Mario Carbone
speaker
319 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Apr 2025
Mario Carbone’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
valet is one of the few ones that you still want to have that yeah um but the waitstaff it's all it's all in uh all in credit cards which is good because it actually used to be really dangerous because you have these restaurants have all this cash at the end of the week some employees got to take like like comical bags of cash and might as well have a dollar sign on it to a bank they're just waiting to get robbed because you were putting it all in the bank yeah like 100
That was strictly your policy.
Yeah, because we didn't take that card you had. Oh, yeah. What was that? I think that was a diner's card. Uncle Rush card.
If you're going for that, if that's a goal of yours, then it's important. Yeah. Michelin can't possibly be what they say they are or what they have been. So like Michelin in the past started in France, you know, 50s and 60s. There would be a anonymous inspector that would come every year and check on your restaurant and grade it basically.
For that to still happen today in the number of restaurants and numbers of cities that Michelin is in is virtually impossible. There's no way they're checking on these restaurants. So it's my belief that it's simply an aggregate. They're just aggregating where they need to sell books and what the reviews of the rest of the world are of these places and figuring out who to give stars to.
I think there's a handful of people that are actually going to some of these restaurants. Like the top couple brass of Michelin are going to the important ones, but there's no way they're going to all of them. So it's really just some sort of aggregate system they're using to give out these stars. It's no longer like... The movie Ratatouille kind of projects this.
That's a Michelin inspector, basically, right? At least at the New York Times, which is, for me, the most important review in New York, right? The New York Times critic says, you know who it is. It's a single person's opinion, whether you like it or not. It's a real person. It's not some sort of computer-generated aggregate. Yeah. And take this for a grain of salt. We only have one Michelin star.
They took a couple away from me a couple years ago. It is what it is, but I could easily be seen as someone who's just kind of grumpy about it. But I just think as a system, and it's nothing that we necessarily covet, but as a system, I just don't think they're being honest with who they are as a criteria. So you're saying there's other motives here at play?
They used to be a subsidy of this tire company, right? And the whole idea was that they created this map of restaurants so that... you in your car on your Michelin tires would drive from restaurant to restaurant. And it was a fun way to promote it. It became really big. And then it spawned into its own business. So you have to look at it and say, this is its own business.
It has to make its own dollars. So as a business, there's just no way, given what they do in revenue and book sales, that they could pay enough people to go to all these restaurants. So if that's the case, then how are they coming up with it? It's a fugazi. So then in that case... It's a fugazi.
I mean, social media is going to tell you. I mean, if you punch in best restaurant, pick your city, you're going to get 10 at least.
Yeah, infatuation. I mean, they don't speak kindly to me in Miami, but they do in New York. Two totally different groups of people in the same publication, but they're definitely going to pop up. You're going to get CNN Traveler. You're going to get all these things that are going to pop up. But the biggest thing that's changed in the restaurant business is that
The power of these critics has been basically completely taken away and put in the customer's hands. Everyone has it now. Everyone's an editor-in-chief of their own thing, right? No matter how big their Facebook is or their Instagram page, they're going to tell you all about their meal. And if you follow them, you're going to go—they're the critic.
Dredge of society.
Listen, I think— What do you do? How do you— The team going out after work and having drinks and letting some steam off of a long night is totally normal, and we're not going to get in the way of that. I think certainly we have rules that management and hourly staff can't commingle. Like that's just that's just rule number one.
And as soon as that happens, like there's a there's a zero tolerance there. But the staff, I mean, they become family. I mean, I have the same team in Carbone, the original Carbone since basically day one. No one's left. It's all the same team. Wow. Starting with Ricky. Wow.
How do you know Ricky? Ricky was a day one guy who answered an ad for captains. The head waiters are captains for a captain position and loved him immediately. And he grew into being the face. I call him the face because everyone knows him. Everyone knows him as Ricky of Carbone.
I think you've got to play the game a little bit. If that's something you're going after, if that's a really important metric for your restaurant and for success and for getting people in there, then you have to play a game to a certain degree. And that being buying it...
could manifest itself in the things you buy for the restaurant, all of the extra money you spend towards the things that you think you need to get that star. I don't think you can pay Michelin for a star. Cities pay Michelin, which is commonplace. Cities pay it to bring them to that city to create a Michelin whatever Miami. Which makes sense. But that's just like the... Michelin Guide?
Yeah, the Michelin Guide. So the Michelin Guide is paid for. It's paid for by the cities to bring them there.
Showing 41–60 of 319 · page 3 of 16
← Previous
Next →