Steve Ells Quotes

Your performance depends on your people. Select the best, train them and back them. When errors occur, give sharper guidance. If errors persist or if the fit feels wrong, help them move on. The country cannot afford amateur hour in the White House.

I was hired as a sous-chef at a restaurant on the Upper East Side. The chef liked to drink - some mornings we would find him sleeping. Two weeks after its opening, I became the chef. I was 20 years old, and way over my head. I had to hire the cooks and do the menus.

I want to go to culinary school because I love cooking. One day I'd love to open up a restaurant or cafe.

I was working in restaurants as a captain and as a waiter.

My biggest bit of advice would be to spend some time actually helping caterers or Chefs, even if it has to be for free or as an intern of culinary externship. It helps immerse yourself in what you potentially want to do.

There are so many things you can do with a culinary degree.

I did retail. I worked at TJ Maxx before. I did fast food at Shake Shack.

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.

One day, I'll open my own restaurant or do something related to food, though I can't cook to save my life.

I absolutely love the restaurant industry.

I'm obsessed with cooking! I want a degree in the culinary arts!

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.

I worked in restaurants the first half of my life.

I would still like to own and run a restaurant serving Indian food with a good dollop of Parsi cooking - which you can't seem to get anywhere.

I've got a really great team around me. They're the ones that are in the restaurants on a day to day basis. Anyone that's good can't be stifled in any way. I don't baby people.

So I quit my job and went to the New England Culinary Institute for the full two years and worked in the restaurant industry after that until finally I thought I had a grasp on what I needed to do what I do.

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

Get the best people and train them well.

To me, there's no great chef without a great team.

I wanted to learn everything I could about what it takes to be a great chef. It was a turning point for me.

My last two years of high school, I did work-study half the day, and I ran the restaurant. It was just this little restaurant, but it was just so cool. I had 35, 40 employees.

Whether it's books or TV, or whatever the case may be, the backbone of what I do is my restaurants.

It's very important in a restaurant to really do the right hiring because there's no restaurant that you have one cook and one chef and nobody else in the kitchen. Generally you have five, ten, 15 people with you. So that's really important is to train them right, but first you have to hire the right people.

The restaurant business is something that you have to treat like a baby. You have to constantly be there. You can't trust it to anybody else, because no one's going to love it like you do.

He brought a sensibility and a hard-edged reasonableness to operating restaurants that had a lasting impact on me and still affects how I run all our restaurants today. The passing of 'Restaurant Man' - the original gangsta 'Restaurant Man,' my father - was the passing of an era. No one can replace him.