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

We're so excited to have Jack McGarry here with us today. Jack is the Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Dead Rabbit Group in New York City and Austin, and also the Owner of the Irish Exit, which is located in the Moynihan Train Hall here in Penn Station in New York. Jack has had a decorated career in spirits and has won many, many awards and accolades, including being the youngest ever recipient of the International Bartender of the Year Award from Tales of the Cocktail.

We're going to hear more about all of these experiences and accolades in a bit. Jack, thank you so much for joining us.

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

Thank you for having me. Very excited to chat today.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yes, I am as well. I mean, where do we begin? Because I'm looking at your, there’s like seven pages here. But I'll let you take us through how did you get into hospitality?

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

I’m sure this is pretty similar to a lot of people that you have on. It was accidental. I was a young boy, essentially 14, 15 years old, and I kept asking my mother and father for a land of money. When you ask for a land of money back home, I'm not sure if it's the same over here, but there was absolutely no intention of paying it back. So my mum and dad got fed up with me asking for a land of money and said if I wanted to get something in life, I had to go out and earn it. Fortunately, through my father's side, they were in the pub industry, and coincidentally, right at the bottom of the block that we lived in, there was a bar there, a local boozer called The Hunting Lodge that my father's cousin–so my second cousin–ran. He was a general manager of it.

So he's 15 years old, and they brought me down to meet him. And I started the next week, and it just went from there. He basically said three things to me: be loyal, work hard, don't steal. And I started doing glass-collecting and cleaning ice trays. This is pre-smoking ban. And I started off with him, and he ended up getting opportunities to run bars in the city center of Belfast. And that would have been post-the Good Friday Agreement, because before the Good Friday Agreement, we had a lot of strife in the North of Ireland, a lot of political problems and quasi-sort of civil war. During the time, after 1998, the city centre came back to life, and there was these new types of bars opening, and the bar that he ran was a style bar. And what that meant in Belfast at the time was basically something slightly more elevated than a pub. And that bar was called Cafe Vaudeville. And was the first time that there was proper cocktails–not the “first” time, but it was amongst the first time there was proper cocktails brought into the city center of Belfast. 

And I remember seeing a bartender make a round of drinks for two couples. It was two guys, two women. And this guy, the way he moved behind the bar, was just so exotic compared to somebody just pulling pints that I'd seen. That was all I'd known in bars before. And he moved beautifully behind the bar, and he presents these four drinks up here on the bar top and he hands them over to the customers. They have a sip and they're completely blown away. And it was in that moment that I was captivated by cocktails, and that started the journey to ultimately meeting Sean, my ex-partner now, and then getting the opportunity to work in The Merchant, which we won a whole bunch of awards, and then coming to America to open The Dead Rabbits. That's a super consolidated version of that story, but that's how I got started.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

I love it. You talked about how your eyes were kind of opened in a different way when you started looking at cocktails. Is that what you were like, “OK, this is going to be a career for me” or were you already like, “This is what I want to do,” and this is something new that you could take into other heights?

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

Yeah, it's a complicated enough story. Actually, I'm starting to write a book about it. Based on the whole… my upbringing was on the backdrop of a civil war, essentially. Obviously I wasn't in the worst of that. I would have been the generation that was born–the Good Friday Agreement came in 1998. I was born in 1989. So I was more born in the metaphorical rubble of it all. So the intergenerational trauma, the sort of social deprivation, economic inequality, all that sort of stuff. A lot of the kids in my generation–and all generations–were seeking a way out of that. And sort of having that chip on my shoulder, I first went about it through school. I remember sitting in a chemistry exam when I was in the third year in my school–I don't know what the equivalent is in American terminology–but I came very at the end, at the very bottom of my chemistry exam, and the teacher read out the results from top to bottom. I remember having a break immediately after that class and saying I wouldn't give anybody an opportunity to ever say I came last in anything again. And it wasn't that long after that that I started in The Hunting Lodge as I said, and the bar manager–so this was not my general manager, this was the bar manager–he said the barback was the best barback that ever worked in that bar. And that was where I was in my life at that time, that was Red Flag Day, about. 

So I focused on just being the best barback/glass collector/ice tray cleaner that I could be. And I then went to that bar that I spoke to you about, and I saw these things called cocktails, and I started buying cocktail books, and my ex-partner Sean at that time, he had started the bar, the cocktail bar at The Merchant Hotel, and he had launched a Connoisseurs Club. So it's basically an educational platform before that– As you know, this is ubiquitous. Now we just had BCB (Bar Convent Brooklyn) and it's everywhere. This was not everywhere back then. Guest bartenders wasn't even a thing. People traveling wasn't a thing. And he was doing this in Belfast. So not New York, not London, not Melbourne. Belfast. 

And I went to these sessions, and I’d seen the likes of Sasha Petrosky, Gary Regan, Audrey Saunders, Dale DeGroff, the heavy, heavy hitters come to Belfast. And it was really then that I realized that this could be a career if you put the full energy into realizing that, you know? A lot of people in this industry–and I hate generalizing–but I feel the generation coming through now, they want the adulation, the surface-level adulation but they don't want to deal with what it actually means to be world's best or something in terms of that prerequisite or ubiquitous sort of iceberg metaphor, you know? All the nice stuff like, even this moment we're having, that's the tip of the iceberg. There's so much, and you run your own company too. You know this better than anybody. There's a whole bunch of crap you had need to deal with on a daily basis just to have these moments. 

But anyway, yeah, that's where I realized that I wanted to do this and I wanted to go all in. And I was 17, 18 when I came to that realization and I was going to go to university straight away. My goal then was to become a geography teacher, believe it or not, because my geography teacher in school seemed to have his life together. He had a wife, two kids, semi-detached house, drove a Volvo, all that sort of carry on. But then I got into cocktails, and the rest is history. I fully dedicated myself to it. 

After one of those Connoisseurs Clubs, I went up to Sean. It was the one where Sasha Petrosky was over talking about Milk & Honey and all that stuff, and I was completely blown away. And I just went up to Sean afterwards and said, “People are telling me you're the best.” I was already winning competitions in the North and South of Ireland at 17, 18. So people were calling me like the next best thing in Ireland. So I was like, if I want to be the best, I need to work with the best. And not long after I started working with Sean, then yeah, the rest is history.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's hard enough to recognize something that you really want to do long-term and then dedicate and really go all in. But then to build a business outside of your native country, I mean, that's like a whole other set of challenges. So tell me a little bit about, OK, now you're like, “Let's be partners. Let's go be the best together, and let's do it in New York City.”

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

Yeah, so there's an awful lot of luck in these things. I believe you make luck appear, and then it's up to you to capitalize on said luck, but there is, is luck. And ours came in the guise of a customer. So I started working with Sean, and I worked at The Merchant for three or four years, and Sean was there obviously from the get-go. So I think he was there for five in total before we both left. But before I came on board, we were winning the UK awards. So best hotel bar in UK, best cocktail bar UK, best spirits list, best menu, all those types of awards, which was brilliant in and of itself, given that it was, again, Belfast. It's not London. It's not even Glasgow or Edinburgh, it's Belfast. 

So it was big news, but we weren't winning... It was in and around that time, Tales of the Cocktail had been launched, and no bars outside of America were winning them. So the focus very much, I remember meeting Sean and him being very, very clear that he wanted to win World's Best Cocktail Bar. That's where he was headed. And I loved that, because I couldn't believe the ambition of it, again, being from Belfast. So I was all in, and not long after we were nominated for three awards. So World's Best Bar, World's Best Drink Selection, World's Best Menu, and we lost all three. And we went up to the adjudicator who was Simon Difford at that time, and we were like, “How do we win these awards?” And he said, “You've got to do one of two things.” Again, this is pre-all of this stuff is normal now. So he said, “You've got to do one of two things. Take the judges to your bar or bring your bar to the judges.” So the latter part, you'll see that in the mold of pop-ups and guest bartenders shifts. And again, you pick with us now, but not back then. But what we decided to do was to use the Connoisseurs Club and bring–and most of these judges back then were Americans. So we looked at the story of the Irish coffee. The Irish coffee, we made the Irish coffee, but it was Americans who made the Irish coffee famous. 

So the goal was to bring the Americans over to the hotel bar, blow them away with what we're doing, blow them away with the hospitality. And then they would go back and tell everybody else about how great the bar was. And that we did that every–can't remember how many judges, but a handful, two handfuls of judges over that next year came over. And then the next year we were nominated for three and we won all three. 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Congrats.

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

Yeah, I remember it was a time where Slumdog Millionaire was the Oscar winner that year. And I distinctly remember somebody coming over to us and saying, “You're the slumdog millionaire of Tales” because it was the first time a bar had won outside of America. It was the first time a bar had won outside of New York. So it was pretty cool. But this said-customer was seeing all of this, and his company was just brought over by another company on the stock exchange. And he was traveling extensively through America, through Tokyo, through London. And he was seeing all these other great bars, and we were connecting them with all the main people. And he was of the opinion that what we were doing in Belfast deserved to be on a bigger stage. So we went around a boozer around the corner called The Duke of York, an amazing Irish pub in the cathedral quarter of Belfast. And he said–after a couple of pints of Guinness, and I chalked it off to, “this is just drink talk,” but he said, “You guys need to go to New York. You need to build your bar.” The only brief is build a bar that's not going to be here today and gone tomorrow. Because again, you see this a lot in the cocktail world. Bars blow up, they're very big, everybody's all about it. And then they whimper away after a couple of years. So he wanted an institutional bar, and he was like, go and put it together, and that's where we came up with The Dead Rabbit. And that's really how we became partners, you know, me and Sean. 

I'd love to sit down and say we had all these contracts and sorted everything out and stuff, but Sean turned around to me afterwards and said, “Are you up for it?” And I said yes. And within a year, we were both in New York and beginning the steps to make this happen.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, I mean, that's great. Everyone has their different path and story, right? Sometimes people end up naturally partnering with people that they've worked with for years. Sometimes they're introduced by someone. Sometimes it's just the timing's right. The opportunity is there, and it's just logical, and you just go. And now you're in New York, and you have this amazing bar, which I've been very fortunate to visit several times. And it's still and it has really–and I'll highlight something you said a couple of times–this is before this was normal. I mean, I would argue that you have really pioneered this type of cocktail bar, establishment, hospitality, etc., in your very unique way. 

So I'd like to hear a little bit about when you were OK, you're here, you're going to do it, like the process of thinking about how are you going to be different? You're downtown. I don't know how much extra foot traffic you have, but you’re definitely, I would say, a destination, right? Because people are going there, and it;s packed, which is great. Congrats. All the time. But it's not like it's in the middle of Times Square where people are just popping, walking by and saying, “Let's just come in here for a drink”. So there must've been a lot of  thought behind like, how are you going to differentiate yourself? How are you going to get people here? How are you going to stay? Right? Or maybe not.

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

Yeah, no there was, there was. I definitely would argue against there definitely was. So the good point of this, we came over, and Connor–this customer, so his name is Connor Allen, and he knew bar operators in the city. They own Ulysses and Harry's and Swift, and so we had that knowledge, we had that institutional knowledge from them, and they were very much based downtown. But when we landed here, the goal wasn't initially to open downtown. We were looking at areas more towards Chinatown and that sort of area because that's where the five points would have been. That's where The Dead Rabbit gang were. So that's where we were initially looking. We were looking all over, obviously, but we wanted it to be as historically accurate as possible. As I said, Connor said, “You'll be open in six months.” 

And I remember us telling New Yorkers this, and them laughing in our faces, and given that we're from Belfast and everything we've dealt with, my response to everything is F them, you know? Because we're just going to go there and show them. But they were right. You know, nothing in New York happens in six months. And I still, when somebody tells me that now, I don't laugh at them. But in my head, I'm like, sure, I'll see in a year and a half to two years. And that was exactly the same story for us.

Sean worked down here in one of the bars that our partners own. So he had all of the knowledge of down here. I was working in Chelsea, and then I would have been coming down to see Sean. The bar that we are in now, one of our partners owns the building. He owns quite a bit of real estate downtown. It was a burger bar on the first floor. The second floor was a dive bar. And the third floor was an internet cafe. And he wanted us to look at it to maybe do something there, because we were still looking for spaces all the time, building the concept, fleshing everything out. And we went and looked at it and developed a concept that we thought would have worked. So we modeled it off PDT (Please Don’t Tell) in the sense that we would do an original soda fountain place downstairs in what was the burger bar, because it was all white-tile, quite Keith McNally-esque in a lot of ways, but do proper sodas from the 19th century, like hand-drawn sodas done beautifully well. One of the books I was reading back then was from Darcy O'Neill and it was all about how sodas were made and shakes and stuff like that. And I was fascinated by it. I thought it was so cool. I know there was one place that was doing it in Brooklyn, but not in Manhattan. And I thought that would have been really cool to do. And then upstairs we would have the speakeasy. We wouldn't have called it a speakeasy, but it would have been our cocktail bar where we would have done our cocktail stuff. And a part of me still would like to do that because I still think it's very cool. 

But we went back to Connor with, and we had this all developed out, and this is what we're going to do, and then we're going to continue to look for Dead Rabbit. And Connor turned around to us and said, “Listen lads, if you do this, you're going to get distracted, and you should just do Dead Rabbit there.” And it was only then when we started looking at the building that it started making sense through that lens, because The Dead Rabbit is essentially bringing together our loves, which are pubs and cocktail bars. So we always wanted to have a pub and a cocktail bar separated. We were looking at one floor to separate it. So you'd have the pub at the front and the cocktail bar at the back. But this building is obviously a five-story brownstone. So we could have the pub on the first floor, cocktail bar on the second floor and the occasional room on the third floor. The names we were using were Top Room, Parlor and Occasional Room because they're the terms that would have been used back in the 19th century. 

The building itself is from 1828. It forms part of the Francis Tavern historical block, one of the oldest, if not the oldest blocks in Manhattan. Where Dead Rabbit is is basically the intersection of the two movements that we wanted to bring together. So Water Street was known as the most dangerous and violent street in New York at that time. Charles Dickens famously talked about it. So you had all the slums and saloons and mixoly-esque type bars that dominated Water Street. And Water Street then would have been on the water. And then adjoining that, you would have had lower Broadway, and lower Broadway was where the first luxury hotels in Manhattan were, the celebrity bartenders at the time were. So those two worlds–the pub and the cocktail bar and Ireland and the first like the advent of the cocktail movement–they were all happening in this area where the bar was. And that's where we decided to give it a go. But that area, as you know, obviously this area is completely different now with Manhattan, Overstory and all these people that have come in, and it's great. We're delighted with that. But back then it was dominated by sports bars and steakhouses. Very corporate, very soulless. We told people we were going to open here, and I remember going to a cocktail bar, Pouring Ribbons, and I remember, not Joaquín Simó, but one of the other owners, we told him this is where we're going to open, and he turned and laughed to somebody else like we're crazy. And I always remember that because Pouring Ribbons is obviously closed now, and we're still open. So I take great satisfaction in that. 

We opened and see, to be honest, he was right because we didn't think, and that was part of the fact that we weren't from here. We did not have any concerns about opening here. It was still on Manhattan, and our whole thing, like we lived in the East Village and we’d seen Vietnamese places just on one particular dish, and they were packed. I'm like, if that's what they're doing, we're going to be fine. Because we looked at our area. Like we're on both with the East River, the West Side Highway, with all the convergence of all the trains were super, super accessible. And at that point, there was about 100,000 people living here. And obviously the worked population, you had the tourism on the right side of the building with the Wall Street and the 9/11 Memorial and stuff. So we were like, we were in a good place. We can make this work.

Before that, we were telling everybody that we were going to open this world's best, but we were very, very outspoken that we were going to do this. And I think a lot of people were like, these guys are rather crazy or they're really good. And people were intrigued. And when we opened, it was just bang. You know, it just came straight out of the box. And yeah, that was it. So we definitely had a lot of knowledge because it took us two years to get the bar open. We had thoroughly understood the area. We thoroughly understood the cocktail market. We went to every single bar numerous times, picked up as much information as we could. 

By the time we were open, we were thoroughly ready to open. Well, thoroughly ready in a lot of ways and completely unready in many others, but we were very confident that we were going to make it work. And I remember sitting across, like right now I'm looking at the window over on the other side of the building, and we used to sit on the other side of the road, and this area was tumbleweeds. Nobody came here. But [at] 21, 22, I was completely confident that we were gonna make it work. And again, that's probably insanity, but thankfully it worked. 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

I mean, you need that. There's a level of confidence, and I love that. I'm going to extract some of the lessons I heard out of that. I'm in a lot of ways similar, where the more people you talk to and the reactions– Reactions are good. You can feed off the reactions. You can learn something, or it could fuel something like, I'm also the “I'm going to prove you wrong”-type of person. So, you know, that actually fuels me. And I remember when I was starting Culinary Agents, I would purposely talk to people because A) that would hold myself accountable, because I already told you that I'm going to do this, and now I have to do it.  And then B) even better, if you're not giving me helpful advice, give me fuel. And whether that be saying, “you're crazy, it's not going to happen, it's not going to work,” OK, great, let's do it. Let's figure it out. 

And look, you're proving them wrong and probably a lot of other people, so kudos to you. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, and you can overanalyze something, analysis paralysis, especially nowadays where you really do have access to a lot of information, but I think it's important. There's this thing that we talk about in tech. It's founder’s gut. If you got that feeling and you are open-minded to talk to people, get help where you need it and use your resources and do your homework, you're the only one that can get in your own way. 

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

Yep, 100%. I couldn't agree more.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, so congrats. And so that was years ago. Again, you're like pioneering this stuff. What was the hardest thing after you first opened? What was the hardest thing that you all were like, “Oh, this is a hard lesson learned”?

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

For me personally–so I'm not speaking for Sean here in the business–I was very much focused on being this world-class bartender, and I'm sure you've had these conversations, obviously chefs. So I was very, very focused on that one specific thing. World-class drinks, world-class bartender. I didn't care about the big picture at that point. So I'd say the biggest thing I struggled with was leading a team.

My head was in six or seven or eight hundred cocktail books and I was being militant about that one aspect, but I was not applying that same energy into leading the team. So there was a lot of issues there. We opened with the team, and my whole thing with that first team was get the very best bartenders in New York City, get them working in that room, and we'll crush. And we opened with a Harlem Globetrotters of bartending talent in New York. And it was extremely difficult because they came in with these predetermined, “this is the way things are”, according to their philosophy. And I was not having that, and I was very vocal in not having it. It was, it's my way or you can beat it. And like, obviously that worked out. But if there was one thing that I'd love to go back and have another go at, it would be to start off on the right footing there. We ultimately got there in terms of the next iterations of the team. We got in younger people, people who wanted to grow, people who were more malleable. And then also I had to go through an awful lot of development in terms of, this is how you effectively lead a team and foster a culture instead of fear-mongering and stuff like that, or just “this is the way it is, this is the way it is.” 

So that would be the one thing I would say I definitely struggled with, because it wasn't about “we”, it was more about me when we opened, and the team now is completely different to that. But again, my whole philosophy with my career is you've got to optimize your regrets, so you don't get to go back and have a do-over but you can make sure you don't make the same one again. So anytime there's mistakes made I go very introspective and make sure that I've harnessed the right lessons there so I can be better moving forward.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, and I love that, that is so important. We see that really often and not just in restaurants, but we'll focus on that for a second, because especially after you spent two years finding the space and analyzing and dreaming and motivating yourselves and each other, you're finally open and you want to be the best and you have your way. I think that's a leadership journey that we see really often, is that you're shifting, you're no longer the one that has to do everything, and your name is on the top, but your goal and your energy then shifts to how do you lead? How do you train? How do you do it? 

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

Exactly.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

So other folks are doing it the way that you would like, they have some flexibility and that they're having fun, and they love what they're doing and they're helping you build this culture that ultimately has the longevity that you're looking for. And that's that speaks to the evolution of this industry, I think, in general. Yes, leaders, but also the industry has changed very dramatically over the past 15, 20 years. And it continues to do so. I think leaders are shifting and have been continuing to shift how they approach and how they lead, because this is one of those industries that is multigenerational. You can't necessarily expect a young entry-level person to want the same thing, learn the same way, think the same way as you would somebody who has been working for 20, 30 years in the industry. 

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

Totally.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

So take me into now growth, right? So New York is New York and that's great. And you have your processes and frameworks and your lessons learned. And now you're like, what's next?

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

Yeah, so I went through a lot in my career, which I've been pretty outspoken about in terms of mental health and addiction and all of that not fun stuff. And I came out of hospital–it's coming in close now to 10 years. And I quickly realized the way that I was doing things was not sustainable and went, again, going back to regret, optimization or whatever you want to call it. I got very introspective and really focused on my foundations because up until then, my primary goal was to, as this young kid, to win World's Best Bartender, was to win World's Best Bar. And when I won that, I realized it's actually not that important. These things are word acknowledgments of the work, but they're not the reason for the work. And I think that's lost on a lot of people. You have to go through that journey. And when I walked through the door of the hospital and started in outpatient, I realized that I wanted to get closer to who I am as a person, my passions and what really drives me. And to be honest, I wasn't sure what that was. 

When I came over to America, I wouldn't say I was the most patriotic Irish person. I was born in Ireland, but that was about the height of my patriotism. And I don't mean to say the P word now is different. Poison chalice depend on who weaves it. I'm not saying a chest-baring Irish “Make Ireland Great” or something like that. Ireland has a tremendous story. It has had a tremendous impact on the world. And when I came to America, I was really aggrieved in terms of the representation of Irish culture in this country. There's Irish car bombs, and black and tans, and the way you go into Irish pubs and they're just completely culturally appropriated and they're really terribly done. Because when you go to Ireland you know the purity of the beauty of an Irish pub, the third place is that it’s the community aspect of it, it's the hospitality aspect of it, but even back home. So I was getting fed up here. I would have went back home, and I was getting fed up because there was no evolution.

And going beside that, Ireland was exploding in terms of its confidence post the Good Friday Agreement, post the Catholic Church losing its stranglehold over the Irish population. So you had all these creatives coming out across all the mediums. And that's what I wanted to talk about. And that's what I really wanted to challenge in America. And I fell in love with it, and then I also started to fall in love back with the industry. But I knew that I had to change. I wasn't going to be this gifted bartender anymore. I wanted to become a leader that could better serve the team and the business. And that was really the start of that journey. And pre-COVID, the goal was to start growing the bar, but there was a big philosophical difference, I'd say, from me and my ex-partner in terms of what that looked like, both what the brand values were, what the values of the company were, where we were headed, what type of Ireland we wanted to celebrate.

COVID presented a natural off-ramp for both of us for him to go and do it this way and then for me to continue with The Dead Rabbit. And yes, we've made an amazing impact with Dead Rabbit in New York, but for us to really make… like I view us as brand ambassadors for Ireland, and I think we need to have as many outposts as possible in America to continue to tell that story, not just with Dead Rabbit. Yes, we'll do other Dead Rabbits, but other stories, you know, there's so many other stories I’m incredibly passionate to tell and talk about and share with people. So that's really what happens. We obviously did the Austin location, was the first one. Irish Exit was our transit-focus location that we opened in Moynihan, and we've McGarry's, which is going to be a leveled-up sports experience. It celebrates the Irish and Irish American sporting legacy in this country. And we're looking to do the same with that what Dead Rabbit has done for the pub, we're looking for McGarry's to do the sports bar, because a lot of these sports bars are very masculine. They're very sticky floors and bro-y and all that type of stuff. And it's just not my vibe. I believe we have a terrific story to tell there and a real nice way to do that, to do a sports bar, because sports bars are busy, yes, and during the sports, they're dead post and pre. And they're just soulless, a lot of them just don't have any character. So it's doing that to that vertical. 

And then there's other stories that I'm keen to talk about too and explore the intersectionality between Irish and other cultures, because the Irish, obviously with our history, we left Ireland and we've continued to leave Ireland in significant proportions, and we've had tremendous impacts where we have went, and also the mingling of our culture with other cultures and also people from other countries now coming into Ireland, the melting pot of all of that, I find it fascinating. So I'm very keen to continue telling that story and continuing to grow the company, and also alongside all of that, creating a world-class company. That's very important to me, looking after our team, creating upward mobility, really challenging and really leaning against a lot of the things that are just taken for granted here, like shots behind bars and crazy cultures and stuff like that. That's just not the way… we don't operate that way, you know? So there's a whole bunch of things. I very much view ourselves that we're in day one and we've got a ton of work ahead of us, but I know what type of company I want us to be and the type of opportunities we want to provide to people, both our team, the communities we operate in and everybody that our business touches. So, yeah, it's very exciting.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, it's very exciting. And I am not going to laugh because I know you're going to do it. So you're going to have to find someone else to fuel that fire there. But yeah, it has been incredible to see. I mean, even the conversations we've had in the past, you know, that's always been very apparent is that, you definitely have a vision and you are very focused on achieving it. That is kind of half the battle sometimes, you have to be determined and you have to be willing to adjust and evolve and be introspective along the way. And I'm excited to see what's next. I mean, you mentioned storyteller a couple of times. I will say for those of you who are listening, if you're not following Jack, Jack is an excellent storyteller. You have the gift of word in short form on Instagram, but then also said you're working on a book. So that's going to be very, very exciting, I think, to many.

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

I think that's the gift of Ireland. It's part of our culture.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Well, on that note, I am going to move us to quick-fire. All right, these are going to be softballs. What advice would you tell your younger self?

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

These are meant to be the quick ones? I'd say patience. Like one of the big things I have with when I got in the outpatient, and I thought this was super corny, was “progress over perfection.” And if I had a chance to go back to my early days, I would have said that to myself because my early life was consumed by chasing perfection, and perfection is unattainable. So progress over perfection.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

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

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

Invest in time away from the industry. So a lot of people who have these issues are consumed by the industry, and they don't have another point of control outside of it. So I'm huge on reading, running, reflecting, spending time with my loved ones. So that's what I would encourage anybody to do who is struggling, because getting time away from the industry gives you perspective on the industry. So I would encourage them to do that.

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

What's your advice for fellow hospitality leaders?

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

I'd say the biggest thing I live by is my ceiling today is the floor tomorrow. So I see an awful lot of leaders in the industry becoming obsolete because they cling to these things that they feel that are absolutes. But this industry is so fast moving, and you have to continue to innovate. You have to continue to push yourself. You have to continue to learn and be a student. So that's what I would say to any leader in this industry. It's that openness to learn, openness to challenge assumptions. With the younger generations that you're talking about, listening to them because they're your customers, they're the people serving your customers. You have to constantly grow. I remember reading a book from Jim Collins and he says, “Preserve the core while stimulating change.” The core of your business is your core, is your heart, but all around that you can continue to innovate.

So that's what I would say to leaders in the industry. And we have a ton of work to do in terms of sexual harassment, pay inequities, upward mobility. There's so many problems in our industry, and there's no point in sugarcoating it. I love that we have these big conferences and everybody loves each other and stuff, but there's really heavy stuff that we need to tackle, and we need to get closer to tackling those. And we are making progress, but there's still a lot of progress to be made.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

You're absolutely right. And on that note, Jack, thank you so much for your time. We're looking forward to seeing more wonderful things from you and your team.

GUEST: JACK MCGARRY

Thank you. Thank you for all of your help. We wouldn't be able to do it without you.

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Thanks.

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].

Hospitality On The Rise is brought to you by Culinary Agents, connecting top talent with employers since 2012. Whether you’re hiring or looking for your next opportunity, join us at CulinaryAgents.com

For more inspiration, subscribe to Hospitality On The Rise and visit HospitalityCareerPaths.com, a free platform by Culinary Agents.

Thanks for tuning in! Remember to like, follow, and subscribe. And if you loved this episode, share it with someone who could use a little inspiration.