You’ve opened restaurants that are very different from each other…fine dining, a beer bar, a pasta spot. How do new concepts take shape for you?

“I don’t know if it’s a feature or a bug of my personality, but we all contain multitudes, and we all probably have a lot of fun ideas. How do we get to make them come to life? For me, each place has a distinct part of my personality or DNA in it, so I feel like I can give them my energy and love and excitement, as opposed to simply looking at the market or chasing a business deal. Everything has been personal and of great interest to us.

“It’s certainly not been methodical. Life is short…let’s do fun stuff. Explore the passion, bring things to the community that we think are worthwhile. Luckily, there’s no shortage of ideas. So far, so good!

“Prohibition Pig was a little different…we actually bought it from my buddy Chad. I was involved in the opening in a lot of ways, and I live in Waterbury, so it felt like a natural progression. I’m from the South, so a lot of the thigs that come with Pro Pig are an extension of my personality.

“Original Skiff is its own little wedge…we own the brand and we licensed it to the hotel (Hotel Champlain and Aimbridge Hospitality), so we’re not really anyone’s boss there, but we do get to guide it to the best of our ability. It was super fun to design and put together. It’s taken a minute to settle in, but we love it…we go there all the time.”

Now that you’ve grown into this operation, what’s been the thing that has surprised you most about running multiple restaurants versus just one?

“My whole identity has been wrapped up in being a chef…yet I haven’t really been a chef for about 13 years. So it’s taken me that long to sort of shake that off and be comfortable in my own skin as more of an operator. I never imagined having more than one restaurant, much less five.

“I’m not sure it’s been the most surprising…but it’s just that time marches on and things evolve, and opportunities present themselves, and you try not to paint yourself into a corner. We’ve just been lucky to keep stretching that entrepreneurial muscle.

“But it is still hard for me to feel untethered from the kitchen, even after all this time. It sounds silly when I say it out loud, but there was so much energy, blood, sweat, and tears into being a cook and a chef, that nothing will feel as hard as that. For me to feel worthy of respect from my team, I need to work just as hard as I did back when I had to scrub hoods and pull mats and such. That definitely keeps my energy up.

“There’s nothing harder than being a sous chef, where you’re cooking and managing and cleaning and trying to create all at once. If you can keep that work ethic as you become more of an office guy pushing pencils, hopefully you can keep things moving forward.”

When you walk into a restaurant, what’s the thing you notice that instantly makes you think, “This place is going to be great”?

“I’m actually surprisingly easy to please. I think it’s a staff that seems happy and comfortable in their own skin, whatever it is.

“After being in more the high-end and hipster restaurant world, I’m always excited to go to something that’s pretty casual…maybe a landmark that’s maintained its identity and everyone seems happy and excited to be there after a 50-year run. I find that to be the most enjoyable lately. But it probably comes down to staff comfort and happiness…if they seem comfortable, most likely I’m comfortable.”

Bonus: If someone told you they want to open a restaurant in Vermont today, what’s the first thing you’d say to them?

“I think I’m always encouraging to anyone who wants to stretch that entrepreneurial muscle…but it feels like there’s never been a harder time, as long as I’ve been doing this, to make the margins work. You can’t have any “T” not crossed, any “I” not dotted.

“You really need to assemble a “kitchen cabinet” of friends, business people, mentors, advisors…and have them look at your program and poke holes in it and make sure it’s dialed in. You may get lucky…you may strike it right, and there’s a line out the door on Day One. But if there isn’t, it’s just extremely difficult.

“The advice is as old as time…get as educated on this industry as much as possible, and then be vulnerable enough to let people help you out. If you can keep everything inside its lane from the margin end, you'll probably be successful, but it’s easier said than done.

“You may have the idea, the vision, the creativity, but at the end of the day, you need to be really lucky if you're not good on that business side of the piece of paper. Your creativity might not be enough to push it through.”