My cereal chat on hospitality with the lovely Kip Gleize and Halley Chambers of Three Top Hospitality...owners of Margot, Montague Diner, and the newest quirky chick to grace the streets of the West Village in NYC, Cleo (which just opened!). It’s their third restaurant in 6 years, and during what everyone keeps calling “the worst time for restaurants.” Truly, badass.
We talked about meeting during the pandemic, opening Margot without outside funding, the diner almost breaking them, and why they kept going anyway. About being women in an industry that wasn’t built for us...and why leading with your heart on your sleeve is actually the advantage. About what it costs to bet on yourself when the industry is contracting, and what it means to take care of people and never do it casually.
“In New York where there’s a bajillion people and a bajillion restaurants...it’s easy to feel lonely and to feel like not known, and not seen and not acknowledged. And I think the best restaurants do that well where they just take care of you and they know you.”
The audio is mid. One mic quit. The restaurant behind us didn’t. I’m not a production company...I’m a chef with a camera, sitting across from women I want to celebrate, asking you to love us.
📍 Cleo: West Village, NYC
📍 Margot: Brooklyn
📍 Montague Diner: Brooklyn Heights
📍 Three Top Hospitality
Between Bowls is a series by The Freckled Fork where real conversations happen after the apron comes off...over a bowl of cereal.
🥣 Convo 1: Chef Haley Duren of LongCount
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