#185 César Ritz and Auguste Escoffier (The Hotelier and The Chef)

Podcast: Founders
Source: whisper-base
Language: en
Duration: 4937s
URL: https://afp-922710-injected.calisto.simplecastaudio.com/57933a1d-c5a9-4040-9aca-e766ae2ec0eb/episodes/9efce8be-cf32-4819-8f18-8e7b5c8dfd95/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=57933a1d-c5a9-4040-9aca-e766ae2ec0eb&awEpisodeId=9efce8be-cf32-4819-8f18-8e7b5c8dfd95&feed=3hnxp7yk
Fetched: 2026-03-03 08:35:42

Ritz was not humiliated. He was furious. After all he'd done for the Savoy, this was his thinks. To be cast out under a cloud of suspicion and false allegations, it was outrageous. Everything he'd done had been for the betterment of the Savoy. Of course he'd signed for checks and extended credit sometimes. That was his job as the manager, the host, the personification of the hotel and its generosity. All those who'd been given credit would certainly be paying their bills. It was insulting to suggest otherwise. And as for his dealings with the backers of the Ritz hotel syndicate, he had been perfectly abored from the outset. Richard had always understood that Ritz maintained his independence and would be involved in outside projects. Indeed, from the very beginning, this freedom had been written into his contract with the Savoy. For Richard to be holding it against him now was nothing less than a betrayal. But it was what Richard had said that Ritz and Escophier had forgotten they were servants and assumed the attitude of masters and proprietors. Those words echoed in his head even now. The idea that they should be seen as servants was the cruelest of insults. Cesar Ritz, August Escophier, servants? That was an excerpt in which Cesar Ritz and August Escophier are fired from the grandest hotel in London called the Savoy. And it comes from the book I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Ritz and Escophier, the hotel, the chef, and the rise of the leisure class. And it was written by Luke Barr. And I absolutely love this book. I devoured it in just two days. I have a ton of highlights, so we're going to get to that. First, I want to tell you how I found it. This is an example of something in an idea that you and I talk about all the time, which is that books are the original links. They lead you from one idea to another, from one person to another. On the last episode of Founders, episode number 184, which is about the autobiography of the Founder Four Seasons, I came across just one sentence in the book that really peaked my interest. And he said, remembering that Cesar Ritz had made his hotel's world famous by hiring some of the foremost chefs, we decided to do something similar. So I saw the name Cesar Ritz. I thought, okay, that has to be the Ritz Carlton guy, right? And the result of, is he sharp, which is the Founder Four Seasons, like all great entrepreneurs and founders studied the founders and entrepreneurs, the great entrepreneurs of the past, took ideas from their lives and careers and applied it to their own work. That is the entire thesis behind founders. It's something that, as you study the history of entrepreneurship, you see all of the best founders do. And this is the result of that. And by the mid-1980s, we had completely demolished the longstanding stereotype of a hotel restaurant as a mediocre overpriced trap for tired travelers. And so I read that, I was like, okay, I got to see if there's a biography, if there's a book on Cesar Ritz, if is he sharp? One of the most successful entrepreneurs ever lived is learning from him, why aren't you and I? And so that led me to this amazing, amazing book. And so it's about Cesar Ritz, which is his nickname is the Hôtelier to Kings, the King of Hôteliers, the Hôtelier to Kings and his partner, which is August Escaffier, which is probably my, you could argue that he's the most influential chef of all time. So let's jump into the book. I want to start with a description of Cesar Ritz. He's in his late 30s at the time and he's going to explore this opportunity in London. He's already owns a few hotels of himself. He's being recruited to run what is supposed to be the grandest hotel in the entire world. So says the express train he was on had launched a few years earlier in 1886 and it was state of the art. The trip would take a full day and night. It was remarkably fast, Ritz thought. The express trains were transforming European travel. Now why is that important to him? The express trains heralded a new era, bringing throngs of visitors from all over Europe. This was good for Ritz. He was in the hotel business. So it's opening up new markets. The way I want you to think about the section that we're in right now is you think of and you've seen this in the past and past episodes of Founders. If you're studying any American business history, let's say in the late 1800s, early 1900s, you realize that the railroads were the internet of their day. And what does that mean? They were large technological platforms that create massive business opportunities that you can build on top of the platform, just like the internet enables today. And that's exactly what's happening in Ritz's business. It's bringing him a lot more customers and he's having access a lot more customers than he would if they didn't exist. His business was pleasure. Ritz was a hotel man, welcoming guests with well-practiced charm at his two small properties. He was 39 years old and had been working in the hotel business his whole life all over Europe. And then it goes into a little bit about his background and his philosophy and how he runs his hotels. The Dapper Young Swiss Hotelier was effortlessly multilingual and never forgot a name or face. Not only that, he also took careful notes of his clients' whims and desires. This is something we saw Izzy actually put into practice and he actually computerized this process throughout the four seasons hotel chain. Ritz was also a showman, an orchestrator of evening entertainments and Gallaudinners. Izzy did the exact same thing to draw attention to his hotels. He had advertised both the hotel and restaurants extensively, printing lavish brochures and installed electric lights which at this time was a novelty. And so that got him attention above his terrace. Kaiser Wilhelm I, the German emperor at the time, had eaten dinner at his restaurant and Ritz made sure everyone knew it. So at this point the story Ritz is storing this lavish party at his restaurant to publicize his restaurant. He brings it's called bringing the outside in so he transforms the interior of the restaurant. Just like your outdoors, there's tons of trees and flowers and Ritz was a great believer in flowers, vast, extravagant quantities of them throughout his entire life. He used that idea at every single one of his hotels and it's at this crazy gathering that he's going to meet this guy named Richard. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. I think it's Deoily Carté. I'm only going to refer to him as Richard to keep things simple. This is the guy that just fired him but this is him trying to recruit Ritz to his hotel in London and we'll go into why it was really fascinating to me is how paint Ritz was at making this decision and why he wind up choosing this opportunity. And that one decision changes the course of his entire life which is we'll go into a lot of detail about that today. So it says it was just after dinner when Ritz was approached by an Englishman named Richard. This is the sort of thing he's talking about the party that Ritz is throwing. I'd like to do at my new hotel in London. Richard was now building a large luxury hotel next door to his theater, also called the Savoy. One that he said would be the best in the world and so he had never built a hotel before, had no expertise. He had wind up, Richard made his fortune producing what they call comic operas at the time. There's just these hugely popular entertainment shows that you sell tickets to and so he realized hey my theater successful why don't I build a hotel right next to it and I can make money doing that. And so now Richard's going straight into his pitch. He says what London needed was a man like Ritz. You'd make money hand over fist. There were plenty of large hotels in London but their food and service were mediocre. So let me pause right there. The idea that they're talking about hey I've identified an opportunity because there's tons of hotels that already exist. They're making money and yet they're very mediocre. We saw the exact same thing on the last book where Izzy on the night was on the night of his honeymoon. He winds up staying at this one of the most successful hotels I think in Toronto and it's at the airport. He's like oh this we thought it was going to be glamorous because it's so successful and winds up being a dump and he's like wait a minute if this place can make money and they're not even running it well. What happens if you can actually make a great hotel and that actually gave Izzy confidence in trying to pursue winds up being his life's work. Richard was no longer making idle small talk about the hotel business. He was offering Ritz a job and so Ritz like every single other entrepreneur primary motivation is control. They want control over how they spend the time what they work on. So he's going to turn Richard down. He's like no I've just gone into business myself. His plate was full. He had said no. So Richard does something smart. He's like okay you don't have to accept a job. What if I pay you two you come to my hotel for two weeks as a consultant right and he winds up paying him the equivalent of what would be like a for two weeks would be a good like a decent annual salary for like a middle class worker. All right so this is actually smart so he says why not come to London for the grand opening just for a short visit a week or two. You could survey the operation and offer advice. Ritz's knowledge and expertise would be invaluable. He would be a consultant and then he talks about Ritz's thing about that because he says you know this amount it's a lot of money. It's the equivalent of a decent annual salary. So Ritz is thinking about it. He goes home talks to his wife. His wife is probably the most important person in his life because it's her his muse. She becomes she's she's helps him build the hotel. She helps with the design. She he vents to her. He actually met her because he her family owned I think the Grand Monaco I think her uncle owned the grand hotel in Monaco and that's the one Ritz was Ritz was managing the hotel when he met his soon to be wife. I'll go into more detail about his background because it's fascinating. He starts out unbelievably poor. He's born in a village in the Swiss Alps of like 120 people. There's like 11 kids in his family. He leaves home to start working at 12 years old. I mean his life and Augustus Gaffie's life is just remarkable. This book is fantastic. I'm telling you but anyways Ritz is talking to his wife and he's just like she's like why does he want? You have a good reputation. His hotels are in small cities usually that are that only see travel by the unbelievable wealth in a few months of the year and so Ritz is telling and you know London even though it's the center of it's probably the richest I think it's the largest and richest city in the world at this point in history and so Richard's idea is like why don't we the same clientele that you get at your hotels right to say travel they'll come to London because London's like the center there's like a gravitational pool for all of the the world's wealthy right so Ritz is saying he meaning Richard wants to vanderbilt and the mortgage and the Rothschilds there was nothing that gave Ritz more pleasure than contemplating the list of his most illustrious glamorous guests the prestige money and honor their names represented a represented prestige and now attached itself in some way to his own name and his name becomes a brand this is the precursor he's obviously the precursor to the Ritz Carlton hotel brand that still exists 100 years later it come that name is actually trademark and licensed out and it's based on two hotels that Ritz is going to build later on his career which is the hotel Ritz and Paris and the Carlton hotel and London we'll get there too so says the the their honors and the honor of their names represented prestige and now attached in in some way to his own name and for a man who grown up hurting cows and goats in the Swiss Alps that was saying something so continuing this discussion with his wife he says something that's really interesting because remember Ritz at this point he's around 39 years old he's been working in the hotel industry for over 20 years this entire life and he started as a waiter worked himself worked his way up he knows how to do every single thing in the hotel he's a completely obsessed person this winds up his life as an unhappy ending because of that which I'll get to but he says something that other great entrepreneurs have realized and he says to his wife about Richard the fact that he doesn't know what he's getting into he hasn't the least idea how much work and care how much imagination and effort go into the proper running of hotel I'm going to quote Steve Jobs here says the exact same thing 100 years later no 80 years later they have no conception of the craftsmanship that is required to make a good idea and turn it into a good product Ritz is saying the exact same thing as Steve Jobs said another main theme of this book and I would say Richard's like the third there's two main characters there's Ritz and Escafé there's the main characters Richard's the third main character he's obviously an entrepreneur as well and there's something that Mark and Jason said that I think perfectly sums up the the entrepreneurial emotional roller coaster he's talking to his found his co-founder Ben Horowitz at the time and he says to Ben hey do you know the best things about startups Ben says what and Mark says you only experience two emotions euphoria and terror and so that is a mean theme of this book that is a very old idea and we see that here with Richard we're also going to see it with Escafé and Ritz Richard found himself consumed with anxiety the deep and existential kind that accompanies great risk undertaken in public he had put it all on the line for this hotel his money his friends his friends money and his reputation he had spent five years building the hotel and now this was the moment of truth and that moment of truth is the grand opening before I get into that and everything Ritz notices that's where Ritz is on the train that's where he's headed to now he's he's there's there's an interesting thing just a few sentences here for you that's really fascinating and it's an element to human nature that never changes so it's important for us to understand there's a lot of this is one of the first hotels in London to have electricity to have light bulbs and to have elevators and his customers are scared humans are always scared of the new and now you know 120 years 140 years later really this you're scared of an elevator light bulb like what were you crazy but they thought they were like little bombs they would explode and so I'm going to read this section to you and then I'm going to tell you another thing that I learned from Steve Jobs it's a very very powerful idea for you so says Richard understood that he needed to educate his clients actually this is about the theater not the hotel but the hotel does have elevators this is the first theater in London his was the first theater in London to be lit entirely by electricity a fact that aroused much curiosity but also fear so his customers are asking how is it safe just how flammable exactly was a light bulb and so he has to do public demonstrations and show that you know it's not flammable everything's okay you're not going to the theater's not going to burst in the frame to flames something that I heard Steve Jobs say one time that thing is a very powerful idea and he talks about what is marketing what is advertising and you can wrap this up in in in public relations right he says good PR educates people that's all it is that's his exact quote good PR educates people that's all it is more on Richard's making not only be how how he designed his theater but also how he designed his hotel which is he does something really smart here again is he sharp founder four seasons did the exact thing same thing if something annoys you it there's a good chance it annoys your customers too so by eliminating that you actually build a better experience for your customers this leads to hopefully more success in your business right just as he had at the theater Richard planned to eliminate all the extra-onious charges at the hotel aiming for a smoother and less irritating service no charge for baths lights or attendance announce a full-page advertisement for the hotel such charges for basic services this is so important right because everybody else humans don't think we copy right so everybody else is just like well other hotels they charge for the stuff so I'll build a hotel and I'll do the same thing but you can have make vast levels of improvement by just bucking the trend and asking yourself does this actually make sense and most people never asked a question such charges for basic services were common at most hotels and infuriated him endlessly this was so common that there was a very um there's a very common book that was called that was written at the time this is written in the 1850s it was called the English hotel nuisance and it was a book that out this is hilarious it's a book that outlined every shabby indignity overpriced candle unusable bar of soap in uh in edible stake uncomfortable room and gouging fee charge for indifferent service at hoat at English hotels and this is a very very powerful idea we've seen over and over again the the competition the bar is so low that they're writing books on how bad it is and yet no one thinks to improve it so Richard thinks to improve it sees our ritz did this instinctively right now the example is is he go go back to that example of is he sharp staying at hotels like this is a terrible hotel our terrible motel like I can do a better job in this go back to wall Disney his life's creative work even though he's known for animation and building the best content library in human history his life's work if you estimate the most important he ever worked on was Disneyland and that opportunity existed because every other at the before Disneyland amusement parks were were for like suckers they were run by essentially con artists and and when he wanted to build and when Disney wanted to build a um uh an amusement parker was like why would you do that there's such crappy experiences and he's like that's exactly the point mine won't be go back to what we just learned in the johnny i've book uh when Steve Jobs comes back to apple apples trying to do the same thing that every other computer maker is just make undistinguishable hardware that's running Microsoft windows and computer on price and Steve says i'm not doing that i'm gonna build the best 3000 i'm not gonna build the worst five the cheapest computer that the the five hundred dollar computer that more people like the most amount of people will buy i'm going to build the best three thousand dollar computer because people always pay for quality the opportunities because everybody's chasing after the same goal let's build the cheapest computer possible and Steve's like no i'm going to build the best computer possible and so again if somebody's writing a book on how bad the experiences that's a giant screaming sign there's the opportunity that idea fires me up let me fast forward uh go back i want to go back more to this you fair euphoria and terror idea and again building companies is for the crazy you are you not find normal people to do this because everybody that tries knows this feeling Richard's experience then again the truth was Richard and the the reason i bring this up is like founders or misfits obsessive people are a little crazy this is this is not meant for everybody the truth was Richard enjoyed the pressure the rush of putting on a show it was exhilarating so we use the word euphoria they're using word exhilarating if a little panic inducing which is a crate another word for terror so how crazy do you have to be how unusual do you have to be that you're enjoying the pressure and part of the reason he's so terrified because he knows there's a real very real chance of failure and he knows that from his show business current not every show succeeded he knew that or he knew that you launched them as well as you could and hope for the best that reminded me of something the edwin land founder of polaroid steve jobs hero somebody have done i've read five books i think a five different podcast on this guy he's one by far one of the most important entrepreneurs ever live and he says something is really interesting talks about you know any difficult endeavor building a product doing science you have to to endure the error part of the trial and error axiom and he says why you have to do is because what your product is right the experimentation the invention of of instant photography in his case he's saying where we sell the results of our failures what a great way to think about a finished product it's the result of your failures it might have taken you a thousand times two thousand different experiments to get your product right but once you have it right you're selling the results of your failures James James Dyson knew the exact same thing he built 5127 prototypes before he finally had the vacuum cleaner the way the way he wanted it the way up up to his standards a heat control he could go out and sell and that going through that 5127 prototypes now he owns a hundred percent of Dyson the Dyson company i think last time i checked he's now worth somewhere like thirty billion dollars but that took twelve years 5127 prototypes he's selling the results of his failures okay so let's go back to let's go to ritz on london his his impression here is going to influence an important decision he makes later and don't worry we're going to get to august is coffee he's he's he's a he's got a fantastic mind there's a lot of way to learn from him to promise he's coming ritz had never seen anything like it london was a metropolis of five and a half million people more than twice the population of paris the next big big city in europe and far bigger than new york city berlin tokyo viana or any other city in the world for that matter it was the booming center of the global of a global empire there were vast amounts of money here remember in the late 1800s and an unrivaled concentration of business politics and trade london was another world and it amazed him so now we get into like the brief bio on ritz and then more about his critical i which is also something that helps build great products on understanding what's wrong with other products so he says this was the very heart of a world that had shaped him a world of privilege and luxury in which he had forged a place for himself against all odds ritz had not been born to this life raised in a tiny village population of 123 in the foothills of the swiss alps he was the last of eleven children and had left home at the age of twelve he was a self-made man and beneath his placid impenetrable swiss poise lay enormous ambition he knew immediately that the savoy had every reason to succeed it was the right time and the right place for a modern luxury hotel london was booming except as the days went by his doubts crept in this is where we get to his critical i ritz could see that the kitchen would not live up to ritz's grand ambition for the place it was not organized properly service was slow and that's another thing like almost every single great founder Jeff Bezos says going slow is expensive for sure in the johnny i've book talks about apples of extremely fast company johnny's amazing when when they're picking colors for the new i max he's like see jobs did it in 30 minutes other companies to take three months so again we see this i bring this up to you because it's extremely important when we see this entrepreneurs that don't know each other they live the different times in history different industries different parts of the globe and yet they all pick up on the the important aspects these are fundamentals these are principles that we can then use and apply our own work speed speed speed extremely important speed is a function of time so you're saying not only you're not organized properly you're moving too damn slow you got to pick up the pace here what you're doing the food was fine okay that's that's not what you want to hear but it was not great it was not all inspiring it was not is scoffier now we get to his central idea where he feels feels ritz feels his success was in large part due to scoffier which is exactly what is he sharp new right ritz knew better than anyone the importance of the kitchen and creating a truly luxurious hotel experience he had built his success in the hotel business in tandem so think about when you when we're going to this book today and i hope you do read it because it's absolutely fantastic their partners ritz is technically the the like the senior partner but they he doesn't they both have control of their domains and they have a partnership and a friendship that lasts their entire lives which is also rare with two headstrong really successful people he had built his success at the hotel business in tandem with the brilliant chef august is scoffier at the grand hotel monicarlo and the grand hotel national in lucerne where they both work for years is scoffier had dazzled this is my also my favorite part of these books that we're reading because they're both super well-known super famous but we know them at the end of their careers right this is when they're in their thirties they're not yet i mean they're they're showing signs of who they become they haven't become those people yet this is my favorite part of studying the lives like who i go back to um i think it was like episode number 140 something that that book on bill gates yeah maybe i'll listen to bill gates talk now when you 65 seven you don't get me wrong but that's the bill gates in that book that i did it's called hard drive i covers the first 35 years of his life that is the bill gates that built the success that the bill gates of today enjoys these that's that's the most relatable part yeah it's very hard to relate to multi-billionaire you know it's at the end of their career most of us are still on the way up right so we want to learn what the great people did when they were on their way up right and this is where i have a big smile on my face just thinking about like you have seesaw rits in august scoffie before they were rits in the scoffie working together they had to put in the work before and we get to see that because somebody wrote down these lessons in a book how amazing is that um scoffie oh that just gets me excited okay uh they had both worked there for years scoffie had dazzled guests with his cooking inventing new dishes and finding new ways of presenting classics that's a key right there he takes he understands the fundamentals and then builds on top of them and he writes one of the most famous culinary books uh it's still half a not a half a century over a century later still imprinted a still used today that's how how valuable his ideas were and it's the fact that people were ignorant of what came before them that's also with David Olga we talked about he said that people that don't study history are ignorant amateurs he did not mince words about that um so scoffie says the same stuff but again think about that his his main theme understand the fundamentals and then build on top of that so he find new ways of presenting classics classics rits often thought that is scoffie in fact was the key to his own success the savoy's chef was not on the same level and so rits sees what's going on but he also plays it close to his fast remember he's not an owner in the hotel he's not accepting a job he's a consultant so he's observing but he's not going to run over the people that are already working there he was not there to direct and organize a staff but to offer advice which he did politely he could see every flaw and how to fix them again he's an obsessive and again when we get to the end you'll see his his life does have a sad ending because of his obsessive nature unfortunately you know sometimes our strengths our greatest strengths can be our greatest weaknesses we have to be careful uh Richard had told rits proudly that it was his wife Helen who had taken charge of the decor so rits held his tongue rits did not like the decor when rits is going to wind up taking over the hotel later after a lot of a consternation and months of being recruited and saying no and he gets rid of that and that causes an issue remember he gets fired by Richard later on that's how we started the podcast i'm not bearing the lead there very important all these things are very important because it's going to lead him to his greatest success which is also an exciting job there was no point in antagonizing Helen with uh his views on the hotel design so he didn't very smart move there and anyway the real problems were deeper alone in his room at the end of his two weeks day rits contemplated this avoids future it will not succeed he thought not under its present management and even at the end of two weeks he's still not accepting the job he wanted the independence of the entrepreneur same thing about when you read biography of Thomas Edison one of the first things opening paragraphs in that book the Wizard of Menlo Park he just wanted the autonomy of entrepreneur a small shop where he can work on his own ideas he didn't have these grand ambitions i mean he wind up having wind up succeeding on a grand scale but he says i just want to have control over what i work on and and let me pick my ideas in my own time and and and make my own money so rits is the same things i have worked for people for 25 years i just finally but fought my independence i don't want to give it up now but uh rits had no regrets about turning down the job rits had spent years i just ran out of my own point here rits had spent years working for others and was now finally a hotel owner himself yes his hotel was small but they were his and seeing the wealth in London only reinforces his desire for independence and his confidence is on success so we're going to go more in the background of rits here this is hilarious because it's this person's a ridiculous person that says this to him i'll get to in a minute but um let me give some background and again a large part that's going to be surprising is this this idea of imposter syndrome that in quiet moments which most people don't share with other people is like they don't think they're good enough you can be with someone the most successful people in the world already accomplished do things that most people never do in their lives and then they they just have these uh what we call a mental breakdown um because that's not the very word for it but they just have these periods of intense doubt like i'm a fraud uh rits was proud he was also full of what Marie that's his wife thought were silly insecurities about his peasant family background and about his lack of education he had spent his youth as a waiter serving the high in mighty observing just exactly how his customers comported themselves how they spoke how they wrote their jacket so he learns from them he starts copying their ideas right within a few years rits had worked his way up as a uh as a waiter at some of the best Parisian restaurants he still remembered serving the american railroad tycoon j-gold i actually have a book about this crazy guy i haven't got to it yet but it will be a future episode founders um so let me he's an american railroad tycoon j-gold at the end of the meal gold had offered rits some advice it's a mathematical certainty that the new age is going to be an age of electricity and steel this is probably around 1850 i would j- i would guess he said bank on it but don't let machinery govern you take off your coat now and again and work in a garden that's what the new generation was learning to do if it wants to keep sane uh gold went on to describe his love of manual labor of working outside of digging his hands in the soil and how invigorating it all was yeah that's nice if you can do that because you like to do it it's different if you have to do it right and that's what we're going to see here rits had grown up on a farm hurting livestock from a very young age he knew all about hard outdoor work and the irony of the robber baron millionaire telling him also wisely about the benefits of working the land were not lost on him everything rits had done in his life he had done in order to escape that fate he had seen too much of the hard scrapbook desperate life of peasants to romanticize it of course he could say none of this to gold and only smiled he's as he cleared the dishes from the table later he told Marie the stories of his early life his struggles his ambition his fears and she alone understood his silence at that moment listening to j-gold was the silence that propelled him now so he is reflecting back he's talking you know he's now a successful hotel the air and he's looking back at these experiences telling it telling his wife about this and then he's also giving here her fuel to the fire and we've seen this example too and I'm gonna you know I'm gonna tell you my note before I read this and it's very very important I've learned this from a lot of the entrepreneurs that were sitting here when people tell you that you can't do something what they're really saying is they can't do it I can't do it they're not they don't know what you can do only you know what you can do and you only know that by betting on yourself and so look how ridiculous this is this is one of his boss as I said he had he had persevered you'll never make anything of yourself in the hotel business his boss at one of his first very first job said I told him it takes a special knack a special flair and it's only right that it should tell you the truth you haven't got it and this this next sentence just fires me up well he'd got it now and the reason I say we said that before is because one of the first time one of the first jobs Sam Walton founder of Walmart ever had was that JC Penny JC Penny was almost like a Sam Walton before Sam Walton was right just like Jeff Bezos studied Sam Walton Sam Walton studied previous founders that came before him and they tell him it's like oh you know you're not you're not cut out for retail you're never gonna make it and now looking back at like how ridiculous that statement okay you're not cut out for retail oh how about you know what I'll be become the best retailer in history how about that same things happening here you're not cut out to be in hotel to be in the hotel business oh you know what how about I build the best hotel brand that has ever lived how about that this is this this this this tendency in human nature is annoying to go around and just shitting on other people's hopes and dreams why don't we do the other thing why don't we encourage it but what is the difference if someone wants to follow their dream if they succeed or fail has nothing to do with you so why do people do this think about if Ritz had listened it takes a special knack a special flair and the answer only right should tell you now you don't have it so go find something else to do and I go back to what I think about one of the most important events in Henry Ford's life at the time people are building the early cars I think a lot of people find the surprising is that a lot of cars were electric or steam powered there were very few internal combustion engines and so Ford I think he's like 30 years old to time before he's building Ford motor company and he winds up being at a meeting with with because he worked for Edison electric company and he worked on his internal combustion engine at night but he winds up getting to a table an older gentleman introduced him to Edison and talks about hey this Ford guy's got a unique idea and so Edison's like partially deaf and so he has to move chairs and he has to almost scream so Edison can hear him and he talks about here this is my idea you know cars should be built internal combustion industry because they have all the power self-contained and Edison like I think he slams his head on the table I forgot exactly he's exactly he's worth or something like you have it that's a great idea keep at it young man and that Henry Ford goes home and he's fired up and that that inspiration derived from Edison you know as it's super famous a couple decades older he's like wow if Edison thinks I have the right idea I need to keep doing this and he we know because I've done you know I don't know what five podcasts on Henry Ford I forgot how many at the moment but um he perseveres through multiple failings a lot of people don't know think is what first his first company deafening fails I feel like it's if I remember correctly his first two fail but he had to go through some failures before he winds up building one of the most successful companies of all time and he winds up owning their early 1900s he owns a hundred percent of Ford Motor Company it's crazy so again just think about this like if we have the opportunity if somebody's telling us about a hope or a dream you know if you don't think it's gonna work maybe if you could point out constructive criticism then yeah that's something different you know but just say oh you haven't got it this is this intangible I don't see it in you just give up like no let's do the opposite let's encourage people to build more things because if they're successful then we get to have the benefit of their great product it's positive some you know she was her husband's closest confidant and also his muse he adored her she inspired him and calmed him Ritz's high strong perfectionism would sometimes turn in private to introspection and doubt and Marie was the one who sued his nerves and so at this point in the story he's back home he he left London but he can't stop thinking about the opportunity and so he's talking to his wife about it again it would not succeed without him was what he meant Marie could sense her husband's anguish he had seen the future in London and wanted so much to be part of it Caesar was I don't know if it's Caesar Caesar I think it's he I'm gonna say I'm just gonna call him Ritz Ritz was happiest when he was busy going non-stopped and the challenge the Savoy represented was tantalizing him at the same time he was proud and immensely protective of his recent independence he would not go back to being an employee but he couldn't stop thinking about it and so something important happens the Savoy gets a lot of press the opening is a grand success but after a few months the business is decreasing it's not run properly just as Ritz said so Richard goes back to constantly he keeps trying to recruit Ritz over and over again Ritz like no no no no after several months they finally come up with a deal and it's way he can work at the Savoy for six months of the year and still have his independence for his hotels so it says he would continue to run his hotels and he would stay in London for only half a year he would maintain his independence the most valuable thing to him what made what made it all work was where the the complimentary high travel seasons for the various groups of leisurely and aristocratic clientele at Ritz cater to so in other words the six months of the year that they're not in in France and I think his other hotels in Switzerland they're being in London so he's like okay I'll just follow my clientele I can do both so Ritz is not going to go to London though without his partner and he's not at this time working with a scoffier anymore because he can't afford him so he goes to recruit him and so this is an introduction to a scoffier uh august a scoffier a scoffier was a discipline and scientific Frenchman calm quiet and thoughtful he was a brilliant and innovative cook inventing new dishes and always keeping careful notes of what he served to import guests so to never make the same thing twice he and Ritz had worked his counterparts since the mid 1980s they were an odd couple and ideal partners like Ritz a scoffier had grown up poor in a tiny village they'd both left home at an early age to work as apprentices Ritz is a waiter a scoffier as a cook temperamentally however they were opposites and this is also why a scoffier had a much longer and I think happier life than Ritz did unfortunately Ritz was outgoing debonair and excitable by a scoffier was cerebral and methodical Ritz was extravagant ambitious and prone to self doubt while a scoffier was self assured and precise so it talks about how they met I think this was at the hotel in Monte Carlo uh one of his Ritz's chef ones of getting recruited away I'll skip the guy's name it's French anyways I couldn't pronounce it and he says the chef had been good but Ritz remembered something that the chef had also had said he often sang the praises of his master in Paris uh they worked for a scoffier at this restaurant I'm not going to pronounce it's also French a man named August a scoffier who taught him everything he knew and so Ritz tracked down this scoffier and hired him and so Ritz at this point had already come to realization that existed in a hotel a luxury hotel business really is the restaurant is a large part of that and then scoffier chooses to team up with him because Ritz's reputation being in some of the grandest hotels in Europe at the time he's like okay I'm gonna I'm gonna team up with this guy because I want a little bit of that that fame he did like being famous uh scoffier meanwhile had come to realization that he was a brilliant chef and he needed an appreciative audience Ritz was on his way to becoming the premiere hotelier in Europe and now a scoffier found himself acquiring a bit of fame too recognition recognition for his culinary invention quite apart from their sole own self interested reasons it turned out that Ritz and scoffier worked exceedingly well together they were a team they were also friends and they'd stayed in touch even after Ritz had left the grand and the national the previous year to go out on his own he could not yet afford a chef of a scoffier's caliber this was his chance he said oh excuse me this was their chance now this is we're into the Ritz's pitch to scoffier and this is important because towards the end of his life a scoffier will look back and he he survives Ritz by I think like 20 years and so everyone's a meeting with uh visiting Ritz's widow and looking back and being glad that Ritz convinced him to go to London so this is a really important part in the life in both of life so really the life of scoffier as well this was their chance Ritz said to open the best restaurant in the world Ritz would not do it without a scoffier not only because the scoffier was great chef but also because he had perfected the modern organization of the kitchen restaurant for all problems Ritz had seen at the Savoy restaurant is scoffier was the solution and so what does that mean he reorganized a modern kitchen environment what are they talking about well I'm gonna tell you about that but really what I want you to think about as I read to you a few sections from this page these pages think about the levels of self-confidence you would need to change the way something had been done for hundreds of years that's exactly what scoffier did restaurant kitchens were intense sometimes brutish places the men who worked in them were frequently drunk everyone shouted all the time the heat from the ovens was inescapable everyone sweat and swore profusely kitchens were hot dirty and loud the mess at the Savoy that morning reminded a scoffier of the restaurant kitchens of his youth and how much he hated them a scoffier had been working in kitchens since he was 13 and had always despised the uncivilized cacophony and abuse they seem to foster the wretched conditions of kitchen work had taken years to solve indeed he was still working on it so again we see this example you could see something being done see obvious flaws that other people for some reason are just keep going on for this this this experience that is not optimal and by just thinking okay what is the best way how can I just remove all the things that I think are poor about this experience and it's the subtract it's additionally subtraction right and then so I so I take away the loudness I take away the fact that everybody's drunk you can't do your best work when you're drunk I mean come on what are we doing here and it's through the removing of the bad parts I create something better then then once I've removed the bad parts I can start adding good parts right so he says a scoffier was not an educated man but he had quickly discovered that he had a real talent for cooking which he saw as both a science and an art of course the over the course of the previous decade a scoffier had organized restaurant kitchens to his own exacting specification he had instituted a rational modern division of labor and a level of specialization that went far beyond he had begun to establish a new ethos for the professional kitchen one that depended on respect respect for the chefs respect for the ingredients respect for the artistry of cooking this is how then so he talks about he's changed and this is a punchline that he he had changed he's naming all the things that he didn't like about it and again he's not the first person go back to James Dyson James Dyson when he started building the Dyson vacuum cleaner because he thought the Hoover vacuum cleaner was such a crappy experience and his whole point is like I was probably the millions person that he'd use a Hoover vacuum that realized it was suboptimal the difference was I did more than just think about it I acted and a scoffier is doing the same thing he said this was how it'd been done in kitchens in Europe for centuries he was there's no way a scoffier was the first person to notice the deficiencies in the way kitchens organized he was the first person to do something about it a scoffier continued he won an atmosphere of calm and cooperation he said he wanted serenity there would be no vulgar language there would be no shouting this is what he says about that the rush hour in kitchen is not a time for rush of words slow methodical calm and quiet how he's how he does his work right a scoffier so he he I don't know if I already said this but he he's coming to this avoid he's observing like this is not going to work and so now he's he's talking to the people now he's in charge of he pointed at the men's white aprons and uniforms they were stained splattered some of them quite filthy a scoffier spoke in his quiet precise way I want all of your uniforms to be perfectly this is going to remind you this is wow now I'm just realizing this is I remember this and I didn't take it I didn't leave a note it's just coming to my mind now Bill Walsh I think it was what founders number episode 106 something like that it's the score takes care of itself in his whole thesis is that champions act like champions before their champions and then if you do the little things right the score will take care of itself if you do all the little things right and in business like the profit will take care of itself everything it's focusing on the fundamentals and the little things and and he talks about I remember in that book he people he takes over to San Francisco 49ers it's like a really crappy team within a few years they went up winning Super Bowl under his his his ethos right and this is one of the most implement as far as like modern day technology technology entrepreneurs although it applies to much more domains and just technology this book is one of the most influential books that you can possibly read people from all different founders of companies you know talk about this right so anyways he noticed that people would uh one examples people come back from practice and just to row the helmet and so he's like this is this is has our 49er logo on it this is a representation of who we are and what we're about you place it neatly in your locker you put it down I don't ever anybody could kick people off the team for like minor fractions like this but there's a reason you do this and now that I'm thinking about it we see a scoffier is going to illustrate our um annunciate rather a similar idea here he took a point at the men's white aprons and uniforms they were stained splattered some of them quite filthy a scoffier spoken is quite precise way I want all your uniforms to be perfectly white at the beginning of each day and when you leave the restaurant you will change into a proper jacket tie and hat this is a matter of self-respect we are professionals we will present ourselves professionally that is a quote from August of scoffier that could have easily come out of bill washes mouth is scoffier was now telling them their appearance their cleanliness which just as important as their sharpness of their blades there will be no drinking of any alcohol this is another tradition dating back decades if not centuries cooks in the kitchens getting drunken by the hour we are not drunks he said we're cooks for all his stern lecturing and unsmiling absolutism absolutism he felt protective of these men they were his people one sentence just to add to a uh a point idea where I talked about this is ritz and I don't know if myself is being slow is being slow is expensive for sure but Jeff Bezos ritz is saying he wanted to import his staff the importance of quickness go back to scoffier we have another example history of entrepreneurship is full of examples of this this is another master of his craft that is obsessed with simplicity the food and it talks about scoffier why is scoffier food so different the food itself was less complicated than it had been shorn of unnecessary ornamentation in edible decoration and too many sauces this was his motto it's in French I don't know how to say it so I'm going to translate it for you above all make it simple another idea we learned in the last episode is he sharp did the exact same thing that sees our ritz is doing here I'm sorry no this ritz did this I already mentioned that part to you this is a scoffier with the same ideas with all three of them having a common scoffie incident a more systematic record keeping in his files organized by organized by customer name it was this record of predilections favorite dishes and likes and dislikes that made possible is scoffier seemingly magical uncanny ability to design the perfect meal for his regular guests every time something else I found interesting it was not his he winds up being really good at it at beginning he wanted to be a sculptor he was forced into being a chef and then realized he found love doing it and found we realized he'd be really good at it this the summer of this section would I wrote to myself bloom where you are planted the scoffie was an artist at heart he dreamed when he was a young boy a dream of being a sculptor unfortunately that I was forced to give up this dream his father insisting on a more reliable professor profession had sent him to apprentice at his brother's restaurant I was informed that I was to be a cook and I was given no option but to obey and so he brought his artistic temperament to bear in the kitchen so another example of an idea that you know I've talked about over and over again never underestimate humans ability to focus on the inconsequential the partners that Richard had in his theater the people that he made the comic operas with they made a lot of fortunes they got a rich together and they're about to suit they suit each other because they're fighting over who should pay for a new carpet this is a ridiculous behavior we should avoid Gilbert went to court to sue Richard who would not bend on the question of expenses of the carpet it seemed astounding that these men who had each made a fortune working together were now squabbling in public over a few hundred pounds it was bad it was it was bad for all the reputation and it was perhaps a sign of things to come where small grievances can conceivably cause big trouble that's a reference to Richard the small grievances that that compound over time that lead Richard to firing a scoffie and ritz but we're not there yet at this point uh ritz is his schedule is unbelievably full he's running this for a half the year he's running his business he's consulting because he's now becoming the grand the greatest hotel here in europe so he's consulting for other projects and it says and this feeling feeling might be familiar to you that's our meeting it ritz had never been happier he had also been never been more frantic he was managing three hotels two restaurants in three countries a recipe for always needing to be somewhere else and that kind of echoes something from Jeff Bezos where he said depression usually comes from inaction usually is not coming from being overworked but actually underworked i thought it was a really interesting insight let's go into more detail about a scoffie's level of detail that he applies to everything a scoffie wrote his own menus i started looking for words that sounded gentle and pleasing to the ear while expressing a connection with the food being proposed a all well presented menus should be evocative and increase the desire to partake of a skillfully prepared and presented meal the menu was a kind of poem is scoffie believed teasing seducing promising pleasure a poem of anticipation okay so things that the boy ritz and scoffie know what they're doing they're becoming widely successful so there's a group of investors in this avoid that one expand and so they have the opportunity to open a very similar luxury hotel in the city of Rome and so ritz is like listen i'll do that but i'm owning part of this hotel and so he winds up getting ownership for himself scoffie and and like they're key like lieutenants is the way to think about it so he's in Rome at this point but i want to go back to this this this pervasive trait for people trying to accomplish great things to experience in poster syndrome so first they're writing around Rome as as they wrote in the streets as they wrote through Rome streets in a carriage he asked his friend who was like i came from like their friends but they had obviously backgrounds it's like a wrist of crap well educated and ritz you know he was he felt some of them insecurity that he didn't have an education so he's asking his friend that does have the education tell me as much as the history of the city as you could remember what was this building here and what was that ruin and what was that church and the great men of roman history Caesar Augustus Cicero what were their stories the gaps in his knowledge seem more consequential now reminding him that however much he looked the part it was a part he was playing he was the elegant and cultivated Cesar Ritz mastermind of luxury but he couldn't escape the feeling that he might be revealed at any moment to be an imposter nothing more than a servant and so he started to feel bad that he's struggling through this this point and then i can't help but laugh at this next part though the truth he feared was detectable in the size of his hands and feet they were large peasant hands and feet he was convinced and he did at this this is the funny part and he did everything possible to keep them hidden he wore his shoes a half-size too small this was painful of course but preferable to ridicule just the idea that you think okay people are gonna think about peasant because i got giant hands and feet and i'm gonna wear small shoes and this is talked this is mentioned over and over again in the book doesn't make it funny he wasn't some ways in his own mind a fake he was not wealthy yet he presided over a world of luxury at the Savoy he was steeped in the byways and pecking orders of the aristocracy even as he stood apart from it entirely in his shoes half-size too small okay so one thing about Ritz uh he always shot for the best even if it was most expensive this fits a lot of strain because remember he doesn't have ownership in the Savoy he has a percentage of the profits but he's he's still technically employee and this can cause him to lose it caused him to lose his temper which is very rare because he seemed to have control his emotions his suffering was done at private it's not like he would he would have public outburst at a board meeting in early 1892 so now we're like five years into this experiment of him running the hotel maybe four four five six years somewhere there Ritz was confronted about his spending and he momentarily lost his temper what exactly do you think i'm trying to do he shouted i'm running the hotel the best i can and i will not stand here and listen to your ignorant criticism Ritz stormed out of the meeting but he soon regretted it and sent a note to Richard apologizing for quote having lost control of myself in a moment of excitement a thing which will not occur again the pressure was getting to him he would stretch in and this reminded me of that part we had to keep that in mind the pressure the fact that he pushes himself too hard that's going to lead to a mental breakdown right and the last like 10 years of his life is really he's in hospitals he's retired from work his life is essentially over he's like a living member yeah like a dead man walking but this part where he's shouting about i'm building the best hotel something that Walt Disney constantly got in fights with his brother over his partner um over how much he's spending he says something was interesting and Disney yells we're innovating i'll tell you what it costs when i'm done so we see a very similar line of thinking uh from Ritz more on the struggle and just he's packed his schedule he's got no time for anything else Ritz's presence and authority were frequently required this is when they're building the hotel in Rome so he's building a new hotel in Rome running the Savoyne London and he's still got his his own hotels so something's got a break here right when the construction workers threatened to strike for example Ritz would have to take the next train to Rome when the carpeting that Marie had ordered failed to arrive uh when the courtyard garden failed to materialize when the furniture being custom made for the hotel failed to get built it was Ritz who had to put things right he soon found he was spending most of his time away from the Savoyne on the Rome project and neglecting his small hotels and restaurant he was now too busy to pay attention to everything he was tired he was always tired his wife was worried her husband seemed worn down we should sell the hotels she said and the restaurant too so the main hotel the province this is first hotel it's like it it's like it's saying saying to him to sell his baby so it says Ritz looked Ritz looked at his wife he'd been contemplating the same thing sell the small hotels focus on London and Rome it was the rational choice right but we're not rational creatures right we're rationalizing creatures that's very different still he felt a stab of shame of dismay at the thought of abandoning his own hotels especially the province it was more than a business he had a sentimental attachment to the place it represented his independence the end of his many years as an employee the province was his his and his alone it was almost impossible to explain to Marie what it meant to him how deep that feeling went for Ritz owning his own hotel was a was a signal achievement of his life marking his escape from the past Ritz's parents were long dead they were farmers and he loved them but he had found his way in the world far from the rural alps of his childhood he began to cry and at this point they just had their first son he's holding a son son still like a little baby he was looking down at his son's hands and feet Charles's hands and feet were tied I forgot about this part it's a sad part and then this part his obsession with large peasant hands and feet just makes me laugh I don't know what Charles Charles sorry Charles hands and feet were tiny and he held them gently in his own hands thank god he will have small hands he said to Marie he hasn't heard his hands from you not me he will not suffer as I have because of peasant hands oh my goodness I don't know why I find that so funny Marie always made light of sand this is what I'm laughing about Marie always made light of Caesar's shame and vanity and his two small shoes but now her eyes filled with tears yet yes they would sell the province but he would fight twice as hard for his independence from Marie for Charles he would not resign himself to being Richard's employee he would he would own his own hell he was oh he would this is a really important part actually he would own his own hotels again in London in Rome maybe even in Paris it was his destiny and that is indeed going to be his destiny he's going to have to get fired first and he doesn't get fired intentionally this is a good summary of I think the cause so we're going to detail about why the board of directors ones are firing Ritz and Scoffier but this is really the cause Ritz's outsize ambition his insistence on his independence was always bound to cause trouble blurring the line between loyalty and self interest and so let's go back to this idea hey I don't want to sell my hotels it's I have an emotional attachment to them but he also knows hey I want to be the greatest hotelier to ever live running the best hotels in the best cities in the world is one way to do that I have to part with this and he starts making a lot of money as a result of this decision because he gets a share of the profits in 1985 the Savoy earned record profits and after taking his fees and commissions Ritz had never made so much money in one year in his entire life it was just as Marie had predicted Ritz's focus on the Savoy had only increased his prominence so now he can focus he got a can't do everything a big part of being successful knowing what to say no to right Caesar was excessively busy with his Rome and London affairs and any number of new ventures which took up every scrap of his scrap of his time that's a quote from the her memoir that she writes after her husband passes away and so let's get into what is going to cause this riff between the scoffian Ritz and Richard so scoffian Ritz never have a riff they are always a team but they are you know this is I understand their justification for it I'm I'm going to try to give you both sides of the story but I think actions tell us more about things and words and so this this whole series of kickbacks that they're getting from suppliers winds of getting them fired interesting enough when they own the hotels so there's a series of kickbacks and under deliveries which I'm going to explain to you now right when we're not going to bury the lead okay so you did it when you were an employee at Savoy you said this is just how things were done right but when you but when you're running your own hotel hotel you eliminated this practice clearly they learned from this experience so they're not perfect no one is and this is what they did just like Ritz at the hotel a scoffian had taken complete control of the restaurant and all its dealings with vendors who knew who knew him what he wanted and how he wanted it in all these cases he had negotiated significant discounts for the hotel so now it's going to talk about how he looks at it from his perspective so you'd get a 5% discount for the hotel right and he also but he also collected an additional 5% commission on all orders which he was given in cash when he visited the shops and warehouses so say hey I'm going to be buying a lot from you give me a 5% discount for the hotel but give me a 5% kickback and that's what he's doing this is going to want to this is what gets them fired the personal commission was a fair reward he figured for the discounts he had achieved at Savoy after all the very reason the Savoy was such an important customer for all its food suppliers the restaurant ordered vast quantities on a weekly basis and was able to demand discounts was because of a scoffia himself he had made the restaurant an astounding success and he's also working harder so it's like I'm not just sitting back and getting money a scoffia did not rest on his laurels he was he was as he was as resolutely devoted to his work as ever so this is going to go on for many years before the board directors catches it catches it they do an audit they hire private investigators I'll get there in a little bit there's this there's these events these dual events from war for royalty having in the same night at Savoy that was orchestrated by Ritz he's very proud of it they wind up like these princes and dukes and I don't know anything about royalty so I'm going to skip over the other titles but they wind up signing they want they give Ritz a gift and they take the menu of the night and they all sign it it's like some of the most I guess most famous people in the world the most famous city in the world time and this is the the result Ritz was filled with pride he would keep the menu as a souvenir a prize possession it was an emblem of all that he achieved as a hotelier he couldn't help but think of his parents if only they could see him now and how far he'd come to be here in this room surrounded by royalty to be respected by royalty his large I wonder if the author did this on purpose his large manicured hands his god forsaken peasant hands held the sign menu and trembled okay I'm going to move on to pride ambition expansion is getting Alfred Beatt who I never heard of before but they say he might have been the richest person in the world time he was a South African gold and diamond magnet was a regular the Savoy and he would regale Ritz with stories of his exploits always encouraging Ritz to think big there was a dearth of great hotels around the world be it said why with the right backing a man of Ritz's quality could open a luxury hotel in every capital in Europe and London too yes London could always use another luxury hotel and so what if that meant competing with the Savoy and so Ritz partners up with this guy one of the richest guys in the world they started this thing called a Ritz hotel syndicate they start getting investors to back them and he's going to start building his own hotels you could imagine from Ritz's perspective it's like wait and Ritz is taking his meetings at the Savoy there's issues with putting these dinners that benefit the Ritz hotel syndicate on the House of Savoy that from Richard you know he's the last straw that's why he fires Ritz as well I mean also you know he's not going to like the fact that this guy is supposed to be his employee and now he's setting up and he's going to be building even though it was in his contract that he's going to be building all these hotels and his interest is going to be elsewhere but again it's going to be inevitable when you have somebody as talented as an ambition as Ritz so something that sparks this whole thing is somebody snitches so Richard's wife Helen who's also his partner gets an anonymous note and it says that's when the strangest thing happened strangest thing happened a few weeks later Helen received an anonymous note the note was not addressed anyone in particular so it took Helen a moment to decipher what exactly she had in her hands the note was an indictment and expose everything that was wrong with the Savoy every unfairness every swindle every instance of corruption from top to bottom and so it was written they think it from like a waiter perspective because they was talking about they weren't sharing tips but it all in there it also talked about the fact that a scoffie is getting kickbacks and everybody knows it the most damning charge in the entire letter was that a scoffie was taking kickbacks on all the food orders coming into the Savoy so as Ritz is planning these hotels he wants to build and his dream is to have the hotel in Paris right which is going to be the one of most famous hotels ever existed it's the Ritz hotel he's being he doesn't know he's he's he's being followed by a private investigator doing an audit the Savoy Board of Directors doing in a complete audit so this Savoy kept Ritz busy as did his plans for the Ritz hotel syndicate he was building he was looking for a building in Paris this was the dream to open his own hotel in the capital where he had started his career as a waiter the most beautiful city in the world and one solely lacking in luxury accommodation Paris was the perfect place to launch the first Ritz hotel the very idea of a hotel called Ritz filled him with pride and trepidation to bring such attention to himself and this is so he's very excited about it but then he's talking about like I'm naming the hotel after myself it's this ridiculous to bring such attention himself was gosh yet he felt elated at the prospect so he goes back and forth I think he's talking that guy be it I can't remember who convinces him but like is this ridiculous like am I being presumptuous are people going to think I'm ridiculous to put my name on the side of this building and maybe this was wife I think about him and his wife and one of his clients like you're the best hotel year like you're the best of what you do that name has value it's not that you're just doing it in like a self-angrandizing way which I thought was actually really smart for them to point out though because if you think about not like his name becomes a brand name right it's it has it's it's a lot it's a last name to him but it to to to customers throughout the world it means something so while Ritz is planning these hotels which obviously he's going to do with a scoffier scoffier is planning what becomes one of the most important projects of his life he wants to write a cookbook this is what I referenced earlier this idea if it's crazy think about this this idea that he's having right now at his point in his life is still influencing influencing chefs a century later that is the power of ideas they they are immortal they never die he kept his recipes on note cards and was increasingly interested in organizing them in a systematic way for writing a book this was something he'd been talking about for years so the audit reveals that there's kickbacks there's under deliveries which I think that's the most best part like the Savoy pace for like 750 eggs because the suppliers are like I can't afford I'm giving you a discount and I'm kicking you back money so what they did is they would say you order 700 eggs you'll get like 450 that's come on that's you can't do that that's out and all right you're stealing from your employer whether or not your responsible for success yeah I understand your responsible for success but come on dude what are you doing here just just you didn't have to do this it winds up being a good thing they got fired though but yet it was Ritz's extensive entertaining of his financial backers and the Ritz hotel syndicate that would prove the most going to Richard and this is where they call a scoffier and Ritz to his house it was Richard who had handed each of them his official note of dismissal by resolution past this morning you've been dismissed from the service of the hotel from among other serious reasons gross negligence and breaches of duty and mismanagement I also directed I am also directed to request that you will be good enough to leave the hotel at once a scoffier and Ritz had been fired and that leads us to the part where the beginning of podcasts where he's he's talking by the way he looks at it how dare you cause a servant like we're the ones that built you and so now he's like okay I'm going all in on my dream I have financial backers I have a name I'm going to beat you at your own game he starts out in Paris then he's going to open and compete directly with this foreign London that's the Carlton Hotel precursors to the Ritz Carlton brand but there's a lesson in here once people find out that Ritz was fired it's a lesson that controlling the relationship with your customer is the most important right you don't want people in between you and your customer and the Prince of Wales is probably the most famous person in England at the time finds out and decides he's like no no I'm canceling any further engagement to Savoy Ritz is most important client of all the Prince of Wales had canceled an upcoming party at Savoy where Ritz goes I go he declared it was the best endorsement Ritz had ever received so now we get into Ritz building what's going to be his greatest hotel ever and really think about it he's setting this up not as a hotel but a home disguised as a hotel he had a very clear sense of what his hotel must feel like and how luxurious it would be there it would be a small intimate lobby as in a private home the mere 100 guest rooms would be tall and perfectly proportioned with very large and beautiful bathrooms attached to each one the key point for Ritz and what would distinguish his establishment from any other newly built luxury hotel was that it would have the atmosphere of a gentleman's townhouse a house in which several distinguished generations had lived entertained and enjoyed themselves and it's during this process we see the full spectrum full scope of Ritz Ritz's obsessiveness Ritz was a perfectionist and determined that every detail be just right the best is not too good Ritz would say this was his philosophy about everything at the new hotel it would be super superlative in every way and what's so fascinating is at the exact same time the author the author compares and contrasting goes back and forth between Ritz designing a hotel and a scoffier writing his book and he thinks about writing the book as a tool for professionals I really like this idea it was an overwhelming prospect to attempt to condense the entirety of his kitchen knowledge into a single volume at first he thought he might limit himself to describing only his new recipes his modern innovations that was the original idea for the project but the more he thought about it the more he realized that the book had to be that for the book to be actually useful he would need to start from the beginning the art of cooking was always changing but the essentials were always remain the same every one of his culinary inventions stood upon the foundations of his training this is what I talk about being respectful of the past right every one of his culinary inventions stood upon the foundations of his training it should talk about the book be a work tool more than a book which is exactly how I feel about biographies of entrepreneurs their work tools disguises a book a constant companion that chefs would always keep at their side a book for working professionals the book would be a tool for other chefs but it was also in the writing a kind of memoir and so for him the book was much more than a record of his recipes it was a way to lay claim to his reputation to document the changes in advance he had brought to modern restaurant cooking to establish his place in the pantheon of chefs who had come before him and it continues describing what to say is an understanding the philosophy behind these books not only scoffy as book but every book like when you reread this book we understand that scoffy as philosophy we understand Ritz's philosophy last week we understand I mean it's it's literally the title of the book is a story of the business of a business philosophy like that's what we're doing when you're reading these books when you're listening to this podcast you're downloading the philosophy of all the entrepreneurs that came before you and then their philosophies are going to intermingle with your own and the combination of that creates something new and unique it's interesting it would contain his recipes but also encompass his philosophy of cooking it would be a book only he could write his scoffy had not only revolutionized or excuse me had not revolutionized fresh fruit many of his dishes were let me read that over again is scoffy had not revolutionized french food many of his dishes were versions of classic preparations after all the flavors were familiar this is such an important part but he had altered the formulas the equations in some fundamental way partly this was a result of his having drastically streamlined the work of the chefs in his kitchens the division of labor and the increased specialization precision and speed dishes were far less complicated than before go back to building the ritz and the dedication we see from Cesar Ritz he moves his entire family into the hotel before it's complete Cesar and Mary Rich moved into the apartment on the top floor of the unfinished hotel the building was a construction site they hadn't planned to be living in the hotel with two small children before construction was complete but the renovation was far enough long to make the building habitable habitable i can't pronounce a word and ritz was obsessed this was his hotel the hotel ritz the one he had always dreamed about every lesson he had ever learned in his years as a hotelier would be brought into bear every compromise he had been forced to make before would be avenged every detail would be perfect and so we see the level of detail just just for the light bulb just a lighting in the dining room that's what he does indirect light was key no bear bulb should ever be visible very important sentence coming here this despite the fact that current fashion dictated just the opposite that the bulbs were visible he didn't think that was a good idea he and Marie began a series of experiments in the dining room she would sit quietly while he and one of the electricians electricians patiently tried out different shades materials and colors over and over and over again for hours that's just on the lighting in the dining room but we see this level of obsessiveness is also wearing on him she had never seen her husband so intent and so restless as he wanted in the weeks and the months after leaving the Savoy ritz was pushing himself to the limit uh to get the hotel open and to make it perfect he'd always been a perfectionist but it was uh but this was different everything was riding on the success of the hotel ritz his pride his self confidence his very spirit depended on it and there were moments when he was overwhelmed by doubt this is the main theme in this book right a black mood would descend I'm getting old he would say this was a constant refrain he was so full of energy and ambition yet also prone to melancholy and then he starts doubting himself he's telling her and what have I accomplished nothing that's a ridiculous statement he's not he's not being rational there they were no there would be no doubt when he was done just what he had accomplished the hotel ritz would bear his name for a reason so he's paying attention a little small detail when you pay attention to the little small details you can invent solutions to problems that are never discussed talks about he noticed women didn't know what to put their purses so he winds up putting these little hooks first hotel uh and restaurant to put the little hooks where women can put their purses again a tiny detail solution to a problem no one and even put into words but one that ritz in his obsessive way had noted and now acted upon it had always been his philosophy repeatedly explained to all his employees to anticipate guests wishes before the guest did now as he was designing his own hotel that carefully intuitive sort of thinking informed every decision ritz was always pleased but never satisfied so going back to scoffier he's very very deep into this project and this is interesting interesting he he's he innovates but he knows that time is the best filter as scoffier designed the kitchens at the hotel ritz exactly the way he wanted them it was the first time he controlled every aspect of his workspace and equipment from the placement of the ovens and the organization of various stations to design of the plates and the serving dishes see where it's just leaves him alive like this guy's gifted at just leave him alone um scoffier required the direct he talks about he he doesn't want the newly popular popular electric oven had no place in a scoffier's kitchen scoffier required the direct heat and flames of real fire so he innovates but he's also a traditionalist all the pots and pan work pots and pans were copper or cast iron a scoffier did not care for aluminum pans and utensils now being imported from America they were inferior quality yes he was an inventor he'd been thinking about this recently he worked in his cookbook so much had changed during his lifetime new ingredients new flavors new techniques yet good cooking remain rooted in tradition and quality i would say you could say good business is also rooted just fundamentals of good business don't change too many chefs were bastardizing the proper methods taking shortcuts their ignorance and technique and training leading to mediocrity part of the problem was a hunger for the new novelty by hook or crook a scoffier wrote in his book i want to go back to this main theme of this book because i think it applies to a lot more than just sees our ritz your mind will play tricks on you it is inevitable we've got to find ways to get control of our mind ritz it the hotel's finished it's about to open ritz was filled with overwhelming pride and at the same time a creeping sense of inadequacy what would they he's talking about all the people he's inviting these dirty royalty what would they think of them of his audacity would they laugh at the sight of his name displayed so boldly on the side of his building uh... so he he has like has like investors in people he respects come and look at hotel this line of thinking was ridiculous his investors were right the hotel was stunning surely ritz's name by now was worthy of respect he still worried his reputation was in doubt so it opens it's just as everybody says it's the greatest hotel in the world um so now once the pair of things opens like all right we're going back to London because we're getting our revenge um so it was pride that brought them back to London the chance to return triumphantly to the city that had they had left in shame is scaffy and ritz were both looking for redemption or was it revenge ritz had heard about new hotel under construction to be called the Carlton so the guy started developing it runs out of money ritz takes it over and that's gonna be the Carlton hotel and the goal is very simple Carlton would be better than the Savoy as ritz prepared for the launch he found that it had to become easier there was by now a new formula everything he learned at Savoy and then at the Rome Grand and the hotel ritz would be brought to bear at the Carlton so just another example you were were some of all of our experiences what everything we learned and as we continue to learn more and to get more experiences throughout life we were able to apply those lessons to the work that we're doing that's why it's so important to have the lessons and to actually have the experiences it makes it makes it easier but you're able to do more the more you know the more you can do there was no there was truly no one in the world better equipped to oh this is a result of that there was truly no one in the world better equipped to open this sort of hotel in restaurant since these are ritz and august iscafier and it goes back to throughout as he achieves these things he constantly looks back to where he where he came from to think that his parents had lived and died in a tiny village had never even left Switzerland not once and here he was the proprietor of the hotel ritz in Paris the most famous hotelier in the world and he was now opening a new property in London so when fast-forward hotel ritz and the Carlton hotel widely successful and this is where ritz we get to the unhappy ending of his life he winds up having a nervous breakdown he's at the hotel at the Carlton hotel rather they're having this elaborate event his best client the most famous person Prince of Wales now king king Edward and they're going to have he wants to have there's this coronation and he has everything planned and then Edward has like appendicitis so everything is canceled all the and then all the guests cancel their reservations at the restaurant the hotel everything else and this just triggers ritz and he he he has a mental breakdown a full on nervous breakdown that he never recovers from ritz remains serenely calm as he unwound the elaborate event he was in shock at about three o'clock in the afternoon in the middle of a conversation with the staff he collapsed unconscious falling to the floor when he woke up he was delirious in coherent he was sent home in a carriage and helped into his house Marie was scared she'd never seen her husband like this he seemed not even to recognize her as he lay in his and bed moaning the doctor came and gave ritz a sedative sometime later he fell asleep the doctor called it a complete nervous breakdown it was what he had always feared he said ritz had pushed himself too hard and the shock of the sudden cancellation had been too much how long will it be until Marie asked like when to recovers maybe a few months the doctor replied maybe a year maybe longer ritz never recovered not really at least he was never the same ritz receded into a twilight of melancholy brought low at age 53 by mental illness and exhaustion is scoffie meanwhile continued to run the kitchens at the Carlton and did so for years they both look back with amazement and what they achieved together in the 1890s how different the world was then and how they how they themselves had changed it and so as ritz is falling apart a scoffie is achieving some of the greatest success of his life this comes just a few weeks after ritz collapses a scoffie a meanwhile finished the translation of the book is called the culinary guide the success of the book was everything you'd hope for cementing his reputation as a foremost chef of all time oh should be of his time the era of ritz and scoffie as a team had come to an end the partnership that changed the very nature of luxury of hotels and restaurants was over it was a partnership to span almost 20 years from Monte Carlo and Lucerne to London Paris and London again and so we see the sad ending the death of ritz and the birth of a new luxury brand i'm worse than a dead man he said to Marie a few years later after he first fell ill for my working life is ended so over a series of years he starts withdrawing from each company um and sometimes he'll have like a brief part where he can actually contribute and then parts where he can't even leave a room his memory had begun to fail him whole periods of his life seem to go blank for fear of these lapses he dared not long not any longer mingle with people he began to avoid all social contacts for hours he remained shut up in his room brooding nothing i could say could cheer him up or distract him ritz had to touch himself from reality almost entirely he become a kind of ghost not long after he had moved to a private hospital and that's where he winds up dying a german shipping company approached the board of directors of the carlton about licensing the company's name for a restaurant on board a new ship they would call it ritz carlton restaurant so scoffier ritz's widow and these board directors decide to license that name the name of the trademark they allowed the use of the ritz name and thus was a was born a new luxury brand one that was soon also licensed to a british american hotel company which opened the first ritz carlton hotel in new york city in nineteen ten and sees our ritz dies in nineteen eighteen uh scoffier lives him for about twenty years and i'll end here where he's meeting with ritz's widow scoffier enjoyed his fame he retired from the carlton in nineteen twenty and moved to his villa in Monte Carlo surrounded by family he traveled often visiting culinary exhibitions and receiving honors and he towered over the food world training a lesion of protegeys when a scoffier visited marie at the ritz they would laugh at their recognition he and sees our had achieved ritz would have been amused and astounded to hear the title of the new fits Gerald's story published in nineteen twenty two a diamond as big as the ritz the story referred to the ritz carlton hotel in new york he would have been proud and even more so at the word ritzi a synonym for style and glamour being bandied about in conversation could there be any greater compliment ritz had entered the lexicon and that is where i'll leave it by the book using the link that's in the show notes and you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time if you want to further support the podcast even more you can actually buy a gift description there's a link in the show notes to do that as well that is a hundred and eighty five books down one thousand ago and i'll talk to you again soon