The Dish That Almost Didn’t Happen

All heroes have origin stories. This one almost never happened.

I've never fancied myself a chef, or even someone who's particularly astute when it comes to food and ingredients. I just like to eat. It's kind of like music. I am absolutely and utterly NOT musically inclined, but music has always been a huge part of my life. Food is the same way.

I've been lucky enough in my life to be surrounded by incredibly talented musicians, writers and artists, and it's been no different in the restaurant business. Luck. Destiny. Whatever you want to call it. I've somehow found myself surrounded by people who are really good at making shit.

When we first started thinking about what the menu would look like when the restaurant opened, the idea was actually very different from what you see today. Pamela was incredibly busy, and creating an entire menu on her own was a gargantuan task, so she brought in her friend Tim to help. Tim was from Mississippi—a longtime vegan, photographer, forager and all-around brilliant artist.

Pamela and Tim created the menu together, and we were all really happy with it. But something was missing. Tim couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

Opening a restaurant is chaos. It always takes more time, more energy and WAY more money than you think it's going to take. The pressure gets high. Emotions run wild. Everybody is exhausted. And suddenly things that seemed incredibly important three months ago don't seem quite as important when you're staring at an opening date.

Luckily, we all understood our roles. We never really gave our input on the menu unless we were asked. I've seen battles over personal taste ruin potentially great projects in almost every creative field I've been lucky enough to work in. Somebody always wants to prove that their idea is better. Their song is better. Their scene is better. Their design is better. Their dish is better.

We didn't want to work that way. What we lack in experience and money, we try to make up for by giving our staff and creative partners the freedom to express themselves. MAKE SHIT. Then put it out there. Let the people decide if it works.

So when Tim came to us the night before we opened and said he wanted to put another dish on the menu—something deeply personal to him and his roots—we didn't waver.

Was it going to be a pain in the ass? Absolutely. Menus had to change. Prep had to change. Ingredients had to change. We were opening a restaurant in a matter of hours and somebody wanted to change the damn menu. But that's the nature of making creative things. Sometimes the house of cards falls down and you just have to pick the cards back up.

Then Tim told us what he wanted to make.

Chicken and Waffles.

Now, I'm a Latino kid from New York City. At the time, I didn't even really understand that chicken and waffles was a thing. I definitely didn't understand how deeply connected it was to Southern food culture. I hardly ever ate waffles.

And I hated mustard.

So naturally this sounded like a great idea.

But here's the thing: it didn't matter what I liked. I wasn't the chef. I saw myself more like an executive producer. My job wasn't to tell talented people how to do what they were talented at doing. My job was to create the environment, give them what they needed, protect the vision where necessary and then get the hell out of the way.

This was an extremely talented chef telling us, This dish means something to me.

So we trusted him.

There was only one problem. When we originally conceived the menu, we wanted it to be a love letter to New York City street-food culture. Chicken and Waffles didn't really fit that idea.

At least that's what we thought.

But instead of letting the concept stop us, we changed the concept. Maybe we didn't have to limit ourselves to New York street food. Maybe we could celebrate great cultural comfort foods from all over the world through our own vegan lens.

And then we realized something.

Wait a minute. THAT is New York.

New York is Mississippi next to Puerto Rico next to Jamaica next to China next to Italy next to West Africa. It's people bringing the food they grew up with into the same city, sharing it with each other, changing it, remixing it and eventually creating something new.

The melting pot isn't separate from New York food culture.

The melting pot IS New York food culture.

And one last-minute plate of Chicken and Waffles helped us understand that.

After about two months of being open, our housemade vegan burger was voted Best Vegan Burger in NYC by the NYC Burger Club. We always thought the burger was going to be the standout. That was going to be the dish.

We were wrong.

Almost immediately, our Chick-un & Waffles started taking the city by storm.

You never really know why certain things hit, and anyone who tells you they do is probably lying. Marketing works. Hype works. Things can be manufactured. But the things that really connect with people—the things that last and somehow stand the test of time? I think some of that is just in the stars.

Everybody wanted to try our Chick-un & Waffles, and for a while it felt like everybody did. Those years before COVID were magical. The restaurant was packed, people were talking about the food, and this dish that wasn't even supposed to be on the menu had somehow become the star of the show.

Today, things are a little harder. The sun doesn't shine quite as brightly every day in the restaurant business. But we keep going. We keep creating.

And the Chick-un & Waffles?

Still undefeated.

Looking back, letting Tim make the dish he needed to make was probably one of the best decisions we've ever made when it comes to our menu. And for better or worse, we still try to operate that way today.

Creative freedom matters to us. We might not have fire-breathing bartenders or food that looks like a Picasso painting. That's never really been our thing anyway. What I hope we do have is an artistic soul that permeates the space. Something you can feel when you walk through the door. A place where the cooks, bartenders, musicians, artists, writers, staff and customers all feel like maybe something is possible here.

Because that's what Tim did that night. He had an idea that didn't fit. We could have said no.

Instead, we got out of the way and let him MAKE SHIT.

Nearly 10 years later, we're still serving it.

Maybe that's the real lesson. Sometimes your job isn't to protect the idea you started with.

Sometimes your job is to recognize the better idea when it walks into the kitchen the night before you open.