 This is Startup Storefront. Every year, more and more people are changing their diets to plant-based. There are a variety of factors for this, including health, sustainability, and climate change. The palette of the average American is evolving, and yet the restaurant industry isn't keeping up. This gap in the market is where planta, a 100% plant-based restaurant group, is betting their figurative farm. Launched in 2016, they've expanded to 11 locations across the United States and Canada, with a whole bunch more still on the way, including California, Georgia, and New York. Stephen Solm, our guest today and the founder of planta, wants to alter the perception of plant-based restaurants one dinner at a time. Today, we talk with Stephen about how restaurants have the power to make or break hotels, re-engineering dishes versus starting from scratch, and the madness that comes with rapid expansion. Welcome to the podcast. On today's show, we're talking planta founder, Stephen. Thanks for joining. People who don't know, what is planta, or planta, as whoever listening wants to call it? It can be a lot of things to a lot of people. Planta is a restaurant group and a brand that I established in 2016 with my partner, Chef David Lee. It's really meant to challenge everyone's perception of what plant-based hospitality should mean. I think, as a whole, it's evolved quite a bit in the last seven years, but veganism hasn't always had the best rap, and so trying to debunk that by creating experiences that really excite people and inspire them to take some of these learnings and experiences into their personal life and rely less on animal products to feed themselves and their families. What made you either personal choices, health decisions, what was a part of your journey, or even Chef's journey into the plant-based diet, I guess? Yeah, so January of 2016, I was living in Toronto at the time, and it was a freezing cold snowy Sunday, and I turned on Netflix and watched Cowspiracy. It's like a really interesting, informative documentary on just the impact of, or the climate impact of animal agriculture, and I was super moved by it at the time we had owned four restaurants in Toronto under the hospitality group that I started in 2012, and felt really inspired to call an all-hands meeting and say, I think we need to examine and evaluate our supply chain and ensure that where we are sourcing from is traceable, and it's not coming from one of these factory farms. What did you uncover during that process? Nothing too tremendous, because these were all pretty high-end restaurants that were very proud of their supply chain, but had to interview fish farmeries and look at what they were feeding fish, and discovered that there was rendered animal product in some of the fish that were being fed in the farms, and so it's like, in what world is a fish intended to be feeding on rendered horse meat? Yeah. It doesn't feel like the... Not in the natural course of existence. Correct. I think it just really uncovers a lot about what isn't talked about a lot, and so we converted 25% of the menus at those four restaurants to plant-based, and then that's really when I started my pursuit for recognizing that I became the topic of conversation whenever I went out to dinner with the boys, or whenever we would go out with a few couples, and they would say, oh, what's the vegan going to eat? What's the vegan going to eat? Where is this? This was in Toronto when I was... Okay. It was still in Toronto. Okay. This was still in Toronto. Yeah, I was living there, started the company there, and became the topic of conversation, and realized that there's a huge opportunity to create a place that only serves plant-based food that's cool and exciting, and makes people feel like they're not sacrificing anything. I'm curious in this question. So when you first decided to introduce, let's say 25% of the menu, as you mentioned, what things did you go with that you thought, okay, this is a good baby step into maybe conveying or convincing someone that animal protein plant-based products are just as edible, just as the... What would you decide to put on the menu? Yeah. So I think that's what's made Planta really unique specifically, is that it's always started with vegetables and it's ended in vegetables. There's never been any alternative meat products or ancillary alternatives that's been used in our food. I think that there's definitely a place for that, the Wendy's and Burger King's of the world where you want to substitute an already not-that-good-for-you thing with something else that's... Yeah. Heavenly processed. Yeah, a processed thing as well, but I think obviously it's no doubt it's better for the planet. I think it's just hard to make the argument that it's better for your health. So what we kind of have done is tried to create flavors, textures, and experiences that just take vegetables in its finest form and alter and adjust them to create something that's really filling. So this is kind of before Planta was born, but it's really easy to do great pasta dishes or ratatouille or we did this really great chickpea cake dish at one of our high-end restaurants. And if it tastes good and the texture's good, people are open to trying it. Yeah. Yeah. I was wondering when you switched the menu from animal-based proteins to 25% vegan, Daniel Hume of Eleven Madison Park talks about shifting his restaurant to all vegan and how he really struggled at first when he took... everything was centered around the animal protein as the main course and then all of a sudden he's cooking the vegetable as the main course. And it took him a while to get it right. And what was interesting was that this is a three Michelin star chef, one of the best restaurants in the world, talking about how difficult it was. And so I'm curious about your transition and if you found it easier just starting a brand new restaurant with all vegetable entrees versus trying to re-engineer what you had already built into offering like a 25% vegan menu. That's a really good question. I think it all comes down to perception. So the first restaurant that we started our company with in 2012 was called The Chase. And really the year it opened and beyond and the 10 years it's been in existence has been around the utmost quality of everything. Origin sourcing, really incredible products. There's very little resistance on the consumer side for what they're willing to limit themselves to spending. We put seven or eight plant-based dishes on the menu with the intention that we are having great options for vegans and vegetarians or people that are just looking for a meal that's comprised of mostly plants. That wasn't intended to divert the concept from one thing to another. That restaurant is known for extremely powerful seafood-driven entrees. Five-story seafood towers, whole fish that are carved table side, really experiential. So a chickpea panisse or like almond tagliatelle is not moving the needle to divert the sails that much. I think going back to the EMP piece, Daniel's such a genius. I think maybe the challenge there is, how do I take an experience that costs $300 per guest and ensure that that same value is perceived when I don't serve Dover Soul or a rack of lamb or a duck for two? And that's probably where I would sense that resistance comes from, from the guest perspective, because it's like if I'm only eating, not only, but if I'm eating squash and a pasta dish and things that are not raised, fed, and slaughtered for food, where's the premium? Right. And so I think where Planta differs is that we are not intending to really become a place that you dine every single day. And it's not replacing your daily routine. And it's certainly not at a price point that is intended to be your special occasion restaurant. So it falls in a more of an everyday price point that allows people to resonate saying, tonight I'm not going to eat fish. I'm going to have Planta, or I'm going to go to Planta because I'm plant-based. It could be a variety of things, but I think that what you charge and how that experience is delivered does impact people's decision to resonate with what they're really willing to spend for the lifestyle. Can you give us a window into the price point? And so if we go for two people, what are we looking at, you think? Like 80 bucks, maybe a couple of drinks? Without tipper tax, it's about $45 per guest. OK. And then when you first started to go down the road to people, like in my world, let's say real estate development, we'll say the restaurant business is hard enough, right? And I have an answer for this, so I'm curious for your answer. And then you're entering, let's call it, I don't want to say niche market, but let's call it a growing market, where I think the world understands more consciousness is the thing. People are moving to plant-based. We have a couple, let's call them icons here in LA, crossroads. People can point to them. And so we have some signals in the market that there are attempts being made, and it seems to be working. From your perspective, as you go sort of nationwide on building on all of these different restaurants, what do you view as the most challenging part? And obviously, your background's in restaurant touring. I really want to dive into this, and I want the listeners to know, because on the outside, it could be like, wow, this is crazy, right? Like entrepreneurship in general, but I'd love to hear your window into the world. Yeah, I mean, have a drink. I love the restaurant business for this reason. It is extremely challenging what business isn't. Obviously, we're not building a subscription-based, reoccurring revenue model. That just, you get collect funds from guests every single month without having to do anything. I wish things were differently perceived, but it's retail, and it's experience-driven, and it's a business. I think that this is just the path that we're going on, because the restaurant business, as a business, is a massive part of GDP. People always have to eat, and people always want that engagement, and they love to resonate with brands that align with their personal values. Living in a society and environment where we can have the ability to choose, my parents and grandparents didn't have those choices. They kind of fall into businesses, and then they use their entrepreneurial fight-or-flight mentality to win at all costs. Now we're entering this path where I can create a concept or a drink or a clothing line that's so niche and specialized and an opportunity to win. And so restaurant business is hard. There's no doubt about it, especially when you are so reliant on people and their decisions. That's the hardest thing about it, but I don't know a business that isn't difficult to run and that isn't really based on people. And particularly, we get to do something that is rewarding, because the more guests that choose Planta or at least can influence their buying decisions at a grocery store or another restaurant, it's solving a massive problem that not nearly enough people talk about, that we choose to not really talk about at Planta because we don't want to be activists. We just want to say, whoa, that was really good. And I think I could totally do that and eat that again. Has it been difficult to do something like the training side of it? So same concept almost, a restaurant finding the talent is hard enough. But then in this setting, your menu is a little bit different, let's say. Or maybe there's just more of a training emphasis on the products and the ingredients and how they're different. Has that been a challenge or is it more of your employees are just eye-opened every day and they're learning? Yeah, I think it's just management one-on-one. You get people excited about your business and you get them excited to do a really great job and hopefully the choices that they make are aligned with what your company's mission is. And you use technology and performance management and just overall good instinct to determine if these are the right people for your guests. And so for the most part, over the moon that we have, like a concept and an experience that people want to work and be a part of. I mentioned to you earlier, I do real estate development. So whenever I do every project, and you're talking to an investor, let's say, there's always these weird questions like what happens if they fail, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I always tell them my macro is so simple, especially in Los Angeles and other parts of the country have this too. But basically what I tell them is if you drop a pin generally anywhere in LA and you do a five-foot radius, there's a million people, five-mile radius, there's a million people within that circle. And to be successful as a restaurant, maybe you do three turns, but you really just, you need like maybe a hundred of those people, a hundred and twenty of those people to show up per day. And so those numbers are pretty good if you're, and it goes back to what you were saying before, if your product is, let's say, better or more intriguing or can really get into someone's consciousness. And I think that's it. And then people go, oh, that makes a lot of sense. For sure. Because there's enough coffee shops here in LA that suck. And somehow they're in business. It's really strange, right? And it's like, well, there's proximity and people enjoy that short walk. How did you and Chef meet? What was that story like? So we were actually introduced by one of his great friends and regulars. He owned and operated one of the best restaurants in Canada. It's called Note to Bene. And when we pitched the idea of doing a completely plant-based concept to our investors, they basically responded by saying, you know, you should really talk to David. And he has this remarkable appreciation for vegetables. And I had known David. And we had connected kind of just more on a professional level at events and other things that we contribute to in the city. And we kind of met every week for about six or seven straight weeks about what this could be and what it could look like. And really debated almost up until a month before we opened about whether it should be vegan or vegetarian. And his idea was we could do vegan, but lunch and brunch needs to be vegetarian. And I was fresh in my six-month journey of being plant-based. And I'm like, no way, nothing. And so we decided on that. What was driving that for him? Was it just more flexibility in the menu? I think more flexibility, the concept of doing a really well curated brunch menu without eggs, feels a little bit overwhelming for a chef. And I couldn't appreciate that. And I don't think it's just really overwhelming for a chef. I think people's mentality is like, what am I going to eat? But I think when you realize it, the eggs and the dairy, they're just a vehicle to provide some form of a textural element that can usually and creatively be replaced. And so this takes, you know. And you're telling a chef that must be. Oh, I mean, yeah, for sure. What's good is that I'm comfortable behind the stove myself and have a lot of passion for the creativity. But I couldn't ask for someone that's more appreciative of the different varieties of vegetables available to them. And it was obviously, it's proven to be the best decision ever. Did you always want to go big, go like several locations? Or was that like baby stepping him? I've always had the dreaming spirit. So two-fold. One, it's pretty hard to create that scale in our business without multiple locations. And two, it's a numbers business. And so you can really accomplish a lot when you do have more locations. And so of course, we started with one. But it's evolved to 11 locations. And it's also evolved into scaling down our non-plant-based restaurants. So we've sold everything under the Chase Hospitality Group banner and our exclusive opening planters. So I'm dealing with a fire drill right now, because I'm going through a closing, which is normal in real estate. From your side, what is your latest fire drill that you've been having? The latest in the last four hours? Yeah, because I really want to give people a window into this, because it's fucking crazy. Yeah, the stuff we deal with sometimes. No, it's absolutely insane. I was talking about this with our head of development and project management this morning. And I said, because I'm keeping East Coast time, so this is at 4.30 in the morning, I'm really ready for the camera crew to tell me that we've been punked. Like, how is our day starting like this already? And it's only 7.30. What fire drills today? We are intending to open up our location in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on the 15th of February, contingent on a gas meter being installed Friday. We then got a heads up that an inspector came to the location and found out that the gas line going into the water heater doesn't have a chimney connection. And so it was going to be returning the gas back into the space. Jeez. So we had to call off the meter install, which means we have to delay training, which means we have to delay the opening. And so all of those things, it starts with an emergency and it ends with informing the media that you're not keeping the February 15th date. So that was that. Anything and everything related to project development is usually an emergency because it's always cost money. And how do you deal with it personally? What is your thing? Is it just like, at some point, you get used to it, right? So the skin thickens. But is there something you do in particular? You go for a walk? Yeah, I have a pretty high tolerance for stress. And so really, unless there's somebody getting hurt, a flood or a fire, I'm not typically bathed by. Right, if it's not life or death. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I try to mitigate this with hiring the best people and hopefully the best consultants to help you navigate every city with a different set of rules. The county of LA versus the city of LA, which is the city of West Hollywood, I mean, they're all different. All so different, yeah. They're all so different. It's so true. And so you end up relying on people a lot. But yeah, having kind of the connection to nature is really what allows me to take a moment, try to be really present with my kids when I'm home and they usually are a good grounding feature for me to realize that there are bigger problems out there. Yeah, I've been doing cold plunges, that's my thing. Really? Yeah, I haven't been back there. So yesterday I was telling them during this fire drill, I was on the phone with the banker and my broker and I took the call in the cold plunge because I was like, it can't get any worse, I don't think. So this is like the worst thing I'm gonna deal with today. And we're gonna sort this out together. You wanna try it out after the episode? Yeah, we can throw you in there. The one thing, you know, I speak to different restaurant groups across the country and the one thing they always talk about that's so hard for them is understanding California just because the labor laws and the labor markets are significantly different. So what they usually tell me is something like, we do great in Chicago, we do great in New York and then we come to LA and we barely, like we're not even making money, you know. And what has that been like for you to deal with? And again, this is more as an educational vehicles. People understand that it is a little bit different out here. The minimum wage is a little bit different. All city councils are trying to get it to like a little bit over $22, which they're calling the livable wage now. And so it's hard. It's hard enough, but now it's especially hard. What has it been like for you, sort of maybe learning that or navigating through that? Yeah, I mean, we started our business in Canada. So there's a pretty similar structure around really, really high wages relative to the rest of, the markets that we operate in, Florida compared to Toronto. So I think it's just making sure that your business plan is prepared for mitigating those costs. I think the guests in California understands that you have to pay a little bit more for a cocktail here than you do in Chicago because we're providing $8 more per hour for every single person that works in our building. So, you know, the goal is California also has a thriving restaurant business. We need to align ourselves with that side of the lane and then work just the one that can't make it. You know, so I'd like to think of ourselves as we're not completely risk averse, but recognize that quality is recognized in LA. And so it's not as if people have bad taste here. And so a lot of people choose to live in California. A lot of people choose to eat in California. And so, you know, I always just get super inspired going to a farmer's market or going to Erwan and realizing like, wow, like there's two complete spectrums here. One is someone cultivating like farming as their career and bringing it to for consumption as fresh as it can be. And there's someone that's built a business model around, you know, making produce as beautiful as a jewelry store. And there's a market for that too. And so this understanding who you're gonna be marketing to and ensuring that there's enough of your guests that appreciate what's on the plate. What are some of the grand openings you can announce? Obviously, it sounds like New York's gonna have to wait. Brooklyn's gonna have to wait a little bit. Yeah, no, we're still operating that we can do it. So we've got Brooklyn on deck next and then we're really fingers crossed gonna be able to get Marina Del Rey open in March. Nice. That is also contingent on one public hearing that has taken 15 months to get scheduled so far. Is that for alcohol or is that? That's for alcohol, yeah. Yeah, we've got pretty intense opening schedules. So we're expanding two more locations in DC, a total of three in California. We've got Atlanta, Georgia and Soho, New York. That's all on kind of the immediate vicinity. Do you have any maybe like dream project where it's like a hotel restaurant but the whole experience is sort of catering a little bit to the vision? Yeah, yeah. Tell me about it. Well, hopefully somebody listening to this podcast is a hotel owner or a developer. But yeah, I would like to do a plant a hotel in residence that kind of takes all the elements of really incredible sustainability and furniture and textiles and have this partnered with like a really great fitness and wellness partner. But like, imagine this is like my dream waking up in the morning and calling down for room service and having three or four different dairy alternatives to choose from with your coffee and have an entirely plant-based breakfast and brunch menu and then all being able to like go downstairs and go into the beach club and having cocktails and everything, it just feels to me like this is, this is the future. Yeah, it seems like a no-brainer actually. Where do you see this ideal location being? Well, you know, I think anywhere where... Where there's a beach? Yeah, anywhere where there's strong leisure and anywhere where there's strong business. I think for someone like myself, and I know that I'm certainly not alone in kind of the corporate travel world, you know, I was on the road like 105 nights last year. There's a really like hard thing to do to continue your lifestyle with ease, which is why I love coming to LA so much because it's like there's always a juice bar and there's always a great place to go for a walk and exercise and that's not so much the case in other markets, you know, like Chicago or DC or wherever, they exist. But for the traveler that cares about continuing their values and their personal lifestyle when they travel, to me it feels like an untapped market. Yeah, I agree. Some new learning for me and the reason I was asking the question too was, I was talking to this group that they only do restaurants with a hotel. And I was really curious on this model, like why is that the model? Because if the hotel sucks, you know, you're kind of pigeonholed to this probably lackluster experience. And so they said, no, we take the reverse approach. Well, they'll bring in like a big name chef, let's call it. And if the restaurant's full, now the room price can go up from 200 a night to 800 a night. And I was like, oh, this is in. And so it's like, I had never recognized that, right? Where it just changes the entire financing and structure of an entire asset, like a 20 story building, all of a sudden you could really flip in terms of revenue. Like you can double it just by having an amazing culinary experience. And I was like, wow, like that's really something. That is really cool. Isn't it? And it made sense. Like when he said it, I was like, oh, that's actually kind of genius. And now I'm like, I should do that. I don't know, maybe we'll do it together. But it's a good idea. I like the synergies of it. It makes sense. And obviously the reverse is true where if it doesn't work, then it's a pretty catastrophic failure too. But to your point, all businesses are tough and it all comes down to people. Just going back a little bit to your Miami location, I believe you guys are growing produce on the roof of that. So my question is actually twofold. So like how much of a percentage of the restaurant's produce is getting grown from the roof and is there a way where you can envision, say like getting close to, cause we just talked to David Quo, little fatty and he wants to get to close to a hundred percent of what he's growing for the restaurant being nearby. And I'm curious if you have a vision of trying to achieve that just to take it one step further like locally grown, like, oh yeah, it's on the roof. And I know you can't do that in every location obviously, but I can imagine like the California locations are probably just as prime for that as Miami. The climate to grow for sure, the real estate, not so much. I think Miami is such a unique layout that allows us a flat roof to do just that. Percentage-wise, it's pretty minimal because we have to pivot to greens and vegetables that can grow within the limited season. Nothing really survives in the summer because it's so, so hot. But when it comes to like herbs for cocktails, herbs for garnish, lettuces, it's all grown. Are we using a hundred percent of it on herbs? Yes. But, you know, lettuces and tomatoes, it's just, it's not enough to keep high volume. And on the kind of the future of planning, I think we're, we would be more inclined to find somebody in the vertical farming space that we can co-invest with and ensure that their market logistics and distribution can complement our soil locations. That's probably a more attainable goal for us because, you know, what we've realized is that we can only be good at what we're known to be pretty good at. And that's running restaurants. Anything that we can potentially dabble in as an investor, we want to explore. But what we don't want to do is become the subject matter expert in farming when there are truly such incredible visionaries that are doing exactly the same thing as us trying to expand and maybe don't have access to the capital. So I think the goal in that is to kind of look for letting experts be experts and, you know, supporting where we can. Anything else people should know or where should they work and they find you? Well, we got a lot of grand openings in the works, which is exciting. Yeah, a lot of grand openings and follow along at Planta. And, you know, super excited to be welcomed into this market. It feels like such a surreal experience that as cheesy as it sounds, like that we get to be a part of this fabric. It's like so epic. That's awesome. So I know there's such an appreciation for what we do already in this, like just ingrained in the culture here. And so it just really feels like this is gonna allow us to like level up and really challenge ourselves to like deliver something so epic. Looking forward to it. Yeah, that's for sure. Steven, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. If you made it this far, I bet you loved the episode. So you should join our YouTube channel membership for only $2.98 a month. This gets you access to one, the whole unabridged conversation. Two, you get the episodes on Monday, one day earlier. Three, you get two additional entries to our giveaways. 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