KEYNOTE
Martha Stewart: ‘Restaurants are one of
the hardest businesses on earth’
The legendary businesswoman and multimedia maven shared lessons learned from opening her first restaurant at age 80. M artha Stewart’s career as a businesswom- an, media mogul, and champion of home- “Here I am at 80 years old, and why I didn’t do a restaurant sooner, I will never know,” Stewart said. Opened in Aug. 2022, The Bed- ford is modeled after her real home, with “the same furniture, the same accessories,” and illuminated win- dows that offer video “views” of her garden and farm. By Joanna Fantozzi Senior Editor Nation’s Restaurant News
Another piece of advice for op- erators: Don’t be afraid to embrace the old-fashioned way of doing things, even if it seems like every- one else is chasing down trends. “People like deliciousness and sometimes tradition,” Stewart said. “They like the familiar and not too much of the unfamiliar. … It’s a fine balance between what you choose to serve, what you choose to pro- mote, and how you serve it and show it.” But that does not necessari- ly mean that restaurant operators should be stuck in their ways or rooted in the past. Stewart said she embraces new technology and hinted that there could be an AI collaboration with her brand sometime in the future, with “little Marthas” that home cooks, homemakers, and others could ask for advice. “I take ad- vantage of whatever comes along,” Stewart said.
“Restaurants are one of the hard- est businesses on earth,” Stewart said, prompting cheers from the appreciative crowd, though she did have a couple of pieces of advice from her own experience as a first- time restaurant owner. The first: Always believe in the value of your product. “When we were planning the menu, we wanted to charge for a breadbasket and they said, ‘you can’t do that, the bread is free!’” Stewart said. “But when they saw what went into the breadbasket, they rethought it, and now they’re charging $19 for it!”
makers has always revolved around the foodservice world but never di- rectly embraced it. In fact, as the keynote speaker for the 2024 Restaurant Leadership Conference she spoke about her ca- reer beginning as a stockbroker who invested early on in McDonald’s. She went on to become a caterer, began writing cookbooks (she just published her 100th book), starred in countless television shows, and started her own print media empire. But until 2022, when The Bed- ford in the Paris Las Vegas Hotel opened, she had never owned her own restaurant.
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PHOTO CREDIT: W. SCOTT MITCHELL PHOTOGRAPHY
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