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I’ll be honest: I was terrified on opening day.
There I was, standing in my West Village kitchen with the New York Times filming us, wait times pushing an hour, and absolutely no idea if anyone actually cared that I’d opened a restaurant. For five years, I’d been creating food content online as Salt Hank, but watching someone enjoy your food through a screen is nothing like serving it to them in person.
The path here wasn’t some carefully orchestrated business plan. About eight months ago, two buddies of mine found a lease for a space that had just gone out of business, perfectly built out for a sandwich shop. They called and said, “We could do this right now if we lock this down. Do you want to do it?”
I had 24 hours to decide.
The West Village location was incredible. Prime real estate on Bleecker Street, great kitchen setup, and honestly, too good to pass up. The catch? The previous business had lasted three weeks. Restaurants on that block go under all the time. We’d be signing a 15-year lease with a mercy clause at year three, which would let us get out early, if needed. But I felt good about it, and I was ready.
I knew in my gut I had to say yes. There are only so many directions you can go in from a digital perspective in the food world. As a content creator, I knew I couldn’t just ride ASMR videos off into the sunset. I had to find something else. This was my thing.
The one-sandwich gamble
We decided to only serve one sandwich. I had no idea if it would work, but I knew I could make this French dip really, really well. So we bet everything on doing that one thing perfectly.
It paid off. On our first day, despite the chaos and the long waits, people actually showed up. There was a line down the block. I kept thinking: “Okay, that part worked. Now let’s see if we can make the restaurant part work.”
The response from the press shocked me. I think the headline grabbed people: “TikToker Starts Real Restaurant.” Some publications seemed ready to take us down, but the sandwich ended up being good enough that we got positive reviews instead. Even the New York Post gave us a thumbs up. And luckily, we’ve continued to have a line pretty much every single day. I’m very grateful for everyone who shows up.
Building the team (and the sandwich)
From the beginning, I was focused on getting the best of the best for our menu and for our team.
First, I did a massive bread hunt across the city with a giant Excel spreadsheet of the top bakeries. When I tried the baguette from Frenchette, the search ended immediately. It was even better than anything I could have imagined.
For the meat, Chef Josh Capon introduced me to Pat LaFrieda, who is basically the godfather of meat in New York. He supplies most of the best restaurants in the city. When we met him and toured his facility (he has the biggest dry-aging locker in the world), it felt like it was kismet. We’re using prime rib that’s genuinely the best you can get in the United States.
When we interviewed Chef Daniel Rubenfeld, who was formerly at Thomas Keller’s chophouse TAK Room, for the head chef role, we immediately offered him more money and begged him to take it. His resume was stellar, but more than that, he came in with incredible golden retriever energy. He was pumped about combining digital food media with actual physical restaurants, and he understood that we were going to film everything we did.
I have so much less kitchen experience than Chef Daniel, so I’m basically just a line cook at this point. But that’s been one of the best parts of opening a restaurant for the first time. After two and a half months, he’s taught me how to work every single station in the kitchen. On any given day, I’m cutting sandwiches, prepping, expediting, or running, and learning the systems that make it possible to serve hundreds of French dips daily.
Fires you don’t expect
At the end of the day, even with a solid product and strong team to steer you in the right direction, opening a restaurant is complete (but fun) chaos.
Between staffing and things like renovations hitting your bottom line, there’s always a little fire to put out every day. You can’t prepare for a delivery truck that doesn’t show. But I think that’s part of what you sign up for.
So technology needs to be easy. With Square, it’s as simple as you make it, you click it, and then you serve it. At the end of the day, every piece of data you need is right there at your fingertips. It’s the one fire we’ve never had to put out.
And all of the nerves, the fires, the chaos is outweighed by the reward of being able to make food for people in person and see them enjoy it. That was really why I did this. Being able to actually make the food and then serve it to the human that’s going to eat it is an incredibly fulfilling feeling.
Expanding outside of New York
We’re having conversations about expansion much earlier than expected. The tri-state area is our focus right now, and personally, I’d love to see a Salt Hank’s open up in San Francisco, where I grew up. Chef Daniel has mentioned there’s a real possibility of us getting a Michelin Guide listing or possibly a star if we don’t royally mess this up. Never in a billion years did I think “sandwich shop” and “Michelin star” would be in the same sentence, but we’re caramelizing onions for days and making everything from scratch with the best ingredients. If there was going to be a Michelin sandwich, this would be it.
My advice to anyone considering launching a business like mine? Just do it. I know I’m stealing that a bit, but if you feel it in your gut, if you have that feeling like I did where there’s no hesitation, where you’re thinking “I have to do this” then go for it.
You’ll figure out the rest as you go.
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