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Daniel Holzman has built restaurants, gone viral and lost millions of dollars following great -idea.
As the chef and restorer With a great personality, Holzman has always been ready to take risks – and this trait has led to success and difficult lessons. He founded Meatball storeA random dining that turned the humble food of comfort into a favorite cult. Her mixed and match onions are served in bowls, sandwiches and pasta.
Holzman and his partner, Michael ChernowThey noticed how many people they loved, and the idea began with something as simple as a late night meal.
“Mike was a bartender, and he would eat spaghetti and be – hold the spaghetti. Just a bowl of it. We thought, Why not make a whole restaurant about it?“Holzman shows Restaurant influencers host Shawn Walchef or Cali BBQ Media.
The concept rose, expanding to nine countries. “We had one in Washington, DC, one in Connecticut and seven in New York,” Holzman says, adding that New York was home to the original location.
Holzman's willingness to swing for fences paid with the meat shop – until it happened.
Investors once offered $ 40 million to buy a majority of business shares, but Holzman rejected him, convinced they were on the verge of even larger ASSESSMENT.
A year later, things were discovered.
“I was like,” it will be worth $ 100m in two years. “You can't put my shares out of my cold, dead hands,” Holzman says. “And then the sales began to fall as a month and a half later.”
restaurant Expansion He came with increasing pain, and Holzman found himself burned by the business of things. As the countries fought and the company began to escalate, he made the difficult decision to return, bringing a new CEO to take over the operations as he understood his next movement.
Return to California
Looking for a new start, Holzman moved to the west and opened Danny Boy's famous original pizzaset to not repeat the same mistakes. This time, he was not just thinking about food; He was thinking about the people behind him.
“Hard hard to find people if you pay them and treat them (bad),” he says. “But if you treat people well, it's not hard to find people at all.”
His philosophy moved. Instead of concentrating only on the scale, he gave priority Building a restaurant where employees felt appreciated.
Even the name, Danny Boy's famous original pizzaIt is a knot for his love for the restaurant history. In New York, Pizzerias with names like Ray's famous famous pizza encountered the original “true”. Holzman bowed to joke, calling the famous original of his shop Danny Boy – a name that felt as if it had already been for decades.
For a long time, Holzman thought he wanted to be what he calls “a decorated chef”, following the stars and prestige of Michelin. However, he realized that the world did not conform to what was really. Instead, he found success by relying on what he felt natural – both in food and the way he connected with people.
Holzman has built one online online with its honestly brutally, often funny, The contents of social media. But for him, originality is the only strategy that works. “People are smart,” he says. “They know what is authentic and what not.”
Whether he is making a video or a pizza, he is learned that if he does not come from a real place, people will not buy it in it. “In Meatball's store, I was so focused on building a brand that I lost my eyesight making it happen,” Holzman says. “In Danny Boy's famous famous pizza, I'm making sure it won't happen again.”
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