Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh
How to Get Into ANY Restaurant, Why Michelin Stars Are Nonsense & Building a Billion Dollar Business
Thu, 17 Apr 2025
YERRR – the guys sat down with Mario Carbone to chop it up about the hustle behind building a restaurant empire. From old-school red sauce joints to celeb-packed hotspots, Mario breaks down the flavors, the business, and the pressure of keeping it all fresh. He talks about Michelin stars, wild celebrity dining stories, and why good hospitality is the real secret sauce. All that and more on this week’s episode of FLAGRANT. INDULGE. 00:00 Intro 00:37 Getting a reservation at Carbone? Greasing the right people 8:07 Quick Tip, Restaurants’ intel + Maitre Ds 13:18 Michelin Star Experiences 17:42 How much do waiters make at Carbone? 21:58 Politics in dining, Michelin Stars + Finding a good restaurant 26:25 The staff is banging each other 27:38 Can Michelin star be bought? Paying influencers 30:21 Sorry Justin Bieber! Scummiest PR move 33:01 Starting out + Power of the Review 41:51 Worst tipper? Tip 20% 46:31 Racial busboy harmony 48:51 Mexicans are the best 53:29 Sandwich Shop to Carbone + Getting a backer 1:00:34 Throwing a critic out + Respecting a negative review 1:04:51 Aiming for the old school + Torrisi’s super power 1:08:30 Relationships with celebs + Banned celebs 1:12:39 Rap mentioning Carbone 1:23:49 Rules to sending food back 1:24:46 Better Italian food in NYC than Italy 1:28:13 Getting people to leave + Not being kid friendly 1:32:22 Outside Dining, Maintaining Quality + Entrepreneurial 1:37:30 Too difficult to replicate, The Spicy Rig + Iconic dish 1:43:02 Biggest bomb + Secret menu 1:46:48 Pet peeves + Giant menus 1:54:21 Moving to Italy + New dining trends now 2:00:58 Pinnacle for a Chef + Rewarding talent 2:04:08 Best places in New York? 2:11:42 Judge an Italian restaurant? Underrated pork chops 2:14:44 Charging for Wine + Impressing a date 2:17:43 F1 Weekend in Miami 2:20:15 What’s next? + Performance + Obama protocol 2:25:24 Getting your flowers from the Older generation 2:27:18 Navigating Egos 2:30:14 Why is New York the greatest city in the world? 2:31:41 Next generation coming through + Tariffs impacting 2:34:44 Being proud of heritage + Assimilation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How can you get a reservation at an exclusive restaurant like Carbone?
Selma, are we asking for you?
No, I just want to know someone. I just want to know someone. Not even me. How does just a regular guy who doesn't have a podcast?
It's a democratic society. I mean, it's a policy that's just one month out. You're just going to lie to the people again?
A lot of people immediately at the beginning of the podcast. Imagine this.
Let's imagine. You have 200 seats to fill for a night to make your money. Yeah. You can't leave it to chance that these two people are going to come in, they're going to fill those seats, and they're going to spend good money tonight. Of course, we keep information on everybody, like who's coming in, who are our regulars, take care of those people, what's their spend, so that I know...
These 200 people tonight are coming in, not just a random set of people, because that's drastically going to change what we do tonight as a business. So it's almost never random? It's not never. When was the last time you had a walk-up? It happens, but at Carbone, it's rare because it's in such demand. So we do put out reservations. Generally, what we do is we put out the shoulders.
5 p.m., 10 p.m. Yeah, because we have the internal demand to fill it with regulars. Okay. Can somebody grease a host? You can get into it. It's not about necessarily greasing a host. Thank you. Okay. I would say.
Like you came in here, you greased me, right? You gave me Cuban cigars. These are real Cuban cigars. Supposedly. I got a connection at the airport. You got at the airport.
We snitching already. So hold on.
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Chapter 2: Why are Michelin stars considered nonsense by chefs like Mario Carbone?
It's all digital. So once you call for the second time, Immediately, the person that's on my team that's picking up the phone or looking at the email has side-by-side your information. You're at the back of your baseball card. Here's what you do. Here's who you are. Here are your likes, dislikes. Here's what you spent. Here's et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Not that it's always about spending.
We just want to curate a room so that it's not random.
So what we're trying to figure out is what the cheapest way to get currency in the restaurant is. So bringing the beers. Great one.
To the staff. This is already assuming you got the res. I'm curious when you walk up to the door, there's the maitre d', which I have a long lasting beef with maitre d's in New York City. You want to get into it? I'm curious. I just get frustrated sometimes. You know, because you get this girl, she graduated college like a year and a half ago.
Got a lot of power.
She holds power over this entire restaurant, every person that comes in. Is there anything you can do or say to a maitre d' that might kind of tilt the scales in your favor? Thank you. Saying, oh, my mom's in town and she's having a birthday.
Anything that would kind of... I mean, they're going to see through those. Yeah. Yeah. I mean... Walk up reservations because at that point you're at their mercy. Thank you so much. I think try to kill with kindness. You'll take anything. Listen, I'll take I'll take your worst two seats. I'll take the bar stools. I'll take whatever you got. So instead of trying a big shot. Yeah.
Humbling yourself. Because that's all they've got, right? All they've got is this little bit of power that they've been given at this front desk, to your point. I would go with, listen, I'll take whatever it is. Give me your worst two seats. I'll be happy tonight. I'll be in and out quick. Yeah, try it out.
Oh, I got a thing at 8 o'clock.
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Chapter 3: What is the impact of tipping and how do waiters make money at high-end restaurants?
For the record, everyone in the restaurant loves that. Going to dinner with my wife, seeing a couple of Oregon, I'm like, yes, that's theater.
it's just fun to listen you're like at dinner and a show bro it was i mean because the last the end of the dessert they like it's all deconstructed or whatever you know and uh they're like that's three michelin star that's the highest award at one point he was the highest rated american restaurant we had i literally paid you to construct the food i know i never paid anybody to take some shit apart from me i can do that believe me i can do that i can take apart a lasagna
But I will say the food was good, but you would hate it.
You definitely would hate it.
It's important that they exist.
It's important that they exist. It's just not my mind. I'm in a business. We're at the corner of art and commerce. I'm in a business model. There's nothing wrong with preaching the art and teaching the art of business. That is also a craft and we need to keep the lights out and we need to keep people paid.
Do you know how much money your wait staff makes? I mean, depending on the restaurant, a substantial amount. Like, what does a waiter at Carbone in Miami make? Like, on average? Over $150,000 a year. So, you're guaranteed $150,000 a year. And that's what's on the books. That's not even, like, people throwing them a little shit on the side.
Yeah, but there's very little cash these days. Everything's cards. No cash. No one carries cash anymore. No one.
So I always wondered, like, does some of your staff that was in, like, cash tip positions get upset about that? Like, the people that are doing valet, these, like, how do they manage that? Their whole life was cash tips.
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Chapter 4: How does restaurant staff dynamics and hiring practices affect operations?
I mean, they're selling... If you're a big influencer, you're selling all sorts of products, right? I mean, like... Oh, they're getting... Huge amounts of money. And they're getting money to even go to restaurants? Yeah. I mean, we don't pay anyone to go to restaurants, but I'm sure that that's a business, right?
That's got to be a line item in advertising somewhere that in this local town, so-and-so is a huge influencer. Yeah. They're definitely going to move the needle. They're definitely going to move the needle.
I thought you guys were making great headlines the opposite way. So instead of who comes to the restaurant, it was who gets kicked out of or gets rejected. Yeah. Every time a famous person would get rejected at Carbone, it was like, dude, but you heard about it often. It happened every now and again. And sometimes it was a mistake. Who is it? But it was like Justin Bieber.
That was a mistake, Justin. That was a mistake.
Milk that mistake.
Milk that mistake. It was unintentional. I would not have kicked Justin out. A serendipitous mistake or whatever the word is. You're like, oh, this is a mistake.
No, because I didn't want to deal with that press. It didn't look good. To me, it didn't look good. That's not hospitable. We tried to take care of it. It was just like a last minute thing. That scenario was just like a super last minute try to make a reservation and they were already showing up and we just didn't have the table at that moment.
But to Andrew's point, there's a human psychology. When you read this person couldn't get into this restaurant, it must be insane. So could you see a world? I'm not saying you did it. Could you see a world where somebody might reject that person and then leak it to the press? I think it's too risky.
I can't see somebody trying that. What's the scummiest thing you've seen a restaurant do for PR?
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Chapter 5: What are the origins and early struggles behind Mario Carbone's restaurant empire?
Not too Italian, because you play football. So Rich gets his name. Is it successful?
At first... At first it was... We opened it as a sandwich shop. That did well. But our goal was to open it at night and do kind of a serious dinner. It was one set menu on a chalkboard. And when we started opening at night, no one really came. And if they did come, they were like, oh, I heard you sell sandwiches. And we're like, yeah, but in the daytime.
And they're like, yeah, but there's nobody here making a sandwich. We're like, no, that's not the thing. That's not what we're doing. We're doing this menu thing. That took a while.
They got a point with that.
You want the money or not? I see what you're saying, but I'm going to die on my morals here. It took a while for people to figure out what was going on there. And what do you think it was? Eventually, we got a great review from New York Magazine, and that started a bit of a line outside, people waiting for reservations, the shit that we had never seen before, almost overnight.
Were you just waiting on the reservation? Were you calling them, trying to get them down? Because I think you know this could change fortunes. Anybody reviewing us, how do you get them to review you? You don't, right?
You don't. And at first, when they came the first time, they were alone in the dining room. We knew them. And so we cooked for them. We talked to them. We were friendly. They left. They came back next week. And I was like, Rich, man, they must really like it. They're here again. And he's like, yeah, cool, you know, whatever. Third time they come and I'm like, oh. They make it short.
Oh, they're writing a review on this train shot. So do you spice it up on that last one? I mean, we gave it all we had. I mean, we threw everything we had at it, but it wasn't much at the time. We only had this one little menu. Yeah, no sandwiches. We had no sandwiches, just enough money to kind of make a chalkboard. Were you both in the kitchen at that time?
it's only five employees total you know there's like me him a dishwasher one one waitress i mean that's everybody right so we're open we're open six days a week on the seventh day we were closed we would do a prep and he and i would go in lock the door we'd go in we'd crank we'd crank the radio and we would prep all day just to get ready so we're working seven days um but we were the only employees but we were living the dream there's a uh
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Chapter 6: How did Carbone transition from a small sandwich shop to a Michelin-starred hotspot?
It's heart of Greenwich Village, Thompson between Bleecker and Houston. You're blocks away from Soho, you're blocks away from the East Village.
It's phenomenal. It was an Italian restaurant. Rocco, right? Yeah, Rocco from the 20s. Yeah. I think it was a Genovese family kind of like Stallworth restaurant. Oh, wow. There were a couple of questionable doors in there that were for them, back courtyards and shit. And it finally kind of fell on disrepair. And we found out about it through the guy who owns the space knew Jeff somehow.
And we wind up getting it. It was at the time crazy expensive. Now it's a great deal. But at the time, it was crazy expensive for us.
What was the rent? It was like-
Like $18,000 a month in 2012, 2013.
Keep in mind, this is a first floor retail space with like three windows facing the street. Yeah, max. So the majority of it is behind. Cabinets. Yeah. I mean, $18,000 is an absolutely absurd... No offense here, but what are we talking about square footage? This is like... I mean, we were paying top dollar back then.
How many square feet is this base? I have no idea. Okay.
It's 85 seats. 80, 85 seats. It's smaller than this whole studio that we have here. Okay, so you guys started. There's big overhead, but you have somebody that's willing to invest in you guys. At what point is it immediate success? Is there a review? Is there people of fame that are coming in?
When we first opened, there was a big push of... who do you think you are sentiment from sort of the community at large, because we had gone from these kind of lovable guys charging a small amount of money in New York to tuxedos, you know, expensive dishes, table side, um, You know, there was a sentiment of like, don't you know Emilino's down the block? What are you doing?
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Chapter 7: What role do celebrity relationships and private service play in Carbone's success?
Chapter 8: How do restaurant reviews and social media influence dining choices today?
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.
Before we get too far away, two things. Do you think a Michelin star can be bought?
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.
Which makes sense if you're a tourist in Miami, Michelin Guide. No, it makes perfect sense. I thought Michelin Guide was the achievement right before Michelin Star. Because sometimes the way people speak about it, they're like, oh, it's not Michelin Star, but it's Guide.
You can be included in the book without having a star where they're like sort of recommend you, especially if you're at a lower price point. If you had a really low price point, usually you're not even up for a star. This is really just kind of the world of fine dining more or less.
And then the second question, because you said now the power's in the customer's hand, but I feel like restaurants are just paying influencers, hey, here's some money, come here, eat for free, do a review on us. So it's like, I don't trust a lot of the TikTok because they'll do it on the same restaurants over and over. And I'm like, I'm a little suspect about this.
That is marketing these days. I mean, it's not that much different than paying some agency to tell you how great this restaurant is. Bro, it's more effective.
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