In this episode of ‘The Good News with Angie Austin’, Angie is joined by her good friend and accomplished restaurateur, Ed Novak. Ed shares his fascinating journey of opening his first restaurant, the challenges he faced, and the life lessons he’s learned along the way. Having successfully run restaurant chains for decades, Ed offers insights into perseverance and the importance of a hands-on approach to business. His stories of growth and sudden closure of Nero’s serve as a testament to the unpredictable nature of the restaurant industry and the necessity of sound legal and financial advice. Angie later dives
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello there, friend. Angie Austin along with one of my good friends, Ed Novak. Ed Novak, for many of you, you probably already know him, but he ran the very popular broker restaurant chain here in Colorado and has been a restaurateur for decades and decades. And it’s true. It’s true. And very successful. And this is a business that it’s not easy to be successful in the restaurant business. There’s a thin margin for profitability and the hours are very long. And you were lucky enough to be a boss that your employees often stayed for decades at your restaurants. But to get started, we’re doing life lessons with you because I just love all your stories and you’re such a great storyteller. I’m letting you have some freedom in choosing some of the life lessons you’ve learned. And starting a restaurant business is no easy task and can oftentimes fail. And so you said you wanted to talk a little bit about what you learned starting a story about opening your first restaurant.
SPEAKER 04 :
I would. I’d like to share that, if I may.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. And when was this?
SPEAKER 04 :
This was I was 25 years old. Wow. And and I had and I had never worked in a restaurant in my whole life. And I met I met this I met this man, young man, and his name was John. And he had a restaurant on East Colfax, 8,000 East Colfax, almost to Aurora. And, and the restaurant was losing money. And he, somehow I ran into him. I can’t remember the circumstances, but anyway, he wanted out of that restaurant. And I said, I’m interested. And so what I did is, um, the restaurant was on the corner. It was like a brick building, beautiful and had plenty of parking. And, uh, And so I ended up, he and I drew up an agreement, and I bought the restaurant from him, okay? And the thing here was that I also, at the same time, actually just before that, I ran into a gentleman, his name was Norm Markle, and he and I became partners at this restaurant. And he previously, he was a lot older than me, And he previously had owned a restaurant, an Italian restaurant in Louisville. And that era in Louisville, all the people from Boulder and Denver went up there because they had the best Italian restaurants in the world. Oh, okay. If you remember that. So anyway, Norm was very, very… talented in the, in the restaurant business and in especially Italian. So we changed the name of the restaurant to Nero’s N E R O apostrophe S. And we put in Norm’s menu and, uh, he had the best red sauce and the greatest. Oh my gosh. His, his recipes were phenomenal. And so we were open every day from, we opened at seven in the morning and we closed at two o’clock.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
And so we were only closed five hours a day. Wait a second. You opened at 7 a.m. and you closed at 2 a.m.? Yes.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, I thought you meant 2 p.m. in the afternoon. You were only closed for five hours?
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. And so a lot of nights what I would do is I would just lay on the booth and go to sleep because we were just about to open, you know?
SPEAKER 06 :
Unbelievable.
SPEAKER 04 :
And so I’d spend a lot of nights in the restaurant just to instead of driving. I had about a half-hour drive home and a half-hour drive back, and so I just ended up staying there. And we had – I added a piano bar to the restaurant, and I found this young man. He was so talented. He was a great singer, great piano player. He was a big hit. And then the food was phenomenal. And the restaurant just went crazy. I mean, we started – We started growing and growing and growing like you wouldn’t believe how our sales increased, okay, over time.
SPEAKER 06 :
And one of the cool things that I found with your restaurants that you did over the years, the music, you incorporated music, which became very popular. But then secondly, you were very involved. And like you said, okay, you’re sleeping there. So that means you were there all the hours you were open. That you go around, you’d meet people, you’d talk to people. How’s your meal? Hey. Hey, Bob, haven’t seen you since last week. Let me bring over your favorite cheesecake when you finish. Oh, Sue, I know you love the Coke with the lime. Let me grab you one of those. It was very highly personalized, and everybody felt appreciated. Everybody felt special. Everybody felt like you cared about them. You went the extra mile for them.
SPEAKER 04 :
I do. I mean, they’re the backbone of your business. I mean, making your customers happy is really what it’s all about. Yep.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, but you have a knack for that. Okay, so keep going. So you started going gangbusters.
SPEAKER 04 :
It just kept growing and growing. And we were just doing so much business that was just fabulous. And then we’d been open now about maybe five or six months. And that one day in walks the sheriff, the Denver County sheriff. And he says, I have a paper to serve you. And it was an eviction notice. What? And he said, I’m presenting hand to hand to you that this is your eviction notice from this building. And he said, you have 24 hours to vacate it. And he says, I’ll be back in the morning to make sure you’re out of here.
SPEAKER 06 :
And what was the basis for the eviction?
SPEAKER 04 :
That was my job. And as it turned out, which I later found out, you know, obviously I didn’t have any experience, but the thing was the lease required that the landlord approve all the tenants. And when I made this little, this guy, John and I just signed an agreement together, and then he wanted very little money because he was losing money. And so Norma and I just, you know, we didn’t pay him very much money, and he was just happy to be gone and quit losing. And so the result is that the lease required that the landlord approve the tenant. And I never went to the landlord and got approval.
SPEAKER 06 :
But you were paying your rent.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. I sent him checks, but he never said boo. You know, I didn’t really ever really see him. And it turned out that we had to go. So at lunch that day, I told everybody, I said, I want you to spread the word. Well, today’s going to be our last day. And tonight, we’re going to have free lunch. alcohol. All the alcohol is free tonight. We’re going to get rid of this inventory. And so the place was packed, had the piano player. We just had the best closing of any restaurant ever could do.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, my gosh.
SPEAKER 04 :
Shut it down. And then the edge was just amazing. So I’m just basically out on the street, you know, and as Norm is. And so we’re just gone. And what happened was I found out a few months later, I found out what the deal was. The deal was that the landlord had a nephew. And the nephew went to him and said, you know, he said, your restaurant is doing so good. He said, I would sure like to own that restaurant. And so the landlord checked me out and put his nephew in as the owner.
SPEAKER 06 :
And did he keep the same name or could he or did he try to run the same kind of restaurant?
SPEAKER 04 :
I think he changed the name to Neptunian or something like that. I think he changed the name. But it was just really an experience. And so really what I’m – the purpose, I guess, partially of the story here is that what I discovered is that one of the things that if you want to be successful in business – you have to have a great attorney and a great CPA. oh yeah and you’ve got to rely on them and you know and i was just out there floundering like some crazy fish or something you know well 25 years old never worked in a restaurant you know it was a great experiment and then did that was that restaurant still successful after you left or did it not you know run up you know what i don’t know what i didn’t really follow up much at all i was so sick by it all and well then did you go open another restaurant And then I actually went to work after that. I went to work for Tom Wilsham at the Hungry Farmer as a waiter.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, wow. And got some more experience. And then how long after that until you opened another restaurant?
SPEAKER 04 :
It was like, it would have been like three or four years later that I opened a broker, you know. And that’s another story that maybe I’ll share that another time, you know, because I don’t want to obligate. I don’t want to take over so much of your show. But the importance of Nero’s was that I loved it. I had a great time. We built the business. And I tell you what, if you don’t, as a business person – If you don’t have a good attorney and don’t have a good CPA, your odds of success are diminished dramatically.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, that’s great advice. My friend Jim Stovall talks about how much he relies on his people as well. And I know my husband does with his business too. It’s a lot of money that you have to pay these people, but it’s worth every penny when it comes to protecting your assets, your interests.
SPEAKER 04 :
And it’s amazing, you know, because there’s so many rules and laws and whether it’s accounting wise or tax wise or legal wise, you know, there’s no way you could possibly know all of that. And that’s why you need to rely on on on good advisers.
SPEAKER 06 :
When you had – you always partnered with people. Like you were very – also very active in the restaurant world and knew a lot of successful restaurateurs and really had good relationships with them and could share good advice and get good advice. And did – one thing that I know that you did was – your sweat labor, that you weren’t a boss that was going to come in for a few hours in the evening and check everything out, that just like when you were sleeping in the booth, that you were working from 7 a.m. until 2, 7 a.m. in the morning until the following morning at 2 a.m. and only had about, you know, four or five hours sleep and would work seven days a week. So I think your work ethic also is something really important. I don’t think that in the at least in the early stages of making a business, specifically a restaurant successful, you can’t be lazy and you can’t put everything off on somebody else. You really have to be hands-on.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, and I only, only did that a couple of nights a week, you know, because otherwise, I mean, there was, I would, maybe I would come in later than like come in for lunch instead of breakfast, you know? And so Norm and I just split up the hours so that we could have one of us would be there most of the time, you know?
SPEAKER 05 :
Right, so you’d always have a manager there.
SPEAKER 04 :
It was good having a partner, and he was so knowledgeable about the restaurant industry, and so I learned a lot from him, you know.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and that’s another thing, too, to kind of attach yourself to a mentor that can teach you the ropes. A lot of people don’t realize how they like to kind of be the lone wolf, and I can do this on my own, but boy, if you can get expert advice from people who’ve already done it, like if people could talk to you before opening a restaurant, it’d be a whole new ballgame.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s exactly right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I think, you know, my husband, Mark, so well. And, you know, he he has learned so much over the past, you know, well over a decade of running his company now. And I think for you to add, you know, being a man of faith, being a Christian that that infiltrated the way that you ran your business as well and how you treated people. You were like a servant leader. You were in there working with them.
SPEAKER 04 :
You bet. I love it. I love, you know, and you know, restaurants are all about the staff, by the way. I mean, the quality of your staff determines the success of your restaurant.
SPEAKER 06 :
A hundred percent. I feel the same way about cruise ships. Like some of these cruise ships are just known for their good staff, you know, and how they treat people and their work ethic. It just makes all the difference in the world, the service. It’s huge. It’s absolutely huge. Yep. Make or break you. Well, Ed, I just get a kick out of it. I can’t wait till next week when we have our next life lesson. Maybe we’ll talk about opening up the first broker and we can talk about being a grandparent and a dad and all your travels and just get such a kick out of you, friend. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. Thank you very much. And I wish you a very wonderful day. You too, Ed.
SPEAKER 06 :
Talk to you next week, Ed Nova.
SPEAKER 04 :
And hi to Mark. Hi to Mark. Thank you. Hi to Mark.
SPEAKER 06 :
You bet.
SPEAKER 03 :
There’s a present you wanted and didn’t get, and Arc Thrift might have it. They have aisles and aisles of products from vintage clothing to furniture and knickknacks to entertainment items like unique records and classic books. Find the hidden gem you’ve been looking for. And after all the holiday shopping at Arc Thrift, they now need your donations. As long as your items are gently used, Arc Thrift will take them and give them a new home. You may have gotten some new clothes, and now you need to clear out some room in that dresser or closet. Just donate at one of Arc Thrift’s 38 locations or their 15 donation centers. They always need donations, so why not start out the new year with downsizing the items you no longer need? You can find any Arc Thrift store or donation center on their website at arcthrift.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
Strasburg, you’re listening to the mighty 670 KLTT.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello, it’s Angie Austin and Grace Fox, and we are talking about her book, Fresh Hope for Today. And we are today talking about the devotion titled, Let It Go. Hello. Speaking of letting it go, you sprung one on me last week where you said you’ve been living in that sailboat in Vancouver, British Columbia for nearly a decade now. And you had decided you’re going to move back into your condo and refinish that. And you and your husband are moving inland. And so you can have your family, all these grandkids and kids come visit. So that’s a big change. Speaking of letting it go.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, that’s for sure. It is a big change. And I’m thankful we don’t have to let the boat go completely. We’re going to be able to hang on to it for a couple of years. So hopefully we’ll have more opportunities to use it. and just enjoy the beauty of the islands out here because it is so gorgeous. So restful when we get out there.
SPEAKER 06 :
And also what a great memory for the grandkids to know they come visit you, but they can still go out on a sailboat because it’s so neat to have a place, a thing, you know, to remember your childhood by special, you know, family cabin or special family, whatever. It’s just so wonderful.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s right. We want to make sure that they have opportunity to enjoy the beauty that we’ve enjoyed out there. So seeing the seals and the bald eagles and even seeing whales in their natural environment. What a fun thing to do.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and that’s not very common to be able to. I mean, I hadn’t seen my first rail until a few years ago, like actually in person. So some people go their whole lives without seeing one of those. So that is something definitely special. All right, well, let’s get into your devotion today. Let it go.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, so this one I based off 1 Peter 5, 7, which says, Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. And I had talked to the girlfriend who told me that she’d been at a women’s conference, and the speaker had talked about a toddler. The speaker had a toddler who was receiving a helium balloon with a string attached, And she had told this child to hold the string tight, but he did the opposite. He just opened his hand and let it go. So when the mother asked why he released it, he said, I didn’t let it go, mommy. I gave it to Jesus. And my girlfriend had said how she just started to cry when she heard the speaker tell this story because she felt like there were some things that It was in her family that were really heartbreaking, like really hard things happening at that point. And she wanted to let them go, but she almost felt guilty because she felt like, I can’t fix them, but I’m carrying a burden. I need to let them go. But to me, it feels like I’m betraying my family member, like I’m not caring enough by letting it go. And she just had to work through that, realizing that, yeah, letting it go didn’t mean she didn’t care about her family member. It meant she was giving it to Jesus because he’s the one that could fix it. She couldn’t, but he could. And I just thought that was so good because it’s tough to let things go without feeling like we’re turning our back on whoever it is who’s hurting. But, but we do because we’re not meant to carry the burdens that we see people carry in life. We’re not meant for that. But you know, when Jesus has given to me, let me carry them to be able to just release them to him and trust him.
SPEAKER 06 :
I wonder why it is so difficult for us to let things go. And I know, like, as your faith strengthens, and I know as you’re, you know, more in the Word, and you’re spending time, you know, in Scripture. that it may become easier to give things over to God. But in general, it’s not our human nature. And maybe it’s harder for men who are deemed by themselves and by society to be able to handle things better or to be in control. But I don’t know what inherently makes it difficult for us. And I’m not just saying letting it go like make no effort, but letting it go like taking – the burden of the worry and concern and anxiety off of your shoulders, why it’s so hard for us to let go of that part.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh Angie I think it’s because there’s this thing inside of us that wants control like there’s this human bent that always leans towards the negative so so when we’re facing these tough things our human bent is is taking us down that path of well what if this happens what if that happens they’re always towards the worst case scenario and we don’t want to go there we don’t want that worst case scenario to play out so we want to control to make it a better case scenario but you know that’s We think we have control. We want to have control, but in essence, we really don’t. Or we think we have control or want to. And so we try to manipulate things to turn out the way we want. And we just make a mess of things when we try to get in there and manipulate. And so it is a matter of trust and trust is not easy when we don’t know what that outcome is going to be. We think we know in our head what we want it to look like, but to give that up is really hard. And And that’s where Jesus says, come on, give it over. Can you trust me? I think, Angie, you know, that’s why I’ve written these other two books and a third one coming out on the names of God. And I just feel with all my heart, the older I get and the more I learn about who God is, the more life I live. I just think it’s so important to understand who God is. The more we… come to a true understanding of what his character is like, even as manifest through his biblical name, the better able we are to trust and to let it go. Because it’s really hard to trust someone we don’t know.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s a really good point. Right. The stronger our relationship is, the more that we’re able to trust the Lord. That’s a really good point. I like to listen to Charles Stanley at night, and I’m sure… He would he’s passed, but were he still here would not be pleased to know that I sometimes, you know, go to sleep listening to him. I find this voice really soothing, but the message I’ll replay if I wake up in the middle of the night and I’ll restart it and listen to it again, maybe even three times over the course of a day. And I feel like I know him. And I feel like through his teachings that I get closer to the Lord as well and develop my relationship as well, because I just for some reason just resonate with that man and what he had to say. And I just feel like he’s like part of my family, you know, and I think I only saw him once in. in atlanta you know so i obviously don’t know him know him um but with that said um knowing someone better allows us to trust them more but i also have a question about control and that we want to control things and i find some people have that urge stronger than others and i was teaching my kids yesterday in the car on the way to the airport taking one of my kids back to college i was saying um Let’s agree to disagree because being right, like when you want to be right and control a conversation or control a person and get them to admit they’re wrong, it doesn’t make you any friends. It doesn’t make you popular. It doesn’t make you better. You did not win, and it will not help your marriage in the future. And so we were arguing about something that I was very familiar with. One of my girlfriends during the O.J. Simpson trial was one of the reporters. I worked at NBC during that trial. And it was a huge part of our coverage for quite a long time, lots of overtime and, you know, all kinds of cameramen stationed there and reporters. Anyway, when my girlfriend’s Tracy Savage, she had information about DNA from O.J. Simpson’s sock that was blood from the murder scene that was on his sock at home is, you know, his own personal sock. So why was that blood on his sock if he wasn’t at the murder scene? Right. So that was a big deal. And so she was supposed to go on the stand and reveal her source. And she refused to reveal her source, but Judge Ito at the time was threatening to put her in jail because the defense was saying that her having that information was proof of some sort that the LAPD was trying to frame O.J., that they had released that information or they put the blood on the sock and then released the DNA info and given it to a reporter who then put it on air, blah, blah, blah. So anyway, she didn’t end up going to jail, but one of my kids said, well, they couldn’t legally put her in jail. I said, well, let me tell you, every single manager at NBC and my friend Tracy Savage, the reporter, thought that she could potentially go to jail that day because she was going to refuse to reveal her source. And she goes, that’s not legal. You can’t change the Constitution when they couldn’t put her in jail. And I said, well, because the defense thought, blah, blah, blah. And then I said, you know what, let’s just agree to disagree. And so she was angry with me on the way home. She was telling me how, you know, mom, you know, sometimes I know I know a lot about the government and constitution and sometimes you just have to admit you’re wrong. So, of course, I look it up later and I was right. But I said to my other daughter that was in the car, she was trying to defend me. I said, you know what? Here’s what I want you to take away from that. Sometimes you have to agree to disagree because you will not have a happy marriage if you always have to be right. You think you’re winning when you win an argument and you control someone and you’re like, I just want to put this straight and let you know that this is how things work and you’re wrong about this and you’re wrong about that. And then when you’re done and they acquiesce, you’re like, yes, I won. No, you didn’t. They don’t like you as much. You’re not as popular. You don’t have as many friends. And Dr. Phil always says, do you want to be right or do you want to be loved? I don’t know why people think that that is winning, because it’s not winning. It’s losing.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, yeah. Having to be in control, I think, is rooted in fear. We’re afraid to admit To let it go because what will happen if we do? It’s not going to go the way we want it to go. So I think we have to always look to see why are we doing the things we do? Why are we saying the things we say? What’s the root of why we have to be right? What’s the root of why we have to be in control?
SPEAKER 06 :
And how is that fear lessened by making other people around you feel lesser than? I know when my husband’s stressed, he said things to me that I don’t manage. He goes, you’re a bad manager of the kids because he feels I’m more laid back than he is. And we still as a family joke for like the last 10 years, the kids will be like, you’re a bad manager, mom. I go, oh, that’s it. I forgot about bad manager. So I actually think it’s hilarious. But I don’t know what it is when – like let’s say I’ve taken the kids out for fast food and he sees a charge, right? And he might take them out five times and I never say a word, but then I take them out one time and I’m getting a phone call the minute we’ve walked out of the fast food restaurant with our chicken nuggets or whatever, and I’m getting a lecture about – spending the money and the kids and why do I let them manipulate me and blah blah and all that does is make me feel that he doesn’t trust my instincts as a businesswoman as a money manager as a mother so then he always apologizes later but I don’t get how that kind of control how does that lessen your fear by making someone else feel inadequate right
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I think we could go into a whole long discussion on that, right? But I think the human psychology, the way it’s made up, the way our brain works is a very deep thing that a lot of times there’s just no easy answers. And for whatever reason, we’re rooted in certain behaviors that if they’re not right, they take a long time to undo because You know, some of them we’ve adopted to because of our upbringing, you know, from early childhood. So, yeah, it just takes a while, I think, to identify why we do the things we do, what the root cause is, and then how to move beyond it. It’s not an instant fix.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I guess the thing I want my kids to identify is that for a good relationship, that that doesn’t bolster or build confidence or love in a relationship. I have to be honest with you because I am one that doesn’t have to be right. It works for us and I’m OK with it that I’ll just say, you know, hey, I actually am pretty bright and I did quite well before I got married. I purchased real estate, ran a career, worked for NBC, had a very, you know, decades at different major news organizations. I said so. I know I’m capable, so don’t worry about me spending money on a kiddie meal at whatever, McDonald’s. I’m good, but I’ll do better in the future, and sorry that I upset you. I’m okay acquiescing to make him feel better, and it doesn’t actually make me feel less than to go, okay, okay, whatever you need to feel better and to feel calm, I can give in to that. But I’m just trying to teach the kids, don’t be a doormat, but – You don’t have to be right. In fact, it works out better to have a better relationship if you don’t have that need to always be right, because that person is like the least popular person in the room. Oh, Grace, I always get a kick out of talking to you. If you want to find Grace and her books, you can go to GraceFox.com.
SPEAKER 07 :
How many do we have now of Grace books you have?
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, my release that’s coming out in July will be number 16.
SPEAKER 06 :
Great. Congratulations. Thank you, friend.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
In this episode of ‘The Good News with Angie Austin’, Angie is joined by her good friend and accomplished restaurateur, Ed Novak. Ed shares his fascinating journey of opening his first restaurant, the challenges he faced, and the life lessons he’s learned along the way. Having successfully run restaurant chains for decades, Ed offers insights into perseverance and the importance of a hands-on approach to business. His stories of growth and sudden closure of Nero’s serve as a testament to the unpredictable nature of the restaurant industry and the necessity of sound legal and financial advice. Angie later dives
