the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_141901 0:11

Hello everybody and welcome. You are listening to the Restaurant Guys. I'm Mark Pascal. 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 Francis. How are you today? I'm okay. How you doing buddy? I'm doing great. I'm looking forward to our guest, Bruce and Eric Bromberg. They own the Blue Ribbon Empire of Restaurants and that really important place in our lives. Yeah. Um, but I want to talk with you about my experiences, uh, last night in the city. Uh oh. Nothing bad. Went out last night and I, I had a wonderful, great to be alive kind of evening. I, and I went out on my own and a lot of people are, don't like to go out on their own. I don't care. I'm fine with it. Francis needs his alone time. I sometimes, I, I do, mark, mark makes fun of me whenever we travel. I'm like, oh, what are you doing? I think I might go in here. He's like, you need me to just, you need us to be apart for six hours. I'm like, yeah, I, I love you. You're my best friend. Two, three days together, I need a little alone time. That's why when we travel together, go, I like when my wife's there so I can go out with my wife. You go do whatever you want. Exactly. Well, so last night I had tickets. I had plans, uh, to go see the 25th annual flamenco. Concert festival in New York City. I'm so sorry. I couldn't make it. I, oh man. It was tearing me up, but I just couldn't get there. Mark wasn't the guy I had plans with to go, just so you know, I missed the first 24 and I'm probably gonna miss the next 24. That was great. That was. You know what I was, I was thinking actually as I sat in the audience at, uh, city Center, mark would hate this was I was, and what I was thinking was, because flamenco is that kind of gypsy kind of vibe with the, the kind of yelling of the Spanish music. Mm-hmm. You know what flamenco is. Right? And this was dancing guitar. And. As, as these people were yelling in, in Spanish, a language you don't speak and it's, you know, a very specific kind of vocal. It sounds like you're killing an animal, Uhhuh. And I was thinking, mark hates this. And I was thinking as I was watching the dancing, that it was a lot like Irish dancing, but they use their hands, you know, and Charles, you know, but, and I was thinking, mark hates that too. And then, and then I thought, I thought the thing that you said at, at my wedding. Uh, where we were lining up and we, I got married at a, a church in, uh, uh, uh, new Brunswick and we were gonna have a bagpipe, or our friend Jay, and we processed, you know, pipe us down to the restaurant. It's just not, not too long a walk. And, uh, Jay started, you know, the bagpipes. We'd come out of a hot church, we'd walk down to outside and he was like, oh, I, he started to play and I was like, hold on a second. I gotta tune the bagpipes. And Mark leaned over to me and he said. How do you know if a bagpipe is out to the funeral? I realize you hate flamenco, you hate the bagpipes, you hate all these things. These are things you do not share. I think that all of those places have a place in the world, right? You like them at a funeral. You're like a bagpipes at a funeral. Just not my work. So anyway, as I was sitting in the audience thinking how glad I am that you weren't there, uh, I was having a great old time. And then city center is like two blocks from a restaurant that I, uh, a bar that I just want to talk about for a minute. You've been there with me a couple times. Okay. And you can take it in small doses, but I think you will agree that the Carnegie Club Uhhuh. It is a place where you go for cigars. When they made, tobacco smoking indoors, illegal in Manhattan, they, they exempted about a dozen places who were designated as cigar. Cigar places, places and the Carnegie Club is by Carnegie Hall, so it was only two blocks from where I, I was, and. If everybody's smoking cigars. It's not inexpensive, but it's not crazy expensive. They've got a great collection of whiskey there's some people who are holding cigars that are like. You're not really a cigar smoker. Men and women are like, you're a poser. You want to be here. But that's okay. That's how it starts. But it is also a, but it is a, a bar that is very authentically itself. Mm-hmm. And I went in there and it was busy and they had a bunch of old guys, like a Frank Sinatra cover band, and the bar was full of martinis and old fashions and a couple of chi royals. And I just, I, I, I sat there and I had. Two cigars and two old, old fashioned. You told, you told me two things about last night. What's that? And one of them was true. And one of'em was not true. Oh, tell me. Tell me. Okay, ready? I'm ready. Lay it on me. You said I had two cigars. Yep. Yes. I'm certain swear you had two cigars. No. Swear I, hold on. Okay, and then you said I had two drinks and I'm like, there is no chance he smoked all the way through two cigars and only had two drinks. Believe it or not, it's true. When I was there, I had two. Very generous, uh, old fashions and, uh, and were so seven ounce old fashions you had too. Were okay. They were, they were large old fashions. They were okay. I'm, I, I'm now a believer. I, I, I don't know that I'd believe that myself if I told you that for two whole cigars, but it was, I sat there, the bartender was great, this host was great, and it was a busy bar. They kept up. It's not about artisanal cocktails. They make some artisanal cocktails. That's not what it's really about. It's about great whiskey. Manhattans martinis, old Fashioneds, and a couple of cosmopolitans and cur royals and a few, uh, espresso martinis. And it, it's just a bar that's very comfortable in its own skin. You may not, if you don't like cigar smoke, you don't like cigars, don't go there. But it knows what it is and I was happy to be there and it was a lovely evening out on my own. So I. I recommend the Carnegie Club in New York City tremendously. If you're a cigar smoker, if, if you're a cigar smoker around cigar, definitely it's not as enjoyable. If you're not a cigar smoker, if you hate the smell of cigars, don't walk a different block. It's really, really awful. So there's my recommendation for this evening, but I do wanna get into, we have a Bruce and Eric Brownberg ready to come on and talk about Blue Ribbon where you cannot smoke. and we'll be back in just a moment. We are the restaurant guys. You can always find out more about us@restaurantguyspodcast.com.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 6:10

Hey there everybody. Welcome back. Today on The Restaurant Guys podcast, we welcome two guys who redefined late night and downtown New York's culinary scene in the 1990s and beyond. Right up to today, Bruce and Eric Bromberg. The Brothers Behind Blue Ribbon. Brassie opened their doors in 1992 and changed the way that chefs eat, drank, and hang out after hours when the rest of New York went to bed. Blue Ribbon was serving oysters and bone marrow until 4:00 AM and Mark and I were there slurping it up, a dining room full of cooks, artists, musicians in the occasional movie star on the down low. From there, they built an Empire Blue Ribbon, sushi Blue ribbon Bakery, blue ribbon fried chicken. We've been eating at the restaurants for more than 30 years, and we are thrilled to have them on the show today. Bruce and Eric, welcome to the show.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 6:56

Thanks guys.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 6:56

you guys don't realize, uh, and I'm not sure Francis does either, but I believe that the reason Francis moved to Jersey City so he could be just 11 minutes away from Blue Ribbon. I think that was, that, that was the whole motivation for him.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 7:11

great

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 7:12

So it's funny, in 2000, so you guys opened, I was a regular at your place all the time. It was really the place where you'd, some, you'd either say, you know, well, I'll pop into the bar at Blue Ribbon and know the bartender and we'll see who's there. And that might be the beginning of a late night crawl around Manhattan. Or if you met somebody somewhere else, you're like, ah, let's go to Blue Ribbon and have some oysters at two in the morning. And it was a, it was a real, uh, it was a whole new thing. It was dinner till 4:00 AM and for the restaurant crowd, that was a lifesaver. It was a whole different social life.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 7:42

Yeah, I mean, I had just, Eric was already working in New York City and owned a restaurant right across the street called Nick and Eddie. Um, that. Which was kind of a game changer in its own right. Um, and I had been in Paris and Eric had worked in Paris as well. And we used to, you know, there were restaurants, real restaurants that were open 24 hours. Really the Brasseries of Paris, places like, you know, Lao and Fu and our very favorite, which was Opi Deon. And, you know, they hadn't closed the doors since the Nazis left Paris in 1945.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 8:26

right.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 8:26

there's no box. The place just never closed. We would get off work in Paris, and it wasn't generally as late as New York, but we would go out and have oysters or you would go in the morning, you know, you, it just didn't matter. There was real restaurant open 24 hours. So when we got back to New York and we were, you know, putting Blue, there's a long story to the beginning of Blue Ribbon, but for the city that never slept is, you know, it's moniker, everything New York's about. It was kind of amazing that we could only get like a burger, a goat cheese salad, and you know, some fries after midnight. And that just didn't seem right to us. And we wanted to create, you know, that experience we had in Paris where there were real waiters, there was the, the chef was still in the kitchen, the maitre d the psalm was on the floor, it felt like eight o'clock at two o'clock in the morning. That's what we set out.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 9:24

at the time to give you the lay of the land as a guy who, so we used, I started bartending in 86 and we're in New Brunswick, New Jersey, which is not far from New York City. And I used to have a place in New York and a place in New Brunswick, which is a story for a different day that I wound up fortunately, having a access to two places. Um, so I could grab the train in and go out in New York. And what you had was, you had Florent, right? Which was, but the food was never great there. It was a place to be seen. You had the Empire diners sit open late. Um, again, you could hang out with some transvestites, prostitutes and stars. That was cool. But it was a

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 9:59

Right.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 10:00

That was all you got.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 10:01

Yeah. Or roast

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 10:02

Or roast chicken. Oh, that's right. The roast chicken was really good there. Um, but when you guys opened it really, uh, it, it changed the dynamic. And there's one thing that I've always wanted to talk to you guys about. There was a place that opened before you did in 1990 that tried to do what you did. And it was the Chef club. And, and Charlie Parer was like, it's gonna be the place where chefs hang out late at night and everybody will be there. And I was like, well, that sounds great. And it, the air came outta that. It just didn't work. It was very much, it wound up being like a chef bro culture kind. Like, it just was not welcoming. And if you weren't a, a chef or restaurant professional, they were not open. and clearly it was two years too early. Yeah. Right. That's what we now know for sure. Right. But they did it wrong.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 10:50

yeah, it was tough. They, the decor and design of the place was not conducive to after work

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 11:00

Right.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 11:01

It was kind of bright, it was sort of stark. Uh, it really, design wise, it wasn't a comfortable, you know, kind of sink into a banquette feel cozy and, uh, like you're

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 11:14

Well.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 11:16

was more like. you're in this, clubhouse intention, but it really

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 11:21

And I remember,

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 11:22

for

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 11:22

remember walking in there and one of the things I wanted pay a great compliment to you.'cause when I heard that, oh, that you were gonna be able until 4:00 AM I'm like, oh, they're trying the Chef Caires thing again. But, and, and I, I, we went and fell in love immediately.'cause you had Alonzo behind the bar opening oysters. We'll talk about him in a little bit.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 11:37

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 11:38

uh, and you, you we'll talk about your bartenders staff back then was they, and the MA Treaty, everybody made you feel welcome. And I remember Chefs Que Air, what they got wrong was, it was a little bit of that like elbows out chef bro kind of thing that made you feel like, are you good enough to be here? Your place. You walked in the door and you were like, welcome here. Oh, and I think what profess was gonna say was, and everybody said, I'm good enough to be here. Yeah. Yeah. And, and if you

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 12:05

We we're,

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 12:05

business,

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 12:06

yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 12:06

to the good,'cause you saw everybody else in the restaurant business was there starting at one o'clock in the morning.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 12:12

Yeah. I mean, I re I literally remember one, I remember going to Chef and Cuisine years while we were building Blue Ribbon. And then I remember Charlie coming to Blue Ribbon just after we opened, I mean within, I wanna say the first, you know, number of weeks or something. And I remember he walked in and I met him at the bar. I was already up in the bar and he just looked at me. He looked around the room and he said, oh, shit,

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 12:40

You said that out loud.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 12:41

he did, he said it right to me. And he was like, okay. And um, you know, a couple years later when I was talking to him, he said something to the effect of, there was, there was a sense that, you know, we made blue ribbon without trying to make a successful restaurant. We weren't digging deep to figure out all the formulas. We made Blue ribbon from our, you know, heart and soul. And it came through to the chefs. And that's really what resonated. And quite honestly, we didn't make Blue Ribbon for the chefs originally. I mean, I don't know Eric, that we ever sat there and said, you know, other than our own experiences, but we weren't like this, we have to make a restaurant for chefs to come to. We, we just wanted there to be. Something great in New York City late night where everyone who was out and, I mean, we were aspiring, you know, wannabe musicians, so we were like, oh, man. When, when they get done with their concerts, you know, maybe they'll come down from the garden or, you know, that's, that was kind of our focus originally,

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 13:49

Yeah, we were more interested in the musicians

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 13:51

Well, you,

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 13:52

both came.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 13:53

in at Blue Ribbon and you were in the dining room late at night, there was an interesting way that it sort of tracked the rise of the food network and celebrity chef culture because when you open, that was sort of in its infancy.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 14:06

Yeah. Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 14:07

yeah, you ran into Mario Vitali, who was the guy at Poe who worked with Tony Agan, who was the bartender at Poe. And like, they were kind of famous, I remember one night we were sitting in your dining room and Mario's from New Jersey, we knew Mario from, Post college and uh, I remember the night that he's in the dining room and he's waving a credit card around. He bought everybody dinner, including me. Thank you Mario. So many years later. And he is like, I was like, you know, to what do I owe the honor? He is like, see this credit card, Tel Mario's gonna be my new show. This is the Tel Mario credit card. I'm buying your dinner. I'm But that was the kind of thing that would happen in your dining room,

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 14:45

Yeah. It, it really was the infancy of all that and, and so much so that we weren't even necessarily aware of it again when, when Blue Ribbon was being created. one time, I think the lady who did Missy Gibbons, or I forget her name exactly, who started Ready, set, cook for the Food Network, I believe was like one of the first shows

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 15:08

definitely

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 15:08

asked, she asked Eric and I if we would do the pilot. And we were like, what? What is it? And she's like, oh, it's a competition cooking show, and how great would it be between two brothers? And we were like, that doesn't feel right. You know, we're not the competitive brother guys. We were like, talk tole, you know, Those were the people in the dining room then, and it was really before any of this kind of happened. So we, we, we weren't celebrity chefs. They weren't celebrity chefs, they were just chefs. And it was really fun cooking for that crowd. Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 15:42

remember watching that show and thinking. Who's ever gonna watch a show? They can't taste the food. Yeah. People are gonna judge the food and then we're all just gonna watch them

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 15:53

Yep.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 15:53

food. Well, I don't understand. You can't taste it. Why? Who cares? This food, TV stuff never gonna work out.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 15:59

It's never gonna fly. Never gonna fly.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 16:02

you wanna hear a funny story? So, when the Food Network was a baby, they came to us and said, do you wanna be on the Food Network? We were, we, we want to come to New Brunswick, New Jersey. Who were the hosts of that show? Do you remember? Bill Boggs. Bill Boggs

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 16:16

Oh gosh.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 16:17

of the show. And they came and they did a whole thing on stage left in New Brunswick had to be 93, 94. It was very early, but aired before the Food Network was available in New Jersey and New York. So it was absolutely useless to us. But it was fun to watch in videotape later on.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 16:35

I haven't thought of Bill Boggs in a long time.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 16:38

So the other thing I, I wanted you guys to know us, We sat our dining rooms until 11 o'clock until pre COVID. Our bar was, you know, weekends, a late night menu until one, our bar was open until two. What you guys don't realize is were a rallying cry for our staff to get to, to hustle outta here so they could get to Blue Ribbon in New York by four o'clock. You were about 32 minutes up the turnpike. If we, if we caught everything right and got right through the tunnel, we could, we could be out in front of there in no time and, and oysters and duck clubs made, just made it happen. I'll bet you saved me 10 hours a week in, in over time.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 17:16

It was, it was amazing to us because that we, we would, we would always have this lull, and it's been the blue ribbon thing from day one is, you know, we rock during regular dinner service, kind of 10 30, 10 45. You know, people are paying their checks, things are slowing down a little bit. There's a couple empty tables. And then it literally would be this revolving door, you know, there'd be this 30 to 45 minute thing come 1145. The restaurant just had a, a second life, right? It was this sa same restaurant in a sense, like nothing was changing from our point of view, but it was this vibe that just took over the restaurant and for the next, you know, two to three hours. There was just this constant, you know, just amazing flow of everybody reaching for that front door. And we knew when the front door opened in the kitchen, because we had such a bad draft situation, you know, the curtains would all move. So we would literally like know when the door, every time the door opened and it was exciting to get amped up. a sec.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 18:25

would occasionally wind up and it'd be like, you closed at four in the morning and at three 30 we're like, well, we there gonna be last call soon we'll have two bottles of wine on the table and, uh, start bringing the food. The thing about

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 18:36

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 18:36

though, I mean your staff, and it's kind of amazing to me that we've been going to your restaurants for so long and we have a lot of mutual friends and we've never met after over all these years. Um, and I'm glad we're meeting today, but what I will say is, I knew you guys were gonna be nice guys. And Mark feels the same way.'cause you're st when the owners are good guys. You walk into a restaurant and you feel it. And your mare Ds have always been great and warm and welcoming and your bartender, James shrm has been my, my regular bartender since nine. Since you opened. He's been great. So one of the people that, and we're gonna talk about people now a little bit. We, we and I, and unfortunately he is no longer with us, but we have to talk about Alonzo. You guys placed him front and center right in the front of your dining room and there he was. And I've never seen anybody open oysters like that. Man. He tell us about him. He was an absolute machine.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 19:26

Alonzo and I started in 1986 at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor, and he taught me how to open oysters, which is something. I was the head chef at the American Hotel and he was kind of my right hand man. And did from oysters and raw bar to desserts and salads. And then when we moved to, to Nick and Eddie in the city, uh, he came and worked there too. And he was working on the line, but really, you know, not in his Where his, uh, you know, specialty lied, and then, so it was just a driving force from us from the beginning. We gotta make, you know, PO Alonzo on stage in the window, and this is, you know, we, when we did the cement, uh, on the floor in the, in the bar, we engraved his name in the, in the concrete, because that was his

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 20:29

Wow.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 20:30

We built that for him. For him. And James. James and I, have been together since 1987. uh, so James and Alonzo were the opening team and, uh, Alonzo's Pass, but James is still there

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 20:45

So

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 20:45

Gotta tell the story about Alonzo handing you the, uh, recipe for Alonzo Sauce. That, that's my favorite story. That's pre pre me. All this stuff happened,

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 20:55

And so we, we were, I was working at the American Hotel. It was, I took a job as a, a salad guy and within th

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 21:11

right after Jams,

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 21:13

right, a right after Raul's, I was at

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 21:16

right?

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 21:17

And, uh, I got recommended for the job at the American, the head chef job at the American Hotel by, uh, Jonathan Waxman, uh, sent me out there and I really didn't wanna be head chef at that point. I wanted to just, uh, do prep and to kind of start from the, the bottom. I did. But then other guys got fired in two months, and I found myself as

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 21:44

There you go.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 21:46

And, uh, Alonzo, his wife was the maid, uh, Josephina. She was the maid who took care of the hotel rooms. In at the American Hotel and the hotel rooms were above the kitchen. So Alonso would drive his wife to drop her off to do the cleaning and he'd come and stand at the kitchen door and watch. And I didn't know who he was or what it was. And I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off'cause, and on the east end of Long Island, it's impossible to get, a sober work staff. I was struggling and people, yeah, people weren't coming to work and this, that, and the next thing. And I am going, taking the garbage out and alonzo's near the back door and he reaches over to me and he hands me a little piece of paper and he says, this is all you need to sell oysters. And this is the best sauce. Uh, in the world. I was like, what? Running around in circles. Here's this guy, and I have no idea who he is. He's handing me this little piece of paper with, a recipe for, for oyster sauce. that's our Alonzo sauce that we put out for the oysters and we have for 33 years. And I still have that little, uh, paper he gave me. But after that, I said, the next day I was like, Hey, wait a minute. Do you cook? Do you want a, you want a job? And he was like, well, you know, I could help you if you want, but, and eventually we negotiated and worked out a deal and we, uh, were together for, uh, 21

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 23:27

I think people need to be, have the picture painted for them. If you'd never been to Blue Ribbon, I mean it's a place that means a lot to me. It's a beautiful place when you walk in, there's a very small bar, right by the front door. Plenty of room to stand behind that bar. So you can be two and three and four deep behind that bar sometimes, and then the dining room's in front of you. So behind that tiny little bar was. Barely room for two bartenders, but you didn't have two bartenders. You had James and some other bartenders on other nights,

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 23:54

Yep. Yep.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 23:54

was your oyster guy. And right in the window there's this big iced thing of oysters. And honestly, um, before you guys opened, I think the consensus was of the best oysters in New York, where at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, immediately when you guys opened, still to this day, the best oysters in New York are behind your bar.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 24:15

Yeah,

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 24:16

did all the oysters from the whole restaurant, not in the kitchen standing next to James. And so he was also a personality that people got to speak to. And he had his own tip cup, and he was as much impor as important a person behind that bar as James. And between the two of them, boy, it felt like home.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 24:36

it, it, it was really amazing what Alonzo brought to the place, to the, to the restaurant. And it, it's funny you say like Grand Central was what was known in New York. It, it was kind of Grand Central and then there was docks, if you guys remember docks, there was like, it. Docs was like this sports bar. I mean, it wasn't a great place, but it was a two or 300 seat restaurant maybe on the east side. So there were just a couple of places in New York and when we were building Blue Ribbon, we, we were building this oyster bar in the front window. And of course, like all the places I mentioned in Paris, what do you do when you walk into the restaurant? You walk past the oyster shuckers, right? It wasn't happening in a basement. It wasn't happening somewhere else. And, and we were so enthralled by the kind of history of New York where oysters were so relevant to New York and the street carts and all this stuff a hundred years before us. So we really wanted to bring that back. But we kept having people come and visit the restaurant, whether it was wine salesman or whoever it might have been. And they would be like, what? What is this? And we were like, oh, it's gonna be this oyster bar. It's so cool. And they're like, new Yorkers are never gonna go for that. You don't want that. And.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 25:49

swing a dead cat without hitting one of them.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 25:52

Exactly. It's so amazing. But, but Alonzo, like a, the care Alonzo took with each oyster, with each and every oyster that it, he wasn't the speed guy. He wasn't gonna, you know, see how fast he could do this. He was gonna see how perfectly he could do it. And I think why oysters have been spectacular. I do say that at Blue Ribbon for the last, you know, 33 years was because of Alonzo's attention. And we don't ever put out an oyster that's damaged, broken cut. It always shocks me. I go to Michelin starred restaurants, I get an oyster and I'm like, oh my God, what happened to that oyster? But there's just something about the way Alonzo shocked, and now, you know, that's how we all shock now.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 26:38

I will tell

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 26:38

Perfect.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 26:39

that, um, a, a friend of mine, a good friend of mine, I met on a trip to Austria. I went on a wine junker to Austria in 96, and

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 26:46

Mm.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 26:47

fast friends with a guy who's a wine critic, food critic, editor today is editor-in-chief of the biggest, the best wine in Austria. And we remained friends, but I think about 98 I brought him to Blue Ribbon and we hung out a lot there and here. And he had never had raw oysters before. Now they weren't fashionable back then. You can get oysters in Austria now, but it's still, it's a landlocked country. It's not really an oyster culture thing. And he, he looked at the oysters with. The ultimate suspicion and it took all the guts he had to eat a raw oyster. is no one more enthusiastic about like when he comes to New York, by the way, is there anybody who didn't look at their first oyster that way? Yeah. Yeah. It's true. I mean, I think that's the thing about raw oysters, right? Your first raw oyster is a, it's a C challenge. It's a leap of faith. It's a leap of faith is what it is. And if it's somebody, if it's not a perfect oyster, you never go there again

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 27:41

Yeah, your story is really pertinent because we have converted so many people. Sit Alonzo, sitting in front of Alonzo, oh, I don't eat oysters, I don't eat clams. Uh, alonzo's like, give me a moment. Right? And that's what he would do. And he would shuck one, make a little thing, you know, a little cup of ice. He'd do it in his shrimp cocktail, he'd put it and he'd put that sauce recipe, his special recipe, uh, that he gave to Eric all those years ago. But he would add a little cocktail sauce and a little bit of our habanero sauce. So it was more like a red sauce to it. And he would put that on the oyster'cause he knew it was their first one. We converted so many people, so who, who were sure they hated oysters, who thought they would never eat an oyster. And honestly, that's one of the greatest things you can do in food, right? Is turn somebody's opinion around of a product that they were sure they were never gonna like and now they love. So that's great to.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 28:38

and at tribute we lost Alonzo, he made a big difference and you guys made it possible for him to make that big difference. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back on the other side, uh, talking more with the Brownberg brothers about the Blue Ribbon Empire.. Hey there, everybody. Welcome back. We're with the Bromberg Brothers and I, I wanna talk a little bit more about the beginning of Blue Ribbon Brossy, and then I wanna talk about the, how the, the trajectory of the empire you have built from this groundbreaking restaurant. this wasn't the first iteration of a restaurant on that site, I understand. Is this correct?

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 30:36

It.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 30:36

Correct.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 30:37

Yeah, it was not. So Eric owned Nick and Eddie across the street and with his partners, Philip and Stephanie, uh, Hoffman, and Nick and Eddie was rocking, just doing great. Uh, it was this corner bar with a, you know, a French trained chef, a cordon blue chef cooking in the kitchen. And the place was, it was super cool. It was really transitional in New York in the sense there were, you know, back in the eighties where there was these grand restaurant scene and the uptown French places and the mediocre downtown places. And I, I feel like Nick and Eddie really did bridge that scene where it was a more of a chef driven, uh, restaurant in a casual atmosphere. Um, so they found this space diagonally across from Nick and Eddie Spring and Sullivan, which is the future site of Blue Ribbon. And it was the idea to do like a. A, not a member's club, but a, a, a clubby vibe. And it was called the Crystal Room. Eric called me. I was, I was at Cordo actually. I was a

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 31:40

say I have no recollection of the crystal room at all. Yeah.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 31:43

That's fine.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 31:44

10 weeks

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 31:45

10 weeks. We, we have,

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 31:48

you didn't miss

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 31:48

the only thing I really remember about the Crystal Room was destroying it, and we'll get to that in one second. Uh, so I fly back from, from Paris. Eric's like, it's time. I've been there for two and a half, almost three years. And he is like, here's this opportunity. Come help me open this restaurant. We come back, the restaurant's still being built. We, we come up with a menu. We we're, you know, we really are culinary focused on this. I'm just leaving, you know, whatever, two Michelin, three Michelin star restaurants come back. We open this restaurant. Literally day one. We're like, uhoh, this is not good. Everyone from Nick and Eddie is walking in to check this place out, you know? And they're like,

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 32:34

Uh, we didn't have a, we opened without a liquor

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 32:36

that didn't help. That didn't,

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 32:38

in New York City, which

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 32:39

where

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 32:40

yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 32:40

has a liquor license.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 32:42

Yeah. So all of a sudden everybody's going back to Nick and Eddie. Oh, thank you. No, we'll come another time. And so, you know, we went from doing a hundred the first night down, you know, a 40 seat room just started trickling down. We watched this thing happen. Philip stopped coming, and now it was just Eric and me and the team, you know, anyway, this thing fails miserably. There's a. Yeah, A crazy moment with the mob. That's a whole nother story. Our window smashed the

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 33:11

like a good story

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 33:13

Yeah, that, that's a whole nother thing.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 33:14

by the.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 33:15

so failing 10 weeks, don't drag this out. So, so we're sitting there at Sunday night. Eric comes in and has staff meeting after service, if you could call it service. I think we fed like 12 people. Um, and most of them were family. Uh, and Eric says We can't make payroll and we have to close. And this half the staff's Nick and Eddie from Nick and Eddie, half the staff is James and you know, Alonzo and these people who've been working with Eric for already a number of years. And we're all sitting there as restaurateurs do. We were, maybe we were having a drink or two discussing the situation. And Sean Santi Moore, who at that point was a food runner, uh, said something to the effect and Sean maybe had more. Two or three drinks at this point, but said we can make a great restaurant. This restaurant sucks. You know, why is this wall here? Why? Who would've designed something to look like that? To make a long story short, we still had like sledge hammers and tools from construction.'cause this restaurant was, was barely even finished. Uh, there was still a punch list stuff going on in the basement. We destroy this restaurant that night. We stayed there till five o'clock in the morning, a little precursor to the rest of our lives. We tear this thing apart. I think we wake up, hung over. We come in the next day to clean the place up and Eric and I walk in horrified at what we had done the night before.'cause now Eric's really screwed. He ha he owes all his investors and he has no lease left to sublet because we just destroyed this restaurant. I mean, we literally tore walls out and took all the sheet rock off the wall.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 35:02

gives us, I think, the right view of what, what happened. I

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 35:06

You get what happened?

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 35:07

I've had a couple of rages in my life, but I have never destroyed my restaurant. That's,

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 35:12

was very rock and roll. There was a lot of anger, there was a lot,

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 35:16

were

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 35:16

a lot of desperation.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 35:18

you come

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 35:19

yeah, we,

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 35:19

done this without permits. You

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 35:21

we've done

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 35:21

next morning

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 35:22

this without permits.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 35:23

to a wreck, and how do you resurrect it from the ashes and how long did it take?

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 35:27

I think we, we call our architects, we call our father who is one of our investors, and he was like, oh, hell no. Um, and we call our architects and we say, we have an idea. The only thing we can do is rebuild this place. They come literally like back of a napkin stuff. We sketch this thing out and we determine, all the staff says they will stay. Help us build this and we go to my friend who I went to Cordon Blue with Suzanne. We go to her parents, we say we need$35,000. That's what we figured out on the back of a napkin it was gonna take to redo. We already had the kitchen, we had all, you know, everything was in place. It was just the dining room. And we rebuilt it from June to November in three months, got ourselves set up, you know, trained. Everyone went through and we reopened November 3rd, 1992 with Blue Ribbon, with this crazy concept to be open till four in the morning.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 36:30

Okay. Can I, can we share with you a parallel story?

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 36:34

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 36:34

at,

Francis 36:34

we're both working at another bar in town. We have an investor, um, we kind of have a line on a liquor license, and we have the space. We get the space and we've been negotiating and it wasn't going well. But in around January of that year, we got the space, we come up with a plan and new Brunswick's, not a very big summertime destination. Right? So we're gonna open in September of 1992. Well, one of our regulars wanders into Cafe Piero, which is what we eventually became, one of our storefronts eventually became. And he, he walks in to talk to his friend Peter on Cafe Piero. And I am under an oven in, looking at things and he's like, oh, Francis, what are you doing? I'm like, nothing. I'm doing nothing. I'm doing absolutely nothing. So I was like, Ellie, you have, because we're still working nearby, right? We're working down the road. And we're like, Ellie, you've gotta keep your fricking mouth shut. Okay? Two nights, Ellie's drunk at the bar. He's like, do you know what Francis is doing? I saw him, I know he is doing our restaurant. So we got fired in March, right? So we don't have any money. We're like, uh, move up the timeline, gotta open in May. And Mark was the best. I didn't swing a lot of sledgehammers. Mark was really great at knocking down walls and, and, uh, uh, building things. Terrible, knocking things down. Fantastic

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 37:48

Well, we would watch, we would watch this old house

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 37:51

Uhhuh.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 37:51

in the mornings to figure out like, how do you do drywall? Oh, that's what you do. And we would walk to Metropolitan Lumber on Prince Street. We'd asked the guys what tools you need to do specific jobs. Uh, one of the builders who, you know, stayed on and helped us with the plumbing and electric, and we built that restaurant. The seven or eight of us just came in every day and in a couple of months. I mean, blue Ribbon's a very simple room. but we built it. We made it.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 38:20

what was amazing about that time? Okay, you guys are in your mid twenties at that time, just like we were.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 38:27

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 38:28

amazing about that time were, were a couple of things. One, inexpensive it was to, to open a place like that, how many people were willing to throw their backs in and just say. You know, I'm here for three days,

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 38:42

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 38:43

you know, I got three days off. What do you need? Right. Paint the chairs. Uh, and what I remember, so our first restaurant we opened, you know, the whole budget was a hundred thousand dollars and we had to gut it and buy ovens and we bought everything used and all that. And our, our next restaurant was just 12 years later and cost us 20 times as much to open because everything was more expensive. And all of our friends were like, you got this great. And that's terrific.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 39:13

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 39:14

You guys are ready. Terrific. Have fun.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 39:16

In the progression, right? It's a, yeah. It's so different. And you, you talk about how everyone wanted to, could, would volunteer their time and

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 39:24

Yeah,

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 39:25

there was a sense. It was an amazing sense of, I, I guess it's sacrifice for the greater good, which is so hard to find right now. And one of the, I think real keys to blue ribbons longevity of 33 years is the number of people who were rooted in 1992 or 1987 when Eric began in New York. There's, there's still that they don't question that sacrifice, right? We're, we're all in there for the greater good

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 39:56

Yeah.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 39:57

how much it comes back to you. And I feel like the, the world today is so shortsighted in general as to, no, I need this now. This is for me now. So there is, there isn't that sacrifice anymore. And really amazing things come outta that sacrifice. And I think blue ribbon's evidence of that.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 40:17

Well, and, and one of the evidence of that, right, is the long-term employee, right? It, it's, it's is, you can tell there's, there has to be mutual respect. There has to be a relationship, right? It can't just be about, you do this and that makes us this amount of money and, and your disposal, and we pay you

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 40:32

Everything's purely trans.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 40:34

If, if it's that way, you don't have 25 and 35, 30 year employees. And, and I gotta tell you before I, I, I started reading your bios. I was, I was so proud of all the people who've been with me for 25 years, but you guys are kicking our ass, so

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 40:49

There's a lot of legacy employees in the Blue Ribbon world. It's crazy, and it's amazing. I mean, it's the team, it's why we're able to expand. It's why we're able to open new restaurants with confidence that they're gonna feel like blue ribbons not just have our name on it. So it's, it's an enormous part of what we do.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 41:10

Well that's an excellent lead into moving into your other concepts, which, you know, I remember Blue Ribbon Brooklyn and Blue, blue Ribbon Sushi and you know, they don't feel like corporate concepts. They feel very personal and like extensions of of you guys. So talk to us about Blue Ribbon Sushi and the partner you took on there and then expanding to other boroughs and other cities.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 41:30

And speaking of what it took to open a restaurant, the original Blue Ribbon Sushi on

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 41:38

Mm-hmm.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 41:38

Street, we spent$90,000 to

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 41:42

Yep. Yeah, you could do it. That you could do it like that. I still have trouble when somebody doesn't own a property and I see them put$8 million into the property and I'm like, you should put$8 million into somebody else's building. That's you. You might only last 10 weeks. By the way, I know some guys, they only lasted 10.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 42:02

It

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 42:03

It happens. Yeah. So Blue Ribbon Sushi kind of came about in a really haphazard and circuitous way, but Blue Ribbon was rocking. We were super busy and you know, it was a slow build in the very beginning. And again, it was 48 seats, like you guys said, tiny bar, seven seats at the bar. And it was just this tiny little restaurant that we, yes, we knew we were gonna be open till from four to four, 12 hours of service, but we never had the idea of the volume that the restaurant would do. So as, as Drew Near Point, went out and started telling every chef in New York about Blue Ribbon and the James Beard House, and all of a sudden this place was. Nine months in packed until the wee hours of the morning, we kind of ran outta space. So we, we went to our landlord and we said, guys, is there, we know you own a couple buildings on the street. Is there any other storage? We, we can't buy enough wine. We, I think we need more refrigeration. We're, we're just like struggling to get through the days. We're doing two, you know, 330 covers with, with 48 seats. It was kind of insane. Um, and um, and he said, well actually there's this space down the block. Uh, it's kind of a storefront because it was the old stroller storage for one 19. We're at 97 Sullivan, so whatever, 8, 8, 10 buildings down the block. Why don't you guys go down, take a look at it. We could talk about renting that to you. So we go down, it is a storefront. You access it from the street. Uh, it's right next to the entrance of the building, but there was a bunch of room in the back and we were like, okay. We'll, we'll use the back as a storage room. The rent is kind of high. It was like, I don't know,$1,800 or something like that. So let's figure out, maybe we make a fish market or we do something.'cause there was no, uh, there was no way to exhaust the building. There was no way to put an exhaust system. So what can you do? And we went through this thing. Let's just, you know, we were like, we'll take it. It's our, yeah, no problem. And then we were like, what are we actually doing here? You know? And one thing led to another and there was this desire to, you know, all of a sudden sushi was so cool. It was so new. It was, you know, we didn't really know that much about it, but as chefs, there was something so beautiful and romantic and, uh, unbelievable about it. We were like, maybe we could make a sushi place. And e Eric can tell the rest of that.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 44:37

Yeah, so we foolishly, we thought, well, gee, you don't really need to cook to make sushi, so let's, let's make sushi. did we know. So we, we, uh, we're kind of in a sushi fanatical stage at one point where we, whenever we weren't working, we were eating sushi. Because we just, know, sushi is just such a spectacular thing. Both, the quality of it and the beauty of it. so we were kind of thinking, well, maybe we'd do sushi at this place. So Bruce and I, basically, whenever we could, to Japanese restaurants around Manhattan we went to every level of Japanese restaurants from Tomoe on, on, uh, Thompson Street to Sushi SEI in Midtown. And, uh, we just kind of found ourselves in a, in an odd spot because, uh, generally we got treated differently than we wanted to be treated. we were, I believe, at sushi SEI one experience and. When we came in, it was lunchtime, and it was just me and Bruce and there was a couple we, brought us, we said, you know, we're two for lunch. They brought us in, put us at a table, and there was a Japanese couple sitting at the sushi bar, which was close to where we were. And we, you know, watched the chef make them. What now we know is Omae. but we didn't really know what was going on at that point. And we said, we wanna have what those people are having. And the waitress said, not for

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 46:35

Ooh. Wow, wow, wow.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 46:38

so we were so offended. We were so pissed. We were like, all right, here's what we're gonna do. We are gonna make a Japanese restaurant The New York consumer where we combine.'cause most Japanese restaurants, they were super bright inside, didn't have much decor going on. It was, you know, it was either very austere or very ugly. were the two, uh, kind of design cues. And so we found ourselves stuck between, we wanted to bring this VIP treatment that we watched this Japanese couple get that we want so badly. We wanted to figure out how are we gonna do that for every customer in the place, not just the one Japanese couple that sits in front of the head sushi chef, and everybody else gets to order off of this second tier menu. we want everybody in every seat to get this ultimate. Super fan, super fabulous, you know, experience at a sushi place. So we combined our kind of downtown Soho aesthetic and service model with Japanese food. And we talked, we met, uh, sushi chef named Toshi, Toshi Wiki. And he, that's a whole nother story, but we enlisted him to kind of search his, his youth and his upbringing to make food he would've had at home, that his mom would've made him, that he would've had at like a celebratory dinner or some family event. And we tried to take that same attitude that we Bruce and I took when putting together the menu at Blue Ribbon, the original blue Ribbon. that came together and, you know, at. initially had told Toshi had a place on, uh, Avenue between 29th and 30th, or 30th and 30. First it was called Mima it was, pink inside, sort of super bright lights, not terribly attractive, and had very few customers it wasn't really a very popular sort of dining area. Mm-hmm. So Bruce and I got the great idea we're gonna convince Toshi to sell his restaurant and become partners with us. So we spent a lot of time, we got super, super close and we made a deal with Toshi and we said, we're gonna open in three months you gotta sell your place. Anyway, long story short, we didn't open for a

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 49:30

Wow.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 49:31

because we were building it ourselves.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 49:34

And all those friends who helped

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 49:35

idea what the construction reality

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 49:37

all those

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 49:38

but it was amazing with, with Toshi. Yeah. One, one day it was, it may have been after that sushi say, experience where, and I kind of left dejected and, or it was one of those hot shanah one of these places where we're, we're like, come on, you know, treat us in the, the right way. And Eric and I were walking, Clyde, Eric's, uh, golden retriever. After dinner, we walk past Mishi. And there's one guy behind the sushi bar who you can barely see. Uh, he was not a very tall gentleman, Toshi. And there was one customer and a waitress sitting at the side with like the cash register, counting the money at the end of the night. And we had been to a lot of sushi. We were already building a sushi restaurant. We had determined sushi was our goal, but we needed a sushi chef. I mean, we had no idea what to do. So we walk in, we asked him to make us one hand roll. He reaches over hands us both this, uh, spicy scallop hand roll. We've never had that before. And we take a bite, we look at each other and we were just like, you know, unspoken. But we were like, this is our guy. So we wind up her, you know, hounding him, stalking Toshi. We bring, then the next day it's Eric's wife, then it was my girlfriend. Then it was, you know, our staff members. Start inviting him out to the Hamptons and then we invite him down to Blue Ribbon and he comes down to Blue Ribbon. And again, his restaurant was not doing great where it was, it was past its heyday. Um, blue Ribbon. We get there, there's this, you know, uh, if you remember back in the nineties, we could be out on the street, right.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 51:17

Right?

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 51:18

everyone waiting for their table, you know, 25 people out in front of the restaurant at two and a half hour wait, the whole scene. And you know, Toshi has a huge steak, you know, his favorite thing, the family, his wife has a great time and he just keeps saying, you know, very good, very good, very good.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 51:37

So,

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 51:37

We,

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 51:37

that was how you hooked them.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 51:39

we walk him down the street, we show him the sushi restaurant and he agreed to do the deal with us. Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 51:45

You know, but to be fair, you, you talked about, you know, kind of being shunned in the Japanese restaurant. You guys were at, at that front end of rest tours in New York City, who of changed the way customers were treated, right? That, that beginning of hospitality, that beginning of customer first, uh, movement, that, you know, the Danny Meyer hospitality thing is, is what we'll talk about. You guys were, we're early in that, you know, what we're, we want you to feel good and comfortable. It's not about exclusivity. It's not about making you feel like, I guess will allow you to be here in, in our wonderful place. and New York was, was famous for in the lucky. Be here, say thank.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 52:33

And you know what? That that trend is coming back in a weird way. Yeah. There's a big push for like super hard to get into reservations and that kind of blind, I gotta go to the next

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 52:49

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 52:50

thing going on. and it's building, I think, uh, in the last, five

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 52:56

I,

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 52:56

what happens when, when places like that happen is you have constant turnover of restaurants

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 53:02

yeah,

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 53:03

right?

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 53:04

if you're counting on being the next cool place, some point, you're not the next cool

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 53:09

that's the right.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 53:10

Yeah. We've, we've never thought about being the next cool place. Our, our, uh, of driving force has been, we wanna be an institution. We, we started out day one with being impressed by going to cities with our dad and traveling and going to the places that have been there for 20, 30, 40 years that are famous for, you know, necessarily being famous, but they're famous for something and something that you get that you know what you're getting. And we've kept the same menu for 33 years at Blue

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 53:49

Well, you know, and, and the menu is, um, iconic. Iconic, and you've, you have like, it's like bone marrow and oysters and it really was unlike anything that had been in New York before. And I, we used to go, I used to go for oysters and Mark and I could house oysters and our buddy Scott could, we could house dozens of oysters. then to have a duck club sandwich, which I had never seen before, and remains one of the best sandwiches of all times, which stays on your menu, which is amazing.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 54:19

Yeah, no, when, so when we were building the restaurant, we were literally weeks. Not even days from opening. We're doing all the construction. Eric's wife Ellen kept saying to us, who, you know, ran the front of the house. She kept saying, guys like we, we have nothing we can train the staff on. We're hiring a staff now. We don't have a menu. Like, you need to come up with a menu. And so finally one day, and this is literally not a, maybe a week from opening something like that, we, Ellen sends us up the street to SueAnn. To go sit in the thing, gives us a legal pad and a pencil and says, go write this menu. Like, we need a menu today enough. Stop building this restaurant. Somebody else will finish it. We need you guys to start cooking. And we, we go up to Suen and I think in the time we had, you know, a couple bowls of miso soup and whatever it was, some macrobiotic, uh, veggie thing. We wrote the entire blue ribbon menu, very similar to what it is today. And it was basically Eric and I, we, we had an incredibly food centric father who was a lawyer in New Jersey, but his passion was restaurants. And he just took us every weekend to Beon New Jersey for this guy to New Haven, Connecticut, for this thing to, to Little Italy, for this dish to travels around the, he was like absolutely food centric. And we sat down and said, what are our. Best childhood memories. There was no, this is gonna be a French restaurant, this is gonna be an American restaurant, this is gonna be this. It was literally what is, what connects us to food, what are our recollections and what was Grandma's best meal? What was your birth best birthday dinner? And that was the blue ribbon menu two hours later. And that's what we're still cooking 33 years later. And this random eclectic menu makes sense. And I think it makes sense in that space because we built that space. We worked in it 20 hours a day. We, you know, it was completely our, our experiences that came out. And it is a weird collection of things. It's, it's really bizarre when you go back and you look at it, but it, it all makes sense to us and I think that's why it worked.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 56:43

let, let me see if I got this clear. Okay. Couple of Jersey guys who, well, in my case at least, my father was so cheap except when it came to travel and food.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 56:57

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 56:58

Okay. Restaurants and travel were the two things my dad would spend money on. And, and literally, uh, you know, you're gonna sleep on this cot for 10 months. Okay? It's, but, but we're going out to good restaurants and we're going to Paris, and we're going to,

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 57:12

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 57:12

around the world and you're gonna do fun things. and I got to spend a summer in Paris during, my college career. And, you know, every time you guys open your mouth, I'm hearing this stuff. And I'm like, the stuff, that's the stuff that makes, you know, for a great restaurant. Those are the, the experiences that, that you have and it builds the base for giving people the experiences that you guys give them. Mm-hmm.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 57:35

Yeah. It, it really was so critical to us that it, we, we had just come out of fancy three star Michelin restaurants and these, you know, ego driven environments and everything, and this was our, we were, we were the bosses all of a sudden. Like, how did that happen? There was, mom and dad weren't telling us what to do. The teachers weren't telling us to do what to do. Nobody was telling us what to do. So we, we literally sat there. It wasn't just the menu. It was also, we don't want to have people yelling at each other in the restaurant. Like, I don't want a copper pan flying across the kitchen at a 14-year-old Comey. You know, all these experiences we had that were terrifying and didn't make for a good work environment. We were like, let's create all the rules ourselves. Let's, let's make the restaurant we we're gonna spend 18 hours a day. Right. You guys know, it's, you spend your life. it is your life. So how do you wanna live it?

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 58:37

I recently figured out I spent a hundred thousand hours in this building, so. So, yes, it's my life. I ha The question that has to be asked before we finish

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 58:46

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 58:47

Eric, the guitar in the background. Tell me the story.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 58:52

Uh, it's just, uh, I guess if I could have my druthers, I'd be playing that instead of cooking, but it, uh, my talents sort of dragged me, uh, in a different direction. But yeah,

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 59:06

To the stove.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 59:07

it's an ongoing thing for both of us. We're both musicians and both play. Uh, we used to have a recording studio in the beginning of Blue Ribbon,

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 59:16

Oh, there we go.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 59:18

until, uh, nine 11 when, uh, it was downtown on Anne Street. So

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 59:24

I don't know how great a musicians you are, but I think the world's pretty happy about that, that you started Blue Ribbon.

eric-bromberg_2_02-27-2026_125905 59:29

I think we're pretty happy

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_125748 59:31

Alright, so we, we have not gotten to, and we're running outta time. We have not gotten to your whole empire. I mean, you are operating multiple concepts in multiple cities You've had to deal with, wonder about blue ribbon fried chicken. We're gonna have to talk about those things in other time. But I'm wondering if we couldn't maybe as a little bonus content for our paid subscribers, can you tell us about the mob story you referenced earlier in the show? I've been thinking about that for the last time we've been talking to you. Gotta tell us about the mob story in New York City.

squadcaster-a9i7_1_02-27-2026_075749 1:00:00

It, it was, uh, a crazy one. I'll start,

Francis 1:00:26

Hey there everybody. Welcome back. Love those guys now. I love them. I love the restaurant now. I love them. Reminded me of a story though. I don't know if you remember this story, our buddy Kurt Wenzel, your college roommate. My college roommate. Yeah. And, uh, and after for a while and, uh, traveled to Europe with him for a while, but he, um. Got his first job in New York City waiting tables. Mm-hmm. And we had all waited together at, uh, various places. And he's in New York and he moves on to Mulberry Street, which is right in the middle Oh yeah. Of the, the, the arena where there, you know, nobody dies, who's not supposed to, you know what I mean? Yep. Um, and, uh, he. There was this little restaurant, it wasn't a very good restaurant and it was owned by this Italian American guy. And he said the guy was kind of a jerk. Used to hit on the female customers when they come in. It wasn't a great place to work, wasn't very busy, wasn't getting a lot of tips, and it was there for the first, ah, 10, 15 days. evidently the owner owed a lot of people money. So the guys come in, they're like, Hey, I want my money. And then it was like, Hey, I want my money. Hey, like, you better gimme my fucking money. And then then one time somebody came in and said, everybody out of the restaurant, oh boy, threw everybody outta the restaurant, had a very serious conversation.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_141250 1:01:33

and there's a little bit of back and forth with the owner and the guy looking for the money, pulls out a gun and shoots it into the ceiling.

the-restaurant-guys_1_02-27-2026_141020 1:01:39

So I don't know if anybody died on the first floor or not, but Kurt took off his apron. He laid it down and he said, thank you very much. I won't be back for my tips. You can just, you just keep them and have a nice, I would, I think it's a reasonable response. It was a different world back in the nineties, wasn't it? Yeah, it sure was. Yeah. It's especially in that neighborhood. Yeah, uh, you don't wanna get shot. Anyway, I hope you guys have enjoyed this show as much as we have. I'm Francis Shot. And I'm Mark Pascal. We are the restaurant guys, and you can find out more@restaurantguyspodcast.com.