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Most founders start their restaurants in the red. Guy Allen did the opposite, turning a 12-seat sushi bar into a $3M business with lines out the door and plans for a $50M exit. He’s the founder proving restaurants can scale – if you treat them like startups.
Here’s what we talk about:
- Leaving real estate tech after a decade to start over in food
- Turning a sushi photography hobby into a six-figure uni import business
- Why importing sea urchin taught him everything about supply chains
- How Sendo became one of NYC’s busiest sushi spots – with zero marketing spend
- The “three ingredients” behind every successful restaurant: food, location, brand
- Why most chefs fail at business, and why one restaurant alone is a bad bet
- The real margins of restaurants (and what “good” actually looks like)
- How restaurant investing and profit-sharing actually work
- The surprising scalability of sushi, and how he plans to reach 40 locations
- Building publicly in an industry famous for secrecy
Cool Links:
Sponsors:
Chapters:
- 00:00 - The Harsh Reality of Restaurant Ownership
- 00:43 - The Sushi Business Model and Guy’s Background
- 01:35 - Guy’s Pivot from Real Estate Tech to Sushi
- 02:56 - From Sushi Hobby to Social Media Platform
- 05:44 - Importing Uni: Economics and Challenges
- 10:11 - Sushi Quality, Branding, and Market Positioning
- 13:22 - Why Premium Sushi Doesn’t Scale
- 14:47 - Transition from Importing to Restaurant Ownership
- 16:51 - Why Most Restaurants Fail: The Role of Branding
- 18:44 - Building a Restaurant Brand and Early Success
- 22:56 - Financing and Structuring Growth
- 27:27 - The Surprising Upsides of the Restaurant Business
- 29:54 - Scaling to 40 Restaurants and a $50M Exit
- 33:49 - The Need for Transparency in the Restaurant Industry
This podcast is a ridiculous concept: high-net-worth people reveal their personal finances. Inspired by real conversations happening in the Hampton community.
Your Host: Harry Morton
- Founder of Lower Street, a podcast production company helping brands launch and grow top-tier podcasts.
- Co-parents a cow named Eliza.