Why Most Businesses Fail (And What Actually Works) | David Fhima

Introduction [0:00]

David Fhima: You could today go to a restaurant every single night for the next 365 days and only come to my restaurant once a year. There are so many. So how do I get you to come more often? 

Charles Eide: What’s the sleep? This week on Cleared for Takeoff, I have David Fema, famous restaurateur known all over the world, who brings the flavors of his childhood into his restaurants every day, and his inspiring story is not one to miss.

David Fhima: But working at a restaurant, I did not know it, but the restaurant was owned by Elton John and Peggy Lee. The next thing I know, I’m whining and dining, Johnny Carson, Gregory Peck and his wife who was French. Lionel Ricci and I were on first name basis. I had their numbers. In Hollywood, everything happened at lunch.

When we are struggling and it’s normal, we’re human beings. We only deal with the struggle. All the good that’s happening around that struggle, we just let it go by. In chaos comes the lesson and you just gotta look and you gotta be awake. 

Charles Eide: How do you take that feeling and help your [00:01:00] team across all the different brands, restaurants, experiences when you’re not there?

David Fhima: You gotta first have a vision and you cannot allow two visions in your company. There are three things you learn from the restaurant business that you can apply to every fucking thing in your life.

Charles Eide: David Fema, it is great to have you. 

David Fhima: Great to be here, buddy. 

Charles Eide: Man. 

David Fhima: Great to be here. 

Charles Eide: I think back on the time we first met and your son, Eli introduced us, and I just remember the … You know how they say you don’t remember what people say, but you remember how they made you feel? 

David Fhima: Yep. 

Charles Eide: You, you made me feel so welcome in your restaurant.

And I was blown away by the way that you make, you make hospitality this thing that I think is so special and unique. And when I was thinking through who to have on the podcast, I was like, oh my gosh, David Fema is a master [00:02:00] of hospitality and so many other things, but you didn’t start out that way. And I wanted you to just tell me your story.

Growing Up in Morocco [2:08]

Charles Eide: Like how did you grow up and what got you here? 

David Fhima: Wow. Uh, well, thanks for the … I, I’m glad I felt, made you feel that way. I didn’t do it on purpose. I grew up pretty much emulating everything that my dad was all about. You go into a room and if my dad was there, you would know it. He didn’t have to say anything.

There’s that energy that is incredible, uh, personality out there. And I don’t think he got up in the morning on any morning of his life and says, “I’m gonna make somebody’s day.” He just did. And I think that’s pretty powerful. I think that’s something that we teach our children [00:03:00] and, and, and listen, I, I, I was born in Cazablanca, Morocco to a Spanish Moroccan mother, a Sicilian father among one of 17 brothers and sisters.

Charles Eide: 17. 

David Fhima: I told you be ready. It gets better. Everything that I’m telling you that we’re gonna talk about right now are the things that I didn’t think about for 40, 45 years of my life. 

Charles Eide: Wow. 

David Fhima: Actually, they were things that I ran away from, only to embrace them later in life. I’m the guy who won the lottery and didn’t spend a dime of it until he realized how much he won.

That’s who I am. I’m ashamed of that. Because, you know, we, as a man, we wanna make our own mark on the [00:04:00] world and we wanna be not what our father is. We wanna be better and we think we know better. So neither my mom or dad knew how to read, read or write. They never drove a car in their life. 

Charles Eide: Really? 

David Fhima: But they’ll sit down in here, and after six bottles of wine and seven to 12 different courses from all over the world, they will tell you everything you needed to know about life, about the Bible, about Nietzsche, about Enstein.

And it’s all out of this conversation. And it’s very, very much something that I didn’t think subconsciously I wanted to be, you know? So, you know, born in Morocco, my parents sent me to a boarding school in London when I was literally eight years old. Who fucking does that? [00:05:00] And ran away from it, got caught.

Boarding Schools & Finding Direction [5:05]

David Fhima: They sent me to a boarding school in Paris, ran away from it, got caught. 

Charles Eide: So you, like, escaped? 

David Fhima: I, I, I, yeah. I mean, I was a rebelled with a cos. ‘Cause was to create chaos in my life. And, and couldn’t write, couldn’t read ’til I was 12, 13 years old. Um, finally, my parents sent me to a boarding school in Strasbourg.

The, uh, the, um, uh, I get very emotional about that one because that is really, uh, the boarding school was run by a Holocaust survivor, Mr. Loev. And I remember vividly when I first met him, he had these numbers on his arm. 

Charles Eide: Oh, man. 

David Fhima: And I did not know what they were, you know? And that’s- ‘Cause they 

Charles Eide: would tattoo the 

David Fhima: numbers.

They were ta- they tattooed the numbers on. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: Yeah. And, uh, the name of it is Ott, [00:06:00] O-R-T, Strasbo. It’s basically an organization that is founded to try and help trouble kids. It’s almost like the last place to go, and if you don’t make it there, you’re screwed. 

Charles Eide: So you went to two boarding schools- 

David Fhima: Before that one.

Charles Eide: before that. And you, and, and it was like sending you to this one as a last ditch effort. 

David Fhima: It, it was a, another attempt. And my sister, you know, you have to understand that I was raised for the first 15 years of my life by my sister. My youngest sister was older than my mother. So let me explain that to you.

My dad was married to his first wife. He had seven daughters. His wife died of cancer and he remarried. When he married, he married my mom, and I was the first male born. After me, there were four daughters. So at one point, there were 11 girls, me, my mom. The seven girls from my dad’s first wife were all older than my mother.[00:07:00] 

And there was a lot of descension. There was a lot of fireworks. And I was sort of being the son of a alpha male, Sicilian, finally a son. Uh, finally my dad- 

Charles Eide: So he had seven daughters with the previous marriage. 

David Fhima: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: And then you were the firstborn with the new- Second marriage. … second born with this- 

David Fhima: First born of the second 

Charles Eide: marriage.

David Fhima: Second marriage. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: Yeah. Yeah. My 

Charles Eide: mom- I, I’m actually the same way. 

David Fhima: Yeah, my mom was 15. 

Charles Eide: Your mom was 15. 

David Fhima: When I was born. 

Charles Eide: When you were born. 

David Fhima: I was 14 when she got married. My dad was 50 years old when he married my mom. 

Charles Eide: Whoa. 

David Fhima: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: It gets better. Your dad, your dad was 50. 

David Fhima: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: When he married a 15-year-old?

David Fhima: When he married a 14-year-old. 

Charles Eide: 14-year-old. 

David Fhima: I was 15 and a half when my … My mom was 15 and a half when I was born. 

Charles Eide: Whoa. 

David Fhima: The first … He basically made a deal with her dad. I’ll give you [00:08:00] this and that. The first year of her life as a married woman, they got married. The night of the wedding, she walked home to her mom, to the other village.

Her mother brought her back that morning, and she told my mother, “My father, she’s gonna stay.” My father looked at my grandma and said, “She’ll stay when she feels like staying.” Nine months later, she did this every single day. She will come in the morning, take care of the household, cook for my dad, go back and sleep at her mom’s.

Charles Eide: And she’s a teenager at the 

David Fhima: time. She’s a teenager. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: But it’s, it’s a teenager by definition of what we know today. It’s a different world. Yeah, 

Charles Eide: back 

David Fhima: then it was just different. It’s a … So you want, you wanna think of Morocco today as being behind a hundred years. [00:09:00] You wanna think back then a- being behind 150 years.

Charles Eide: Wow. 

David Fhima: And one day she, she stayed, and nine months later, I was born. 

Charles Eide: Wow. 

David Fhima: The only man she’s ever met, the love of her life. I want my wife to love me, which she does, the same way my mom loved my dad. 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

David Fhima: Uh, and they spoke, between the two of them, seven languages, which I speak. 

Charles Eide: You speak seven 

David Fhima: languages. I do.

Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Which to, just sidebar. 

David Fhima: French, Spanish, Sicilian, Italian, which is really a very, uh, a different dialect, English and Arabic. Oh my gosh. There’s some Hebrew out there. 

Charles Eide: I struggle 

David Fhima: to get English 

Charles Eide: now. 

David Fhima: Well, you know, but here’s the deal. You know what ha- you know when I say I won the lottery and I didn’t know it?

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: So if I told you [00:10:00] today, I’ll give you $10 million and you can only speak one language, or I give you a million dollars, or I give you 100,000 and you can speak seven languages. Maybe today you’ll say I’ll take the money, but I’ll promise you 10 years from now, you say, I’ll take the languages. I had all those things, but I ran away from them because I went from this very nomadic, very gypsy- 

Charles Eide: mm-hmm.

David Fhima: to this modern European world, and the contrast was just mind blowing, mind blowing. And I didn’t want that. I wanted this cool, modern shit. I wanted the European stuff I wanted, and I gravitated towards that. And, and I, and [00:11:00] in that school, and when I met that man, he basically looked at me because, “Yeah, three months, you either get your shit together, or you won’t make it here, but you won’t screw it up for everybody else that’s trying to make it.

Charles Eide: Somehow, 

David Fhima: uh, I am, I am, I am not a religious person, but I believe in God. I’m a person of faith. Um, and religion means that I follow the scripture. I don’t. I’m not that good of a person, but, but I do believe in that. I do believe that there was a religious, a spiritual thing that happened to me and I didn’t know it.

And I don’t know if it was my grandfather talking to, to me without me knowing it. I don’t know. But somehow something clicked and I said, “Okay, I wanna see if I can get my shit together.” So I went from not being able to [00:12:00] learn, to read and write, to being able to read and write. I went from really going after a degree in just being a mechanical machinist to be able to build parts, which is the, on the totem pole of what they were teaching.

They were teaching electronics, mechanical and electrical. Mechanical was for the stupid people, electronic for those who were a little bit smarter, and electric in the one in between. So electronics in 1975 was a Texas instrument, you know, calculator- 

Charles Eide: mm-hmm. … 

David Fhima: you know? Uh, and I said, and they put me in the mechanical program, and I knew that they put me in a mechanical program because they considered me not capable.

Charles Eide: Mm. 

David Fhima: I said, “Fuck that. ” And I went after it. Three years later, there’s this huge, um, huge, uh, test in Europe that all the students from [00:13:00] all over Europe participate in, and you get a scholarship for the top engineering school in the world. They called engineer degenerative engineer by Switzerland. Well, I came out second and I went to engineering school.

Yeah. Yeah. I’m an engineer. I 

Charles Eide: would have never thought- 

David Fhima: Yeah, I know. I know. I never worked a day in my life as an engineer, but everything in my life is engineered. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. My pos- So you’re using the pres- the principles of it. 

David Fhima: My thoughts, my organization, my OCD, my planning, my, uh, uh, 3D vision, my art is engineered, which is very

It’s a fight. 

Charles Eide: I mean, it’s, it’s obvious when, when I go into one of your current day restaurants that everything is so well thought out and I can … I mean, it makes sense now. It’s 

David Fhima: planned. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, because it’s, it’s- It’s planned. … it’s, it’s artistic, but intentional. It is. It [00:14:00] doesn’t seem chaotic. 

David Fhima: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: I, I, I hate chaos.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: And, and, and the world that I’m in is chaos. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. I was gonna say, hate chaos, but you’re in the restaurant business. 

David Fhima: It’s, it, a lot, it’s like marriage that, th- those moments that are amazing make up for all the moments that are not, and you need all the moments that are not to create the amazing moments.

Charles Eide: Mm. 

David Fhima: You cannot have that orgasmic spiritual experience without the, the, how it tears inside of you, how challenging it is. And the better it is, I keep convincing myself that it is so hard right now because the result, and I don’t know when, is gonna be unbelievable. [00:15:00] And it’s true in our industry. It’s 

Charles Eide: very- When did you learn to, when did you learn to connect those two things, the pain that you’re going through right now for whatever, connecting that to 

David Fhima: the outf- Loss, loss, loss, being humbled.

Uh, I don’t, I have never failed in my life, but now if you look at my portfolio, you will go, “What are you talking about? You failed a hundred times that your take on it. That’s not mine.” 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: You know, that I, someone said, you know, life can come to you or you can make it. The day I decided that the narrative and how I’m gonna title it belongs to me, it really changed a lot of things.

But for the longest amount of time, all those challenges were losses. My divorce was a failure.

Today, my, [00:16:00] it’s with all due respect to that relationship, it’s the greatest lesson that has made me the husband and the person that I am today with my wife. Um, I am, I am in awe of what my dad has taught me without saying one fucking word to me. He’s never said, “Do this, do that. ” 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

David Fhima: Ever. But he got up in the morning and he went to work and he was home 14 hours later.

Charles Eide: It’s a long workday. 

David Fhima: And I saw that. 

Charles Eide: Every day. 

David Fhima: He sat down and the table was full of food and there were 10 strangers every day in that table. 

Charles Eide: Wow. People came 

David Fhima: in? Asked him for a loan, he gave it. Now, you have to understand that I thought we lived a [00:17:00] privileged life. I mean, this is the greatest gift that I think I got from my parents, thinking that, wow, I mean, there’s always people in my house.

There’s great food. 25 years ago, I took Eli, which you know- 

Charles Eide: Yeah. … 

David Fhima: and Chloe, my daughter, my two eldests, to Morocco to visit home. 

Charles Eide: Oh, wow. And was that their first time? 

David Fhima: First time ever, and the only time. We land, and everything start, everything started to, that explosion started to happen. When you say win, that, uh, a win is never a moment, and anybody that tells you this is the moment, it’s bullshit, it’s many, many moments.

There is a start, but it’s linear, and it goes back up, and it goes back down. That is the start for me when I go, “Oh my gosh, the lottery.” [00:18:00] So I don’t remem- I didn’t remember Morocco being so underdeveloped, to say the least. I didn’t remember that when we took, we had a limousine pick us up. It was a 240D Mercedes diesel.

Charles Eide: That was my 

David Fhima: first 

Charles Eide: car. 

David Fhima: Was it? 

Charles Eide: Yeah, the 240 D. 

David Fhima: Oh my God. 

Charles Eide: 67 horsepower, four speed transmission. That was my first car. The thing was- It’s 

David Fhima: crazy. … 

Charles Eide: so slow. 

David Fhima: Well, now, I want you to know, and I want you to remember this, you and I are talking, and that energy of that 240D, our conversation happened then. That’s the energy.

Charles Eide: Mm. 

David Fhima: And energy Einstein says, energy just doesn’t go away. It connects and we just don’t know when. And so we get there and we are, and there’s 100 cats surrounding us, and my kids are freaking out. We go to the neighborhood that I was born at. [00:19:00] There’s one light on the whole street, and I’m going, “I don’t remember that.

We go in the apartment, the bathroom was a hole in the floor. Seriously. I don’t, I didn’t remember that, and everything started to explode. We were fucking poor. None of that I was aware of when I was a kid. 

Charles Eide: It was just life. 

David Fhima: Because my parents never associated wealth to us with money or material. Our wealth was built around people.

Our wealth was built around p- our, around food. Our wealth was built around getting together. And then I, the memories of … I had my own bed because I was the first boy, and by the time there were four more boys, I was already in boarding school, [00:20:00] and then the pictures came in of two rooms and 17 kids living in them.

And then everything started to make sense. And so when you go, how did it start? This, it started there, and it continued, and, and went from Paris to London, London, to Strasbo, Strasbourg to Geneva, Geneva to Lawson, and I wasn’t jet setting. I was being kicked out of schools. 

Charles Eide: So, so you’re born in Morocco. You spent how, how l- how long till you left Monaco?

David Fhima: Seven years. 

Charles Eide: Seven. And then you moved around from boarding school to boarding school. 

David Fhima: Yeah. Until I was … I got my act together when I got my engineering degree. While getting my engineering degree, I went to … I worked at different restaurants. That’s how you sort of survive. Yeah. You know? W- you know, everybody should be a server.

Everybody should be a cook. [00:21:00] Everybody, it’s the greatest life lessons you’ll ever have. And I just fell in love with it. And I fell in love with it, not because of the restaurants I was working at. I fell in love with it because that’s what my mom used to do for us. I fell … That was my connection, food and restaurants were my connection to the family that I never had a chance to grow up with.

The family that said, “We don’t want you to have any of what we have, which is nothing. We want you to have an education. We want you to have a life. We want you to grow as an educated man.” And all that resentment that I built as a kid … Now, if you ask me, would I do that to my son? No. But I have choices. They didn’t.

They made the [00:22:00] greatest choice they could have ever made for me, and I’m so incredibly grateful for it. But it also caused so much turmoil, so much, so much

emotional struggles. You are never meant to leave the bosom of your family at seven. 

Charles Eide: Mm-mm. 

David Fhima: Ever. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: No one 

Charles Eide: should. That’s really young. 

David Fhima: That’s too young. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: But the damage that it did and the reckoning that I had to do with it and the animosity and the resentment that I had is all gone and all that’s left is what it made me.

And, and today, if you asked me, and you should, I think I had the greatest parents ever. 

Charles Eide: [00:23:00] Yeah. 

David Fhima: Who, with the information that they had, with what they had, made the best decision. That’s my life lesson. 

Charles Eide: Where did that change for you where you went from kind of feeling maybe upset with how that happened to appreciating it?

David Fhima: I was upset. I was resentful. I, when I went on a date, I never told them any of this story. It took me a, a year to tell my wife everything. It started like on the trip to Morocco, and understanding and going, “Oh my gosh, my parents had 

Charles Eide: nothing.” And this was 

David Fhima: when you- They wanted me to have something. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: But I didn’t get that.

It started and slowly. And then I had my own children, and my children were a little bit older, and, and every, every year, every [00:24:00] experience sort of kept adding to that. And, and, and one day, I talked to someone and said, and I, having a conversation with them like, “I have with you right now,” and we talked about life and I’m sharing with them and they’re looking at me with this stupefied eyes as if I was telling them something, and then I realized how incredibly unique my story was, good, bad, and ugly, and I decided to embrace it.

Charles Eide: Yeah. Yeah, I mean- I- … 

David Fhima: But it was hard. 

Charles Eide: Looking back on your childhood, how did your childhood affect how you became a dad and how you parented your kids? 

David Fhima: I never planned on being a dad. It happened. And when I was, [00:25:00] I, um, decided that I wanted to be a different den than my dad was, that I wanted my wife to be different than my mom.

Well, that didn’t work. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

David Fhima: My, uh, I was, I was basically, you know, when I was sent to boarding school, I would talk to my mom or dad when I was eight, nine years old, once every three, four months. A long distance call was $20 a minute, 

Charles Eide: okay? So you really didn’t have a relationship with them. 

David Fhima: You know, you know, I, I am, I did not have a relationship, but I had an amazing relationship that I did not know about.

My mom is alive, my dad passed away, and my relationship with my mom today is amazing. Um, but I,[00:26:00] 

what I was fighting is, was trying to protect my children from having a relationship with me that I had with my parents. Knowing that the relationship that I had with my parents had nothing to do with my parents, it had all to do with me. You know that what I said to you is that, “Don’t let you can have life come at you, or you can make life.”

I was letting that come at me- 

Charles Eide: Mm. … 

David Fhima: instead of making it. And, and slowly, I became my dad, slowly, 

Charles Eide: slowly- Like, not on purpose. It just- 

David Fhima: It just, it was there. Slowly, I became that cook that my mom was. I mean, my first experience cooking, I was seven years, six years, seven years old, before my trip to London, and I [00:27:00] flew, um, TWA.

I don’t know if you, if- 

Charles Eide: Yeah, of course. I remember TWA. 

David Fhima: And, and they, there was a huge party in my house, and we brought a cow to the house. 

Charles Eide: A cow? 

David Fhima: A cow. Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Like 

David Fhima: a, 

Charles Eide: a living cow? 

David Fhima: A cow. 

Charles Eide: Like alive? 

David Fhima: A live. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

David Fhima: We put it on its back, we butchered it. My dad slits the inside, takes the intestines, gives me the intestines.

I go and give them to my mom, and mom, and my mom goes, “What do you want me to do with them?” I go, “My dad, dad asked me to give them to you. They’re fucking hot.” And, and I, and I, and I’m, I wanna be the man that my dad was. You know, my dad didn’t flinch getting him out. And she goes, “You need to blow the shit out of them.”

So I’m blowing the shit out of the tribe. I bring it back to my mom. My [00:28:00] mom goes, “We’re gonna cut them, clean them, we put them in water and we boil them for three days until they’re tender, and we made a Sicilian tribe soup.” 

Charles Eide: Yeah, I love tribe. I think it’s great. 

David Fhima: So good. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: It’s an aphrodisiac. 

Charles Eide: Is it really?

David Fhima: Oh, big time. 

Charles Eide: I didn’t know that. 

David Fhima: Well, um, ask my dad, 17 kids. Uh- That was a secret 

Charles Eide: tribe. 

David Fhima: It is. It is. 

Charles Eide: Forget about oysters swearing 

David Fhima: cow intestines. So you, I know, you get, and it’s very healthy and it’s very good for you. And so you, I, you, it’s cooking people where, are in my DNA from living it. And that initial part of my upbringing was molding [00:29:00] me- 

Charles Eide: Yeah.

David Fhima: into the person I became later. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Well, there’s not a lot of people I know that have blown shit out of the intestines of a cow. 

David Fhima: I, there’s a lot of Moroccan little kids who eat the same shit. I promise you. What you, you just happen to have one of them in, uh, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota right now. 

Charles Eide: What, what did, what did he do with the rest of the cow?

Just butchering? 

David Fhima: Oh, then everything gets butchered. We didn’t- 

Charles Eide: It’s a 

David Fhima: lot of meat. … did not want … Oh, we shared it with the neighbors, uh, the feed gets smoked and so we can … Do other things with them. Uh, the … My dad was a leather trader, which basically you take the cow hide, and then you turn it into leather.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: You know, that’s … So, and, and I learned how to butcher from my dad. 

Charles Eide: I have 10 cows at my ranch. 

David Fhima: You do? 

Charles Eide: I do. 

David Fhima: I love it. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Are you gonna help me come butcher 

David Fhima: one? I’ll butcher one for you easily. 

Charles Eide: We’ll, we’ll make some stakes. 

David Fhima: I know how to butcher the whole thing. 

Charles Eide: Really? 

David Fhima: Every … Oh, yeah. You know? 

Charles Eide: Oh, man.

David Fhima: You know, from the Tenderloin to the strip loin to from all- How long does 

Charles Eide: [00:30:00] it take? 

David Fhima: It’ll take probably, it’ll take me six hours- Yeah. … to butcher the whole thing. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: And portion it properly, clean it up properly. 

Charles Eide: Sounds like we’re having a party. 

David Fhima: We, we’re doing it. Yeah. Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Okay. So you, you, you’ve had all these interesting elements of your upbringing.

What led you into the restaurant business for yourself? You, you said you did experience in restaurants. What led you to your first restaurant? And tell me all about that. 

David Fhima: Well, you know, so get my engineering degree. I, I’m living in Switzerland at the time, in Geneva, Switzerland, uh, and decided, you know, I, I

Engineering School & Coming to America [30:39]

David Fhima: Huge fan, huge fan of American Westerns. 

Charles Eide: Oh, movies. 

David Fhima: Movies. ‘Cause that’s the only thing we could see on the black and white TV in Morocco. And John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Fred Aster, and musicals, uh, Gigi Rogers, uh, Gene Kelly, and, and I would watch those things with [00:31:00] my mom. That was the only TV we could find.

And, and, and so the US was- Calling your name. … of my … Oh, yeah. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: Oh, I needed to … And then at the time, Ronald Reagan was running to be president. 

Charles Eide: Okay. I mean- So this would’ve been in l- l- 

David Fhima: 1980, 81. Yeah. Yeah. Jimmy Carter was president at the time. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

David Fhima: And the US, I was in Geneva, Switzerland when the US hockey team beat the Soviets and then they eventually got the miracle on ice.

Charles Eide: Do you know whose, whose 

David Fhima: podcast- It was three o’clock in the morning when I was watching it from Geneva Switzerland. 

Charles Eide: You know, like a week ago, Rob McClanahan from that team- No way. … sit right there. 

David Fhima: No way. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: That’s so cool. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. So you, so you remember the moment in which this happened? 

David Fhima: Exactly vividly.

Charles Eide: Wow. 

David Fhima: I was all about the US. I hated the Soviet Union. I hated the [00:32:00] Soviet Union. 

Charles Eide: Well, and, and the US was, they were the underdogs. 

David Fhima: Yeah. Yeah. 

Charles Eide: They weren’t expected to win. 

David Fhima: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Charles Eide: So you remember that moment- 

David Fhima: I remember all of it. All of it. 

Charles Eide: And you weren’t an American kid. You were in Morocco. 

David Fhima: No. No, I was in Switzerland.

You’re 

Charles Eide: Switzerland. Yeah. Sorry. 

David Fhima: So I lived Morocco when I was seven and I grew up in Paris, Strasbourg, uh, Geneva- 

Charles Eide: Yeah. … 

David Fhima: Switzerland. 

You’re 

Charles Eide: in Switzerland when this all goes down. Yeah. And you remember it like it was yesterday. Yeah. 

David Fhima: I do. 1980. I do. Ah. I, I was living in this little studio, um, uh, and I was looking for my first engineering, engineering job.

I was the youngest engineering student to graduate from my school in the history of the school. And- 

Charles Eide: Wow. 

David Fhima: But I said, “You know what? I wanna take some time and go to Los Angeles.” But I couldn’t figure it out. So I said, “Okay, I’ll go to Ma- I’ll go to Miami.” So I went to Miami, hated it. 

Charles Eide: Really? 

David Fhima: Hated it. Stayed there for three days and [00:33:00] flew back.

Charles Eide: So you’re like, um- So 

David Fhima: whatever money I had, gone. I’m working again, trying to make some money. 

Charles Eide: Back in Switzerland. 

David Fhima: Back in Switzerland. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

David Fhima: Working. I had my, um, working permit and, uh, worked in, uh, worked, saved some money, said, “I’m gonna go visit Los Angeles.” And I came to LA. And within a couple weeks in LA, uh, I ran out of money.

I was a tourist, you know, I met, I, I, I was, you know, I was going, I was going to the beach, I was pretty much doing- 

Charles Eide: Tourist 

David Fhima: stuff. … uh, tourist stuff. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: With nothing. I li- lived in a motel and- 

Charles Eide: Using every money you had. 

David Fhima: Yeah, whatever I had and meet people. 

Charles Eide: And what did you think of LA? 

David Fhima: I loved it. 

Charles Eide: Yeah.

California’s so 

David Fhima: beautiful. I loved it. Yeah. I loved everything about LA. I mean, you gotta understand, I was in my early 20s i- in LA. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: Uh, LA was the beginning. [00:34:00] It was the beginning of the party time in LA, Studio 54, and I did not know that yet was the East Coast closed in 78, 79, and the party moved from the East Coast to the West Coast.

Charles Eide: Right. 

David Fhima: So, uh, 

Breaking Into the Restaurant World in LA [34:18]

David Fhima: I knock on doors, got a job as, in a, in a, in a East LA restaurant called Gym Dandy, a soul restaurant. 

Charles Eide: Gym Dandy. 

David Fhima: Yeah, I was all these amazing Black guys teaching me everything what I make, fried chicken, and, uh, I remember going to an interview with a yellow Armani suit.

Uh, one thing led to another, I got a job, I went to the immigration, I said, “I need to open a bank account, and I need to work.” They go, “What do you do? ” I said, “I’m an engineer.” Really on the spot, they gave me a social security 

Charles Eide: number. They’re like, “Engineer? No problem.” There you go. Here you go. 

David Fhima: Um- So I [00:35:00] had my, my, my papers started working at a restaurant called, uh, Lo Esto.

I did not know it at the time, but the restaurant was owned by Elton John and Peggy Lee. 

Charles Eide: And you didn’t know. Cool. 

David Fhima: The rest is history, but there is a history in the rest. Slowly, I am working in the kitchen with, uh, the executive chef, Andre Avalzeng, from France, from Brittany, amazing mentor. 

Charles Eide: And I- So he was a chef and you, were you just a cook at the time?

I was 

David Fhima: a prep cook. 

Charles Eide: Prep cook. Okay. 

David Fhima: Him and I became friends. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: And he made me, uh, assistant and he made me a sous chef. 

Charles Eide: So he mentored you. 

David Fhima: He mentored me. He got into a fight with the owner and I took over the kitchen one night and the next thing I know, I’m whining and dining, Johnny Carson,[00:36:00] 

Gregory Peck and his wife, who was French, I did the first Oscar party before Wolfgang Park did it. 

Charles Eide: Before Wolfgang- 

David Fhima: World Gang Park. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: For the Screen Actors Guild, I worked at Maison under Wolfgang Park. Before World Gang Park opened Spagos in the Hollywood Hills, his wife, Barbara Lazaroff, he wa- wasn’t, his wife, she, he worked very good.

She, she basically told him, “Let’s do pizza, put, put smoked almond on it and sell it to the producers. We know the rest is history.” And there were like these five chefs in LA, which I, I wasn’t one of them, but I worked for one of them. And from Lo- Loresto, I worked at La Re, which is one of the world famous restaurants.

Uh, a gentleman that I worked for, his name is Mark, went and opened his own [00:37:00] restaurant. He asked me if I wanted to come and work for him. I said I would. He got into a car accident three days. He broke his legs all over. He goes, “Do you wanna buy the restaurant?” I said, “Yes.” I got investors. And at the time, I knew everybody in Hollywood.

I, Lionel Richie and I were on first name basis. I had their numbers. 

Charles Eide: So you had built a network of people by working at these restaurants. 

David Fhima: At these restaurants. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: Because in Hollywood, everything happened at lunch, all the deals. Um, and, uh, you know, so I went, worked from one restaurant. I met my ex- wife in LA at the time.

She, um, uh, her family worked for France and, and, uh, and we got married there. Uh, Chloe was born there. 

Charles Eide: In LA? 

David Fhima: In LA. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

David Fhima: She hated Los Angeles. Our marriage wasn’t doing well. She came over. I followed to save the marriage. I’ll [00:38:00] save you the- 

Charles Eide: So she came here? 

David Fhima: Yeah, ca- she came back home. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Yeah. So this is home for 

David Fhima: her.

Moving to Minnesota & Opening Restaurants [38:04]

David Fhima: I get interviewed to work for friends. Mm-hmm. Um, uh, Eli was born. We got divorced. I opened the first restaurant, Minneapolis Cafe at the Calhoun Beach Club. Uh, Brahma Crowdy- 

Charles Eide: Yeah, by no problem. … 

David Fhima: who is one of my very, very good and dear friends. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: Got me connect- connected with them. That was before he opened his first lifetime.

Charles Eide: Wow. So you’ve known him a long time. 

David Fhima: Brahm called me one day and he goes, w- we met at a bar, kind of shocking that Brahm and I, we meet at a bar. I’m getting through a divorce and he’s playing and we became friends and he goes, “Hey,” and, and I got a call. I said, “I heard you getting, you get, you’re splitting up and do you have a place to stay?”

I said, “I have two young kids.” And he goes, “Come and stay with me. ” I said, “I have two kids.” Convinced me to stay with him, uh, for a week while I looked for a place. I end [00:39:00] up staying there for 18 months. 

Charles Eide: Wow. 18 months. I mean, he’s one of the most generous people I’ve ever met. 

David Fhima: One of the, probably the most generous, one of the most misunderstood, and, and I think he’s a gift to Minnesota.

Charles Eide: Oh, 

David Fhima: for sure. He’s, he really is. So, yeah, and I opened the, the Minneapolis Cafe, and then Minneapolis Cafe moved, uh, to Hennepin. I end up opening FEMAs, opened Luiquez and- 

Charles Eide: Now, when did you open FEMAs? 

David Fhima: I opened FEMAs in St. Paul 22 years ago. 

Charles Eide: 22 years ago. So like 2004? 

David Fhima: 2003, yeah. Three. Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

David Fhima: Yeah. Yeah. 

Charles Eide: So you opened FEMAs and that was in St.

Paul? 

David Fhima: Yeah, yeah. 

Charles Eide: Yep. 

David Fhima: That was, that was amazing, you know. And, you know, uh, 2007, 2008, stock market hits. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: And it hit us hard. 

Charles Eide: Really? [00:40:00] And is that because it hit the, the, the patrons who were coming or did people just stop going to restaurants? 

David Fhima: Listen, I wanna blame it, but I’m not going to. I was under capitalized, over-leveraged.

Lessons from Loss & Reinvention [40:16]

David Fhima: My investors were all in the stock market, and the money stopped flowing in. 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

David Fhima: And I made a lot of mistakes. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: So when you make mistakes like that, obviously you’re a really smart guy. You learn from them. What are the lessons you took away from those failures? 

David Fhima: Well, you calling them failures again.

You can’t. 

Charles Eide: Uh- 

David Fhima: Those are lessons. 

Charles Eide: The lessons. What did you, what lessons did you learn from your lessons? 

David Fhima: The lessons are probably … You, you … First of all, any challenges in life teach you a lot more than any wins in life. They teach you so much more. They teach you how to win, but also they keep teaching you how not to [00:41:00] lose.

Charles Eide: Mm. 

David Fhima: That’s what you learn. It’s easy to learn how to win. It’s very difficult to learn how to keep on winning. 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

David Fhima: And only loss can teach you that. All the flats- 

Charles Eide: So you’re g- you’re grateful for those losses. 

David Fhima: Absolutely. Yeah. I wasn’t then. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: I wasn’t then. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: It hurt. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: It was painful. My ego was taking a huge, huge

But there was one thing that I’ve always done, win, lose, draw, is I was the same restaurant. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. You’re, you’re still David Fema. 

David Fhima: Nothing changed. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: When I had one table in the restaurant or when I had 500 people through the door, my greeting was always the same. My integrity in buying good food and making it with whatever talent I have never changed.

That never, ever, ever changed. I got [00:42:00] better because we wanna get better, don’t we? Yeah. We wanna be better. Y- and you learn how to be a better cook. Uh, but as I, as I … My evolution was progressive, it was hard, uh, and I needed to figure out how to manage a divorce, a loss, a renewal all at the same time, you know?

Charles Eide: So this all kinda happened in the same- 

David Fhima: All … Yeah. But, you know, but, but you know what? Chaos happens all at the same time. In chaos, comes rebirth, comes the lesson, and you just gotta look, and you gotta be awake. But we get so … When things, when we are struggling, and it’s normal, we’re human beings, we only deal with the struggle, and we

All the good that’s happening around that [00:43:00] struggle, we just let it go by. 

Charles Eide: Like, we’re not aware of it? 

David Fhima: We’re not aware of it. We don’t- ‘

Charles Eide: Cause we’re so focused on- 

David Fhima: We’re so focused on just surviving. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: Yeah, we are. But it doesn’t … The experience doesn’t happen unless it happens. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: And the lesson doesn’t happen unless it happens.

And, and it’s, you know, it’s, it’s … I, I made the choice to, to, to take inventory and take stock and learn. And, and I learned that in our industry, you open a restaurant no matter how successful you are, one day that restaurant will no longer be. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

David Fhima: So what, what is the plan? What is the plan? 

Charles Eide: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that, because it seems like there’s, there’s restaurants that [00:44:00] they, they open and they’re very successful, and then they kind of slowly decline, and then they go out of business, and then you’ve got restaurants like Mancini’s or, you know, big, big established local restaurants that have been there for a hundred years or whatever.

What is the difference between those two? What, what makes a restaurant live for a hundred years versus 10? 

David Fhima: So you will never learn anything by the things that are unique. Mansini is unique. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

David Fhima: There’s no lesson there. 

Charles Eide: Interesting. 

David Fhima: It’s luck. 

Charles Eide: It’s luck. 

David Fhima: It’s many. You can take a lot of what they do and learn from it.

You cannot also learn from anything, from any uniqueness that goes the other way, a restaurant that opens and closes three months later. [00:45:00] Truth and lessons are learned somewhere in between. Restaurants that survive past that five years and thrive past that and are there for seven, 15 years. Those are where the lessons happens.

The Secret to Restaurant Longevity [45:16]

David Fhima: The difference, the difference is many things. Assuming that service is impeccable, assuming that the food is awesome, that’s not what makes a restaurant survive, because people are trendy. They’ll get tired. How many restaurants can you go to at night, even if you went out seven days a week? 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: You could today go to a restaurant every single night for the next 365 days and [00:46:00] only come to my restaurant once a year.

Charles Eide: Hmm. ‘Cause there’s just so many. 

David Fhima: There are so many. So how do I get you to come more often? 

Charles Eide: What’s the secret? 

David Fhima: That’s the secret. It’s hospitality. It’s … You need to come in and there are many things that need to happen. You need to feel that this is not a business. You need to feel that you just … The way I felt when I entered your space, you made me feel home.

Hmm. I got that from my father. I mean, so I’m treating everybody just the way my dad treated all the strangers that came home. And some of them, I’ve … He probably saw them once, I never saw them again. They, there is that, that incredible connection that you make with people, that when they leave, they feel, [00:47:00] “I’m coming back.

I like being taken care of. ” People want to be taken care of. 

Charles Eide: Now, you’re, you’re talented at that, no doubt. You’ve honed your skill over your whole career. How do you take that feel, because you’re one man, but you have many restaurants. How do you take that feeling and help your team across all the different brands, restaurants, experiences, give that same feeling to people when you’re not there?

David Fhima: It’s, 

Hospitality, Culture & Building a Team [47:31]

David Fhima: it’s the hardest thing in the world. You can’t teach that. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta first have a vision, and you cannot allow two visions in your company. You can’t. So that sounds very autocratic. It sounds like you’re a dictator. You’re not. I knew what I knew, and I know what it takes to get to where I’m at.

I [00:48:00] have earned the right to say, “This is how we’re gonna do it. ” And you gotta instill systems. We ha- we have a rule in the restaurant. Your administrative work is critical to managing a restaurant, but nobody gives a shit about it. 

Charles Eide: Right. 

David Fhima: Nobody looks at the piano, nobody looks at your schedules, nobody looks at how you have planned your open table.

Charles Eide: That’s like the backbone, though. 

David Fhima: But it is the backbone. 

Charles Eide: It’s invisible, but it’s there. 

David Fhima: Yeah. It’s that invisible P&L. What people care about and what’s your number one job, and you have to do that, and it’s gotta become automatic, is sense, smell, sight, comfort. And I, we repeat that every day. [00:49:00] Sight, what, how are the lights?

What are people seeing? Are they seeing a piece of saran wrap that doesn’t belong there? What do the tables look like? Are they all perfectly aligned? Are there any fingerprints anywhere? Smells. When they, when they get into the parking lot, is there anything garbage? Are the drains, are we running water in the drains where which we didn’t have any wa- any activity in and they’re gonna dry and they’re gonna cause smell?

It’s all the things that people don’t think of when they go into a restaurant, but create an impression on them. What are they listening? When they are walking from the t- from the host stand to the table, to the bathroom, is there a vacuum that follows them? Is [00:50:00] there a hole? Meaning they listen to Frank Sinatra, but all of a sudden they got to this table and the sound is different, and Frank Sinatra disappeared.

Is the music following them so there is no interruption in the experience? 

Charles Eide: That is pretty detailed. Down to the soundplacement. If you 

David Fhima: have, before you fucking open that door, walk that restaurant exactly that way and sit at a table. Is the ta- chair comfortable? Is the table wiggling? 

Charles Eide: So it’s those little- 

David Fhima: Is the temperature perfect because the temperature when you’re sitting down and when you’re standing up is three to four different degrees different.

You’re warmer when you’re standing than when you are sitting. I don’t give a shit about you and your comfort. I [00:51:00] give a shit about that guest when they sit down and their comfort, because that’s who you’re there for. 

Charles Eide: So you’re saying the standing, the people standing, that doesn’t matter. You’re tuning the temperature in there for the s- 

David Fhima: Sit down.

Charles Eide: Sit down. 

David Fhima: Sit for two minutes. Oof. I feel a draft. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: And because you’re walking, boom, boom. There’s a degree out there. So sight smells comfort. 

Charles Eide: What’s the perfect temperature while I’m sitting? 

David Fhima: It’s 69. 

Charles Eide: 69 degrees. 

David Fhima: Yes. 

Charles Eide: So it’s a perfect temperature. 

David Fhima: Yep. In the winter. 

Charles Eide: In the winter. 

David Fhima: It’s 71 in the summer.

Charles Eide: Okay. Air conditioning. Not 

David Fhima: the other way. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: You know, a little, a restaurant that’s too cold in the summer will be comfortable for you, but your plate will be cold. 

Charles Eide: Oh. 

David Fhima: It takes 12 to 18 minutes for that plate to be consumed. My goal is from the first minute till the seventh minute, the parent, the temperature doesn’t change.

Charles Eide: Dude, you have this down to a science. 

David Fhima: It’s not a [00:52:00] science that I was taught. It’s a science that was ingrained in me. My mother served in cast iron her lasagna because that lasiana never got cold. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: My dad had a grill by the table inside the house, smoking the whole fucking house because he understood that that flavor needed

The smokiness takes around three, four minutes to dissipate. You almost … You know what? We smoke in old fashioned and we drink that. You, you wanna do that immediately because that, if you don’t do it, that you lose that. That … I wrote it on a piece of paper years and years later, but it was ingrained in me without my mom, my grandma, my grandma who used to call me [00:53:00] vagabondo, which is my restaurant in Excelsior.

Which 

Charles Eide: is fantastic, by the 

David Fhima: way. Thank you. Because vagabondo means a vagabond. Remember what I told you? Yeah. Running away, running around. Gypsy. And she would pull my fucking ear. No, I don’t know why my ear is not all the way to my shoulder by now. And vagabondo. When I told my mom I wanted to do my grandma’s food, she goes, “That’s your grandma from your dad’s side.

She was mean. I don’t give a shit. I don’t care. Ask your uncles, ask your sisters.” So I asked them, and they go, “Nothing is written. You’re gonna have to do the, the dishes.” And I remember all the dishes and keep making them and eating them until the memory is there. 

Charles Eide: Whoa, that’s a lot of work. So you had to, you had to basically practice until you could figure out exactly- 

David Fhima: It was not.

I made it and it tasted exactly within a couple [00:54:00] times. 

Charles Eide: Wow. 

David Fhima: The gnocchi, the lasagna and it tasted, it just tastes … I, I, I go to Vagabondo and I smell my grandma every day. 

Charles Eide: Do you really? 

David Fhima: Yeah, I do. I do. At, at themas, I would smell my mom. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

David Fhima: Those tajims, I would smell my mom. 

Charles Eide: So good. 

David Fhima: And, uh, the paella would smell my grandma.

And, uh, and so that stuff, I wasn’t being taught verbally, but I was being infused with it. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, you were absorbing 

David Fhima: it. I was absorbing it and it, and it pours out of my son’s pores. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: My son is just like that. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: And I s- I sit back … You know that in 45 years, I have owned 27 restaurants. I have never sat down and ate at any of them.

Wow. I’ve never sat down at any of my bars. 

Charles Eide: Why? 

David Fhima: And had a drink.

Because it’s not my [00:55:00] place. It’s not my house. I, it’s that my mom never sat down when she was eating with us. 

Charles Eide: Really? 

David Fhima: Never. 

Charles Eide: She’d be- 

David Fhima: Serving everybody. And then we’re done eating, everybody leaves, and then we’ll come back home and she’s there with her mom eating and, and chatting. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: That’s where it came from.

Charles Eide: So all of these things that were instilled in you that you’ve brought into your restaurants, I, what I wanna understand is from a … I, I guess you could call it scalability, but how do you instill those types of things into your staff? Because I know, first of all, finding good people is really, really hard.

So you get your staff together and like you said, the draft and the sound and all these things that you’ve got and you know, and you maybe document, but how do you make sure it’s consistent all the time when you’re, you can’t be there? 

David Fhima: You have to be consistent. You have to show up. You do not have to be there all day long.

You come in [00:56:00] for an hour, for, for half an hour. You go in the kitchen and you go, “This is wrong, this is right. Turn this light, do that, do this. ” And it’s, and it sips, and it sips through, and it sips through, and it zips through. There is not a single wave. There is not a single wave that creates a ripple effect.

It’s many, many, many, many, many, many waves. And, but you can’t, you can’t, you cannot ever replace you. 

Charles Eide: So you’ve kind of come to terms with the fact 

David Fhima: that- I can. I, yeah, I am … It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s very dangerous to build a restaurant around your personality. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: It’s very dangerous. ‘

Charles Eide: Cause then- 

David Fhima: But that’s who I am.

Charles Eide: Yeah, I was gonna say- 

David Fhima: You’re missed when [00:57:00] you’re not there. 

Charles Eide: It’s, you know what’s really odd though? Every time … This is the weirdest thing. Every time I go to one of your many spots, you’re always there. And I’m like, “How is this possible?” I, I- You’re like, you’ve cloned yourself- I- … Gotta be seven of you. 

David Fhima: I hear that from many, many people.

But I also know there are many, many people who don’t see me there. I think, uh, I, I think I have developed a relationship with so many people that have my phone number, that have, where they wanna come in and have dinner and,

and I set it up for them and I say, “Hey, I’m not gonna be there, but I know my staff is gonna take care of you. ” And then I hear back from them and they go, “David, it was amazing. The stuff was amazing.” I know they’re not lying to me, and I know that we created a culture that [00:58:00] people feel your energy, people feel what you have built, people feel the systems you’ve put in place, and they’ve all come together for them.

And I think that’s all I can do. 

Charles Eide: How do you think these ideas of creating feeling and hospitality and culture, how does that relate to other businesses? You know, if I’m not in, clearly I’m not in the restaurant business, how can I take what you’ve learned and use it in my business? 

Three Life Lessons from the Restaurant Business [58:29]

David Fhima: There are three things you learn from the restaurant business that you can apply to every fucking thing in your life, relationship, you’re going to the moon, whatever business you’re in, integrity.

Don’t lie to yourself. Fuck everybody else. That’s bullshit. You know the truth. You know it every morning.[00:59:00] 

Because if you know it, you got the answers. Integrity. Two, relationships. Relationships, relationships, relationships, relationships, relationships, relationships. Because relationships to me is

I get so much out of talking to you right now and we are sharing so many intimate things and show so many personal things and we’re connecting.

There is no motivation here. It’s just we’re building a relationship that we’ve had that I hope was good before I got here and is getting better when I leave.

That relationship with [01:00:00] the, with the next person you meet, when my name comes up and when your name comes up, we know how we’re gonna speak of each other. That’s not why I’m doing it because first thing is integrity and relationships really, really, really matter. And the third thing is really, uh, that you, you, in, in our industry, it’s arts.

It’s not a science. It’s art. And we’re constantly creating, we’re constantly, you know, juggling things. I mean, if, if there was a blue light that you can put in a restaurant that showed you all the shit that was gonna hit the fan,

you’ll see so many balls in the air..

You’ll see so many balls in the air.[01:01:00] 

The th- that’s the third thing is to know and understand that, that process of all those balls in the air, we try and eliminate the balls in the air, and that is the biggest mistakes we can make. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

David Fhima: You gotta prioritize the balls you’re gonna catch.

And I see those balls, some made out of glass, some made out of paper, some made out of cement, some are this big, some are this small. I see them all over the restaurant, every fucking day. On a Saturday, when we have 300 people, they are even bigger. Okay. Which one I’m gonna tackle? Those happen in every single business, in everything.

In our relationships with my wife, [01:02:00] there are many balls. My challenge of my child today, our financial … Okay, so which one I’m gonna deal with today? That’s not gonna damage anything. 

Charles Eide: So you’re saying the third one is get good at prioritizing what, what things you’re gonna focus on? 

David Fhima: More than prioritizing, know that everything,

all the little challenges and all the big challenges, and all, all that process that is very difficult is exactly how you should run your business. Balls in the air. Now, there is another set of balls, and that’s people who are ineffective. Vendors who are doing a shitty job, cut the shit out and get it out.

Charles Eide: Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. 

David Fhima: D- do … You know, it’s [01:03:00] train, hire, fire. Period. Period. You gotta be cutthroat, not to hurt anyone, but to protect a much bigger story than you. The person that is amazing, if you don’t fire the person that is not, you just hurting this person. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: And so you have those, a series of balls that you gotta always know what they are, and they gotta go.

And then you got the series of balls that are the nature. Um, an employee that didn’t show up because he had an emergency with his family. You gotta, you gotta be there for that person. A vendor whose truck broke down, uh, and now you, you gotta go to the store. A, um, [01:04:00] customer who is sitting at the table for four hours while other people are waiting for the tables.

Those are there, will always be there. And we have that. I don’t know your business at all, but I know that you have those. And so for me, accept and understand the complexities of your world. Embrace the fuck out of it. I mean, my wife will tell you, I get up, my cup of coffee, that is my fucking ritual, and it’s gotta be good Italian coffee.

And I go, “Okay, let me see who needs what. And what the fuck do I need to fix first?” The minute I go, “Oh, fuck, what kind of a day?” Then my day goes to shit. 

Charles Eide: How do you keep yourself in a positive head space, you know, when you, when [01:05:00] you see, uh- I 

David Fhima: take my dog for a walk. 

Charles Eide: Do you? 

David Fhima: Yeah. I, I bitch at him. He never answers and always agrees.

Okay. 

Charles Eide: What kind of dog do you have? 

David Fhima: I have a, a great Pyrenees, uh, and a poodle mix. Okay. He’s 110 pounds and- 

Charles Eide: So he doesn’t 

David Fhima: talk bad. He loves me to death and trusts me, doesn’t talk. You, you, you, you know, you know the answers, but you cannot, you cannot find them unless you are with yourself for a few minutes.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: And talk to yourself. And that goes back to that piece. You’re giving 

Charles Eide: yourself head space to be 

David Fhima: alone. You’ve got 

Charles Eide: to. Yeah. 

David Fhima: You have to. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Do you do that every day? 

David Fhima: I do that every day. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: I take those walks all the time. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: Yeah. I do. 

Charles Eide: It gives 

David Fhima: you- And, and, and I have shitty days. I really do. I have days where I go, “Man, why am I doing this?

And I have my answer right away [01:06:00] because that’s the only thing I love. To do- And I don’t buy when you love something, you’re not working, that’s bullshit. 

Charles Eide: It’s still work. 

David Fhima: Who the fuck said that? I love my wife to death, but it’s work. I love my children to death. Do you, would anybody question that I don’t love my children?

No. I can … And if they did, they don’t know me. But it’s work. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: Who wants to fucking change diary peers as a grandpa? But I love … So yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, uh, resilience doesn’t come from doing the same thing. Resilience come from accepting the good. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: And embracing it and not feeling guilty about it and feeling you’ve earned it and you’re privileged and comes from the bad f- [01:07:00] saying, “Okay, this is part for the course.”

Yeah. I mean, that’s the way it is. I don’t believe in balance. There’s no such a fucking thing. It’s bullshit. I am not … Oh, you’re gonna get me into a political conversation, but it’s balance. You know, have you ever listened to a concerto Chopa? I’m a lover of classical music. Chopin number five. Have you ever listened to the whole 22 minutes?

Charles Eide: No. 

David Fhima: Listen to it. 

Charles Eide: I’m gonna write it down. 

David Fhima: Nothing in it is balance. The pi- you don’t hear the piano as much as you hear the violin. You don’t hear the trombone. You don’t hear the bass as much. But what you get when it all comes together, that amazing harmony. Amazing. My [01:08:00] harmony is a shitty day or a great day, and at the end of the day, I am researching the universe because I, I have a love of space.

It, it, it blows my mind. It blows my mind how insignificant we are. 

Charles Eide: Oh, you’re saying like outer space. 

David Fhima: Outer space. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, me too. I’m a big- The universe. Yeah, I love- The space. 

David Fhima: The known universe. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: The known universe, which there are 60 billion known galaxies. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Yeah, which 

David Fhima: is probably 

Charles Eide: nothing. 

David Fhima: The source system takes 22 million light years to orbit one time.

It has done it 20 times. There is another 22 times that it needs to do it before it dies down, which will be 220 million years away. We are this little planet in this spiral called the Milky Way. We are at the end of it. And if you try [01:09:00] to look at us, you need a microscope. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: So when they say you’re not the center of the universe, you know, we’re not even the center of our own fucking galaxy.

It, it’s, it, it almost … And I drive my wife crazy. When I go, “Do you know that if we went inside a black hole and we’re able to survive, that we will be able to see the end of the world, the end of the universe before we die?” And I’m going, “I don’t know how to explain it to you, but that’s what I’m reading.”

So for me, that’s where my harmony comes in- Yeah. … is to get my mind blown to know I know shit. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Like it makes it seem like any problem you have is so incident. Isn’t significant. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn’t matter. 

David Fhima: Yeah. It is. 

Charles Eide: That’s such a good perspective. Do you- I- Do you think you’ll, do you think you’ll work till the day you die?

David Fhima: Yes. I hope so. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: I went to the Mayo Clinic and I had a test and it says, “Your body fat is this and you’re this is [01:10:00] that God.” And, but your cholesterol is high. Do you need to take a pill? I said, “Not fucking happening.” 

Charles Eide: Oh, I won’t take cholesterol 

David Fhima: pains. Not 

Charles Eide: happening. No. 

David Fhima: You know, I’m gonna have my steak.

I’m gonna have my glass of wine. Put that butter 

Charles Eide: on 

David Fhima: it. I have chocolate every fucking night. I have ice cream almost every night. And I know it’s hery thetery and, you know, I’m not stupid. I take fiber and all that stuff, but, you know- 

Charles Eide: Are you gonna, are you gonna … So you’re gonna work till the day you die- Yeah.

if you can. 

David Fhima: Yeah. Yeah. 

The Book, Legacy & Closing [1:10:29]

David Fhima: I’ll work, I’ll work less. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: And by that, I mean, my, my next chapter in my life is writing my book, which is coming up this fall and winter. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about your book. 

David Fhima: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Tell me about it. 

David Fhima: You know, I, I always thought that people who wrote books were full of shit, and I hope that people don’t read my book and think I’m full of shit.

But if they do, I probably am. Uh, but my wife goes, my wife keeps telling me that we have a story to tell, and it’s a family story, it’s a story [01:11:00] about eat, it’s about enjoying life, it’s about, you know, the ease, it’s a book that basically they … Do you know that there are the most popular books in the world are books about cooking and about how to make love.

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

David Fhima: It’s the truth. They are the most popular. Do you know that the two instinctual things that we have in life that nobody needs to teach us, we may, we may suck at it initially, but if we do it often, we become good at it, is making love because how do you survive if you don’t procreate? So it’s instinctual.

It’s God given. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: And eat. How do you eat? How do you not eat [01:12:00] and survive? In order to survive, you have to do those two things. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: Period. You don’t have to build a house, you don’t have to have a car, you don’t have to … All the shit that we do in order to survive is eat and make love, okay? You take two people who have done neither.

You dump them in an island, you come back five years later, there’s probably a baby running around the beach and they salmon or, or they caught some shit and they figured it out and it’s probably delicious. Yet, there are more books on how to do those two things that are natural to us. We are ripping people off-

By telling them already what they already know. So this book is really about telling people, “Just go in the kitchen.” 

Charles Eide: Mm. “

David Fhima: Just go in bed and just let it happen.” 

Charles Eide: Just go be yourself. 

David Fhima: The worst thing that can happen, [01:13:00] your wife is gonna say, “Suck today,” or that the dish didn’t g- get it, and then do it again, and you, and you, this is amazing life.

We get a chance to do it time, and time, and time, and time again, and one day, your wife will go, “Oh my gosh, Romeo.” Uh, or s- your wife will go, “Oh my gosh, you are Island Ducasto food.” That’s how it happens. Did anybody give that first person on earth a book on how to cook, on how to … No. No. It … So I am kind of feeling weird about writing a book about something that people should already know how to do.

So my book is really … Is that some, that’s my lesson. That’s my lesson. 

Charles Eide: Eat and have sex. 

David Fhima: Yeah. At the same time. 

Charles Eide: At the same time. When, when you look back, and I always like to ask [01:14:00] this at the end, when you look, when, when the world looks back at your life, what do you want the world to remember you for? 

David Fhima: That I was a good person.

Charles Eide: What does that mean? 

David Fhima: It means that I gave more than I took. I kissed more than I was kissed. I fed more than I ate. I did more for someone else than I did for myself. 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

David Fhima: Just a little bit more. 51%. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: Just a little bit more. Giving back. That’s how I remember. Not giving back. Just I did it more. Giving back is an intentional act.

This is, this is subconscious. I just did it. 

Charles Eide: It’s 

David Fhima: in your nature. 

Charles Eide: I 

David Fhima: mean, you come to my restaurant, I don’t even know how it happened, but all of a sudden I have a glass of champagne or it just happened. It’s because I want you to feel good. And it’s … I’m a people pleaser. [01:15:00] I’m a people pleaser, but I, I have, I have struggled because it’s, it can be, it can be, it can be daunting, but I’ve struggled and, and I, then I’ve accepted that’s, it’s, it’s okay.

Charles Eide: Yeah. And it’s endless, right? 

David Fhima: It’s endless. It’s 

endless. 

David Fhima: It’s endless. I mean- 

Charles Eide: It’s endless. … pleasing peoples like 

David Fhima: you. You don’t … There’s not enough of you to please everybody. Right. There’s just not. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

David Fhima: So, okay, you know, uh, you know, so that’s, you know, that I gave more. And, and that I was more of a dad than my son was a son to me, that I was more of a husband than my wife was a wife to me.

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

David Fhima: I was a little bit more. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. I don’t have any doubt you’re gonna be remembered for that and probably a lot more. 

David Fhima: I hope so. I hope so. 

Charles Eide: I’m really grateful for you being in my life. I’m really grateful for our friendship, and I’m so thankful we got this time to do this, and I can’t wait to [01:16:00] come to your restaurant and see that smile and get that-

Big old David Fema hug. And I, I tell you, that’s, that’s as good as the food to me. 

David Fhima: Well, it, I think it’s better. I think it’s better. I’ve never had a bad experience, but I’ve always had bad food. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. David Fema, thank you for coming on. 

David Fhima: Thank you. 

Charles Eide: It’s been great having you. 

David Fhima: It’s a pleasure. 

Charles Eide: If you like this episode of Cleared for Takeoff, make sure you leave a comment, subscribe, turn on notifications, of course, share it with somebody that you think would love it.

And of course, check out my company, EideCom We do events all over the country, and if you’re looking for the best team in event production, check out EideCom.com.