Chef/Interviewer/Subject Elizabeth Falkner and Director Peter Ferriero talk to The Inside Reel about intent, questions, stories and mental health in regards to their new documentary film: "Sorry We're Closed" about the restaurant business during the pandemic.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 [dramatic music]
00:03 ♪ ♪
00:10 - What's normal? Do you really want to go back?
00:14 - This is a dress rehearsal for climate change.
00:18 - Okay, I shortened my life opening this restaurant.
00:21 - I'm sorry for your loss.
00:23 - Thank you.
00:24 - Is this the beginning of something crumbling,
00:27 or is it something that's gonna strengthen?
00:29 - I can't sit here and watch the whole industry
00:33 fall off of a cliff.
00:35 [horn blaring]
00:39 - You know, it's really interesting,
00:40 obviously, seeing the film,
00:41 'cause in a way, it's a much different thing,
00:43 but with what's going on with the strike,
00:45 you know, you have all these things where people can't work
00:48 and it's affecting other industries,
00:50 but it's nothing like what happened with COVID
00:52 with the restaurants closing and trying to rebound.
00:56 Can you talk about sort of the--
00:58 sort of spark point of that?
00:59 - I love Elizabeth. I was a fan of Elizabeth.
01:01 I threw a remote when she lost "Next Iron Chef"
01:05 to Jeffrey Zakarian,
01:07 and so when "Her Name is Chef" came up
01:09 and I was starting to make that film,
01:10 I was like, "I need to work with Elizabeth Faulkner,"
01:14 and so I've always been a huge fan.
01:16 We connected. She came on board to do that movie
01:19 and was really influential in helping us get people,
01:22 and I just liked her vibe and energy,
01:25 and I had been hearing a lot of conversations
01:30 through other chefs, like,
01:31 "We got to start talking about mental health."
01:34 The Anthony Bourdain thing had happened,
01:37 and so there was a lot of that sort of in the atmosphere,
01:40 and so I contacted Elizabeth.
01:42 We had lunch, and I was like,
01:43 "We should do something about the mental health of chefs,"
01:46 and we paused, and then all hell broke loose.
01:52 [laughter]
01:54 And Elizabeth was like, "We need to do this now.
01:57 This is the documentary,"
01:58 and so that's sort of how the origins of it happened,
02:02 and then Elizabeth, obviously, I'll let her share her version,
02:05 but she just took it and brought it to the next level
02:08 of an expectation I never even imagined
02:10 with some of the chefs that I got to meet and all that.
02:13 - Yeah, I don't know what's going on.
02:14 I need to call my mom.
02:15 I guess I should call the restaurant.
02:17 I don't even know if it's okay to fly.
02:18 - What if all your go-to places were gone?
02:20 - If you had told me that your restaurant
02:23 would be closed down,
02:24 I would have said, "You know what? I don't buy it."
02:26 - I got so nervous for all my friends in this business.
02:29 Yep, I need to go see all my people.
02:32 - You know, we did national shipping.
02:34 We did delivery. We did takeout.
02:36 We did state care packages.
02:37 We literally tried to do everything in our power
02:41 to stay alive, but that's just not enough.
02:43 - It has been one of the most distracting,
02:46 mentally hijacking, emotionally trying.
02:50 - You hear the news.
02:51 You don't know what to believe, you know?
02:52 Because this COVID thing's spiking.
02:53 - I have young kids, and you cannot share with them
02:57 the kind of darkness that you feel.
03:00 - Yeah, I mean, I just want to add that we, you know,
03:03 we had, in January, started talking about
03:06 doing a film around the subject matter.
03:09 And then when March came around,
03:12 and everybody was, you know, like, in the film,
03:14 when it's, you know, I was at the end
03:16 of this pop-up pizza tour,
03:17 and literally everybody was like,
03:20 "I can't taste," and "How am I going to do this?"
03:23 And it was all such a PTSD kind of situation for me,
03:27 and I really felt like I wanted to go
03:29 and talk to people more than ever.
03:31 And it's my nature anyway to, you know,
03:35 go around and do a bunch of events all over the place
03:38 and talk with my chef colleagues,
03:40 whether I know them or not,
03:41 but just other people in the business.
03:43 I'm really comfortable in every kitchen,
03:45 so this has just been, it's an ongoing dialogue
03:47 that we have about the state of the industry,
03:49 and ourselves, but I really wanted to investigate
03:52 a little bit more about whether our tribe of people
03:58 are able to take care of themselves or not.
04:01 And it was a perfect storm to go out there
04:05 and try to round them up during COVID
04:08 and start making this film.
04:10 - But before that, were the discussions,
04:12 like I obviously saw it towards the end,
04:14 you did something at the Nantucket Food and Wine Festival,
04:16 I've been to like Aspen's and South Beach and everything,
04:19 and it's a place where everybody talks,
04:21 but even before that happened,
04:22 was there all that kind of discussion
04:24 about the saturation of restaurants?
04:26 Was that a discussion that was happening?
04:30 - Uh-uh.
04:31 - About certain restaurants that were closing
04:33 just because of the price.
04:35 It takes so much to create a restaurant nowadays.
04:37 - Yes, I mean, certainly I've had many, many discussions
04:40 with people over all these years of, you know,
04:44 how just people when they kind of like really get
04:48 into full swing of starting a restaurant
04:50 or starting a restaurant group,
04:51 and they're in the middle of it,
04:53 and they're like, wow, it's just, you know,
04:56 it's just like this funny, when people are like,
04:58 oh, you're so popular, people must be so wealthy
05:01 from their business, and every single chef is like,
05:03 that's not what's going on here.
05:06 (laughs)
05:07 - You're somebody who's so regimented,
05:09 this is what I do, and this is a giant curve ball
05:12 is being thrown at you right and left.
05:14 How are you dealing with the stress of it all?
05:16 - So I am drinking a lot more, without a doubt.
05:19 Yeah, that's my primary stress relief right now.
05:22 - Yeah.
05:23 - Hey, everybody.
05:24 I just wanted to reach out during this insane time
05:27 of COVID-19 and our quarantine to talk about
05:32 one of the things that nobody's talking about,
05:35 or at least addressing, for those of us who suffer
05:38 with mental health issues, anxiety, depression.
05:41 - Chris Costantino is a fighter.
05:43 I've known Chris pretty much since I first started cooking.
05:47 He's always talking about things
05:48 we don't talk about enough.
05:50 I know you've gone through some depression
05:54 and stuff like that.
05:55 Throw in this big curve ball of shutdown,
05:57 my restaurant, COVID, how have you been
05:59 dealing with that emotionally?
06:01 - How I deal with it, it depends on the day, you know?
06:05 As restaurant owners, we're looked to for answers, right?
06:11 And we always have to have an answer.
06:13 We're so used to having answers on the fly.
06:16 There is no answer.
06:17 All we have is uncertainty right now.
06:19 - Peter, can you guys talk?
06:20 'Cause you guys could have started anywhere.
06:22 I mean, you could start New York.
06:23 Obviously, San Francisco is key for you, Elizabeth.
06:27 But how did you sort of figure out, or even LA,
06:30 could you sort of talk about figuring out
06:32 who you wanted to talk to?
06:33 Was it just sort of reaching out and figuring out
06:36 who might wanna talk, people who are going through things?
06:38 I mean, you talked to so many people
06:40 going through so many different kinds of things during this.
06:44 - Yeah.
06:45 - Elizabeth and I both moved to LA
06:48 around the same time period,
06:49 so I knew that that would be a starting point.
06:52 But Elizabeth was really influential
06:54 in selecting all the chefs.
06:56 I definitely knew of a couple on the East Coast
07:00 that I thought would be interesting,
07:01 and I had heard they were going through
07:03 some specific things, Mike Carino, Leah Cohen,
07:06 and also Leah Gashione.
07:08 And so I brought those into the mix,
07:10 but really it was Elizabeth who hands-picked her friends
07:14 and people that she knew what was happening with.
07:17 - Yeah, the truth is I really wanted to talk
07:18 to a bunch of different kinds of chefs,
07:21 not just celebrity chefs or people that people could recognize,
07:26 but people I feel like, you know,
07:28 like Simon Kim says in the film,
07:32 we're like one giant group of people
07:35 with a collective small voice,
07:39 a collective bigger voice, but a bunch of small voices.
07:42 And that was really clear to me
07:45 even in January when Pete and I talked
07:48 because I just really wanted to get, you know,
07:51 the pulse of everybody in the business as much as I could.
07:55 And quite frankly, making a film with 50 different voices
07:59 is really challenging to try to include everybody
08:02 because, you know, we've got celebrity
08:05 and Michelin-starred chefs, but we also have, you know,
08:08 people that have much smaller restaurants
08:11 or a bakery and restaurant.
08:13 And, you know, that's my favorite thing about the film
08:17 is that there are so many different sides of the business,
08:20 and it's reflected in the film.
08:22 - No, I was just gonna just add that.
08:24 I just didn't want-- I knew that the most important thing
08:28 was Elizabeth having the conversations with her chef friends
08:31 because she could speak a language that I would never understand.
08:35 And so I just wanted to stay out of that.
08:37 Of course, if I needed them to push in on some particular topic
08:41 or retake something or, you know, if I--
08:45 I think what Elizabeth and I are really good at
08:47 is, like, picking up on each other's notes, right?
08:49 So, like, they didn't say it,
08:51 but, like, I need them to get further into this,
08:54 and then we can, like, push in on a particular moment.
08:56 But I think a part of it was just letting them
08:59 have their moments and their conversations.
09:01 It was really crucial to the film.
09:04 - You know, and it's really different than going at it
09:06 from a journalistic approach.
09:08 I mean, I really-- from the get-go,
09:10 with Nancy Silverton, our first interview,
09:12 she said, "Elizabeth, you're not gonna ask me
09:14 about how I got started cooking."
09:16 And that's a typical situation with any chef in any interview
09:20 is, "How did you start this?"
09:22 But that's--of course that's not what we were talking about.
09:25 And it's--I don't need to know their backstory.
09:27 I know all of their backstories, and I understand--
09:29 and I have a relationship as a chef-to-chef conversation.
09:32 So I do think that's also what makes this film unique.
09:36 - So how are you balancing out your...
09:39 - My craziness? - Yeah.
09:40 - That I'm not. - Yeah.
09:42 - Balancing out craziness is not easy.
09:45 I try to ride as much as I can.
09:47 For me, there's soulless and suffering
09:49 when I'm out there riding.
09:51 I know there's a means to the end for the suffering.
09:54 I'm gonna get from point A to point B,
09:57 and I may have to hurt to get there,
09:59 but I'm gonna get faster, and I'm gonna get to a new place,
10:02 and I'm okay with that.
10:04 But I think a lot of times,
10:06 dealing with the mental health
10:08 and those issues of anxiety--
10:11 I have not slept one full night of sleep
10:15 since this shit started on March 14th
10:17 without waking up in the middle of the night with nightmares.
10:20 Every night.
10:21 I wake up completely soaked in sweat
10:26 from nasty nightmares.
10:29 It just doesn't go away.
10:30 There's nothing I can do other than wake up,
10:34 be positive, keep moving forward,
10:36 not bury it, and, you know,
10:38 really remember that it's okay to not be okay.
10:41 Because...
10:43 Everybody's not okay.
10:44 - But it's also interesting that
10:46 with the aspect of mental health,
10:48 I mean, you know, it was--
10:50 Chris, which I believe Cox's Home is now closed, too.
10:53 So it was interesting sort of hearing that,
10:55 you know, how different people deal with stuff.
10:57 There was a--I forget what the chef's name was--
11:00 with the beer that got so--
11:02 he became such a raging alcoholic that, you know--
11:05 - Macarena. - Yes.
11:07 I mean, could you guys talk about that?
11:09 Because those are hard, vulnerable places to put friends,
11:12 you know, and they have to be willing to talk.
11:14 But by doing that, you know,
11:16 you get a sense of what everybody is going through.
11:19 - With Mike Carino, I didn't even know it was that severe.
11:22 You know, we'd been friends for a very long time,
11:25 and I knew when he had that restaurant,
11:27 and he was like, "I would like to talk about
11:29 "some of the problems I had when I opened--
11:31 "when I had my restaurant."
11:33 And I was like, "Okay, well, what are they?"
11:35 He's like, "We'll talk about it."
11:36 And I was like, "Okay."
11:37 And then when he said all that, I was like, "Whoa."
11:39 I didn't even know that he had gone through all of that.
11:43 - What about you, Elizabeth?
11:45 Did you know Chris--
11:47 - I mean, I think--I know everybody has their different ways
11:50 of dealing with stress in this business,
11:52 because you don't have time to really deal with stress.
11:55 You just--every day, you got to get up and go again.
11:58 - Right, right. - And I think that's--
12:01 you know, like, I know I've had this conversation
12:04 even before 2020 with people
12:07 about wanting to help advise younger chefs.
12:11 I constantly say this with my colleagues
12:14 and people starting up in the business
12:16 to take care of themselves first,
12:18 because this is for a long haul.
12:20 This is very much like a military kind of job
12:23 where you have to physically be fit to do the job.
12:25 And, I mean, you can only go so far.
12:28 And it's--and you have to, like, taste food all day.
12:32 You know, you get--you're tired at the end of the day.
12:35 You probably don't make the best food choices yourself,
12:37 but if you can get in habits, then that's--
12:39 you know, so that's something I've kind of been
12:41 almost preaching to my industry.
12:44 And so, you know, obviously,
12:48 this business comes with the harsh realities
12:52 of people falling into addiction
12:54 and a lot of the things that we talk about in it.
12:57 And I think it is--I do think it is evolving.
13:01 I think it's--I come from that old pirate ship version
13:05 of restaurant world in a lot of ways.
13:08 I mean, that's my generation.
13:10 It's not the restaurants that I personally ran
13:12 or grew up in in California.
13:15 But I think it's definitely being looked at
13:19 a lot more closely these days
13:21 and how operations are run and how people need to really--
13:24 I mean, a lot of chefs really do physical activities
13:27 with their chefs.
13:28 A lot of--I know the guys in Joe Beef up in Montreal
13:32 have really changed their entire program.
13:34 It used to be, like, this party--
13:35 crazy party boy atmosphere.
13:37 Fun restaurant in those days,
13:39 but hardcore in the food and alcohol business.
13:42 And today, they're clean and sober,
13:45 and they have a really different attitude
13:47 about what they're cooking.
13:48 So, you know, it's--
13:50 not to say that that side of the business
13:54 is really going away,
13:55 but it's maybe being adapted with a little bit better.
13:58 You know, like, not so self-indulgent
14:00 every single day.
14:01 - And it pisses me off that I've been in circumstances
14:05 in restaurants where these conversations come up,
14:07 and people are like, "Oh, it's not that bad."
14:09 What are you talking about?
14:10 It's not bad.
14:11 Like, what world do you live in?
14:13 - Hundreds of years of oppression
14:15 on top of a global pandemic,
14:17 and what does that look like?
14:18 It look like bad.
14:20 [dramatic music]
14:23 ♪ ♪
14:31 (whooshing)
14:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]