We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Doug Zeif. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Doug below.

Alright, Doug thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, folks often look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight – but that often obscures all the nitty, gritty details of everything that went into the growth phase of your business. We’d love to hear about your scaling story and how you scaled up?

Scaling up became quite easy for me when I started our company back in 2013. The Blackstone Group had disbanded our redundant management company, in which I was a Senior Vice President, that was managing all of the hotel assets in favor of their significant investment in Hilton Worldwide, which was also a management company. There were 82 or so of us in the shared services company and everyone was outplaced into either a hotel asset or Hilton corporate.

So, in 2013, I went off on my own and had ONE client. The good news about that was a.) I was fully retained, and b.) I had done so much work on the Blackstone hotels, everyone knew me from the “brands”- Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, Four Seasons, and others. We had been so successful with the turnaround of the Four Seasons in Dallas, that they called me to see if we could take on more than 10 of their hotels, as well.

I was not about to say “no”. I am amongst the most resourceful people I know and I knew I could figure out how to do this with my lean staff. We jumped in with more than both feet and successfully helped Four Seasons become a better management company for their property owners.

In our business, reputation and referrals are everything. I don’t think I have gotten more than two clients from our website (I know what that says about our web presence, but…), yet we still have a full calendar of client work that doesn’t seem to subside.

Doug, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have been in the food and beverage industry ever since I can remember, well, at least after I was done with the paper routes. I started as a grill cook in an amusement park in Queens, NY and then became a bagel baker though high school. It took me a year, but I became a 5-shelf guy, which meant a BIG raise in pay! Getting there (5 shelves) was hard and costly to me as I bought LOTS of burnt bagels.

This was a real bagel place (two actually). We hand-rolled all of our dough and then boiled and baked the bagels. I worked the weekend 2am-10am shifts and was on the oven for the morning rush every weekend.

From there I went away to school in Buffalo, NY and worked my way up in a restaurant called The Library on Bailey. That is where this business really got in my blood. The management team there really fostered a huge sense of family and teamwork and, honestly, we all loved each other.

Upon leaving Buffalo, I moved to Southern California and got into a management training program with a large, national foot print of steakhouses and Mexican restaurants. I did well there quickly and they transferred me to Washington, DC, which tested every aspect of what I had learned along the way. I was the only Manager in TWO restaurants doing HUGE sales. It was very challenging for me both personally (I lived the hotel next to the restaurants for 12 weeks), and professionally as keeping things afloat, let alone trying to move them forward was extremely difficult and the lack of support I received from “corporate” caused me to start a job search.

I ended up being hired by a 10-unit steakhouse chain based in Miami as an Assistant Manager. The chain was owned by the co-founder of Burger King (David Edgerton) and his SVP of Operations (David Talty), who not only knew what they were doing, they were great people to be around and learn from. I see this experience as the most foundational for my background and what helped me become who I am in this business.

They sold the company after about 2.5 years of my tenure and I went on the road with the new company converting and opening restaurants for them. One thing led to another and I was recruited by the highest volume restaurant company in Florida at the time to be the GM of their flagship in Miami.

They also sold the company a couple of years later and I decided to go to Europe and add more girth to my resume, Once back in the U.S., I informally started consulting to people with operational problems and had great success with my few clients. That said, the consulting business felt to me like being sort of a hamster on a wheel- always looking for new clients once projects were finishing up and I also really wanted to get back out to Southern California.

I took a GM job with a finer-dining restaurant company based in Seattle, which had me located in Santa Monica. I quickly became their “firefighter”, fixing several restaurants for them and also opening a new concept for them in DTLA.

This company had the makings of being something great but they didn’t live their “intended” culture. They professed to be “Guest-first” but were really company-first. I became disenchanted with them rather quickly and, fortunately, ended up serving the founder of The Cheesecake Factory one evening when they had one restaurant open and the second was close to opening.

Turns out them coming in for dinner was actually an interview and they called me the next day to come in and talk. I hadn’t heard of it before, so I was “all ears”. I saw the original concept in Beverly Hills with its 16-item menu and a salad bar, where you ordered from the cooks and proceeded cafeteria-style to the register to pay. This wasn’t something I was interested in but the founder assured me that #2 was going to be full service and the menu would be expanded greatly.

We did that- I DID THAT! – and the rest is, well, history. We had an IPO in 1992. Yes, I was responsible for the company’s early growth (to 31 restaurants) and also all of the menu development, purchasing, and new restaurant openings fell under me.

It was a great run- over 11 years- and I was ready for other challenges, so I started up my consulting mechanism again. Then, in late 2004, I went “in-house” with a portfolio company owned by The Blackstone Group as a Senior VP overseeing food and beverage operations in their global hotel and resort portfolio, which grew to over 70 hotels during my time with them.

In 2013, Blackstone disbanded our management company in favor of Hilton Worldwide becoming the manager of our assets (they acquired Hilton in 2007) and they retained me to stay on in, more or less, the same capacity but as a consultant.

They are still my client today.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

In 2002, my family & I relocated back to South Florida and bought a restaurant. We had an investor lined up who disappeared shortly after the transaction was consummated and we became financially unstable. I hated the way this felt- really- and I had put my family’s well-being at significant risk. I remember one night as I was attempting to go home, I called my wife and asked her to put some money on my debit card so I could get gas and come home and she told me there was none. I wasn’t shocked but really embarrassed internally. I went back to the restaurant, took a $20 out of the bar drawer to get home, and replaced it the next morning when the credit card funds hit out account. I NEVER wanted to feel that way again. I remember one day we had trouble making payroll (the next day would have been fine, but…) and our Manager was on the expo line with me at lunch and she said to me “I can’t believe this doesn’t bother you”. I just looked at her and responded with: “Doesn’t bother me, are you kidding? It’s crushing me but I have 300 Guests to feed right now, and I am going to do that the best I can.” Also, “I will say, however, that there isn’t a single part of me that feels like I am NOT doing everything I can to save this business. I’d be a lot more crushed if there was more I could be doing and wasn’t. If you can’t stay, you should do what you need to for yourself.” We ended up selling the business after a year or so and all of the unpaid bills fell to me to take care of, which I did.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Certainly and first, what I did at The Cheesecake Factory and for The Cheesecake Factory and it’s investors is how my national reputation got solidified. I was the face of the company for years as the founder tended to avoid the public spotlight.

Second, the work I did, and still do, with The Blackstone Group gave me global credibility. You know who private equity is- you have to earn it every single day. That is what I do for our clients- earn it every single day- which is why we get rehired all the time.

You know, I think it’s important to say that, at this stage of my life and career, my interests are mostly in paying it forward. My goals are to help others with sincere interest and those willing to put in the work move themselves to where they want to be. This industry (especially the restaurant industry) is evolving and needs to change in significant ways. It is too male-dominated and needs to enable its people to earn a better-than-decent living without having to work two jobs. We are the only industry (and in the U.S. solely) where the Guests directly pay our team members the lion’s share of their compensation. I thought the pandemic would have helped move this forward, but we are back where we were plus the inflationary costs, including labor.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nexthospitality.com
• Instagram: NHA Global
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doug-zeif-47030011/