Transcript 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Welcome to Hospitality On The Rise, the podcast about the people shaping the hospitality industry and their journeys. I'm your host, Alice Cheng, founder and CEO of Culinary Agents, hospitality's go-to hiring platform. And I'm here to give you your dose of virtual mentorship.

Here, we'll be sharing the stories, lessons learned, and advice from hospitality leaders who've carved out their own path to success. After all, this industry is where many get their start and go on to do incredible things.

Whether you're a pro, starting out, or just love the hustle, this podcast highlights what makes hospitality extraordinary, the people.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

I'm so excited to have Andrew Zimmern here with us today. Andrew is an Emmy Award-winning TV personality, chef and writer. He's creator and executive producer and host of Bizarre Foods franchise, MSNBC's What's Eating America, Outdoor Channel's Wild Game Kitchen and Field to Fire. That's a mouthful. No pun intended. Andrew Zimmern’s Driven by Food, Emmy-nominated Family Dinner, Emmy-winning The Zimmern List, and on and on and on. I will highlight 4x James Beard Foundation Award Winner, as well as a series of books and all other projects that we are hopefully going to hear here today. Thank you, Andrew, for joining us today.

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN 

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Well, we don't want to just spend the whole time talking about all the accolades and awards that you've collected over the years. We're really interested in how did it all begin? How did you know that hospitality was the industry for you?

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

That's a great question. I think it's probably two things. Number one, my parents entertained a lot. I think being at their table and seeing the reaction that other people had to food being served to them was probably first. Second was probably traveling around the world with my father as much as I did. He was building an international business when I was ages 6 to 12, 13, 14, 15. So we would go away for three, four days at a time to Italy in the middle of the school year while he had meetings. My parents were divorced, so if I was living with him, I just went with him. 

And I got to see firsthand so many different traditions and things that were just, you know, my jaw was on the floor, being in a Parisian seafood bar in Les Halles when it was a working port in late 60s, early 70s. Eating tiny little snails and seeing people drinking jugs of white wine and eating what I thought was just the best seafood I'd ever eaten in my life. 

And then it was day one, job one; the summer I turned 14, my father told me there was no more allowance. And I was like, OK. And he said, “So go get a job.” And I was very excited about that. All my friends were getting jobs working for the local landscaping company. And the idea of getting up at four in the morning and hauling wheelbarrows of manure was something that I was not really excited about. I wanted to be at the beach. I wanted to be playing tennis. And then at night I wanted to be cooking in restaurants. So I decided to call my godmother and ask for a job. My parents were horrified. They didn't want me working nights in a restaurant. My godmother said, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.

I started working at this seafood restaurant the summer that I turned 14. Because I could open clams— I had some skill sets I walked into that first job with. I had cooked with my mother, my grandmother, my father. I loved cooking. So I could handle a knife. But where I had great skill, like most 14 year olds, was less so in veg prep, but really, really good at shucking clams and oysters. So if you can do certain skills like that in the restaurant business, you can have a job for life. Poaching eggs is another one. Although if you're really good at Sunday brunch, you'll never get lifted off of that job in the schedule. I endured that problem. 

I had to leave a job when I was in my early 20s at a restaurant because they had me on Saturday, Sunday brunch duty and were not gonna take me off. And I said, “I wanna learn the other stations.” And they were like, “You're the only person here that can do 400 egg platters in 2 ½ hours.” And I was like, then I gotta go. 

But I shucked some clams, I'll never forget it. I shucked a half dozen cherry stone clams. I mean, this is summer of ‘75. And I put them on the tray of ice with some cocktail sauce and a bag of oyster crackers and some lemons, which was the setup in the restaurant at the time. I put it up on the counter, and a server came by and took it and said something to the expeditor, you know, table eight or whatever, half dozen cherry stone clams.

And I watched, in this open air kitchen, I watched the server walk across the dining room and deposit it. And the people looked down and then, you know, some other appetizers on the table. They looked at the clams and I could sort of half read lips, half hear them. And I could tell that the guy was saying, “Wow, these are open really well.” Like I didn't mangle the clam when I opened them. They were clean and bright and plump looking. Then they ate them, and they took so much pleasure from that. Now I didn't grow the clams. I just opened them, and I made the cocktail sauce according to the recipe that was given to me by one of the sous chefs in the restaurant earlier in the day. So I really had very little to do with it, but that was my first plate that I ever put out in a restaurant. 

You see the satisfaction, and it triggered that thing inside of me that came and got built and made stronger and more tangible by those other earlier experiences and I was off to the races. There was nowhere else I wanted to be other than restaurants. There was no other people I wanted to spend time with more than food people.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Just hearing you remember and recount that you can get that feel that you're probably remembering and reminiscing about. And this industry is such a great first job for so many, and some get hooked right away and develop it into something else and into a career. And some get hooked and impacts them differently as they progress in other directions.

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

Well, it's the best thing about our industry. It's also one of the most challenging parts about our industry. Next year I celebrate 50 years in restaurants. 

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Congrats

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

That's nuts. That's nuts. I only say that so that people understand that while I've done other things in my career–and sometimes people know me best just through a TV show–I've never stopped working in restaurants. You know, you spend that much time, you learn a couple of things. When we founded–I was a founding member of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, which we started in March of 2020 to make sure that the restaurant industry was kept as whole as possible when the country was shutting down during the early days of COVID.

One of the things that was confirmed for me as fact is that our industry is the largest employer of first time job seekers. It's also now the largest employer of last time job seekers. It is either number one or two–depending on whose poll you look at–employer of single moms, single dads, returning citizens, people coming out of jails and institutions, new Americans, legal and illegal. You can keep going on and on down the line. It is an incredibly unique group of people that represent our industry, both public-facing on the floor and behind the scenes, making your food, washing your dishes, putting things away in refrigerators, doing the prep work and all the rest of that. So it's a very, very unique population that, number one, I felt at home with, but number two, has to be looked after with great care, in my opinion.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Absolutely, because oftentimes they're too busy caring for others. 

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

That is correct.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

So you're hooked, and you're you're working in a restaurant, and presumably you started at the lower ranks, if you will, as you were learning and growing. At what point were you like, or maybe that was the point where you're like, “This could be my career. I'm going to make this my career”?

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

I knew it when I was five. I knew it before I got my first restaurant job. There's a picture of me eating at a table. It's at my fourth or fifth birthday. And my parents have always remarked, before they passed away, that that was the night that they knew I was going to be in the food business. My mother was supportive. My father wanted me to quote unquote, “get a real job.” 

But I was honored at one point during the last years of his life by the James Beard Foundation, had a big summer event honoring me out in Long Island. And my father drove down; he had then left New York and was living in Maine. And he drove down and attended the event and kind of looked around, and people were talking about me, kind of what you read at the top, which is sort of embarrassing for me, but I'm better at accepting it now that that is me. 

But my dad had never really had it in perspective. He read my books, he watched me on television, he did all he had friends who told him, “Your son's doing great”. But there was something about being at that event. He finally accepted that, wow, this is quite… you did make a career out of this. He wanted me to work in advertising or work on Wall Street or, you know, be a doctor, quote unquote, “have a real job.” But as I constantly reminded him during my early career, he was the person who gave me the bug to travel and eat. And I'm a pale version of him. I made Bizarre Foods in some ways, almost as a homage to him.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, and as you were saying, you're celebrating 50 years in restaurants and more and being in the industry soon. It's important to note that folks like you and you in particular have really redefined the profession, whether it's the media, whether it's different networks or individuals who have forged a different career path and have kind of opened the aperture of there's restaurants, there's skills you learn there. There's a lot of restaurant-adjacent things you can do. There are more and more as people and guests have different interests, and they travel, and they learn more, and they want to do more. And we push at Culinary Agents that this is a profession. If you love it and you want to be in it, there are a lot of opportunities, and there are different opportunities. So I love it. And thank you for trailblazing your career path so we can use it as an example to people as to what is possible. 

So you're working in restaurants and you worked in restaurants for many years before you started your media debut, if you will.

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

Sure, started at 14 and didn't get into any type of food media on my own until ‘95, ‘96.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

So take us there. So you're cooking, you're working, and you went up the ranks, always back of house, correct? Or back and forth?

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

No, I had a lot of front of house jobs in New York and was ostensibly running a small restaurant group that after I left it became a very large and important restaurant group. But I drugged and drank myself out of that job and wound up moving to Minnesota a few years later, where I rebirthed myself after getting sober. And I've been sober since January 28, 1992. So it's been 33 ½ years of continuous sobriety. 

I was general managing restaurants. I worked for Roger Martin, a PR legend in New York for six months. I wanted to learn every part of this business because I wanted to operate the best restaurants in the world. That was my goal during the 80s. And I met Steve Hansen and he started the BR–well, we opened a restaurant together and then a second one and a third one before I drugged and dragged my way out of that job. But that company became BR Guest, which was a legendary New York City-based company that he sold a few years ago.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, and it launched the careers for many other folks in the industry as well who spent time there. Yeah. 

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN 

Yes. Oh yes.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

So you're in Minnesota, and you're back in the restaurant industry, center of gravity just pulls you in, and you started as a dishwasher and became the executive chef…

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

In a day.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Because that's how you do it.

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

Well, it was a very unique circumstance. I was living in a halfway house in St. Paul, Minnesota and could only work from 9 to 5, really. So I was the lunch dishwasher at a French bistro in downtown Minneapolis. It was mobbed. It was the hottest restaurant in town. It's like week three. We had 110 seats. We're doing about 260, 270 covers at lunch, which in Minnesota is unheard of to do two turns at lunch. Unheard of, especially back then. I mean, it was crazy, absolutely crazy. Those first people who came in and got seated at 11:30, we needed them out at 12:30, 12:45 to bring the next group in. And the prep and the execution, you’re pushing so many plates through such a small window of time. 

And the chef had trained in New York City from Minnesota. He was a little over his head. One of the sous chefs who worked the grill during lunch, a lot of dishes came off the grill. The broilers were there. So everything from escargot and onion soup, to the steak frites and the chicken paillard and the grilled shrimp for the grilled shrimp salad, our salmon with ratatouille dish, all off the grill. He called in sick. And I went to the owner and the chef who were talking, they were panicked. It was like 9:30 in the morning. And I said, “Hey, I can work that guy's station. It might be easier for you to replace me in the dish room with two dishwashers, and I can do the grill station.” And they looked at me and they're like, “You're the dishwasher.” And I'm like, “Yeah, but I've been watching for three weeks and I've worked in restaurants and I can put that guy's station out.” And they tried a million ways to solve the problem. 

And ultimately, they wound up finding someone to come in and wash dishes and they said, “Okay, you can do it, but we're gonna take these three dishes away from that station and give them to other people.” I said, “I don't want people crossing over onto the grill. I mean, the menu says grilled shrimp salad. So I have to grill the shrimp, send them over to the garde manger so that they come out from that station, but I'm the one grilling the shrimp, right?” And I kept talking about these things and they were just like, “Fine, fine, fine, but keep up.”

And, you know, I was fine. Put out the station. About halfway through lunch, the chef who was trying to expedite from behind the line completely messed up everything that was going on. I knew what was going to happen. Ten tickets were going to get backed up and then just the whole system crumbles down. So, you know, my stuff on the grill, I think I remember I had some steaks resting, but I didn’t have anything active. And I went around to the other side where one of the servers was on the server side, running expo. And I sort of moved some tickets around and solved the problem and you know, got everything sort of straightened out about who was cooking what. 

And it really wasn't that hard. It was just, you had to have solved that problem before to know how to solve it again. I put out the food at lunch and I came up with the grilled trout special that day, and I was cleaning up my station and asked if there was any prep. And they said, “No, get back to the dish room. We called the nighttime grill guy in. He can come early. So he's coming in to prep up the station.” I’m like, OK. 

And I go back and I'm washing dishes and I'm heading out to get the bus back to my halfway house, and the owner, he opens the door to his office and with his finger gestures me in and he says, he asked me–I just never forget it. He looked at me, he said, “Can you answer one question for me?” I said, sure. He said, “Can you tell me please why my dishwasher put out food that was more beautiful than anything that even the chef in the restaurant put his hands on? And can you please explain to me how you were able to expedite your way out of that?” ‘Cause he came running in, he ran the floor, he came running into the kitchen in the middle of this thing. ‘Cause there's tables not getting their food and complaining to their servers. And, he said, “I just don't understand.” And I said, “I told you, I cooked before in restaurants.” 

The next day, I showed up for work, and I got the finger pull into the office and he said to me, “I took out your application and I saw that you were from New York, but you didn't put any previous work experience there.” He said, “I called my–” he was a New Yorker. He said, “I called my New York restaurant friends. I said, ‘Any of you guys ever hear of this fellow?’ And they're like, ‘Oh yeah, one of the great chefs, awesome restaurant guy, like world-class. Sadly drank and drugged his way out of the city. But like, yeah, you know, great guy.’” 

And he said, “I want you to help me straighten out this restaurant.” I said, “I'm living in a halfway house… but I get out in six weeks. So if you want, you know, we can talk about it then.” And literally day I got out of the halfway house, he made me the chef in the restaurant. I got rid of everyone who worked there in the kitchen. I mean, they had really hired–well, not everybody, I kept one or two. But living in Minnesota, there were so many amazing cooks and chefs and restaurant people coming in from L.A., Boston, Seattle, Miami, New York, getting sober, sticking around for a job for a year, two years before heading back to where they were. And so I just put signs up in all the halfway houses saying, hey, if you have real restaurant experience and you want a safe, sober environment to cook in, come to our restaurant. Because of that, we just had an incredibly tight crew. 

We, for several years, very proudly created the best restaurant in the Twin Cities, in my opinion, during those years. And at the same time, food started to become the new rock. Now we're in ‘95, ‘96, ‘97, and local TV stations started asking me to do television, you know, come in Saturday and cook a dish, the typical morning show thing. So I came in and I did a couple of those. The local NBC affiliate said, “Wow, you're really good at that.” And I said, “Thank you.” And I had an aptitude for it. So they said, “Can you do every Saturday?” I said, sure. 

Then I realized, I went home and I had an epiphany that all my life I've been a storyteller telling stories about food. I needed a bigger audience, and I needed to leave the restaurant I was in. And I figured I can live for three months without income and take a job at a radio station, a TV station, a magazine as an intern, basically like a 36 year old intern, whatever I was at the time. And make myself indispensable, which really is the key to survival in a restaurant or really any other environment: work hard enough, be smart enough, do the right thing. Show up early, leave late, all the kindergarten stuff, and you will become indispensable in your role. You will be an indispensable part of a team, whether you work in an insurance company or a restaurant, but especially in restaurants that are a very bloody team sport. 

And I did that. I left the restaurant. I was ambitious. I got a job at a local TV station doing a show called Good Day Minnesota where I did feature reporting about food and did recipes on Fridays. I did a weekend radio show that had some ridiculous title, you know, The Wandering Spoon or something crazy. I started writing for our glossy monthly magazine, Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine. And I did all three of those jobs for about four or five years while I was slowly growing my national presence in writing radio and television. Got a job being the food guy on two local–one syndicated, one not syndicated–television shows where I was sort of the house chef. 

And then put together some video and went out and sold the show about me wandering around the world eating foods that were never talked about, but in those countries of origin were very common in everyday foods. My goal there was to get people to practice patience, tolerance and understanding with each other in a world that I thought was increasingly pulling itself apart. But if a family in Finland could see what a family in Japan was eating, and if a family in Japan could see what a family in Guatemala was eating, we might realize that we have a lot more in common. The behaviors, the food is different, but everything else just looks like another family. And when you hear someone passionately talking about Hákarl, fermented Greenlandic ice shark in Iceland–one of the stinkiest, most putrefied fish products that, but wildly popular in Iceland–talking about it the same way that a grandmother in Iowa would be talking about her icebox cake, you know?  I think that we might have something that level sets our love for one another as human beings, but more importantly would show us what food culture around the world is all about. 

And Pat Young, who was the GM of Travel Channel at the time, got my pitch and wanted to hear more. And I did not know that he was in the process of buying a show from Food Network that was failing called A Cook's Tour. And there was a young chef from New York named Tony Bourdain who was in charge of that, running that show. And Pat thought, “Here I have two very immersive explorers that are very different. If I put them on the same night, maybe we could create destination viewing on Travel Channel on Monday nights.” And that's what he did. And No Reservations and Bizarre Foods on Monday nights together. There was one Monday night, it was a lousy game, but we did better than Monday Night Football. I think during the heyday of those shows, well I know a very large portion of the country was addicted to Monday nights on Travel Channel…

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, I was.

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

…and they were then able to expand the other nights and hire other people. And I think the ways in which we explored other cultures through food have a lot of similarities, but a lot of differences. What I have been told by other people smarter than me, that that sort of changed the way we look at food and television and media and storytelling. And I'm lucky enough to bump into young creators with 25 million followers in social media and a very robust career in that media format who come up to me and say, “I grew up watching your show, and if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be doing what I was doing.” So I’ve become okay with the idea that at least I had an impact on a couple of people.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Well, and it all stemmed from that one introspective moment when you said, “I think I'm a storyteller.”

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

Well, you know, it was actually a little more than that. I knew I was a storyteller, but I was keenly aware of what was going on in the business of food and media. And I tell young folks all the time, “Pay attention, man. That's what's going to give you the idea. If you're not paying attention, that's your problem.” 

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

And timing matters.

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

Well, if you pay attention, you can take advantage of timing. That's the thing. You have timing opportunities every hour of every day around you. What you choose to spend your time on creates a timing opportunity. So people think timing is something like luck, that it happens to you. Timing is being opportunistic and having enough information so that you can take action on things. Right? Life is an action step. It is not a passive step. It's an action step. 

So I had been studying the industry, the media industry, and I saw that food and food TV and all the rest of that was the numbers were creeping up and up and up, was getting more and more popular. More food magazines were coming out. Sales of food magazines were up. Something called Food Network had debuted. It was getting more and more popular all the time. And so I saw doors opening that I knew historically would close because enough people were already inside the room. So my goal was how do I get inside the room at the big kids table in the food world before the doors close? And so it was a very, very conscious business decision and a strategic one…

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, yeah, I love it. And then make yourself indispensable.

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN 

… to learn, learn how to do what I was doing and make myself indispensable. And that was it. I also learned along the way when it comes to expanding a platform of any kind within your own business as an owner or business leader in media, whatever, it's much better to be the “only” than it is to be the “best.” It's so much easier to sell “only.” “Best” is relative. “Only” is only. And, it's sort of been a material part of what I think has been a successful run so far.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, life lessons right there. My question is, do you spend enough time taking a step back and patting yourself on your back?

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

No, absolutely not.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Of course not, because who has time for that?

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

It's not about that. For me, it's about staying healthy mentally and emotionally. I mean, maybe at some point— I'm just finally OK. And I really mean this seriously. I used to, you know, go on podcasts five years ago and someone would start reading my CV the way you did. And I would just say to them, “Please leave that out.” I didn't even want to hear it. I said, “Just let my. conversation stand on its own.” I wouldn't have been able to accept the fact that I've had an impact on other people. I was just like, you know, that's, we're gonna leave that up to people, not me. 

The reason is I'm really afraid of self-centeredness and selfishness, that part of the ego. I'm not afraid of the healthy parts of the ego, I'm afraid of the negative parts of the ego. Because when you're wrapped up in self-centeredness and selfishness, I historically have experience of horrible things happening in my life. It was the root cause of my addiction and my alcoholism amongst other things. And so I really try to stay away from that and focus, let the work speak for itself, just focus on doing the next right thing, try to help other people, which is why, I mean, service work is what I predicate my whole life on. 

I spend half my life making content, let's say, and running my little businesses. But I spend the other half of my life working for nonprofits, doing service work, trying to repair the problems in the world that are adjacent to food that I feel that I can contribute to. So from growing the blue economy in Africa, because the green economy–the agriculture there–soil health is eroding, we're going to have to boost the blue economy there. And I think that's the answer for all coastal African countries, but also for feeding hungry Africans in the interior. I work obviously on a lot of different issues here in this country, from hunger to refugees to housing issues, to mental health issues, sit on a lot of boards, create a lot of help, create a lot of organizations that I think help people and just try to be a good global citizen.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Well, you're doing an awesome job. I think and I say that, and I do know– by the way, I left out half of the stuff as far as what I was rattling off some of the things on this podcast. And at Culinary Agents, we purposely want to be the ones that are highlighting all the wonderful things because we do come across a lot of folks in this industry who are not only humble but also… Well, they're humble and they're focused on the work and they're focused on the outcome, and the work speaks for itself. So I personally like to throw in more of the accolades and brag about other folks. So thank you for indulging me

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

I mean, look, the fact of the matter is that my life has been what it's been. And that's awesome. I just, you know, it's just a personal choice for me. And it's hard, and this is the very nature of the imposter syndrome, thank you for throwing all the professional flattery my way. I appreciate it. I completely concede you are not lying. I do those things. I did those things. And if people want to see my full bio and all the stuff that I do, go to AndrewZimmern.com. It's all there if you're curious. Yes, factually, that is the tip of the iceberg. 

But the problem for me is that I still see myself as a work in progress as someone who has a lot of things left undone, and when you had a shitty day as a dog dad or as a father or as a business owner or you've made some mistakes, and another human being has been affected and you're trying to repair it with them, and someone tells you how much they love you, it is a very, very, very strange thing. Because what goes through my mind is, “Geez, if you only knew, if you only knew,” right? 

I think all folks are like that. It's a dilemma for public people, right? I mean, this is really what it's at. A lot of folks in restaurants, we're public people. You don't have to be on TV. If you own a restaurant in the town or you're the host at a popular restaurant in a town or a popular server, you are a public person. You have fans. You have people whose lives you affect. People say, “Oh, I want to be in Debbie or Tom's section” at the restaurant, or they want to get to know the maitre d' at a place. You know, we all affect. I mean, even if you're a plumber. I love my plumber. I do. I give him cookies because when my pipes burst, I want him to say, “Yeah, I'm going to go out to the Zimmern house because they're kind to me.” He's a public person. He has fans. 

We walk this earth on our own feet. And I think, you know, what is it in Shawshank Redemption? “You got to get busy living or else you're going to get busy dying.” I think living means being a contributing member of society. In 30 years, if I'm not here–statistically, I won't be–what am I going to leave behind? No one's going to give a crap about the Emmys and the Beard Awards and all the rest of that. It will be printed once in an article or an obituary, right? But people are going to say, “He started this organization, he did this and helped these people.” 

I know that there are kids in the Gwembe school district in Zambia that have no idea what an Emmy or a James Beard Award is, but they know that I changed the way their little school system feeds its kids, and they get to grow their own vegetables. And that will stay, that will last forever. That will last forever. And they will be adults and they will say, “Oh my gosh, I remember that guy, he came here. And he came here more than once. And he actually did the work. He didn't just stick his name on something.” 

And that's the kind of legacy that I want to build. To me, that's why we do life. It's not for the things, it's for the ways that we can affect change and be a good global citizen and be remembered as someone who made a difference for other people. I spent a lot of my life just thinking about me, me, me, me, me. And it did nothing but get me in trouble. When I started focusing on everyone else other than me, incredible things started to happen.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Well, thank you for that. I have no questions after that. 

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

Sorry.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

It really is incredible. I wish the show was longer, and I don't want to hold up more of your time. But what you're sharing here is–and I've seen I've seen you speak in very large platforms. I've seen you on TV. I've also seen you in very small industry-specific gatherings while you're raising money to support hospitality workers at Team Hidi just a couple weeks ago. 

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

I'm on the board of Giving Kitchen, GivingKitchen.org. Everyone should go there.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yes, absolutely. And it's really a treat for me. It's really a treat for our users, our listeners, and whoever is gonna be interested in learning a little bit about your career path and what you're passionate about and where you spend your time. I am going to wrap up with some quick-fire questions. 

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

Go for it.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

All right. What advice would you tell your younger self?

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

I was 31 years old. The very first time I used the sentence, quote, “I don't know [BLANK.] Can you help me?” And that's the truth. And that is so awful. That's horrendous. I would tell my six year old self, ask for help. It's OK to ask for help. Asking for help is a sign of strength. It's not a sign of weakness.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

What's your advice for someone struggling in the industry?

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

Talk to another human being. Doesn't matter what you're struggling with. Work issue, personal issue, whatever. The more exposure we give to our struggles in life, the faster they become solved. Other people know how to solve our own problems better than we are. We're in the muck and the mire. All we see is the crap. But someone else has solved that problem in their life, and they have words of wisdom. So the more that you ask for help, the more that you tell people when someone says, “How's your day going?” Don't bullshit them. Tell them. You will find real world solutions to your problems. 

The other benefit is you will become more fit spiritually. And that is because when you let the sunshine of the world shine down on the shittiest parts of your life, even your mistakes and your struggles and the things that you're not proud of, they tend to dry out and evaporate and blow away and they no longer become an issue. 

When I was drinking and drugging, I did horrific things. I crossed every moral boundary that I've ever had for myself as a healthy young boy. And for those that are interested in all the gory details, you can go to my YouTube, subscribe to my YouTube channel, it's free. But the most popular thing we've ever put on there was a piece, it's a seven minute story that's animated as well about my own personal recovery story. And the people at ThinkNow put it out, it's on my YouTube. It's really popular. But when you cross those boundaries, there's a lot of carried shame and trauma that comes with those things in life. The reason I talk about all of them is two things. One, I want to help other people who are struggling with the same thing, but it's also selfish. The more I talk about it, the less power it has over me. And that carried shame and trauma goes away and I don't pass it on to other people around me. So really, really, really important stuff for people to think about as they're living their lives.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

What's your advice for fellow hospitality leaders?

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

Hang in there. Work hard to make solutions. Be responsible to your people. And if your heart isn't 100% in it, it's okay to pass the torch to someone else. We are in the most dangerous month, day, and week in the history of the restaurant business during my lifetime. I believe more dangerous than during the early days of COVID when everything was shutting down. From tariffs, to the economy–which is really going to get worse very, very, very fast–we are seeing decreasing numbers of diners coming into places. Restaurant owners and leaders and managers, we're going to have to make some really, really, really tough decisions. And it's not going to be easy. And it's okay, you're not a quitter if you decide that you're not up for another fight. The last seven, eight, nine years on planet Earth, we've all been doing a lot of fighting. And I tell people, “It’s time to unclench our fists and approach life a little differently.” Some of the healthiest people and happiest people I know are folks that left their job at the insurance company or the electronics retailer or the restaurant and said, “I'm going to teach, I'm going to farm, I'm going to make clothes on Etsy,” but whatever it is that is your true happiness, pursue it and don't be afraid to.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

On that note, Andrew, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me and this audience. And we can't wait to see what's in store next. 

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

Can I add one thing? 

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Of course.

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

I will tell you, because the flip side of that is also true. If you love this industry as much as I love this industry, if you love the world of hospitality, if this is your thing, then fight harder than you've ever fought for anything. Stay in it, be in it, be the agent of change, be additive, not subtractive. Ask your team, really ask your team what more you can bring to work rather than what you can take from it. If we all do that, our restaurant industry will be saved, our restaurants will be better, our guests will enjoy each other more, we will have made a real difference in the lives of our coworkers and others around us. It really is a time for unclenching our fists for those that are not up for the fight. But for those of us that are, stay in this fight, stay in this industry, just unclench the fist while you do it.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

I love it. And find your people, right?

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

Gotta find your people.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Because for every, every, for everyone that wants to fight, there are many others out there and we can all come together and continue to continue the fight together.

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

100%. 100%.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Well, on that note, thank you again for spending the time with us.

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

You're welcome.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

And I look forward to seeing you at the next thing.

 

GUEST: ANDREW ZIMMERN

I appreciate it. Nice to see you again.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Remember, success looks different for everyone in hospitality. No two paths are the same. If you have a leader or a topic you want to hear about, email [email protected].

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