Rocco DiSpirito Quotes

It's tough, you know: I'm a chef first, and a restaurant owner, way before I was ever on Food Network, and it's a tough business.

Remember, restaurateurs are only shopkeepers; that's all we are. It's no different from the supermarket down the road.

Growing up as a young kid, I was in a restaurant. So, you know, I always had a very good understanding of the nuances. And in a way, that was a bad thing. Because it kind of programmed me to believe that if you're going have a restaurant, this is what you need to do, and this is the way it's going to be run.

My parents own a restaurant in Albuquerque.

In the restaurant business, there's the concept of pivot. Pivot to the stove, pivot to the refrigerator.

The part that I know I enjoy most is the restaurants. You can't do everything, you know? For me, the priority has been being deeply involved in my restaurants and figuring out different ways to make them run better.

As a restaurateur, my job is to basically control the chaos and the drama. There's always going to be chaos in the restaurant business.

I've always maintained the basic business principles of keeping it simple, doing your homework, hard work, and common sense.

At 22, I had something I loved to do - make pizza - and something I was good at: running a business.

I think, as a chef and restaurateur, that you have to take care of your business. Otherwise, you're only as good as your last meal. You have to watch if your food costs are too high, or you could be out of business in no time.

Companies don't get rich hurting their customers.

I get a lot of criticism for telling founders to focus first on making something great, instead of worrying about how to make money. And yet that is exactly what Google did. And Apple, for that matter. You'd think examples like that would be enough to convince people.

A good chef has to be a manager, a businessman and a great cook. To marry all three together is sometimes difficult.

The food business is very tough, but there's also a lot of love and very giving.

Producing is a thankless task akin to hotel management. Unfortunately, there are not too many good hotel managers.

If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it's the restaurant business.

I only have the restaurant. If I do other things, it's only to do with the restaurant.

The hardware business is all about per-unit manufacturing cost and functionality. The services business is less asset-intensive and more dependent on people.

I think everybody at some point in time has thought to themselves, 'I have a really great idea for a restaurant.'

We'll serve, on a good Saturday night six or seven thousand people in all the restaurants, and it's like, the percentages are that maybe one person's not going to like what they get. And I can't be there to fix it. I hate that. We're in this business to make things that please people.

I always worked in institutions, I never had a restaurant of my own before, but I have opened over 30 hotels, restaurants and casinos. I understand what it takes to keep them running.

I love cooking. I'm in the restaurant business.

I conduct business, not dependent of public sentiment, but according to the rules of fair business.

Even if the chef has a good business head, his focus should be behind kitchen doors. A business partner should take care of everything in front of the kitchen doors.

The restaurant industry is brutal.