An Interview With Martita Mestey
I was told everything before I even made that decision. Disrupting the questions. Not in my career. Maybe pick better partners but you all start with good intention and sometimes things go left. There is no path to success without failure. Failure is a journey to success and also education. It makes you hungrier and wiser for your next venture.
As a part of our series about “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Restaurateur”, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Stratis Morfogen.
Stratis Morfogen has been one of the most innovative names in New York City’s hospitality scene for decades. From bringing the famed Fulton Fish Market online in 1997 to pioneering the automat movement with Brooklyn Dumpling Shop to opening a 25,000 square foot venue in Times Square during the pandemic, Morfogen continues to disrupt the status quo. Today, the hard-working third generation Morfogen is flourishing as a restaurateur, partner, and owner of several establishments in New York City — Club Rouge, Gotham City Diner, Seagrill of the Aegean, Hilltop Diner, Kids Kingdom Amusement Park, Aubar, Sessa, The Grand, Philippe Chow, Jue Lan Club, Brooklyn Chop House, Brooklyn Dumpling Shops, BCH Grocers, etc.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to ‘get to know’ you a bit. Can you share with our readers a story about what inspired you to become a restaurateur?
I grew up a third generation restaurateur from the ages of 6 -17 and never had a week off. It was part of the fabric of my upbringing. I loved it since I was six and loved every aspect, from cleaning, to bus boy, and working in the kitchen. My father had me working in the bathrooms at age 6 and I asked why was i working there
If you wanna work in this business you have to experience it and not read about it in books.
Do you have a specific type of food that you focus on? What was it that first drew you to cooking that type of food? Can you share a story about that with us?
My birthright is Greek restaurants and seafood restaurants. My last diner was sold in 1999. Right after that I went into chinese food and created brands like philippe chow and brooklyn chop house. Everything I’ve done that relates to food is something I’m passionate about. I’ve always disrupted and reimagined different aspects of what old industries could be. In 2019 I reinvited the automap by bringing brooklyn dumpling shop to te maps
- Open in two countries
Diner24 — with analytics and SEO there is a huge market for 24 hour diners.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you became a restaurateur? What was the lesson or take away you took out of that story?
When i was six years old there was a diminutive small guy that came to my fathers house chelsea house in howards beach. Everytime he came in it was like moses parted the sea. It was as if the president walked in. He was tended to immediately. I started hearing him say get mr. gambino his cocktail. I walked up to a table of about six men in suits and said hello! Carl gambino grabbed me and sat me down. Next time he said hi is good enough and stook a 20 dollar bill in my jacket.
Went out of his way to be discreet and me, a fat 6 year old went straight to his face and exposed him.
Discretion is important. This is a huge part of the restaurant industry.
Life lessons I learned about taking care of customers and also knowing the boundaries of customers
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? How did you overcome this obstacle?
In 1997 when I decided to bring Fulton fish market to the internet everyone called me crazy but that was a lesson into search optimization. From everything legal, sea food to flowers. What I was creating was an omaha steak for seafood. Buying massive seafood fish and shipping it out mail order. Screwed up on the dry ice.
Created fulton street.com with omaha steak blueprint from calling directly and pretending to be nyu student. You have to be a student constantly and teach yourself and take initiative. Gorilla warfare.
In your experience, what is the key to creating a dish that customers are crazy about?
Today, we are not in the restaurant business. We are in the reaction business. That answer changes in the decades. Today, answering you have to create something over the top, something visually beautiful, something creative.
- Salad in the jar
- Triple smash burger
- Milkshakes
These are things that create a reaction in the tik tok social media world. Reaction business!
Personally, what is the ‘perfect meal for you’?
How I created brooklyn chop house is the combination of chinese food and american food. LSD → lobster steak and duck. Brooklyn chop house first place to put that on one entree. With french onion soup dumplings to start. The ultimate surf and turf.
Where does your inspiration for creating come from? Is there something that you turn to for a daily creativity boost?
I look at something so simple like a burger or salad or chicken fingers and I just imagine how we can make it our own with our own signature. At diner24 we cut it into triangles. The only reason to be unique and to have our own identity. With vodka cream sauce. The mozzarella triangles are a huge success.
Dismantle it and re-imagine it in a different way. Not always a win but as long as its most of the time.
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? What impact do you think this will have?
Diner24 — very excited! Bucking the trend where all the 24 hour diners are starting to close and we believe with search optimization this is a huge opportunity to bring back 24 hour diners. Delivery business is huge. A lot of people are working from home and so it’s great to have a place to rely on a meal at any time.
Exciting for young generations because they don’t really know what it is. They find it extremely novel and unique but it’s been around for at least 140 years.
What advice would you give to other restaurateurs to thrive and avoid burnout?
Unfortunately, being an entrepreneur and restaurateur there is no balance in life. When they say you have to balance business and personal life, that is a fallacy. Extremely misguided. When you are in business and an entrepreneur you have to sacrifice many personal events and holidays. You are going to miss those days because we work when everyone is off.
You can not be a restaurateur and hav balance in your life. There is no such thing. I believe strongly that if you love what you do I believe you will not burnout. There is an old saying, I work about 100 hours a week and I will tell you I’m still looking for a job. If you love what you do you never work a day in your life. At the end of the day I do it for my family! My mother never had a mother’s day night out or valentines’ day.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started as a Restaurateur” and why?
I knew questions and I still went into the restaurant business. I already knew the answers before I started making my decision to become a restaurar. I have zero questions.
The gist of this answer is I was told everything before I even made that decision. Disrupting the questions. Not in my career. Maybe pick better partners but you all start with good intention and sometimes things go left. There is no path to success without failure. Failure is a journey to success and also education. It makes you hungrier and wiser for your next venture.
What’s the one dish people have to try if they visit your establishment?
Brooklyn Chop house — LSD (stands for Lobster, Steak, Duck)
Brooklyn dumpling — mac and cheese dumpling
Diner24 — Trifecta burger or the salad in a jar. Like a martini all salads are better shaken not stirred.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
2020 when COVID hit it was the first donating to healthcare heroes. My team and I donated over 800 meals to hospitals. That’s why I became a huge advocate for when people were fire
Against unconstitutional policies and mandates that harmed industry especially in nyc. I will not fire any of my staff for a job. I stood strong. Very happy to be on the right side of history.
New York truly suffered and our constitutional rights were affected. People lost their jobs and businesses closed. Check out instagram and all the interviews I did fighting for the little restaurants that didn’t have the platform or the voice that I had. All the big box retailers were open and walking around without masks, they shut us down.
Thank you so much for these insights. This was very inspirational!
Stratis Morfogen Of Diner24: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Restaurateur was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.