Florida: Urban Development Meets South Florida Restaurant Empire with The Restaurant People CEO, Tim Petrillo
This week on the Titans of Food Service podcast, Nick Portillo speaks with Tim Petrillo, co-founder and CEO of The Restaurant People and Urban Street Development. Tim shares his remarkable journey in the food service industry and how he has significantly impacted South Florida's dining scene. With over 70 restaurants under his belt, Tim discusses the unique challenges and strategies involved in running a successful restaurant business, emphasizing the importance of hospitality over mere knowledge. He reflects on his early experiences, from starting as a busboy to working with renowned chefs, and how those formative years shaped his approach to restaurant operations and management.
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Intro
(02:30) Introduction to Tim Petrillo
(12:20) Building a Restaurant Empire: Lessons Learned
(22:42) Transitioning Areas and Mixed-Use Projects
(28:06) Navigating the Challenges of the Restaurant Business
RESOURCES
CONTACT
Transcript
There are a million ways to make money in the food service industry.
Nick Portillo:You just have to find one.
Nick Portillo:On the Titans of Foodservice podcast.
Nick Portillo:I interview real life movers and shakers in the food game who cut through all the noise to get to the top.
Nick Portillo:My name is Nick Portillo and welcome to the Titans of Food Service podcast.
Nick Portillo:Let's jump right into it.
Nick Portillo:Welcome back to season three of Titans of Food Service.
Nick Portillo:I'm your host, Nick Portillo and today I continue my journey across America in 50 weeks tour where I'm interviewing one titan of food service from every single state in the country.
Nick Portillo:On this episode, I'm going to be stopping in the sun in the Sunshine State.
Nick Portillo:Man, that is hard to say.
Nick Portillo:Sunshine State, where I'm going to be interviewing Tim Petrillo.
Nick Portillo:He's the co founder and CEO of both the Restaurant People and Urban Street Development.
Nick Portillo: the Restaurant people back in: Nick Portillo:He has more than 70 restaurants developed, managed and operated.
Nick Portillo:And the Restaurant People has brought to life some of the area's most sought after venues, establishing itself as the premier hospitality group in Fort Lauderdale.
Nick Portillo:Tim, he's also at the helm of Urban Street Development and we talk a little bit about both of these companies.
Nick Portillo:So Urban Street Development is a unique full service development firm that handles every aspect of development from real estate acquisition to property management.
Nick Portillo:Their hands on approach sets them apart and as lasting value to their community.
Nick Portillo:Now, before I dive into my conversation with Tim, I mean, he is truly a titan in the industry and we're going to talk about how he got his start in the industry and how he analyzes deals, how he grows his business, how he manages his business and things like that.
Nick Portillo:It's a really cool story.
Nick Portillo:But before we dive into a story, let's take a quick look at what makes Florida's food service scene so vibrant and unique.
Nick Portillo:So Florida, it has a rich multicultural influence.
Nick Portillo:It's home to a food scene that is as diverse as it is dynamic.
Nick Portillo:It has Cuban classics, two fresh seafood spots lining the entire coast.
Nick Portillo:And the state also offers something for every single palate.
Nick Portillo:It has iconic dining spots throughout the entire state from Miami to Tampa to Tallahassee to, you name it.
Nick Portillo:In recent years, Florida has become a top destination for food festivals as well, attracting visitors from around the world to events like the South Beach Wine and Food Festival.
Nick Portillo:Okay, that's a little brief background.
Nick Portillo:Without further ado, let's go ahead and welcome Tim.
Nick Portillo:All right.
Nick Portillo:Tim, welcome to the Titans and Food Service podcast.
Nick Portillo:I appreciate you taking time to come on here and meet with me.
Tim Petrillo:Thank you.
Tim Petrillo:Thank you for having me.
Nick Portillo:Yeah, of course, of course.
Nick Portillo:I know we were talking a little off camera, you know, you being there in Florida, me in California and the different, the different weather between fires or hurricanes and whatnot.
Nick Portillo:But I'm excited.
Nick Portillo:I'm excited about our conversation.
Nick Portillo:You know, you, as I mentioned, you've really built something of.
Nick Portillo:It's incredible what you, what you've been able to build and kind of want to talk about how you got into the business.
Nick Portillo:You know, kind of some of the tips, tricks that you've learned along the way, and essentially how you built the business as well.
Nick Portillo:I think it's really interesting between, you know, you have the real estate side, you've got your restaurant side and talking about those things.
Nick Portillo:So maybe where we start off is how did you get into.
Nick Portillo:Let's start with the restaurant business first.
Nick Portillo:How did you get into that?
Tim Petrillo:Sure.
Tim Petrillo:So I've always been in the restaurant business, meaning even one of my first jobs, like most people who are in the restaurant business, start at.
Tim Petrillo:As a busboy and things like that.
Tim Petrillo:And that's.
Tim Petrillo:I was 14, worked in a.
Tim Petrillo:One of my father's friends places and I went to school for.
Tim Petrillo:I, I was in school at Florida State University, trying to narrow what I wanted to do.
Tim Petrillo:I was always in the restaurant business.
Tim Petrillo:So I said, you know what?
Tim Petrillo:I really like this.
Tim Petrillo:Let's.
Tim Petrillo:Let's try to make a career out of it.
Tim Petrillo:So then I went to the hospitality program.
Tim Petrillo:And at the time, you know, restaurants are.
Tim Petrillo:It's not, It's a very practical style of business.
Tim Petrillo:It's not a theoretical where you learn a lot of things in the classroom.
Tim Petrillo:Obviously you learn things in the classroom, but doing and seeing and being in it really is the best teaching environment.
Tim Petrillo:So I wanted to.
Tim Petrillo:Tallahassee, it was a great hospitality school at Florida State, but at the same time, there wasn't real access to great restaurants, great resorts, great hotels.
Tim Petrillo:So.
Tim Petrillo:And FIU had this emerging hospitality program that was very well recognized and it was in Miami, and I could get.
Tim Petrillo:I could get real world experience at top places.
Tim Petrillo:So I transferred to fiu and then I was lucky enough to, at the time, Mark's place was the top restaurant.
Tim Petrillo:Mark Militello was the top chef in the, in the county.
Tim Petrillo:I was able to work at his place, become a bar manager.
Tim Petrillo:And.
Tim Petrillo:And then I was going to school for this and I.
Tim Petrillo:All the people in the industry were.
Tim Petrillo:I was Asking for advice of who should I go work for after school.
Tim Petrillo:I wanted to get some structure.
Tim Petrillo:I wanted to get some real big corporate experience.
Tim Petrillo:I, you know, while Mark was doing a great job delivering at a very high end level for a restaurant, it was a one unit operation.
Tim Petrillo:I wanted to see bigger scale.
Tim Petrillo:So, so.
Tim Petrillo:And Houston, which is now known as Hillstone, kept coming up as, you should go work for them.
Tim Petrillo:You should go work for them.
Tim Petrillo:So of the.
Tim Petrillo:So I put my name in the hat for, to get an interview because they come to school, you know, their recruiters come to the schools and try to interview people, and they're only there for one day.
Tim Petrillo:And there was, there was, there was 10 slots.
Tim Petrillo:There was 300 applicants.
Tim Petrillo:And I didn't get, I didn't get slotted to Henry.
Tim Petrillo:But, you know, I always say I would rather be lucky than smart any day of the week.
Tim Petrillo:And I marks, I was a manager, but I also pulled two bar shifts a week.
Tim Petrillo:Excuse me.
Tim Petrillo:So during that bar shift, I happened to be, you know, talking to this one guy.
Tim Petrillo:There was a group of about 10 people that had their own conversation going on.
Tim Petrillo:And I started just chatting with this guy that was alone at the bar at the time, and, and he knew a lot about restaurants.
Tim Petrillo:He was out of Atlanta, and at the time, my brother was in the restaurant business working for another company, and he knew them well.
Tim Petrillo:And I said, gee, you know, you really, you really know a lot about restaurants.
Tim Petrillo:Are you in the business?
Tim Petrillo:He's like, yeah, yeah, I own a couple of restaurants.
Tim Petrillo:I go, what restaurants do you own?
Tim Petrillo:And it happened to be George Beale from the owner of Hillstone.
Tim Petrillo:And I'm like, oh, wow, you know, I love that restaurant.
Tim Petrillo:So Mark knew I was trying to get a job with them.
Tim Petrillo:I went in the back, I said, oh, my God, the owners of Houston's happen to be dining here tonight.
Tim Petrillo:Because, you know, when he went into Miami at that time, he was James Beard winner.
Tim Petrillo:He was top of the game.
Tim Petrillo:Everybody went to that restaurant.
Tim Petrillo:So.
Tim Petrillo:So, you know, Mark's like, did he ask him?
Tim Petrillo:Like, no, I didn't ask him what I'm gonna say.
Tim Petrillo:I tried.
Tim Petrillo:So Mark made the connection and I was hired by Houston's and I went and opened stores for them and learned a unbelievable amount of information from them.
Tim Petrillo:I was, I was, you know, anything they ask, I would say, heck yeah, let's do this and just learn a tremendous amount.
Tim Petrillo:And then I was with them for a few years, and then Mark went and raised a bunch of money to open five restaurants, hired Me back.
Tim Petrillo:And I, Man, I did that.
Tim Petrillo:And.
Tim Petrillo:But I.
Tim Petrillo:With the caveat, my goal was to own my own, right?
Tim Petrillo:And I told him that.
Tim Petrillo:I said, listen, you're gonna get two years out of me and we'll see what we can do, but then I'm going to move on.
Tim Petrillo:And after about two years, I ended up moving on and opened my first place.
Tim Petrillo:And that's kind of how I started doing my fleet.
Nick Portillo:Wow.
Nick Portillo:Okay.
Nick Portillo:I love that.
Nick Portillo:I love that.
Nick Portillo:It's always so interesting when I talk to people that how do they get into this business?
Nick Portillo:Some people were born into it, right?
Nick Portillo:Familial ties, or some people just kind of accidentally got into it.
Nick Portillo:But you were.
Nick Portillo:I mean, your time in college, it seemed like, hey, this is something that I want to do.
Tim Petrillo:What I didn't tell you is that my grades were so bad that because I was enjoying FSU too much, that my options were somewhat limited.
Tim Petrillo:Okay.
Tim Petrillo:There wasn't a whole lot of opportunities for me to get into great school, business schools and things like that.
Tim Petrillo:So I had to fall back on my strengths, which was the restaurant business.
Tim Petrillo:That's all I knew.
Nick Portillo:So, you know, I can.
Nick Portillo:I feel that, you know, going through school myself, I.
Nick Portillo:I used to think, like, there's people that are really good at taking tests and memorizing things and not my thing.
Nick Portillo:You know, I.
Nick Portillo:Give me.
Nick Portillo:Give me a presentation, I'll give you a presentation.
Nick Portillo:I can, you know, off the cuff and I'll wing it, but outside of, you know, getting good grades on tests, it's not my thing.
Tim Petrillo:And, you know, but that's a very interesting point, because what that taught me is that we do not hire for.
Tim Petrillo:We hire for hospitality.
Tim Petrillo:We do not hire for knowledge.
Tim Petrillo:Okay?
Tim Petrillo:We can teach you what we want you to learn, but at the end of the day, if you don't have the gene that wants to innately take care of people every day, then we can't teach that.
Tim Petrillo:That's a thing that's in you, or it's not.
Nick Portillo:That's right.
Nick Portillo:That's right.
Nick Portillo:Yeah.
Nick Portillo:And going through school, too, let's say that the teacher gave you homework to read certain pages of a book, and then you know that they're going to call on you the next day, and I'm not prepared.
Nick Portillo:It creates.
Nick Portillo:It made me adaptable, Right?
Nick Portillo:Because I knew I'm going to get called on.
Nick Portillo:I don't know the answer because I didn't do the assignment or I didn't do the work, and how do I kind of finagle it.
Nick Portillo:To, you know, come up with something.
Nick Portillo:You know, my brain started to think like, how do I think on the fly?
Nick Portillo:Right.
Nick Portillo:Same thing in hospitality, customer service.
Nick Portillo:Customer gives you a, you know, feedback or a negative review or something.
Nick Portillo:Like, how do you adapt to that on the fly?
Tim Petrillo:And that's a very important trait that, that unfortunately, hard to pick that up when you're in the interview process because people, those types of pressures, people, people react very, very differently.
Tim Petrillo:And you know, the, as you know, the hospitality business, restaurant is.
Tim Petrillo:It's very chaotic.
Speaker C:Okay.
Tim Petrillo:Every day, even though you have systems and things in place, it's never the same.
Tim Petrillo:Okay.
Tim Petrillo:And you have to be able to adapt and not get flustered or, you know, because that can be, you know, it's chaos.
Tim Petrillo:It's controlled chaos.
Nick Portillo:That's right.
Nick Portillo:So in your time working with Mark, working at Hillstone, did you start to, you know, working in those businesses, did you start to develop kind of a background maybe?
Nick Portillo:I always think like, you know, if you look at business as a whole, running a business, that there could be a formula and sometimes you learn a formula and then you can transfer that into, you know, starting up your own business.
Nick Portillo:Did you kind of learn that there?
Nick Portillo:Or was it when you started up your, your, you know, your new venture when you started, it was kind of like, hey, I'm jumping out of this airplane trying to build the parachute on the way down.
Tim Petrillo:Well, so when I was, I was very young when I went to go work for this way, I was 25 when I opened my first restaurant.
Tim Petrillo:So all that happened between, you know, really 19 and 24 with marks and Hillstone.
Tim Petrillo:But you know, what I recognized is Houston, Houston's does things at a very high level.
Tim Petrillo:Okay.
Tim Petrillo:And it's a very straightforward type of menu and it's very approachable.
Tim Petrillo:People recognize it, that kind of food things.
Tim Petrillo:What I recognize going to work for Mark is that his food is so elevated that some people get intimidated by that and they don't experience it because they just don't understand it.
Tim Petrillo:Right.
Tim Petrillo:So I wanted to kind of my first restaurant, what we did is we melded the two where we had a very approachable environment, but with very higher end styling of the food.
Speaker C:Right.
Tim Petrillo:So it was, and it was geared towards at the time, my demographic, which was the 20 year old.
Tim Petrillo:So we tried it.
Tim Petrillo:We had to, we had to make it resonate with them, but still be able to deliver on the experience that people who go to fine dining restaurants have and who have never been.
Tim Petrillo:They can understand.
Tim Petrillo:That was, that was kind of the thesis of the first restaurant.
Tim Petrillo:And fortunately it went very well.
Tim Petrillo:And then we just kind of started rolling.
Nick Portillo:How did you finance your first, your first restaurant?
Tim Petrillo:So, so that was the three Fs.
Tim Petrillo:Friends, family and fools.
Tim Petrillo:Okay.
Tim Petrillo:I, basically, our first restaurant.
Tim Petrillo:So Alan Hooper, who is my partner, and Peter Belucas.
Tim Petrillo:Peter was the chef at one of the restaurants that Mark had.
Tim Petrillo:And he was, he was first off a super talented guy.
Tim Petrillo:But he, you know, there's a lot of talented chefs, but they don't have the business side of it.
Tim Petrillo:So they create this dish that cost, you know, 80% food cost.
Tim Petrillo:While it tastes great and looks wonderful, you're not making any money on it.
Tim Petrillo:You're going to go out of business.
Tim Petrillo:Peter had that balance.
Tim Petrillo:So we, we all partnered together.
Tim Petrillo:We each put in $35,000.
Tim Petrillo:Okay.
Tim Petrillo:And then we raised another 75,000 through friends and family.
Tim Petrillo:Okay.
Tim Petrillo:So our whole restaurant, our first restaurant, we did all the work.
Tim Petrillo:We did all that stuff.
Tim Petrillo:Like, Alan Hooper was a general contractor.
Tim Petrillo:He was in charge of building it.
Tim Petrillo:We, we were there to help do what we could.
Speaker C:Right.
Tim Petrillo:Paint and whatever we could.
Tim Petrillo:We didn't have any real skills trade wise, but we could help, whatever.
Tim Petrillo:And so we opened that restaurant for about 150k.
Nick Portillo:Okay.
Tim Petrillo:Back then.
Nick Portillo:Nice.
Tim Petrillo:Which is significantly different than what we open now.
Tim Petrillo:I wish you'd go back.
Nick Portillo:Yeah, yeah.
Nick Portillo:Looking at your place, I would imagine 150,000.
Nick Portillo:Maybe they, you know.
Nick Portillo:Yeah.
Tim Petrillo:The Instagram moment.
Tim Petrillo:Now, these days, you know, that's right.
Nick Portillo:As you continue to, you know, scale out your business, open more units, did you always, did you start, did you continue to fund it between yourselves or did you start opening up to a larger pool of investors?
Tim Petrillo:No, so we opened up to a larger pool.
Tim Petrillo:Well, so it's like, okay, so your first one is your hardest one because no one knows you, you know, you're living on somebody else's reputation.
Speaker C:Right.
Tim Petrillo:Like, listen, I ran Marks, I ran Houston's.
Tim Petrillo:That doesn't mean I own those.
Tim Petrillo:They're very different.
Tim Petrillo:Right.
Tim Petrillo:So you need to build your own reputation.
Tim Petrillo:And that's what we were doing.
Tim Petrillo:And we were fortunate because we got, we got really.
Tim Petrillo:We were well recognized from the critics standpoint and we were well recognized from the local standpoint.
Tim Petrillo:So we were becoming well known and it was much easier to go out and do the second restaurant and raise capital for that.
Tim Petrillo:And then once we got to three, we had family offices start to take a look at us and say, hey, you know what?
Tim Petrillo:Maybe, you know, and then we were able to have build Relations with these family offices that had.
Tim Petrillo:Had, you know, more means to invest in us to do more restaurants.
Tim Petrillo:And that's kind of how.
Tim Petrillo:How it happened.
Tim Petrillo:I've been fortunate.
Tim Petrillo:I had a.
Tim Petrillo:One of my.
Tim Petrillo:He's a dear friend now.
Tim Petrillo:He's a mentor.
Tim Petrillo:His name is Steve Helmos.
Tim Petrillo:He.
Tim Petrillo:He.
Tim Petrillo:It like right after we started building our second one.
Tim Petrillo:We were very fortunate to connect, and we, you know, he just took a liking to us and what we were doing, and he.
Tim Petrillo:He provided not only capital, but he provided strategy.
Tim Petrillo:And, you know, when you're young, opening businesses, it's not what you know that hurts you, it's what you don't know.
Speaker C:Right.
Tim Petrillo:That kills you.
Tim Petrillo:And so he was a great sounding board, helping us with strategy, just kind of helping us not fall over our own self.
Speaker C:Right.
Tim Petrillo:And, you know, a lot of times the deals you say no to are the best deals you've ever done.
Speaker C:Right.
Tim Petrillo:And he kept us out for.
Tim Petrillo:He kept us on the rails and focused and really just provided not only capital, but introduced us to other family offices and things like that.
Nick Portillo:Yeah, that makes sense.
Tim Petrillo:And to this day, he's still our.
Tim Petrillo:He's.
Tim Petrillo:He.
Tim Petrillo:He's.
Tim Petrillo:He's a partner with us.
Tim Petrillo:He's.
Tim Petrillo:He's our.
Tim Petrillo:He's our largest financial partner.
Tim Petrillo:He, you know, we share offices now.
Tim Petrillo:It's.
Tim Petrillo:It's been a great.
Tim Petrillo:And it's been 30 years.
Nick Portillo:Wow, that's incredible.
Nick Portillo:How does the deal look like?
Nick Portillo:You know, essentially, when you look at the restaurant, right, and running it like a business, you have investors that you.
Nick Portillo:When they.
Nick Portillo:When you approach them to say, hey, you know, could you be a, you know, maybe some sort of limited partner or some sort of partner in this business?
Nick Portillo:What does the deal look like for them and how do they.
Nick Portillo:How do you return, you know, their capital?
Tim Petrillo:So, you know, we are one thing that unfortunately, our industry, it has a bad rap when it comes to putting investing dollars in one because it's such a high risk.
Tim Petrillo:And, you know, 90% of restaurants don't last two years, right.
Tim Petrillo:So that's a huge hurdle to get people.
Tim Petrillo:So people typically like to invest in these assets for the wrong reasons, right?
Tim Petrillo:More of their.
Tim Petrillo:Their ego, more of their, you know, the, the.
Speaker C:The.
Tim Petrillo:What we call the emotional return, being able to go in and entertain people.
Tim Petrillo:And we love that.
Tim Petrillo:But we want to make sure that you understand that this is a business.
Tim Petrillo:It's not a playground that.
Tim Petrillo:That we will outline a.
Tim Petrillo:A pro forma and return schedule that we will execute on.
Tim Petrillo:And we run it like a very Professional business where every month they get, you know, typically our deals work.
Tim Petrillo:You invest the capital, there's a deferred return paid on the capital, we, we return capital and then we get a bigger piece of the promote or the business once that return of capital is done.
Tim Petrillo:And we give monthly end of month packets with a, you know, explanations on everything.
Tim Petrillo:We want to make sure that our partners are not surprised at all.
Tim Petrillo:They are, they are very well aware of the business, what's going on, that's sent out the 15th of every month anytime.
Tim Petrillo:They can email with questions right away, we respond right away.
Tim Petrillo:It's a very open, transparent type of business, which is not typical in investing.
Tim Petrillo:In restaurants, typically people invest, they don't know where their capital is going, they don't know how the restaurant's doing.
Tim Petrillo:They go in there, they see it's busy, you know, so it's not, it's not on the operator side, investments aren't run in a professional manner typically.
Tim Petrillo:And that's hurt us raising capital.
Tim Petrillo:So for us, we lean into way more professional, way more reporting, way more transparency.
Tim Petrillo:And what that has done over time is it keeps our investors active and engaged for the next deal.
Speaker C:Right.
Tim Petrillo:You know, obviously not all of them go along, but you know, you know, we give them the opportunity if they want to roll along, it's great.
Tim Petrillo:And that's how we, how we run, I would imagine.
Nick Portillo:I know you're in the multifamily business, you know, apartment business as well, and probably similar maybe type deal structures, working with investors.
Nick Portillo:And on that side, communication is very important.
Nick Portillo:You know, how many, you know, your construction projects, how many people are in the units, moving in, moving out, you know, all those different types of things.
Tim Petrillo:So, so that's exactly right.
Tim Petrillo:You hit that.
Tim Petrillo:So what we learned on the real estate investment side, we applied to the restaurant investment side and it's much easier for investors to understand where they are in each restaurant investment.
Nick Portillo:Yeah, a lot of times too, I've seen it like in apartments, you know, or projects like that, you have your preferred return.
Nick Portillo:Right.
Nick Portillo: to flip the building and then: Nick Portillo:In the restaurant business, you know, for, you know, how you're doing it, how long does it usually take to get return of capital?
Nick Portillo:You know, to get your initial.
Tim Petrillo:We, we like to have our capital payback to the investors between three, three years to Five years.
Tim Petrillo:Okay, we want that.
Tim Petrillo:You know, typically we do a 20 year deal.
Tim Petrillo:The first five years are we're paying back capital and preferred return and the next remainder of the term is the annuity of that.
Speaker C:Right.
Tim Petrillo:We don't retrade our investors like once their capital's out.
Tim Petrillo:You know, you see a lot of these punitive deals where, you know, okay, you, I borrowed your money and now that I got your money and I paid you back, you're only going to get a fraction of the business.
Tim Petrillo:Right.
Tim Petrillo:Our deals are like that.
Tim Petrillo:You sign up for your membership interest in the beginning and it carries through the term of that business.
Tim Petrillo:So it can be an annuity for many years or if we have a capital event, we have capital.
Nick Portillo:Yeah, that makes sense.
Nick Portillo:You know, in the history that you've been doing it, when you look to open up a new unit or new concept, new location, you know, what are some of the things that you're looking for that are attractive to you?
Tim Petrillo:Very early we started doing the same concept in and looking to roll out that cons.
Tim Petrillo:That's that one concept in different areas, right?
Tim Petrillo:So Miami, like different suburbs around us so we can get in a car and drive.
Tim Petrillo:We tried to keep parameters no more than two hours away, that kind of thing.
Tim Petrillo:And we opened four restaurants like that.
Tim Petrillo:And we were, we were running around.
Tim Petrillo:We were missing opportunities within our own town because we were on this thing to open up in other locations and grow business.
Tim Petrillo:And that's a great way to approach it.
Tim Petrillo:But I felt that wasn't for us because one, I kind of got bored doing the same concepts, right.
Tim Petrillo:And then two, being in the real estate business, there are opportunities that we get that we have to program that real estate with different concepts.
Tim Petrillo:Because real estate, it's all about getting eyeballs onto your real estate and being familiar with that.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:With.
Tim Petrillo:Especially when emerging areas and things like.
Tim Petrillo:And the best way for people to get comfortable with a emerging area or an area that's going through a renaissance is food and beverage.
Speaker C:Right.
Tim Petrillo:Because they can get comfortable area, they can explore for two hours.
Tim Petrillo:Oh, yeah.
Tim Petrillo:You know, and that's how areas start to transition.
Tim Petrillo:We recognize if we're doing the heavy lift of getting those eyeballs to that real estate, we aren't actually getting any value of what we're creating unless we own all the dirt that's around us.
Tim Petrillo:And that's what we started doing.
Tim Petrillo:So then we went and we bought the corner piece.
Tim Petrillo:We opened up him or she bar and that was in a transitioning area.
Tim Petrillo:Then where we were parking cars, was an empty lot.
Tim Petrillo:We're like, let's, let's buy that dirt.
Tim Petrillo:We end up doing a mixed use project.
Tim Petrillo:So it was office and three restaurants.
Tim Petrillo:So the offices were above.
Tim Petrillo:We took the TI allowances that the bank allocated for the other spaces, invested it in the ti, in the Art, Carp and Bend restaurant that we were the anchor, didn't give TI packages out to the other two tenants.
Tim Petrillo:And that's how we raised the money for the second one.
Tim Petrillo:And then, and then we, once it was stabilized, we recapped it and went on and did another deal.
Tim Petrillo:Another deal.
Tim Petrillo:That's kind of how we grew that.
Nick Portillo:That's the formula.
Nick Portillo:Yeah, that's very smart.
Nick Portillo:You know, kind of you put the money into one, right?
Nick Portillo:And then you, you take it out somehow and then put it into.
Tim Petrillo:And it's funny because they all, they all grow that.
Tim Petrillo:Now that was, that was for Tarpon.
Tim Petrillo:Then you fast forward 10 years later after we have a few.
Tim Petrillo:The seminal boosters come to us and they want to do they like what we're doing with housing and F B.
Tim Petrillo:And they said, listen, we've got, we've got six, six blocks right outside the stadium.
Tim Petrillo:Will you help us develop this?
Tim Petrillo:So we did and we opened College Town, which is student housing, retail.
Tim Petrillo:We have a hotel there now, a big parking garage.
Tim Petrillo:And we built that.
Tim Petrillo:It was all blight.
Tim Petrillo:And now that's going very well.
Tim Petrillo:And we did that.
Tim Petrillo:We're like, hey, we see this, this, the symbiotic relationship between F and B and housing and how that works.
Tim Petrillo:So in Lauderdale we started assembling, you know, an area in called Fat Village about six years ago.
Tim Petrillo:And no, it's not like eight years ago.
Tim Petrillo:We assembled about seven acres and now we're doing a big mixed use project with Hines, which is a global developer.
Tim Petrillo:They're like the largest global private developer.
Tim Petrillo:And they're like, in my mind, they are like the hillstone of Hillstone to me is at the top tier.
Tim Petrillo:Okay.
Tim Petrillo:They're the gold standard that everybody tries to be.
Tim Petrillo:And I've been fortunate to work with them and see that firsthand.
Tim Petrillo:And now with Heinz, they're like the gold standard of real estate development.
Tim Petrillo:And now we're able to see how they do it.
Tim Petrillo:And we're learning from them doing that as well now.
Tim Petrillo:And we're doing big project in.
Tim Petrillo:That's the one that we're going to have two of the 100,000 square feet of restaurant, two restaurants in 100,000 square foot of retail.
Tim Petrillo:So wow.
Nick Portillo:I mean That's.
Nick Portillo:That's impressive.
Nick Portillo:You know, you've got these new projects in your current projects.
Nick Portillo:What about over the last, you know, kind of going back to co.
Nick Portillo:Well, maybe not so much code, maybe the last two or three years with the unprecedented hikes and interest rates and things like that.
Nick Portillo:How have you been able to navigate that?
Nick Portillo:Because I know that's been kind of tough.
Tim Petrillo:That's definitely been tougher on the real estate side.
Nick Portillo:Yeah.
Tim Petrillo:On our.
Tim Petrillo:On the restaurant side, we don't.
Tim Petrillo:We don't really take much debt on.
Tim Petrillo:I mean, we take on partners from the equity.
Tim Petrillo:Restaurants are way too tricky and cyclical to have bank debt, you know, because all of a sudden sometimes they hit out of the gate, sometimes there's a longer climb, sometimes they hit out of the gate, they drop, and you gotta, you know, stabilize it again.
Tim Petrillo:So bank debt's a little hard to navigate.
Tim Petrillo:And, you know, candidly, banks don't like restaurants.
Tim Petrillo:I mean, it's well known.
Nick Portillo:Yeah.
Tim Petrillo:So they.
Tim Petrillo:They typically price in any of their risk to a loan.
Tim Petrillo:So it's very expensive capital anyway, so you might as well just go with equity, and that's what we do.
Nick Portillo:Got it.
Nick Portillo:Okay.
Nick Portillo:That makes sense.
Nick Portillo:That makes sense.
Nick Portillo:What about.
Nick Portillo:I know you mentioned you have some new projects going ongoing with, with Heinz and others.
Nick Portillo:What about looking into the future?
Nick Portillo:You know, what are things that you.
Nick Portillo:You really want to accomplish in your career that you've not yet been able to accomplish or just not have not gotten around to?
Tim Petrillo:I want to.
Tim Petrillo:So.
Tim Petrillo:So our.
Tim Petrillo:Our hometown is Fort Idaho, Florida.
Tim Petrillo:And we.
Tim Petrillo:We have operations outside of this city, outside of state, but our hometown is Fort Lauderdale.
Tim Petrillo:And I really want to do a really, really cool FB Forward hotel.
Tim Petrillo:We have a hotel in Tallahassee.
Tim Petrillo:We're expanding.
Tim Petrillo:We just got into that about a few years ago.
Tim Petrillo:While hotels have its challenges, the hardest part about a hotel that we have found out is the FBI.
Tim Petrillo:Okay.
Nick Portillo:Yeah.
Tim Petrillo:And since we have that, it makes sense for us to do a hotel because the room part of it is a challenge.
Tim Petrillo:But the FB is always the heartburn on a hotel.
Tim Petrillo:And if we know how to do that, we could probably do a pretty spectacular hotel internally, and that's what we're working on.
Nick Portillo:That'd be cool.
Nick Portillo:Tim, what about for you?
Nick Portillo:Do you have any family in the business or anything like that?
Tim Petrillo:I have two.
Tim Petrillo:I have two daughters.
Tim Petrillo:My one one is just graduated from Auburn and she is in.
Tim Petrillo:She works for an advertising agency doing data.
Tim Petrillo:And my other daughter is at CU in grad school.
Tim Petrillo:So you Know, the restaurant business isn't a great lifestyle business.
Tim Petrillo:Meaning, you know, you're working when everybody else is playing, when you're on holiday.
Tim Petrillo:When they're on holiday, you're their holiday.
Tim Petrillo:Okay.
Tim Petrillo:And I didn't really.
Tim Petrillo:My girls are.
Tim Petrillo:Are hinting around.
Tim Petrillo:I'm not sure if they really want it or not.
Nick Portillo:Yeah.
Tim Petrillo:I just know that to be successful in this business, it takes a lot of sacrifice.
Tim Petrillo:And had I known that sacrifice when I started, it's hard to say if I would choose that path again.
Nick Portillo:Can I ask you a parenting question?
Nick Portillo:You know, what you, what you've been able to build, you know, in your.
Nick Portillo:In your professional career, it's.
Nick Portillo:The average person is not doing what you do, what you're doing.
Nick Portillo:Right.
Nick Portillo:You've built something that's spectacular.
Nick Portillo:And so my question would be around, you know, with your daughters, do you teach them and have them learn?
Nick Portillo:You know, what you've essentially, you know, going back to the word, that formula, essentially what you've been able to create.
Nick Portillo:Do you teach them that, you know, and instill in them the values and what you've learned in your career?
Tim Petrillo:You know, I've been trying to do that, but again, every.
Tim Petrillo:Everybody needs to learn on their own.
Tim Petrillo:And what they.
Tim Petrillo:But I do think that they witnessed actually not what they witnessed.
Tim Petrillo:They.
Tim Petrillo:Unfortunately, they.
Tim Petrillo:And our time together was sacrificed because of the business.
Nick Portillo:Yeah.
Tim Petrillo:You know, you know, I worked my ass off.
Tim Petrillo:I was just.
Tim Petrillo:That's what I was doing.
Tim Petrillo:And, and there's, you know, if you're working somewhere, something else isn't getting your attention to the degree that it's equal.
Speaker C:Right.
Tim Petrillo:So there was a time when, you know, they saw it.
Tim Petrillo:They saw how to work.
Tim Petrillo:And that's why they're like, if I talk to them, they're like, I don't know if I want to be in that business, but sometimes when they're in the store and they feel the energy, like, maybe I could do this, but, you know, that that's where the balance comes in.
Tim Petrillo:I don't want to dissuade them, but at the same time, they do know what they're signing up for, and I think they might be a little hesitant to sign up for that.
Nick Portillo:Yeah.
Nick Portillo:The restaurant business, it's.
Nick Portillo:It's tricky.
Nick Portillo:Right?
Nick Portillo:It's.
Nick Portillo:It's.
Nick Portillo:Restaurants are open seven days a week.
Tim Petrillo:Yes.
Nick Portillo:You know, and especially you have multiple concepts across, you know, your whole, you know, the whole geography that you're in.
Tim Petrillo:It's.
Nick Portillo:It.
Nick Portillo:It can be very time consuming, as, you know.
Tim Petrillo:Yeah.
Tim Petrillo:Yeah.
Tim Petrillo:And again, it's like when a business is open 18 hours.
Tim Petrillo:Okay.
Tim Petrillo:Because that's typically, you know, our businesses, our talent is in the store from 7 to about 7am to about 3am and at 3am the cleaners come in and all that kind of stuff.
Tim Petrillo:So it's really a 24 hour business.
Tim Petrillo:So what does that mean?
Tim Petrillo:That you can never shut your phone off?
Tim Petrillo:I mean, at the end of the day and happens 24 hours a day.
Tim Petrillo:Typically when you add alcohol, the real happens after midnight, right?
Nick Portillo:That's right.
Nick Portillo:Oh, man.
Nick Portillo:Well, Tim, I want to say thank you so much for taking your time to come on here, share your story and you know, talk a little bit about what you, what you've built, what you've built and are building.
Nick Portillo:Truly impressive as I've mentioned.
Nick Portillo:And just want to say thank you for.
Tim Petrillo:Thank you for reaching out.
Nick Portillo:Yeah, of course.
Nick Portillo:And hopefully next time I'm in Florida, we can connect.
Tim Petrillo:I'd love for you to stop our stores if you ever get here.
Nick Portillo:That sounds good to me.
Tim Petrillo:Thank you, Tim.
