opened in town as some sort of competition. Um. I don't, I think most people are enlightened enough to know now that you know, a diner in someone else's dining room is not a diner out of your pocket, you know, and they make whatever city or town or neighborhood you're in more of a dining destination. People go there more often and people love to know that the restaurateurs in whatever region or town you're in are friendly with each other, right? We've want, we've always wanted New Brunswick to be one of the best restaurant cities in New Jersey. Right. So sure. I can't do that with my two restaurants, right? I can't make it the, the best restaurant city in New Jersey with, with two places I need 10, 12, 15 other places that are, that are doing some really cool stuff and, and hopefully a little differently than I'm doing it so that this becomes a community of great restaurants.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 25:54

Well, what happens is, you know, with Asheville, it's a destination, right? I, I don't know about how much a destination New Brunswick is for tourists, but, um, you know, it, it, it, it gives somebody reason to stay here longer if you've

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 26:08

Yeah.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 26:08

more, more choices.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 26:10

Well, so you started the, uh, the rest in Asheville Independent Restaurant Association. Talk to us about that.'cause that kind of stuff I think is really important.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 26:18

You know, it was, I think around 2003 we started seeing, uh, with all due respect. You know, the chilies and the carabas, putting their flags down here in Asheville. And I knew that if we didn't get ahead of this and we didn't, you know, let the public know how important it was for independent restaurants to be part of their communities. You know, teaching them that 65% of all the money that, that, those people. make at their restaurants, leave and go somewhere else to a corporate office. Um, we were gonna be in big trouble. Plus the fact it gave us also an opportunity. I, I was the president and then I became the marketing guy for the, for the group. We started out with seven or eight guys and gal and one woman. you know, we've grown to. it's, it's well over 200 now, but, you know, we needed to do it in order to, commingle our, message and also our money to, to let people know how important independent restaurants were to the community. And the one thing I did, which I think really helped a lot was I got all of the farmers behind us. I got all the people who were selling us food to, to join in on the campaign, quote unquote, if you will, to let people know how important, um, uh, independent restaurants were to our community and how we give back, and how we're, you know, we're spreading the money and keeping it here locally opposed to it going somewhere

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 27:40

Dude, we, well, we are tied to the farmers. I mean, there's no question about it. Well, and I And what you say, I mean, so I sat on the board of the New Jersey, New Jersey Restaurant Hospitality Association for 31 years and Mark's.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 27:50

Jesus.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 27:51

Mark always worked my shift when I went to those meetings, so he's just as much involved as I am. And what we find we're members of the National Restaurant Association as well. I, I'm still, we're still a member. I'm not on the board anymore. I took a lot of points for a long time and what we would find is that there are things that. Affect the restaurant business. Right. And that are national in scope. But New Jersey is overwhelmingly independent restaurants. Right? So the, and in our restaurant association, our state restaurant association, it's mostly independent restaurants. People may own several. Businesses. Mm-hmm. But it's not a chain, it's not a corporation. And, um, that's different than most other states. I mean, in most other states. I'm always amazed when you go to most states that it's almost all chain restaurants, how, how hard it is to find the independently owned restaurant. Independent restaurants have different concerns, and I think they are much more important to your local community. And I'm sure that everybody that listens to the restaurant guys understands that. Right. And that's not to say that chains are evil. That's not to say that chain restaurants have no place in the community, but their, their interests are at odds sometimes with the local, independent restaurants and the local independent restaurants owned by people, the reason people go to them. This is not a food dispensary. Our marketing does not come from some marketing department, which comes up with a crazy idea. And then we, you know, craft something umbrellas on the cuisine for and night. We're living authentic stories and we're inviting people to join us on those stories. And look, mark and I have been doing our restaurants for 34 years and worked in another independent restaurant for six years before that. You are joining us on our career, and we're joining you in your weddings and your funerals, and your repress, and your birthdays and your Saturday nights with your girlfriend and your wife, and

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 29:36

the,

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 29:37

that's much more real than any corporation.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 29:39

absolutely. You said it perfectly. I mean the, the connection an independent. Owner and, and we're talking about restaurants here has with a community, you know, you get to know people's kids. You, you, you watch them grow up. You, you, you know, the doctors or the person who is running the dry cleaning store, you know they're coming in. about the socialization also and the community support that you're giving each other that creates true community.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 30:05

So Eric at at 34 years, I'm starting to know people's grandkids that.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 30:13

Well, you guys have nine years on me, so we'll see what happens when it's 34 years for me.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 30:19

We're still kicking. We're going All right.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 30:22

I'm, I'm gonna come visit you.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 30:24

I would love that. do you ever get up this way?

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 30:26

Absolutely. I go home to New York all the time. So, you know, coming down to Brunswick is easy.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 30:30

Would love to see you there. It is indeed. Absolutely. So listen, but before we go, I want to talk about, so you, we have to talk about the Savoy after the OA crisis. You kind of changed concepts with the Savoy. Tell us how you survived that and the change you made there.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 30:42

You know, I had a choice. I, you know, Savoy's, my first restaurant, we were very successful, fine dining, which meant I was successful, but I really wasn't making money. Um. I'll never forget a gentleman who I knew up here in Asheville. Another restaurateur came to me one day and he was so impressed with what I was doing. He said to me, Eric, I'm gonna tell you something. And he would, he'd been around for a while. He says, you, uh, cook for the classes you're going to eat with the masses. If you cook for the masses, you're gonna eat with the classes. So I never forgot that. And so when the e Economic. Downturn came, I wanted to stay in business. I wanted to keep everybody working for me in business. And so I said to to myself, you know, should I be doing now? And I, it just, the light bulb went off in my head, what people want.'cause they were losing their fortunes and, and, and. But people still wanted to eat. They still wanted to go out. They still wanted that getting together with, with friends and family. So I wanted to do something that was gonna be a lot more affordable than a, than a fine dining restaurant. I remembered all these great small little Italian joints on Long Island and in Brooklyn and in Jersey and up in Connecticut that you always had, you know, a, a, a couple blocks away from where you grew up and something like that. And how I felt when I walked into those restaurants was so important to me. I said, if I can replicate that the folks down here, there's two things. One is a lot of the people that were moving here were from the northeast, it would also create an emotional connection that they would have. And it did. As soon as I opened up the doors and people knew, this was old school, New York, Northeast Italian food, place was packed from the day I opened. I've been open 15 years now, and, and it's been, it's been one of the greatest blessings of my life, and it's because I connected with people's, you know, Hey, my grandmother used to do

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 32:30

Oh yeah.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 32:31

used to go to, you know. You know, uh, Sally's down the block to get a slice, whatever. And so as soon as you make that connection, you, you, you've got people for, for life as long as you keep up the, uh, the quality of your food and hospitality.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 32:44

I, I think that, I think that's great. And it's funny because we have stage left. steak, which was stage left restaurant for a long time, uh, which has always been fine dining, always been in the top of the game for the state. And for our second restaurant. We opened up a, a restaurant named after Marsh Grandmother Catherine Lombardi, which is an Italian American restaurant, not Italian, Italian American restaurant. Spent our whole life in Brooklyn. it's funny. People are like, oh, so your your, your grandmother was Italian. I'm like, kind of, but she didn't go to Italy till she was 50 years old. Right, right.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 33:13

What, what, what, what's even more interesting is I'm a drew from Brooklyn,

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 33:16

Right, right,

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 33:17

But I grew up with, it was either Italians or Jews or my friends. And I spent a lot of time with my Italian buddies hanging out with their grandmothers down in the basement as they were making sauce.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 33:28

right.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 33:28

where I got my passion for, for, you know, for doing this. And, and I say the same thing, just so you know. I tell people it's not an Italian re, you know, somebody asked me about, it's not an Italian restaurant, like, you know, you get over in Bologna. This is from like, you know, from Avenue, uh, avenue W and, uh, you know, in Sheep Said

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 33:44

Yeah. Yeah. It says on our sign Italian American cuisine, we refer to it as Brooklyn Italian cuisine. it's its own distinct thing and it's, we don't pretend to be Italian I think it's great what you've done out there as well, and I think what you've done with the Independent Restaurant Association is amazing. And I hope we get to see you in New Jersey sometime soon.

eric-scheffer_2_02-03-2026_120304: 34:00

I'm definitely coming.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_120337: 34:02

You're awesome. Good news. Thanks Eric.

Francis: 34:03

Thanks a million. We're gonna take a quick break mark and I'll be right back. You can find out more about us@restaurantguyspodcast.com.

the-restaurant-guys_4_02-03-2026_123721: 34:09

Hey there everybody. Welcome back. So Asheville, this was a pretty cool town from what you tell me. Well, uh, we just kind of drove through Asheville. we went to, uh, Charlotte. Cool. Restaurants, cocktail scene. It's really interesting to see. All of these restaurants kind of, kind of spilling out from the major cities into some of the other smaller cities. Uh, I mean, it's happening across the country. Yeah. well the internet's just changed things, right? Yeah. More and more people are not tied to a location Correct. Or if I remember talking to our chef Jr. Is originally from Pittsburgh and uh, I dunno, maybe eight, 10 years ago, he was talking about how all of. His friends who he went to culinary school that were from that Pittsburgh area. Mm-hmm. Well, they, they worked for a little while in some major city, New York or wherever they worked, and then they all moved back to that Pittsburgh area. Mm. Yeah. And they opened their own restaurants with. Kind of this upscale vibe and the, city feel to them because people were, clamoring for, for better restaurants in and around the Pittsburgh area. So I'll give you another example of, a migration there that predates COVID. Predates the current state of remote work and the internet. Are you gonna talk about Ireland? No, I'm not saying not. Lemme think for a moment now. Um, no. So the, the, the, I have a lot of friends who were officials and civil servants who worked in Jersey City. Mm-hmm. And, um, you know, civil servants get a pension. Uh, some of these people worked in the private sector and also we're civil servants. Everybody got their job, but they're a little older than we are in about, mm-hmm. 10 years. Ago, 15 years ago, really, the first of'em started to retire and a couple of people used to vacation down in South Carolina. Mm-hmm. and North Carolina. Yep. And, um, they found this one town where one guy's like, I'm building my house down there. I love it down here. I love the water, I love the nature, I love, and it's got a little city nearby. He bought a house down there and another guy, well if you're going down there, maybe I'll go down there as well. And they would vacation down there on a lake. Mm-hmm. And so it became a place where a couple of people had moved down there, but all, all these people bought homes down there or built homes down there. And I was talking to my one buddy who was a city planner in Jersey City, and I was like, what are you doing for Thanksgiving? He's like, going down to South Carolina. I'm like, well, that's kind of lonely. He is like, no, no. Everybody's down there, family's down there. All of my friends' families are down there. Yeah. If everybody, when I retire, I'm moving there just like everybody else. Yeah. And as I'm, I'm moving on a Jersey City pension on which I cannot afford to live in the Northeast. Mm-hmm. But I'm gonna go to North Carolina. Mm-hmm. And and what I pay in taxes every year, I can live well. And that's the same sort of environment that, you know, that's how it's supposed to work. If your housing is. Too concentrated down here. Capitalism gives you a place where, and they've made this whole community down there. And it's funny though that they've moved there as retirees, and I think one of the things about moving as a retiree is like if you move when you're 30 and you raise your kids down there, you integrate into the community. They just brought the whole fricking community down there. Of retired, they integrated the community into them and then a lot of their kids have moved down there to raise kids down there. So I'm a big fan of B markets, uh, you know, new Brunswick's kind of a secondary market and it's a very good place to it. You know, you say B Market and it just gives it a negative connotation. Okay? A market where there's not quite as many billionaires has that. That's we, that's what we have here. But there's, it's a great place to raise a family. And there you have it. Anyway, there's the restaurant. Guys take on the Carolinas. Uh, I hope you enjoy the show. I'm Francis Shot. And I'm Mark Pascal. We are the restaurant guys. You can always find out more about us@restaurantguyspodcast.com.