Lessons from Daniel Emilio Soares, Founder and Owner of Alimentari Faneur
Today's podcast guest is Daniel Emilio Soares. Daniel is the founder of Alimentari Flaneur, an upscale specialty market in New York City's Lower East Side which sells unique produce and on top of that, a way of living. The Alimentari has been featured in Timeout and The New York Times, receiving praise for being a delightful, unordinary grocery store, and is a truly remarkable experience for anyone who lives in New York. We talk about his distinctive style and how it was curated, how this influences how he manages his own life, and a more sustainable vision for retail.
Full Interview Transcript:
Jack: Thanks, first off, just thank you so much. I'm really excited. Like I said, I'm a big fan I wore today my Super Tuscan sweatshirt in honor of the Alimentari
Daniel: thank you. Yeah,
Jack: no, I'm a really big fan and it was a cool experience for me.
I don't know if I said this over email, but I just was in Rome for six months. So it's nice to find some, goodies there, because it is , the tastes of Rome, For sure.
Daniel: I'm sure you went, but did you go to Roscioli?
Jack: Yes.
Daniel: Yeah, it's my favorite place. It's one of the best Italian delis in the world. What an incredible Salumeriajust everything they do is exceptional.
Jack: Yeah. They're super. They also, I guess it has been running for a few years now, but they have like a wine tasting thing that they're doing now.
Daniel: Yes. I I have been actually I was there with my parents two or three summers ago. And we went down the winding steps with walls upon walls and beautiful wine and an excellent meal. Yeah, it was fantastic. , it was honestly the best Cacio e Pepe I've ever had in my life.
It was fantastic.
Jack: I know. But now I don't know if you saw Kim Kardashian also posted about them on Instagram while I was there.
Daniel: Oh, no.
Jack: I was telling people to go and you have to book a month in advance now. So.
Daniel: I mean good for them
Jack: Sucks for the real Romans I'm sureeven more. They're already tired of people like us probably.
But anyways I'll just dive in. I've read some of your other interviews and I understood that the Alimentari is in part inspired by your family history and of course your travels, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background.
I was also reading that you did have some real estate experience in New York. So really curious how you thought to go and start this after and at such a young age.
Daniel: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, so I grew up in New York. I grew up in Queens in a town called Fresh Meadows and my family is from Puglia. So my maternal side, my grandparents and my great-grandparents came to this country from Cordato which is a small town in Bari in Puglia. Yeah.. And my great-grandfather when he came here he sold ice, which was his first job in like the early 1900s. And then around 1916 he started selling produce out of a pushcart in Greenpoint, Brooklyn which is what a lot of Italians were doing at the time.
And so he did that on and off for a few years. And then I believe it was 1946 was when he opened the first standalone retail store called Balducci's, which was a 24 hour, seven day a week, fruit and vegetables store in Greenwich Village and so he opened that and then my grandparents came to this country full time.
Well, my grandmother came because she was born in Italy and was raised there. And then my grandfather was ironically also from the same town that my grandma was from they didn't know each other came to this country when he was, yeah, pretty cool. He came here when he was 16 and then him and my grandmother got married a year or two later.
And so he started running the produce department with my great grandfather. So it was this very tight knit, small family business where my great-grandparents my grandparents and two other people basically work the store for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Then over time it eventually became very successful and really.
James Beard, the famous food writer was a pretty large patron of the store and always write about my great grandparents and just an incredible experience. And then eventually they opened up then became known as Balducci's on sixth avenue, which was the first ever specialty food emporium that New York ever had where the idea was that they would sell cheese and cured meat and fresh pasta and grocery and produce and prepared food all in one space, which in New York didn't really exist at the time.
And so, yeah my family built that business and then there was a big fight in-family, and so they separated into my family, opened Grace's Marketplace in the Upper East Side which is the store that I'm most familiar with because when I was a kid, that's where I would go on the weekends or if I ever went into work with my mom I would go with her, although she worked in the corporate office uptown..
Yeah, it was something that I loved doing as a kid. I always enjoyed going to the market because it was a very theatrical experience. My grandfather would pull me around the store and introduced me to customers and it'd be the very interesting characters on the Upper East Side in the early nineties .
And I just fondly remember that experience and thinking it felt like a carnival almost, you know, it was just very intense and high energy. So I was very addicted to that. And then for me my interest really came while traveling though, because growing up I wanted to be my own person and I always felt it was important for me , as a man to be able to prove to myself most importantly, that I didn't necessarily need to rest on my laurels and live off of what my family hasbuilt and just go and do the business.
And I want it to be able to prove that I can do more. I had a pretty weird kind of background when it came to school and I went to school for economics, but I wanted to be a broadcast journalist at one point. So I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I left school, I started an app company.
I was committed to being an Entrepreneur which is how I got into real estate. Before I talk about Europe, I'll talk about real estate because you had asked and I think it does inform largely how I think about what retail needs to be moving forward. It's kind of shocking and fascinating to see how it hasn't really changed.
But I was working as a real estate broker for a company called the Corcoran Group. Yeah, which was a brokerage here in New York city. I was actually the youngest agent they ever hired, I was 19 years old when I started there. I remember I wrote my managing director and cold email and was like, look, I'm ,this entrepreneur 19 years old.
I think that I would do very well. I love math and I'm good at finance, but I love people. And I think I would do very well in this business. And here's what I think about real estate at this time and blah, blah, blah. And I remember I sent like 12 cold emails to Douglas Elliman, Brown Harris Stevens, and Corcoran
Because I knew the three best firms in the city and I only got two responses and it happened to be Corcoran and Douglas Elliman.. And I remember my manager or my managing director, Gene Martin he interviewed me, he was like, you know, you'd be the youngest person you've ever hired, but something tells me I should take a chance on you.
So I started working with him and I remember there was a broker who, my cousin, who's a managing director at Merrill Lynch had as a client. And he was like, oh , you should meet this guy. And so I asked Gene about him and he's like, he's a very difficult guy to work with. He's very successful. he's not going to be as kind to you as you want. Like, let me make an introduction, but me being who I was and who I am, I'm very confident sometimes. And so I was like, I'll take care of it. So I reached out to him on my own.
And this guy named Glen Schiller and he's been a mentor to me since that day, but we met and then like I went to Gene office and Gene was like, oh God. But anyway, , it was a funny story. Long story short, I worked in real estate and I focused on commercial real estate investment sales and my family owned a property in Soho on Prince Street which at the time our tenant was a Moncler Store my mom was getting LOIs for that property for years, and she noticed the LOIs we're increasing in volume over the last few months and more so the, the dollar value was exponentially increasing.
And so she's like, oh, why don't you take a look at this? So we ended up signing that as an exclusive, and I represented that deal. And about a year later year and a half later, I closed that sale which turned out to be a record sale per square foot. So we sold the Moncler store for $50 million. And it was an obscene number but , that deal single-handedly changed my life, obviously, but also exposed me to everything that I now care deeply about retail, which is how landlords and tenants interact, how landlords and developers think about retail and how they think about neighborhoods and what they look for in terms of properties or even streets that do well.
What the downside of that is, and how aggressive investors in speculative investment has really ruined the city, which we'll talk about. But then also how retailers justify paying exorbitant rent. I was really fascinated by how Moncler, for example, was able to justify paying what the new landlord, what I'm willing to pay and then ultimately decided not to.
So seeing that and seeing the negative experience that we had with that, because it then affected my family's business uptown really motivated me to try to solve the obvious disconnect between how landlords and developers think about real estate, particularly retail, and then how operators and tenants really think about retail and how that disconnect has really fueled what we call the retail apocalypse now.
Jack: Yeah. That's interesting. Could you elucidate a little bit more on that because I'm curious on your perspective now, obviously as an operator and being on both sides of the coin, so to speak, I'm curious where that disconnect comes from and what folks especially thinking about in your position.
It's obviously tougher for folks to enter the retail business. So, so what they need to understand about that disconnect is interesting.
Daniel: Yeah. I would love to talk about it.. So it's interesting what's happened I think for one is that, especially even in 2014, 2013, when this deal went down, the ubiquity of e-commerce still wasn't exactly there yet. You know, Amazon wasn't nearly as diversified as it is now. Luxury fashion particularly always had this theme of eh, it's not going to really affect us.
People seem really to go to the store. They always justify having a store as a flagship and a marketing experience, et cetera. My family, side of the business, I E grocery, same token applied. Same logic applied as well, which is that people still crave the physical, tactile experience. People are not going to buy groceries online, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So I think both tenants, landlords, retailers, operators, et cetera, investors, everyone was shocked by the velocity in which e-commerce ate. I don't think anybody expected that to happen as quickly as it has. And now it's morphed into mobile commerce and social commerce and so on and so forth.
There's been so many different evolutions of how people can buy a singular product. I think nobody expected that to happen as quickly as it has. So that's number one, number two, is that traditionally speaking, if you look at like a building, right? If you buy a mixed use building, which means you have both commercial and residential, the residential yield is a lot higher than office yield.
And then the retail yield is generally pretty great, depending on who your tenant is, how long the lease is for, et cetera. But retail, traditionally speaking in New York cashflow pretty well compared to residential, which is very labor and operationally intensive for a landlord, right? Because you have to deal with individual tenants, which is a lot more challenging than let's say, dealing with CVS, for example.
So retail as an investment for a passive landlord who doesn't necessarily want to manage and deal with the day-to-day operations of a building, it's a great and very attractive investment. So there's a premium put on that. What's happened is that a lot of national chain tenants like a CVS or Walgreens or a Walmart or target, or chain stores like Abercrombie and Fitch or, you know, Zara, whatever would fueled by, I think a consortium of both private equity, VC money, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, would sign these leases and justify rent that, those landlord would then say, okay, well, the comp for this neighborhood is now X dollars per square foot.
And then that would filter down through every type of retail tenant. So a classic example of what that looks like and I think how you started to have this perfect storm of, cannibalization of sales from e-commerce extreme amounts of competition from small players, local domestic international, et cetera, well, small and big players, then this kind of really speculative environment in which let's say, for example, take the case of 90 prince street, Prada signed a lease on Broadway and prince which was down the block from our store for a thousand dollars a square foot. And so the landlord who signed them now says, okay, that is the comp for the neighborhood.
So any new lease, we're now going to look to charge a thousand dollars a square foot plus, but as you can imagine, not every retailer can afford that. And more so, you don't necessarily know why Prada justified paying that, whatever their reasons were. So what would then happen is developers would come and say, okay, we're going to buy this space that this family has owned for decades and we're going to buy it at a number that's ridiculous. But if you think about it actually makes pretty good sense if you're able to get that rent per square foot. So traditionally speaking if you're buying a property, you look for like a cap rates, basically your return on the investment in terms of how much you pay versus the income it gets or generates over the year.
You look for I don't know I would say between four and 7%, it's a pretty decent return. What was happening is developers were buying at like current rents of let's say a 1%, to 2% cap rate, but with the idea that they could get that tenant out or wait for the lease to end and then bump it to the market rent at the time.
And that one to 2% deal becomes a 5, 6, 7, 8% deal in a matter of a year or two, which if you think about it that way, it's actually a great investment. So all these properties were being bought up, like with that methodology in mind. And then eventually what happened is that the market turned the, you know, state of like how business was being done particularly in New York city turned And retailers started to, you know, push back or close and go bankrupt. And then you have this really challenging environment where landlords and developers were unwilling to think of themselves as anything other than just kind of like passive investors and retailers were thinking of themselves as, oh, well, we create all this value for this neighborhood.
There was no real give and take. so this was happening, you know, past five years, and then COVID hit. So that accelerated that demise. And so now we have this really interesting and challenging environment in which we all understand that retail no longer works the way it has. You have an incredible amount of vacancy in the most attractive thoroughfares in corridors in New York city Times Square Madison Avenue, Bleecker street, Broadway, et cetera.
And no real understanding of how or why we're going to be able to change. And so my interest kind of comes into play, which is okay, well, clearly retail, when it works, it's a real valuable amenity for a neighborhood. It creates value, creates tourism. It serves the community purpose, whether it's a restaurant or whether it's a barbershop or pharmacy or whatever, there there's value in having new types of businesses in your neighborhood.
But also you have to be able to pay to be there. Obviously it can't be free but you also have to think about, well, how do I make it such if you're a landlord or a developer, how do I utilize the retail that I have in my space or in my building to be able to drive value both from my building and the neighborhood at large, so that we all can capture that appreciation.
That is the thing that I think I'm most interested in exploring is how do I create a truly symbiotic model between a developer, a landlord, a tenant and operator both residentially and commercially, so that you create something that is really valuable for everybody involved. That I think that is the model moving forward and not one that you see often in New York city. I think it happens in small towns in the U S and particularly in Europe like Paris, where there isn't as much of a vacancy because there's, more protection for tenants and for commercial operators. But yeah, that is the thing that I'm most interested in exploring
Jack: If you saw this right with the Moncler deal I'm wondering, if you knew all of these risks going in, what made you willing to go and jump and start Alimentari? Because it seems you see all the odds against you as a retailer, obviously you've had experience from your family, but wondering what made it so important to you to go and start this at that time?
Daniel: Yeah, honestly, I asked myself that a lot because I think it's it's not an easy business, and it is really a labor of love. I have to be honest, particularly being in grocery, which is an extremely low margin business. For me, it's two things. One is that I view myself more as a storyteller than anything.
And this was a story that I was deeply passionate about telling just considering my background. Obviously growing up in the environment that I had, I had a huge amount of sentiment attached to the idea of going to the store. And even when I moved to Europe, I lived in Paris for six months after I graduated from NYU, going to the market every day was a ritual that I came to cherish and appreciate, and it created, you know, a real sense of community for me because I would go and see the same people you know, both purveyors, but also the same customers every day.
You know, there was a real sense of like intentionality and going to the market whenever I would travel throughout Europe and particularly in Paris, and I really appreciated that. And more so when I thought about the history of what my family hasbuilt wherever I would travel or whomever I would talk to you.
I would always mentioned, if it came up in conversation about Balducci's and people would always light up and it seems to me, at least everyone would have about a Balducci's or a Grace's story about when they went or what they ate when they were there, what my grandfather had them try, and I thought that was so beautiful.
And it just fills me with a tremendous amount of pride and joy to be able to know that my family had such a emotional impact for people. So for me, I couldn't help but want to create that for people as well. I think that's an incredible thing to be able to offer to society.
But then the other thing I think about for why I wanted to go into the retail business is that I have always considered myself, someone who loves to be hospitable. I love having friends over. I love to cook for people. I love to just have people feel joy and have them feel like that they can embrace an idea of a life of pleasure, excuse me.
And so that's something that I'm deeply motivated by, but then the other thing is thinking about how the world is right now, obviously. We're all dealing this kind of deeply isolating hyper-partisan seemingly toxic environment over the last few years. And it's really soul crushing in many ways.
I've never at least in my life and I'm still young, but I've never remembered feeling so disconnected from people before. And it's definitely affected my life and my relationships more. So I think it's tragic in a way, as human beings, we're obviously social animals and I think it's a sad and tragic thing that we're not able to understand the need to connect in a real way.
Although I think we all, obviously intuitively know that. So in many ways I think retail is the ultimate act of coalescing. Whether you're a restauranteuror whether you're a hotelier, whether, you own a salon or whatever it is if you're able to createa community and create a place that people feel safe in and feel seen at I think that's deeply empowering and not only empowering, but also necessary in a world that we live in now that is increasingly online and digital Creating physical experiences and physical communities is almost radical act.
Jack: I love that too. You describe it as seeing yourself more as storyteller and you say some of the things here like embracing pleasure. I know you've talked about online, too, about being an essential experience in the store. And I think definitely something that comes across, not just when you're in the store, but also with your online presence, like the Instagram page website, everything so designed around telling the story of the brand.
And I wonder how if that was just something that came naturally as, as you've come from this passion or, you know, having this experience or if it's something that you've tried to curate, because even just scrolling through the Instagram page, you get this pleasure, it feels like a welcoming space.
So I wonder how you went about that. I think it's so unique. And what makes it really special.
Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate it. Super intentional about that. I mean I definitely worked hard to create that sense of acceptance. We always say quality simplicity and intimacy which are really the three virtues that define the brand, but also the way that I like to live my life. And I think that there is some sense of being perhaps born with it, or, obviously being exposed to it through my family and particularly my grandfather, he was a very, very charming man.
And he had just such an affable nature. He was so charismatic and warm and loving. I remember he died tragically in 2003, he had a massive heart attack. It was a truly horrible day. And I remember though when we went to his his funeral and his wake, the amount of people who came and, people I'd never met in my life. I mean, there was literally thousands of people there. I was so shocked by how every single person seemingly similarly to having a story about Balducci's they had a story about him. And I thought that was just so beautiful. And it really inspired me and made me, I think it formed my sense of like, oh, okay if you exist on this earth, you have a responsibility, or if you have the gift to be able to do it, to make people feel loved. So that's something that I think was instilled in me in a very young age. But as far as Alimentari and how to create that, I mean, definitely inspired by my travels.
When I started traveling to Europe, my father's side of the family is from Portugal and we go there every summer. But I never really traveled until my freshman year of college that summer. Basically every summer of my six years in college cause two of them, I left but I would go away.
And so whenever I did that, one of the things that I noticed was , as anybody who travels is that when you make yourself vulnerable and you put yourself out into the world, I think you're delightfully surprised by how warm the world actually is. And maybe I'm just lucky, but that was the thing that always kind of kept me going back was that I always, whether I was in Reykjavik or I was in Amsterdam or Krakow or anywhere that I went anywhere, I traveled, I always met somebody that in some way changed my life.
And the more that I did that, the more I understood who I was as a person. So I think having that amalgam of experiences obviously forms who you are. And when I started to create my own space, that I really controlled, whether it be the Instagram itself, which is its own little world or the physical expressions of Alimentari, whether it's, you know, a pop-up we've done or obviously the store at the market line I think I was able to imbue that same feeling that I felt while traveling in my space.
Jack: How did you deal with that with COVID obviously with travel, being such a source of inspiration.
I'm wondering how you sought other sources of inspiration when that line was cut off a bit.
Daniel: I mean, I definitely I have this incredible book that my aunt has gifted me that has these like troves of old photographs from Grace's and Balducci's. So I've like poured over those archives for countless hours.
It's really inspiring to see how my grandfather would merchandise and how he delicately positioned an eggplant. There's this photo of him, cradling a pint of strawberries. It's incredible. So definitely informed by that. And then also just , from all the photographs that I would take over the years of traveling.
So I think all that kind of gets embedded and coded in your mind. And, , almost intuitively it comes out, at least for me I don't necessarily have some people who I guess would call themselves creative directors. Like I never had like a physical new board of imagery that I printed out.
It always felt kind of intuitive. But I mean, simply put, I think as I was setting about building the first pop-up of Alimentari on Mulberry street, I, I knew that I wanted a place that had textures that felt distinctly ancient because I think we inherently gravitate towards materials, colors, tastes, textures, sound that feel rooted in nature.
And so when I see a gorgeous, Greco-Roman column and a beautiful kind of dilapidated stone with like the patinaed brick for me, that feels rooted in nature. And there was a space on Mulberry street that had those elements. And so I knew, okay, this is the perfect place to tell the story of Alimentari
and then as far as, how I merchandise and the materials that I use, you know, we use wood and use Wicker. We use copper bowls and terracotta pots, again, all materials that we had, we have seen for thousands of years as humans. I imagine hundreds of thousands of years ago, humans were buying produce in similar displays from whatever market.
That language has been codified and passed down and resonates with us in a deeply emotional way that sometimes we're not even consciously aware of. So I would say that being in touch with the old world is the way that I think has been able to create this feeling of humanity, I guess, is the best way to describe it.
I know that because we've done that or we've done Alimentari in some iteration a few times now. My first pop-up was two years ago. And it looked nothing like it looks now, it was like 70 square feet in a cafe in Soho. And we used like, we had the wicker, but we also use our cardboard and stuff like that.
But still connected to it. And I think for us, like it really comes down to, yes, so all the materials I had mentioned and you know, some of the beautiful baskets that I buy, but I think the, the most overwhelming thing. Well, two things. One is the way I display the produce is to quote my grandmother Abbondanza, which means it's abundance in Italian.
And so the color of the fruit and the vegetables, it literally pops out at you. And so that's number one. I think that, when you see that you can't help but be kind of titillated .The second thing is that absolutely nothing in my store has any plastic on it whatsoever or stickers. So we spend a truly unseemly amount of time every morning, de-stickering the produce because personally speaking, I think produce is a gift from God.
And so we shouldn't beesmerch it by having plastic packaging around it and stickers that commodifies it in a way to feel as grotesque. So even those two subtle details, I think also creates that feeling of like being connected to the natural world. I think it's, it's just like kind of an amalgamation of all those things.
Jack: Yeah. I love that. I feel is both, very curated and all the decisions are made for me in that way. But also, as you said, it does have that, you're talking so much about your family, but also for me, I, I think of the vibe of going to a farmer's market or going to the markets, like the ones you described in Europe, which I think is really cool.
And when you're in the market line where it is a big hub of commerce and this cool developing neighborhood. And so I think it's cool how you've been able to blend both of those.
Daniel: Ah, thank you. Yeah. I mean, I think like if you go to like any market in Europe or if you are there in Rome or you're in Paris or you're in Barcelona or London Every city has some iteration of these markets,
right? And what's so interesting to me is that they, for me at least they all seem like they've been there for thousands of years and nothing has really changed. And that may not be the case for all of them, but it feels that way. And I think that it's that feeling, this isn't going anywhere makes it deeply comforting and welcoming in some sense.
But then also I think there's this word in Italian that I love Sprezzatura, which means a studied carelessness and nobody needs to know how hard it is or how much time it takes to set up the, Alimentari every day. I don't want you to know, I don't want you to think about it. I want you to come in and just feel like, as you said, oh, everything has been decided for me.
And this is really enjoyable, pleasurable. I don't want you to know that I have to work really hard to make this look the way it looks. And I think sometimes I don't always have to, you know especially after you do it enough, but I think that that's important , I think that everything should feel effortless.
Otherwise you think too much. And for me at least, when I think about what luxury means to me or what intimacy means to me, it's this kind of effortless acceptance, right? It's the chemistry of when you're having a good conversation with a long-lost friend they always say you know your true friends by your ability to pick up the conversation that you haven't had in a while.
It should never feel like you're trying or forcing. And a lot of times I think so much of the world, whether it be the relationships we have with brands or the relationships we have with our landlords, for example, are really strange and defined by, you know, mismatched expectations and false promises or, you know we try to do things that ultimately don't actually want to do because we feel like we have to. I don't want anybody to feel that way when they come into the store.
One of the best ways that I can explain that is people will come in and I'll greet them and they'll just say, oh, I'm just looking or I'm just browsing or whatever. And I'm like, okay, good. You don't have to buy anything. It's okay.
You can come in purely for inspiration and I'm completely okay with that. And that's, also a challenging part of the business, is that like, there are times in which, I'm not always okay with that because we're having a bad week or whatever it may be. But it's sacred to me to be able to create a space where you feel like, Hey, I'm going to come here because I want you to see this display because it's beautiful and it makes me feel good. And I don't want to feel like I have to buy something. I want to just enjoy it. I have to trust that creating that space for people ultimately will only make them want to buy more because I'm allowing them to do it on their terms that's what I would say.
Jack: I love that. And I think it's a common complaint, right? It's when someone, when there's either nobody to greet you or it's the opposite where someone's tailing you around the store the whole time, really hounding you. I think it's the perfect balance. And I'm curious too, and thinking about this, you know, thinking about the defined aesthetic that you have, the focus on the experience that you've created, how do you tailor that when you're working on collaborative efforts?
I recall seeing on Instagram, I think it was for Sweetgreen, that you all did something around the time that they went public and have done a few different kinds of collaboration efforts. I saw obviously that the stuff you did for Noah, but curious how you're able to keep the distinctive sense of style while I'm sure catering a bit to the needs of these clients also.
Daniel: Oh yeah. That's, that's a great question. And I appreciate that you've done your research. Yeah, I think everybody is different. Obviously I think the one thing that I've learned for sure is that you absolutely have to make sure that everybody speaks the same language, if that makes sense.
And for me, that language. And I've learned not unfortunately, because it's important lesson to learn, but not everybody speaks the language you want them to. And especially if you're being hired to do something, you have to make sure that you either, you know, on the same page with them.
And if not, you're extremely clear about what that looks like. In the case of Sweetgreen, I had actually had some personal history with them because I met Nick Jammet a couple of years ago at my first pop-up across the street from where he lived at the time inSoho at Maman bakery. And he came in one day and I remember he was the nicest guy.
He loved the concepts. Like very much, he brought friends in. He was like, oh, we should do one in SweetGreen, which I remember like recoiled at I was like, oh no, that's like as much as I love sweet green, actually, I'm a huge fan and I spend too much money there. But you know, now we're too small for that.
But yeah, like he loved it. And so he's someone who loves food, loves fashion, loves design, but isalso just one of the nicest people I've ever met. He has a huge heart, so like, it makes sense that he would appreciate Alimentari. And so designing a menu for him, for example was really effortless, honestly, because he's just great.
But then the other great thing was that he didn't actually even know that I think we were going to be working with him because his wife and then the two other wives of the Sweetgreen founders wanted to work with us. So his wife's name, Holly, but then a friend of mine, Vanessa Ru also agreed to work with us.
So Vanessa, ironically, I had had dinner with a few weeks, or I guess a month prior in LA, not even knowing him, that was her. And we have like a great night at a mutual friend's house. And I remember just having an amazing conversation about life and love and what we want and so on and so forth.
And I had not an inkling that she was Nate, Nathaniel Ru's wife. And then a month later I got an email from Holly with her in copyand I'm like, oh shit. I'm really glad I went to that dinner. But to answer your question, I think how we made it personal for them was pretty easy because they loved produce and that was very important to them. So of course, I mean, everything we do is seasonal, but for them was obviously hyper seasonal. Nick has a middle Eastern background, so we incorporated some middle Eastern elements inthe menu which was great because chef Neer who's now my partner and culinary directorat the Alimentari, that was pretty effortless for him.
So he did this really wonderful kebab with sumac and tahini. And then he did these beef skewers, but he did them on actual cinnamon sticks, which was incredible. I'd never seen that before. So being able to incorporate subtle details that we knew he would appreciate but then also really staying true to who we were as a brand and trusting that they would grow to love the Alimentariaesthetic and presentation So, I guess to answer your question, obviously you try to incorporate personal details whether it's a brand partner or personal clients would appreciate.
And I think being a good listener or in your case, which you already know how to do clearly doing your research is important. But then the other way, I think it's also the ultimate way to build intimacy is by being extremely honest. And so for us, when we ever approach a job, I never try to think about, okay, how can I design Alimentari in a way that this person will like.
It's more, I'm going to design Alimentariand I'm going to create something that I love, but I'm going to try to give subtle nod, hint, hint, nudges to the client or to the brand partner so that they will feel like I understand them as well. So a good example for that is with Nordic Knots which ironically we did the dinner the same week, the Swedish rug company. And so when I thought about, okay, what does that look like? It was never about selling rugs, but how can I honor, what the rug is? And I thought, okay, well, generally speaking, in my apartment, for example, my rug and my coffee tables on, in front of my fireplace and like, you know, whenever I have friends over, we sit around the table, sit in front of the fire.
I don't believe in eating at the dining table. And so I came up with the idea of, oh, we should have dinner on the rugs, we should all sit on the rugs. I knew I wanted that. And then I thought, okay, well logistically, what does that look like? And then I thought to myself, okay, well, we could actually put a table on the rugs and so how do we do that? Well we need cinderblocks. And so that's where the picnic table on the rugs came to fruition was logically speaking, when you have a picnic, you sit on a picnic blanket and you're outside and you have an incredible experience in nature.
What I realized was I can't do that because it's November. So instead, what we can do is in place of a picnic blanket, we could have the rugs and in place of some gorgeous nature I could source great winter branches. Inthis case was pear tree branches and dot them around the perimeter of the space with the large scale rugs, which admittedly, I didn't realize how big they were
we hired two Taskrabbits because we didn't know. And like I thought they were like rugs that I have at my apartment. I didn't realize when I told him that. But so anyway, we were like, okay, well, we're going to have the rug kind of vignette that as guests come in, they'll see, it's almost like a painting.
And then the cocktail tables, instead of table linens, we'll use the rugs as the table linen. And yeah, these are all very like simple ideas. What they are though, I think is very thoughtful. I don't pretend to be esoteric or overtly intellectual. I'm not, like if some people want to call me an artist, maybe sure. But I don't call myself an artist. I'm just someone who wants you to feel seen and heard and so, whether you're a private client or your brand, I'm going to do my absolute best to be able to do that for you, while also telling the story that I want to tell.
And so far, at least it's worked.
Jack: Yeah, it definitely has. Jumping back a little bit, because obviously those two examples, huge examples of success and they're really cool things that you're able to do. Now
I'm wondering if back when you started Alimentari, the first pop up or whether you were, when you opened a place in the market, What the goals looked like, what your goals look like, if you ever went through a formal goal process or how you thought about success when you were probably more uncertain than you are today of how the business would actually work.
Daniel: Yeah. That's a great question. Yeah the thing I would say is this, since that, when I first started Alimentarior at least have the idea to do it it was in January of last year in 2020, and I knew that I wanted to open this produce driven market which I wanted to have a coffee bar and a deli and then a wine bar upstairs.
And I had a partner in mind that we were looking at spaces and I always knew this has to be in the lower east side because the lower east side right now is the neighborhood in New York city that moving culture. And so I knew if I wanted to be a part of the cultural conversation I had to be in the Lower East Side, particularly south of grand street.
I was very specific about that. So we had found a space that I really liked. And there was a restaurant on canal street called Cervo's that was doing really well that offered Mediterranean food particularly like Portuguese Spanish, which was funny because I go to Portugal every summer. So I was really intrigued by this restaurant that sold Vinho Verdeclams, I was like, oh, what's this about?
But it was very good and I was always busy and I was like, oh, okay. Like see this neighborhood, they would embrace a concept like this. My partner at the time agreed. And then we found a space on orchard street that I knew it was going to be a heavy lift who are going to sign this lease for only two years with the option to potentially find investors, to help us buy the building or we'd have to leave.
But I thought, okay, two years time I could build the brand. And even if it doesn't work, like we can move it and open in the west village, which was always the goal. Long story short we were about to sign the lease and then my partner pulled out because he wasn't too confident about it. And then this thing that we heard about in China became a full-blown pandemic, and obviously we'd never signed a lease.
And that was a a blessing cause we would have lost all of our money. So I had put it aside and then obviously during the pandemic. I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do. I actually got really sick in April because I was operating my family's e-commerce business and it was a whole thing.
So long story short, I really started thinking more deeply about the brand and the story that I wanted to tell, and I realized that I really was passionate about creating this fantasy world for people free of what was happening outside, which was deeply terrifying. And so I knew in some way I wanted to tell the story, but I wasn't exactly sure how at the time I was dating I it's weird to call her my ex she's not really my ex used to always be a lover to me, but this girl, Brooke, and she was farming out east, so I would go visit her.
And so I would , go farm with her and it was so much fun, like being on the farm and being connected to land and watching the alchemy of produce from seed to harvest was one of the most mind boggling things it still is. And so I just have so much love and respect for what she does, but I would go there.
One day a friend of mine had a dinner party and invited me and long story short we met this guy who owned a space on Mulberry street and he was like, you have to do something with me I loved your pop-up in Soho, blah, blah, blah. Purely out of common courtesy. I was like, okay, I'll go see it.
I had no interest in opening anything in Little Italy I literally had been to Mulberry Street oncein my life and I was born and raised in the city. So I was like, okay, no way. But like, let's just go see and then I remember it was August when I went and that first day, I was absolutely blown away.
Like I saw, the patina stone and I was like, oh my God, this is an incredible space. I saw the columns, the brick, like the open doors. I was like, , this is it. I can tell the story that I wanted to tell here. So purely seeing that space gave me the confidence to say, okay, I'm going to tell this story.
As far as what my goals were with the brand, okay, I want to tell this story for a couple of months, see how it goes. If it goes, well, maybe I'll become a partner in this space. I had positioned or proposition to the guy who owns a business and the building that, Hey, what we can do is like, I'll do the produce.
And then he was going to open up a vegan deli, which I was like, okay, what we can then do is feature my produce in the deli and then whatever waste I have, we do like Cucina Povera inspired, which is peasant cooking from my family's region Puglia , no waste tell a story around it, et cetera, et cetera.
That was what I thought was gonna happen. Unfortunately he ended up not being able to open until December. So I operated as a produce market in Mulberry street, selling luxury produce with no refrigeration for three months, which really sucked. I don't think people understand how challenging selling Produce is it's not fun.
I mean, it is in many ways, but you have a ton of waste and you're already low margin, so it's extremely difficult. I had no long-term goal other than telling a story and seeing what happens. I always knew I eventually wanted to open a store in the west village. But beyond that, I was just like, let's tell the story, see what press we get, see how people respond to it.
And then we'll figure it out as we go. Now I would say we still very much are proactive, but reactionary in a way that we operate. Now I would say what's been really exciting is that I have realized I've built a brand much faster than I feel a scalable business. And it's a lot easier to scale a brand than it is a business, especially a grocery one.
The other thing that I've realized is that unless you get a real estate partner that fundamentally believes in and utilizes a concept, it's going to be really challenging to commit to doing retail in the way that you want, unless you're backed by venture money or private equity money, which I've still not raised money for the business.
So right now I've actually said no to two routes. One was in October I was considering raising some venture capital and I had a few meetings and the thing that was shocking to me was the valuations that was being thrown at me truly made no sense. I was absolutely shocked by what people thought my business was worth and what I realized, like just how toxic that environment is truly.
I think it's something that will come to fruition eventually. This idea of let's just keep raising money and losing money while we're doing it with the hopes that eventually it was big enough to either sell or eventually become profitable. I truly don't understand that model. It very much feels like a house of cards.
And then the second thing that I would say is that all my friends who have raised VC money. I admire them because I know they work extremely hard and it's extremely challenging. But unfortunately, if you embrace that sort of model, I think you truly jeopardize what the core soul of the business is, or at least for me, I would what VCs would want Alimentari to become
versus what I wanted to actually become, especially in the short term is definitely not aligned. And so unfortunately I had to say no to that, which was definitely hard, but honestly it wasn't because I knew if I had said yes, that would be selling my soul and I would ultimately lose control of my business anyway.
Because we said no to that, I realized, okay, I can't open a store like a flagship, if you want to call it that yet, because I don't have the money to do it. But also I haven't yet attracted the right partner who like truly understands the value of what it is that I do. But the people who have understood the value of what I do are these private clients who we now work with in the form of catering and is these brands like Nordic knots or like Sweetgreen who or even Soho house now who really embraced this idea of utilizing an expression of beauty as a way to create community, which is really what Alimentariactually is. And so now what I'm really excited about for 2022 is I haven't actually shared this yet, but the Alimentariis going to be transitioning into being more of a storytelling and story driven brand.
So what that means is 2021 was telling the story of Alimentari which is this quality produce market inspired by my family's heritage. But 2022 is going to be a story of the Flaneur. And it's going to be a story about wandering and discovering beauty while doing it. And so I'm really excited about ways in which we're going to manifest that.
Jack: I'm so excited to see what's next for you. That sounds really exciting and definitely makes sense. even in talking like this, I think you just have such a knack for sharing how to even even think about these things in a creative way that doesn't feel like branding or marketing, very businessy concept.
I think it feels much more authentic than not. And I think because for you, it is, it comes across that way.
Daniel: Yeah. I mean, it is, I can assure you, I mean, it is marketing and branding. That is literally what I'm doing, but it's an honest brand, the brand is the story that I want to tell.
And that doesn't always necessarily align with my financial interests. If I wanted to make money, I would raise money and I would pivot to CPG. And I would be a digitally native brand. But I'm not, and that's not to say I won't in the future. I may come a point in my life where I'm like, I need to do this, but right now I'm still really deeply motivated by telling a bigger story that it really encapsulates the full world that I'm trying to build. And that's also why, for example, when we talk about the business and you know, when you asked me like, well, what are your long-term goals? And in some sense, I think I reconcile or I try to reconcile every day.
I'm simultaneously trying to build a business and a brand and you would think, oh, those two things are the same, but I'm realizing that's actually not true. And I think to build the brand of longevity to build a brand that I like, I use my, my like white horse, if you will a white Knight is Ralph, right?
How do I bulid Ralph. It takes years and a really long time, but it takes more than anything like an excellent foundation and a real commitment to honest storytelling. And so I realized for me that if I'm going to do that, then I absolutely have to be honest about what my intentions are and what my motivations are and more so me as the penultimate flaneur, I have to live the life that I'm trying to create for people.
Right. So if I'm not doing that, then how can I ask anybody else to buy into it? And so that I think has informed the way that I thought about building both the brand and the business which has been exciting because it's also forced me to let go of things that I have latched on to which I'm realizing, it was very much ego driven, right?
Like certain ideas that I thought I needed this, or I thought I wanted this, but ultimately I'm learning that I have to let go of things that no longer serve.
Jack: Yeah, that's super interesting. I think a lot of people who I think adopting that mindset in, in New York city is also can be very tough when it is a bit of a competitive landscape, obviously.
And so challenging to run a business or even just to live in and feel like you're making the right choices. So I love that concept too. For my last question. I just want to ask if you have any other advice for somebody who, whether it's starting a business or just working on any kind of creative project, something new like that what would it be?
Daniel: I would say, well for once I would say do it, despite everything I've told you about how hard it is you should absolutely do it. It's the most liberating and empowering thing you can do to say yes to yourself and to your dreams. I think that is one of the most important things we can do as humans.
So if you are oscillating between whether or not you should or shouldn't, you should. But what I would say that's helped me was I take great pleasure in studying those, I admire. So I, obviously talked a lot about my family and my grandfather, which is a deep source of inspiration for me.
But like I didn't mention Buco as a restaurant that I love. And I would go to Austin and build relationships with people there and learn about how they built their business. And I was obviously deeply inspired by their aesthetic or Via Carota and I Sodi or Bar Pisselino and Buvette, which is owned by Rita Sodi and Jody Williams.
We'd go there so much to be able to just soak in all of the nuggets of how they built their business. I invested a lot of money and time into going to places, whether it be restaurants or stores, or even just traveling. I always invested in myself because I knew that by doing that, I would absorb as much information as possible.
So even if I didn't know how to do something, or if I didn't necessarily have a linear plan, I at least had reference material. And so I would say as you start, building a project or, come up with an idea for a brand or business or whatever is really study and invest time into adjacent businesses or brands or ideas or projects or whatever, or pieces of art that you feel are analogous to what you're doing or inspire what you do.
And if you use that as a guiding principle I think it'll help you on days where you start to question and you start to doubt yourself because you will have those days. I still do. But then, I go outside of my apartment and I walk to Bar Pisellinoand I see how busy it is.
And I say to myself, we'll see it, but it works, you know? So I think, being able to do that and I do that often honestly has been a real crutch for me in those moments of doubt or fear or insecurity. The other thing is not to sound cliche is what's your why, why are you doing this?
I would say, for example, if this is something that's deeply personal like it is for me with Alimentari it will be easier for you to tap into that inspiration because it's so personal and it's embedded in who you are as a person that you can help and want to tell the story.
But if it's something that's more business oriented and you have an amazing idea and you have recognized something that other people are in the need feel like you can do it. Great example of this is my friend Cami who owns this brand Parade she is one of the most intelligent and successful people that I know.
She's absolutely brilliant. And I've known that about her since the moment I met her. And I joke with her because I, I'm not a Parade customer, but like it's not a brand per se that I look to for inspiration, but that doesn't mean I don't glean a ton of inspiration by what she's built.
So for me, I admire her deeply because of what she's been able to do and her intellect, etc. . And I know that she as an individual, as a creative, as an entrepreneur, she has many stories to tell. And each of them are going to be different and the intention behind them is going to be different.
So I think what I would say is that, whether you're someone who has a great idea for a business and, you know, it's going to work, if that's your intention, let that be your intention. And let that guide you. If you're someone who is perhaps a bit more inclined to tell a story that is deeply personal to them, and you want to open up a restaurant or a cafe or whatever it is, wine bar, let that be your guiding principle, but don't waver, make sure that you're doing it for the reasons that are authentic to you, because I think if you're not, it will eventually eat at you
and you shouldn't do that because it's hard enough. So just do the work to make sure that you're operating from a place of abundance because it will require every inch of you. So make sure that you have that investment to be able to make
Jack: This is just super great advice and I really appreciate you for taking the time.
I loved in your first email, when you responded to me, you actually said the the most liberating thing to do is to say yes to yourself. You said that in the emails, congrats for saying yes to yourself.
And I love that because I think it's clear in what you're doing and what you're talking about today, but also definitely something I felt in and starting this podcast and being able to learn from folks like you, it just makes it so special for me. So I'm super, super grateful.
Daniel: Awesome. Thank you, Jack.
Yeah, and I mean that, I think it's a wonderful thing whatyou're doing, and I really value conversation, especially honest and vulnerable conversation. I think it's extremely important. So if you're able to create a space for people to be able to have that with you, that's a deeply important thing. So you should be proud.
Jack: Thank you so much. That that really means a lot. And yes, I'm definitely looking forward to sharing this with other people.
Daniel: So I hope it was good.
Jack: Thank you. Yeah, it was, it was awesome. And I think we'll be set, you know, you are a great storyteller, so I think it will be really fun for, for folks who are listening.
Daniel: Thank you so much, Jack. So have a great night and we'll talk soon.
Jack: Thanks once again, to Daniel and to you, our listeners, I hope you were as struck as I am and how Danielle searches for inspiration much in the same way he might search for merchandise at the element tare. There is a sort of wandering that goes on, but one that is deliberate and its own. Self-reflection my challenge of the week.
For those of you who are launching a creative project, or want to consider your own style is to look at the element Ari's Instagram and think about what resonates with. If you thought about the images or places or small momentos that you own that bring you pleasure to be around, what are they and how do they influence your style or process today?
For me, I'm looking right now at a mug that my mom gave me, which was hers when she was younger. It's two blue whales with the French word labeling underneath, which if I reflect on it informs how I like to feel connected to something internet. I love things that have a familial connection. And I have always liked loved typography, which influences really all my decorations in my room.
It's interesting to think how I might mind these aspects as sources of inspiration in my own work and in my writing as always, you can find us online for reviews of latest works and check out our other episodes on www.creationstoriesmedia.comthe music you heard in the podcast today is licensed under creative comments from common media.
Thanks and make today a day to make.
