Defining Hospitality

DH - Steve Fortunato
===

Speaker: [00:00:00] What I do is inconsequential. Why I do what I do is I get to shorten people's journeys every day. What I love about our hospitality industry is that it's our mission to make people feel cared for while on their journeys. Together we'll explore what hospitality means in the built environment, in business, and in our daily lives.

I'm Dan Ryan, and this is Defining Hospitality.

This podcast is sponsored by Berman Fall Hospitality Group, a design-driven furniture manufacturer who specializes in custom case goods and seating for hotel guest rooms.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Today's guest is the founder of Room 40 Events and the Fig House. He's the author of the Urgent Recovery of Hospitality. He's a lifelong restaurateur and caterer turned leadership facilitator.

He also developed the host Mindset framework. To help leaders build trust, loyalty, and generosity driven cultures. Over the past decade, he's led transformative offsite masterclasses for [00:01:00] executives across industries, blending practical strategies with genuine hospitality principles. His work empowers teams to shift from transactional to relational leadership, fostering engagement, and sustainable growth.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Steve Fortunato. Welcome, Steve.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Thank you, Dan. It's good to be here.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: It's wonderful to have you. And as someone who I was very intrigued by your profile, um, before we spoke, and mostly because I love going on retreats. I love that people are really looking at things more through a hospitality lens with greater frequency across all industries, because I think hospitality.

One of the reasons why this podcast, podcast keeps growing amongst entrepreneurs, hospitality makes everything better, every relationship, um, every business, every interaction. And I love all the thought that you've done and the writing that you've done. Um, [00:02:00] on this topic, on this, I think really important pro topic, why, which is why I do it.

And before we get into all the, all of your thought leadership and thinking and content that you've created around this, um, how do you define hospitality?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Very simply, I define hospitality as making people feel valued.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Awesome. And did you learn that through grinding it out as a caterer and rest and a restaurateur for so many years? Like you had a good business, you're, you're grinding, grinding, grinding. It's a tough business. But how did you, but oftentimes, like you're under pressure all the time, how were you able to step out and develop this host mindset framework?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Um, being in Los Angeles, I think you are constantly aware of the industry. You're aware of trends, you're aware of [00:03:00] different approaches to food and beverage and to service and to presentation, and where you're sourcing your products from. All of these things are going on sort of in the background, and simultaneously, if you have a growth mindset, you're also looking to other guides and other thought leaders, and you put all of that in this package and you show up every day attempting to bring joy to people's special occasions.

And I think I had a very rude awakening that I was trying to do all of that and make people feel valued. But when I took an honest inventory of where I was at as a founder and as an entrepreneur, and as a disruptor. I also wanted to feel valued. [00:04:00] I wanted our company to feel valued. I wanted our approach to make an impact, make a splash. And in that moment I realized you cannot try to get value and give value at the exact same time. Someone has to go first. And that's when I realized I'm in an industry that's all about making others feel valued and I'm trying to get valued. And I see that not just in me, but I see that in a lot of other areas in our industry. that's when it just became very clear hospitality's just about saying, I have enough. I'm good. Let me share with you, I have enough value, I have enough credit, I have enough respect, validation. I'm good. I have enough beef. Let me share outta the abundance that I have with you. And it was really a simple definition that came [00:05:00] out of just taking a personal inventory.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Hmm. Um, how long did you have your own catering company in Los Angeles?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: I started, uh, April 14th, 2007 was my first event, and I just sold, uh, my Los Angeles operation, uh, 15 days ago. So from 2007 to 20

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Okay. And what were you doing just to paint the picture of your growth path and, and, and when the light, when you've had your multiple light bulb moments along your career, but when did you decide, what were you doing before you decided to hang up your own shingle On April 14th, 2007.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: I was working in fine dining, I was working for the Patina Group in la and typically you're from part of the older school in LA in the hospitality world, you kind of came up through one [00:06:00] of two paths, which was Wolfgang or Joki, uh, and Patina. And that's for people that were in the hospitality scene in LA you know, 30, 30 years ago. Now there's lots of different branches and different cultures and different guides and founders and, but uh, I came up through the Patina group and my wife got pregnant and I. Said, I can either climb the ladder in this organization or I can try to build my own. And so that's when I left and started my own.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: And then as far as all the listeners who were out there, either as designers or on the management side of hospitality or operations side of hospitality or architects or owners or developers, um, working for a larger company, what was it that gave you the courage back in 2007 to take that first [00:07:00] entrepreneurial step?

Were you just burnt out or were you like you had an intention, and I'm always intrigued by this, 'cause sometimes people are just like, they're just done. Right? But other times they're like, okay, I've learned everything I want and now I want to take this intentional step. I tend to be, I've done both, but I'm curious about you.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Yeah, I think that exasperation. Can be helpful providing the fuel to get us to start our own journey, but it's not enough. You need exasperation married with intention. You need some direction. know, if I asked you, Dan, how do I get to Connecticut? Because you live in Connecticut and you went on and on and on about how awful Dakota is, and don't go to North Dakota.

You [00:08:00] really don't wanna go to North Dakota. And I'm like, I get it. I know what I should not do, what should I

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Hmm.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Um, and so I think that yes, exasperation and I'm fed up and I wanna do my own thing. I think that that can like help push us out of the nest. But invariably, our ability to fly solo over the long tail will take more than the exasperation that kicked us out of the nest. as an entrepreneur, am willing to bet on myself. am willing to, to take risks when the full scope of the how has not yet unfolded. And that's not how everybody's mind And I think there's

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Mm-hmm.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: types of entrepreneurs. Uh, if I were to build a company now, I would build it very differently than how I started in 2007.

In 2007, I was [00:09:00] taking nine months building tables because I felt like the table was the centerpiece of the hospitality experience. So I was in a wood shop these big Tuscan tables. Now, if I build a

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: For your catering business.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: business. That's how I

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Okay. That's super inter.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Yeah. I built

tables.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Okay. That's super interesting to me because with catering, you have to be mobile, you have to be able to, uh, pack up, deploy. Unfurl, I don't even know what the words are, but just get ready to

show and then pack up quickly and then go. So there's an efficiency, but when I envision this table that you invented or created for the guest experience that might not have fit with being as efficient as possible in break in set up and breakdown,

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: see, Dan, it totally did. I

did not yet,

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: well, okay.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Because I took like months and months not knowing at the time about rental companies and the fact that you can just rent farm tables. But I didn't have the [00:10:00] revenue to spend on rental items. So I built a Parsons table, which means like the skirt of the table, the width of the skirt, and the width of the legs are the same. And I got some input from a cabinet maker and figured out how to make the legs removable. And, uh, you know, these bolts that I created these bolts and put threaded, you know, a threaded insert on the inside of the legs, I'm totally taking you too far into how the sausage was made.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: It is all good. I, I'm a furniture guy, so it's like these carriage vaults you're going, but most of the listeners might not be, but like, I'm intrigued, but keep going. But it's all these little things that could be the impetus for like, oh, this is my way of the first step to make it better. Right.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Like that's why I'm saying there's not one way to start something. Now if I build a company, I build a proforma and I'm on Excel. How I built room 40 was I was in a cabinet maker's wood shop for nine months building these Tuscan tables that I could set up at a private estate or a vineyard or a backyard and then [00:11:00] take down, and I built this kind of mobile, we called it a restaurant without walls.

And I had a three barrel sink, uh, on wheels with a little tiny water heater so we could wash dishes on estates. And I had convection oven on wheels. And would go and we would do, this was before the popup movement. This is before popups was kind of a. Accepted or known term in the lexicon hospitality.

We just called them winemaker dinners, and I was inviting from Central California to come to these backyards and these private estates. And because I'd come from fine dining, I had a lot of relationships in the community and I would create this six course dinner and I would pour, I'd have the wine makers come and pour their wines and I would talk about their wines and I'd pair their wines with our food. And I would talk about this restaurant that I was gonna open called Room 40, then people would be coming up to me saying, man, I wish we would've had this for my daughter's wedding or for my 40th, but we know you're not a caterer. [00:12:00] And I realized that at the time there was this really wide gap between high cuisine and fine dining and the catered format. as an entrepreneur, I just said, forget opening a restaurant. Let me see if I can open a catering company and do it differently. Do bring more intention. And so that's, that's really how Room 40 started. That was a, feels like a

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Okay. Well, it's cool, but I, I what I, what I love that came out of this, and I wanna dig into it more as we talk about your book and your thought leadership and how your keynotes and also how you facilitate, um, retreats for, for leaders or executive teams. But I love the, I, and I want to come back to this, this idea of exasperation and the idea of the nest.

Because like, I think there's this, like inertial, there's like inertia oftentimes holds people back from taking that first step. And I'm always curious, like with inertia, and inertia is good sometimes, like you gotta, you have a certain life, you, you have commitments. You gotta stay in that inertia [00:13:00] and not rock the boat.

But for those listeners who are thinking of going out on their own, it's like at what point does that nest become a mind killer or an initiative killer? And at what point do you really listen to that exasperation and whether it's going for nine months to a cabinet maker shop? Tinkering around to find the, the best table for this experience.

Um, it's a whole spectrum of life events that lead people to this, but I, I'm always very curious what makes other people do this. So we'll go back to that. Um, just to set up everyone's experience of your life until this past new year when you sold your business, um, what was like an ideal event that you would have catered in the past or, or what's the most memorable one?

Just to set the high watermark before your exit.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: well, first of all, I don't believe that events for people of profile. Are [00:14:00] existentially any more significant than the four weddings that we would cater every weekend? I think providing a meal at the beginning of someone's journey together is one of the most sacred services you can offer. We served a lot of well-known high profile individuals. Being a high cuisine caterer in la I think probably the two events that would stand out the, the first would be the first time we served an American president. And it was just regardless of what, um, politics were at the time. This was early on in our business.

We had a tiny kitchen. Our kitchen at the time, Dan was 10 feet by 10 feet. We had one oven, one double door reach in. And we got the call that we were catering for President Clinton and 80 of his friends at Bob Hope's house in Palm Springs.

And

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: that one up on, up on like that ridge.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: kind of like

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: [00:15:00] Oh wow.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Yeah. And we got the call that we were doing the event on Thursday and the event was on a Saturday night. So we didn't really have time for it to sink in that we'd booked the event. We just sprang in to prep and I think we were heads down through prep, making sure everything's perfect, getting everything squared away with our front of house team and our back of house team. it didn't really hit me until from the Secret Service came up and said, the president's motorcade has left LaQuinta and he will be here in 15 minutes. And I'm like. Oh my God. Our little fledgling catering company that has a commissary kitchen that's a hundred square feet what currently is a hip part of Los Angeles, but at the time was a very [00:16:00] forgotten part of Los Angeles.

We are now catering for an American president. And it just, uh, it was crazy. It was really, it stuck out.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: okay. So when the Secret Service, like when the advance party came out, were they like, Hey, these are interesting lag bolts you have going through your tables. These can be turned into weapons. Like, was there any, was there anything interesting on that front from the advance party,

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: you

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: like logistically?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: so so the lag bolts and, um. And the tables. Those were for events that I was hosting that became kind of our marketing, and people came to those and said, let's hire room 40 to cater. So when I was catering for other people, I was not using Tuscan tables that I had created. I, I was being hired as a caterer.

The story of me building tables and working with winemakers, was a marketing strategy that I totally accidentally stumbled into. I [00:17:00] didn't know anything about marketing. I realized I didn't wanna start a restaurant. I wanted to start a catering company, and I didn't know how to announce to la Hey, hire us for your next catered event.

So I started throwing these pop-up winemaker dinner parties. And people came because they liked the idea of meeting a wine maker, a visceral experience of food and wine in an unorthodox setting outside of the restaurant. I was getting phenomenal winemakers because winemaker dinners that were housed at restaurants was really a service to the restaurant where these guys were coming in and they were selling 20 cases of wine. that's what kind of built our reputation as a caterer. And then we started getting hired for jobs. So I did not show up to Bob Hope's Spaceship House with the Tuscan tables.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Um, I want to come back into serving an American president, but you, I think you said originally there were two. [00:18:00] So I, or maybe you mentioned it's setting up for the, the wedding, just the regular wedding on your, on your on normal weekend And was the second example a pr a president because both of them

are, are impactful in their own ways.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Well they are, you said two events that stick out and so one was the first time we served a president. The other was when, um, the Super Bowl came to Los Angeles and we booked the NFL as a client and whatever city houses Super Bowl, the NFL sets up this hospitality center

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Hmm.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: the NFL House, which is open for, you know, five days leading up to the Super Bowl.

And it's got all of the VIPs surrounding. The organization and all of the corporate sponsors and players and coaches, basically anyone and everyone that is involved with the Super Bowl, except the actual teams that are playing and it's, you know, five to 7,000 people over the course of five days. They're open from noon to midnight. It's three different services, four different floors, uh, [00:19:00] NN no repeated services or meals on any of the floors over any of the courses of the days. And the scope of the event was just beyond anything we had ever done.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: like by an order of magnitude, how far beyond anything you've ever done.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: by hundreds of times, I mean, it was a building, Holy shit.

a, building downtown Los Angeles, and there would be an entire floor that was just. Beverage storage. So there'd be, know, I think Bud Light is a corporate sponsor of the NFL, so there was, I mean, there was Bud Light from, you know, from here to imagine like half of a floor of Bud Light or Water or Diet

Coke.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: were you responsible for hiring all the servers, all the cooks and everyone in between?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: And

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: And

so if that's hundreds of times bigger and you have to scale up like in accordion for this type of huge event, how do you maintain

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: quality,

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: quality,

Yeah.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: it's number one, it's a lot [00:20:00] of planning it's basically creating checkpoints all along the way, creating these systems so that you are, you are eliminating as much as much freeform, and you're, you're, you're basically reverse engineering. So you're saying, okay, this is the end of. If this is kickoff, then what happened an hour before that? What happened five hours before that? And you just reverse engineer. And so we were, we were in, we were planning for months and months and months. Uh, the NFL executives came out from New York, I think twice to do tastings leading

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Jesus.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: it was just unlike anything we'd ever done.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Wow. And then, okay, so hundreds of times and then more, more so than the quality of like. The food and what people are putting into themselves. How do you, like if you're hiring that many

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: [00:21:00] Servers.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: of more people than normal, the service, how do you maintain the quality of that going back to making others feel valued and that interpersonal magical moment, and I, I know it's, it's high velocity, but like how do you make sure you get the right people that are interacting with all of those guests?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Totally. think catering one of the hardest industries in. The food and beverage and services industry in that with catered events, client has never been so committed to the event. You have a mother and father of the bride and their daughter that's been dreaming about this event their entire life.

You have the National Football League and the executives that have been planning this event for a year. You have the president's assistant planning the annual holiday party. The client has never been so invested in this event, and your frontline staff is a gig based worker economy [00:22:00] who works for like 20 different catering companies.

So the gap in commitment wider than the Grand Canyon, whereas in restaurants, I, this is my bread and butter. I come to this restaurant five nights a week, this is how I pay my bills. So you've got this huge gap. So to answer your question, we have honed. The tools and the practices that try as much as possible to narrow that gap.

What are the things that we can do with a gig based worker economy, with a team of people that works for 20 different caterers with, a group of people that doesn't necessarily know the client? These aren't regulars, this isn't their a, a restaurant shift. This isn't their normal station. How do you narrow that gap?

A lot of it is through communication. A lot of it is through the tone of how you communicate. You know, in Los Angeles, a lot of people that are trying to become actors, [00:23:00] they work their way up the field through being extras. uh, those are the people that if there's a, a film, you know, being made and it's an amusement park, they're the 200 people in the background.

And when those extras come to the set, they are treated. Oftentimes like extras and which just perpetuates them feeling extra. Well, that happens a lot in catering. Part of the reasons why catering servers show up with ownership, with less sophistication, with less menu knowledge is because oftentimes they're accustomed to being treated like a gig based worker.

Here's your call time, here's your address, your, uh, work in hor d'oeuvres. So what we try to do is we try to double down on our bet. That is when you make people feel valued, you start a virtuous cycle that [00:24:00] will translate into them going and making other people feel valued. So when a cer a crowd of servers shows up, there are things that you can do that make them feel like extras, an atmosphere and gig based workers, or there's things that you can do that make them feel. and valued, and yes, this is a gig, how can we make you feel like you're a really important part of this gig and it works. That's all I

can tell

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: And I want to, I want to dig into that and before we dig into that, if I go back to President Clinton, love him or hate him. And he, one of his idols was JFK, another president. And I've heard from about both of those people just in books I've read and just people who I know who have known President Clinton have been around him.

And also with JFK, most people that ever interacted with either of those people said one of their uncanny superpowers was that when you're talking to that person [00:25:00] who's running a country and maybe one of the most powerful countries in the world, ti it feels like time stops. It feels like they are 100% focused on everything that you were saying and nothing else going around.

And as you talk about that virtuous cycle and making others feel valued, I think that's one of their, one of their gifts. Does that play into how you build that virtual virtuous cycle with all these gig based workers and, and leaning into it a little bit more, how do, like, how do you make them feel like they are about, they're a part of something bigger and that they can lean into what they're doing a bit more?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: I don't want to convey an over idealistic or exaggerated. Answer, I believe there's levels to the map, right? There's there. There's things that you can do [00:26:00] that just start, that are almost at a surface level, and then you can almost take people further along the map. Things that we did with our servers, number one, we communicated with them individually via email about the event.

We told them the menu, we gave them very clear instructions for where to park, where to go. Um, gave them a contact number for who to call and would put something personal in there about, we're excited to work with you. Just make them feel like a human. we would have a team that was there waiting for them.

We would have systems set up so that when they come, they feel like their arrival has been anticipated. Hey Scott, happy to see you. Steve. Here's um. where you're gonna get your aprons. Here's the break room. We've got a meal ready for you. You're gonna clock in in about 30 minutes. Uh, your next break will be.dot. Let's take you around. Let's [00:27:00] show you how we do our pre-shift meetings. What we talk about, um, how our captains and our managers coach. All of those things translate to a server eventually feeling like they're not just an extra or a gig worker that's just punching a clock and working a shift, but

actually

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Hmm.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: play a vital role in making people feel cared for.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: So if I'm hearing you correctly, there's just a lot of previewing, there's over communication, um, but there's also personalization.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: There's

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: did you,

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: to jump in, but like the, the crew feed. You know, a lot of times servers are serving high concept food or high cuisine and

then

it, there's frozen pizza for a staff meal and can feel that doesn't make people feel valued. Now obviously we're not serving our staff Wagyu beef, but [00:28:00] we are trying to say, Hey, here's good food, because food makes people feel something. Right. That's why we have these associations that we do with food.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: But it's also internal. It, you're doing it internally and externally. So it's like this, like in the Ritz-Carlton mindset of like, um, ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen. Right. And you have to, it's not just a poster on a break room or, and it's something better than frozen pizza, but all those little touches matter.

And my question was, and it what you brought up, thank you, because it leads into this, at what point did you develop this idea or the, the terminology of quote, the host mindset for you? Like when did you start seeing that and when did that become like a credo for you that helped you also write a book?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: We, like lots of companies, established our core values. I am really grateful that you said what you said about, you know, a plaque on the wall because I don't think that plaques on the wall or pages in our handbook, I don't think they move the [00:29:00] needle in terms of how people show up and how they behave. Our mind thinks in threes. So we had three core values that we would fire, train coach, we would integrate them, we would need them into the dough of our culture. And

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: What are they?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: they're profit minded, think like a host and a rage to master. Um, by, do you want me to describe those or.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Well, I want you to describe them, but I think what, to me, that's the hardest part of any company and any entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur or someone early, like values are the hardest things to get right. And the hardest things to live and breathe and to create a lexicon and a vocabulary around.

But when you do, that's when the magic happens. And that's when people can walk into an establishment or an event and you just, it, you can feel it.

Right? So I want you to go into each of those and each, and not that someone's gonna co, each one is so unique to each company, but [00:30:00] they're all like, you need as many as you need to be effective, but as few as you can so that everyone can remember and actually talk about and be a part of their, of their lexicon.

So how long did it take you to get those three, and then talk a little bit about them and how did you implement them and talk about them all the time.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: It took, it took years to get to those three. It took a mindset shift that our values should not be aspirational. They should actually be key characteristics that if that are inextricably, inextricably linked to where we are going as a company, they should be inextricably linked to our vision. So things like integrity or authenticity or professionalism, that has nothing to do, at least for us, with our vision of what it is that we wanted to accomplish or our mission, which is our reason for being.

If you don't have [00:31:00] integrity, if you don't have professionalism, like those are non-starters. You're not going to succeed here. So the first thing that we did is we said it's not just about having aspirational core values. It is what are the key characteristics that someone has to embody to work here? So that. It's almost as if you saw these three key characteristics being manifested by someone. You would, you could look at them and go, oh, they must be with room 40. This is how they behave. So it took a long time to pull them out of the idealistic, out of the aspirational, and actually into the very practical, and have them as key characteristics that were linked to our vision. So profit minded. Is a check and balance really of our initiatives, especially as an entrepreneur led company. I'm drawn to shiny objects. I'm drawn to new concepts, to trying [00:32:00] new things to new ideas, to new. I am a absolute o opportunist. What if we tried this? What if we tried this? And simultaneously, money is not.

Our reason for being sales is not why we exist. However, it is the how, and it's very important for us to realize that even with a mission-driven company, if we are not selling and if we're not profitable, we can't exist. But secondarily, we, we teach that profit is actually a return on our investment. So it's not just are we making profit on our p and l? It's asking ourselves, is this a good investment of our time? Is this individual a, are we getting a return on our investment with this individual? Uh, is this initiative So profit minded is actually just filtering all of our decisions through the lens of return on investment. Think like a host actually [00:33:00] saying. If you think like a host and you behave like, this is my house, how would you act when someone is in your house? So the concepts of, you know, cleaning things well, you don't have to train people to clean. You don't have to train people to say or you don't have to. I mean, you do have to, you do have to train. But some of the instincts of a server greeting someone or being proactive in interest and asking a question, how, how did you come to find the fig house? All of those things become intuitive when you actually think like a host, like, this is my house, this is my space and I'm hosting you. It Also a real check and balance to profit minded so that we're not just so thinking about return on investment, that we're not actually thinking, Hey, this is my house. You've come in. [00:34:00] I'm good. Like I don't need anything from you right now. I don't need your accolades. I don't need you to take a picture of my food. I don't need you to sign my cookbook. I don't need you to respect me as the chef or me as the sommelier or me as the craft cocktail bar. Man, I, I, I don't need, I'm here to give,

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Hmm.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: in my house. I wanna, I wanna be emotionally intelligent and read the cues and go, how can I serve this person? So thinking like a host is just training people to adopt a high ownership mindset with a lens to serve others and make others people feel comfortable, rage to master. You can imagine having a core value that has the word rage in it. Is a little bit unorthodox. Uh, that is a tattoo that I have on my wrist that says the rage to master. And what that really comes from a belief that the [00:35:00] hardest thing that we have to master is ourselves. our craft is part of mastery, but number one, how you and I interpret sense of urgency might be wildly different. might go to one professional team and they define sense of urgency as a winning record and another professional team, their definition of sense of urgency is the championship or bust. So sense of urgency wasn't specific enough for me, but secondarily, I want. To surround myself with people that don't just feel the urgency of accomplishment, achievement, performance, but they feel an internal urgency for growth to be the best version of themselves.

I believe the best players are coached. I believe the best leaders are led, and you can almost do anything with someone who's [00:36:00] coachable. And so that rage to master, you know, the few masters that I've had the opportunity to meet in my life, they possessed a. A couple of things. Number one, a deep sense of humility. They knew that they had never arrived. I am part of the martial arts community. I train in MMA, and every single fighter that I come into contact with is coached. And even the fighters that are now coaches, they refer to their coaches, their coaches. So every master that I've found is humble. They're coached, and then the fire for growth is something that burns from within. And those are the types of people that I love being around. So that's where a rage to master comes from.

Speaker 2: Hey, everybody. We've been doing this podcast for over three years now, and one of the themes that consistently comes up is sustainability, and I'm just really proud to announce that our sponsor, Berman Fall Hospitality Group is the first within our hospitality [00:37:00] industry to switch to sustainable and recyclable packaging, eliminating the use of styrofoam.

Please check out their impact page in the show notes for more info.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: And I, and what I, you said earlier, once you get these core values established, it's a way you hire, retain, attract, and fire. And, and actually it helps the last one quickly. And I think if everyone's aligned, it's not a surprise to that person who's no longer working there anymore. Um, if they made it through the you're filter to hire because they just see, okay, this is not a surprise, it's not a good fit, and I've learned so much.

Thank you. I'm on my way.

Now going through this and developing this host mindset, at what point did it help you, or at what point did the light bulb go off in your head to, to write a book? The Urgent Recovery of [00:38:00] Hospitality,

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: I had been feeling the hospitality industry was in flux It that fluctuation accelerated rapidly during COVID and simultaneously I had a really rude awakening when I saw. Sort of the underbelly or the shadow of my own intentions. I saw that I was a lifer in this industry. is all, like I said, that's all about creating special occasions for others and making other people feel valued. But actually, I also wanted to feel valued.

Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, that's totally universal. It's just that value is. Ecology, it's, there's a, there's a cycle in how it works. Very similarly to the only way our lives [00:39:00] exist. The only way that we get the next breath that we need is by giving the breath that we have away. I have to exhale to make room that next breath.

That's the way value works. You actually have to give value, go all in on giving value, and when you do that, you get value back. That's the way that the cycle works. But there's so much that happens where we're trying to do both at the same time, I want Dan to feel value, but I also, I want Dan to value me at the exact same time.

I want him to feel respected. But are you also simultaneously respecting me? That breaks the sauce and when I recognized through. moral inventory as the 12 step process says, I'm not a 12 stepper, but I have a lot of friends that are, and I love that that phrase a fearless moral inventory.

I hope I'm getting that right. I saw the underbelly of my own intentions, which was, yeah, I want my customers [00:40:00] and my guest to feel valued, but I wanna feel valued. I saw that in a lot of areas, if not everywhere in my industry. And then I was like, oh my God, it's not just my industry. It's everywhere.

You see that everywhere in every relationship, in every relational encounter, there is this sort of subtle competition about who's getting airtime, who's getting respect, who's being valued, uh, affirmed, validated, appreciated, seen. And so many whose interests are prevailing. And so many of our, our interactions are, are rooted that way. This is not a message about being altruistic. It's a message about being strategic. We still need our interests considered, we still want to be respected. We still wanna be [00:41:00] appreciated, seen, validated, witnessed, and valued. It's just that more strategic and effective way to have that accomplished is to go first in giving away what we need. And I think that applies in our hosting occasions. I don't like to use the word hospitality industry because I don't believe hospitality is an industry. I believe it's a virtue. That the food, beverage and services industry has sort of adopted as its primary driver, but in the food, beverage and services industry, I believe that if we go all in, in valuing others, we get that back. wife is looking for a new car and she went to a car dealership yesterday and she met with a young guy that was a sales guy. And as it got closer and the young guy could tell that my wife and I were serious about getting this [00:42:00] car, the sales manager came out his delivery and his presence was so off-putting I think it was really rooted in, he was determined to get the sale and it was

really

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Mm.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Well, ironically, he would've gone first in to make my wife feel seen, trying to make her interests feel tended to, he probably would've gotten to where it was that he's hoping he would arrive. But there's a moment of forfeit where we go. I have enough. I'm good. me go. Let me share with Dan first

And

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: And if I could bring, if I could bring this example back to your core values of your, of your former company, and I'm sure they're probably personal core values too, but profit minded. I understand what you're saying about ROI and like being more invested in the project, but it also, there [00:43:00] is a level of transactional.

Behavior with that. 'cause you wanna make sure you're pricing your projects the right way. You wanna make sure you're getting them, you're feeding your pipeline. But I feel like that's balanced out with think like a host. So he may have come in more in value number one, but maybe, but really just looking at the transaction part of that spectrum.

And if he just thought more like a host, and also if you gave him feedback at the end of that conversation where he could rage to master and continually improve himself. Like that's, that's where you unlock everything,

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Totally.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: right?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Totally. And that's why I was like, ah, I've taken 36 years to learn these lessons. And they don't just apply to food, beverage and services. They apply to the Toyota dealership that I went to yesterday.

Um, and

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Well, I, I, can say like, from my, from my own experience, I would say I wouldn't have accomplished half of the things that I've accomplished in my life. Personal family [00:44:00] business had it not been for various coaches or mentors along my, along my journey. And that's why like at the beginning of this podcast, I always say, you know what I do doesn't really matter.

It's like why I do what I do is I get to shorten other people's journeys. And oftentimes that's why I love doing this podcast so much 'cause I learn so much. Our listeners get to learn so much. Um, but I'm also going back to that idea of inertia, right? And being exasperated, but just dealing with it and not wanting to take that next step to change.

Um, I think that's where the beauty of coaches comes in because they're there to make you a little bit uncomfortable. They're there to help challenge you to take that first step. What do you say to people, or I'm sure you have other friends or entrepreneurs who are like, oh, I don't need a coach, I got this.

Or other people in your MMA world, they say, what do you say to them where it's like, oh no, I got it. 'cause I love how you said the best players are coached. And you said you had another one. The best players or coach

I, I couldn't.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: are [00:45:00] led.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: And the best leaders are led by a coach or a mentor or something.

And there's so many people I find that are stuck in that inertial world because they don't have that outside sounding board. And it's really about investing in yourself by getting a coach or a mentor to tell, take those next steps and to continually get over the next hill. But what do you say to the people who are like, no, I'm good, or do you just not interact with them?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Yeah, man. I think people that demonstrate a mindset that says, I'm good, I'm fully baked. Uh, I think they have so shut themselves off from. Learning from curiosity. Uh, I, I just don't know how, I mean, if we use, again, I love nature metaphors because nature is always speaking. So if you think of a body of water, the way that that body of water is healthy is water is flowing [00:46:00] into it, and then it comes into the body and then water is flowing out of it. And water, bodies of water that don't have anything coming out of it or anything coming into it are ponds that turn to like pond scum. You know, like they just get like green and thick and unhealthy. And I, yeah, I don't know that I say anything to someone who says, I'm good. I am fully baked, because I think life and reality will say enough to them.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Yeah. Agreed. And I think that also comes down to like peer group and you know, who, who we choose to spend our time around. Probably. We don't have a lot of people, if any, that are like that. Um, this is a great segue into kind of as you've exited your business and you have your book and you have your host mindset, host mindset kind [00:47:00] of operating system, if you will.

Um, how do you take all of these things and apply them to different leaders or leadership teams or keynotes? Like what do. What are you looking to get and what kind of an impact are you looking to leave in this new in, I don't know, in, in the, in this next journey that you're on.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: This is gonna sound the most honest answer like I was gonna give you. I was trying to think through a canned answer, but just what came up for me that I was a bullied kid and I didn't really have any friends and life wa and people were very unkind and I am really drawn to kindness

and

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Hmm.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: by unkindness. [00:48:00] And think so much happens in that relational space that gets tense and leads to conflict that, like you said at the beginning of your ho, your podcast hospitality makes everything better. If we just thought more like hosts, there'd be more kindness and civility among us. And so when you say, what are you looking to get? Like all of us, I am looking to play the little part that I have been given in hopes that maybe my life all of the ways that I have failed in the relationship department because I was trying to get value and get witnessed and get noticed, and I realized, oh, that breaks the sauce. The hope that I am living for is that as these tools have been honed and these frameworks that I've created [00:49:00] are taught and understood that there could just be more kindness and civility in the relationships of the people that I encounter, whether they are, you know, colleagues or community members or direct reports to superiors. And that's really what we do. We're now Room 40, is now a retreat organization, and we host retreats that bring together all of the different aspects of things that I enjoy. So obviously excellence in food and beverage and hospitality, but I'm also a nature guy. Uh, we've left LA moved up to Santa Cruz and bought a big piece of property, uh, in Santa Cruz.

We're in Montana a lot. So I do retreats and I bring people together and we try to host them in such a way that they are, they feel so seen and specifically notice that it inspires them to go do that with others. But we don't just host them, [00:50:00] we also teach that content. And then, yeah, like you said, the keynotes and the seminars working with different organizations. To just help them recognize that when they, when they extend hospitality in any interaction, when they think like a host and they think, I have enough this moment, I wanna share with you, I wanna make you feel valued, it just changes their transaction. So two weeks ago I was up in Portland, Oregon with a called DC Structures that manufactures these huge sort of barn style beautiful buildings that have those giant beams, something like that you'd see outta Yellowstone, you know, or at a ranch and Telluride. it was builders in the room. you know, I was talking to these builders about the fact that.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Was it a department within DC Structures or was it, um, just a franchisees of that? Like walk us through like what [00:51:00] segment of DC structures you were talking to. Who

were the builder? Who were the builders?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: their whole

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: I.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Like many companies in America, they have increased their efficiency by going remote, but they have hurt their culture. And so the charge that I was given was, Hey, one week a year we bring everybody across the country to our headquarters. Would you come and spend some time with our team talking about culture? So it was, I spoke to different de departments, the majority of my time was spent with the entire company that when their sales department thinks like hosts and goes, okay. Dan and his family wanna build a barn. are not just gonna say, well, these are our pro, we're gonna get really curious about what, what is Dan looking for?

You know, when you treat your customers like hosts and from that transactional mindset that the Toyota salesperson had, I probably shouldn't be [00:52:00] using specific names. We love Toyota. It was just this one

dealership.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: I love Toyota too. Big fan.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Um, uh, when your salespeople think like hosts, when your, when your builders think like hosts, when you know, when you think like a host, whether it is your clients, your colleagues, your coworkers, it just changes the game because you're just trying to make other people feel valued in these transactions and these moments, these interactions that you have with them.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: So one of the things that I find is in a binary relationship, if you look at a company between their sales force and their operations force, like the sales force are bringing in the business, the ops team are kind of like the back of house, just getting all those widgets done and fulfilling all those promises that the salespeople made, right?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Yes.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: I find that the salespeople in that binary transaction, um, are acting like hosts trying to get the [00:53:00] deal being true. Um, not overpromising, building trust, investing in the relationship, but then internally the sales team might not necessarily act like hosts to the ops team because they're like, okay, we got it now go and just make it happen without really listening.

So instead of this binary way as you're talking, you're helping me think this out. There's almost like a a, a quadrant. Somehow, I think internally the ops team, with the ops team facing external sometimes might not act as the best host with the customer 'cause they're removed from the relationship. But I think the sales team could do a better job acting as hosts with the internal ops team, and then the ops team could learn more and be a better host with the, when they interact with the outside, um, clients as well.

Do you have examples of how you've broken down that external host versus internal host [00:54:00] and like a great outcome from there?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: Yeah. It's funny as I'm watching your hands, so your, your hands are going like this and

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Yeah,

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: the book I actually have,

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: I made a quadrant because now yeah, I, it's uh, it's actually really interesting, so thank you for helping me clarify my thinking.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: uh, I've drawn cycles, um, and I call it

the virtuous, virtuous cycle of generosity and the vicious cycle of entitlement. let's take the virtuous cycle of generosity. So it starts with an intention to make other people feel valued. So when we do that, when our intention is to make other people feel valued, we, that only begin from a place of feeling like we have enough. And so when we have enough and we're trying to make. Other people feel valued by whatever our craft is, whether it's ops and executing or selling and you know, getting buy-in from our clients. that [00:55:00] shapes how we communicate with our team members. And our team members feel like doing this together. They feel that sense of collaboration because I'm not trying to get something from my team member. I'm actually trying to make my team member feel valued. When my team member feels valued, then they start asking the question, can I contribute? And when people start asking that question of what can I contribute, it lands them in a place of generosity. And so the cycle starts to spin that way. I wanna prove. My value. So I'm the salesperson, I booked the gig. I wanna prove my value. So when I wanna prove my value, my team member can sense that and they feel a little bit more like a cog in my wheel, whether subtly or overtly the way that I'm communicating with them, because I'm trying to prove my value the way that I'm trying to communicate with them. They feel like [00:56:00] I'm just a cog in their wheel. And when people feel like a cog in our wheel, they ask a different question. They start asking, what can I get out of this? So instead of asking what can I contribute, landing us in generosity, we start asking, what can I get out of this? And when we start showing up in interactions thinking, what can I get out of this?

It lands us in that place of entitlement. No one would ever cop to being entitled that that word has kryptonite around it. But really entitlement just when. Our, our needs and what we, our interests have become so preoccupying that we're blinded by them, and I can no longer see your rights, your needs, your interests. So I, I absolutely think that this applies internally when sales goes, I, sell other people feel valued, my clients and my colleagues. So then I'm gonna treat, I'm the sales guy, Dan's [00:57:00] ops. I'm gonna treat Dan in such a way that he knows we're doing this together. And when Dan knows we're doing this together, he starts asking, what can I contribute? As opposed

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Hmm.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: look, Dan, I sold the gig, fulfill it. you're, you're thinking, I'm just a cog in that guy's wheel. What am I getting out of this? And it just, it changes the, the ecosystem.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: And then tactically, for instance, I don't know if you've done that with DC Structures or other clients that you've worked with, like aside from being at a retreat, like how do you help create that mind shift bet between departments or between colleagues so that they can start building that muscle?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: We teach some, some principles and practices. So number one, it's not a snake oil formula. It's not a one and done i i It's creating awareness. It's creating the ability to notice these things. So there's four, [00:58:00] sort of four principles that each have practices attached to them. So the first principle is speak.

The good and the practices in speak the good are, speak the good in ourselves. is no way that we can make other people feel at home. When we're not at home with ourselves and our, our dialogue and our conversations with ourselves are oftentimes vile and we say things to ourselves and we berate ourselves in such a way that we would never treat another human.

But we've created an economy, uh, a dialogue that's going on in our minds. And so speaking, the good starts with speaking kindly and the to ourselves and then speaking the good about the company, the colleague, the customer. Critics don't build anything. Complaining is easy when what you focus on grows. And so when, when you start speaking and calling out the good in the client, the company, and the customer, it is not that you are burying your head in the [00:59:00] sand and are blind to weaknesses, frustrating things, things that exasperate you. It's just operating knowing that what you focus on grows. And so when you speak the good. the good begins to grow in what you see. So the first principle speak the good practice. Speak the good in yourself. Speak good about the client, the customer, and the company. Practice. Number two is honor the other.

And honor is such a funky term. It, it's, it sounds archaic, but honoring is just really elevating the esteem or elevating the dignity of somebody else. well, how do I practically honor the other if maybe they're acting in a dishonorable way or maybe I don't know anything about them, how do I raise the dignity of them? Well, the first thing you do is you just show up, curious you mind for the gold in other people by being curious. If I spend an hour with you, Dan, and I haven't [01:00:00] asked you one question. I haven't demonstrated any interest in who you are as a human. How? can I honor you or treat you in such a way when I haven't even asked you anything? So the way that you honor others is you start by just mining for the gold in them by being curious. The second practice is that you then apply what you discovered. Oh, I found some gold in this person by being curious. Now I'm gonna apply what I discovered. That's how you honor people. So number one, you speak the good.

Number two, you honor the other. Number three, you earn the respect of the other. And I think in a lot of our encounters, we expect respect. respect should be given, but it also has to be earned. And when we show up in these encounters, expecting respect, that's felt. And I think the way that we show up when we're trying to earn the respect of the other is just totally [01:01:00] different. So the principles earn the respect of the other, the practice. How do you do that? Number one, you stand in the other's shoes. And number two, you pursue reconciliation when things have gone funny, is hard. You know, in the restaurant world when things go funny, you get a refund. But refunds don't equal reconciliation.

Reconciliation is trying your best to restore the relationship. It got funny between Dan and I, I could just withdraw, disengage, never talk to him again. Or I could call him up and be like, Hey man, it felt a little weird. I just wanna make sure, is there something that happened that broke things down between us?

It's just pursuing reconciliation and that's how you begin to earn respect. So

the good. Number one, speak the good in yourself. Number two, speak good about the client, the customer or the company. Number two, honor the other. You do that by mining for the gold and the other through curiosity, and then you apply what you [01:02:00] discovered.

You apply that gold. Number three, earn the respect of the other. You do that by standing in their shoes, imagining their reality, and then pursuing reconciliation when things go wrong. And number four, rinse and repeat. And the way that you rinse and repeat is you celebrate and improve. I love how you used the word binary. Oftentimes we have these either or premises, these black and white. That event was great. That event sucked. That restaurant was awesome. That restaurant was terrible. You are right or I'm right. We have a culture of celebrating. Yay, you're doing great. Or all we are about is improvement, and we're just relentless in driving people towards better.

So we say the way that you keep this. Th framework spinning is you celebrate and improve. So what did I do right? How do I feel that sense of high five and what's an area that I could do a little bit better in? So that's

sort

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: I love it.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: you [01:03:00] manifest this virtuous cycle mindset. And it's, it's how you can start beginning to think like a host.

And again, it's not a one and done. I show up and certain

interactions

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: and this is, this is this, this,

this is why coaches come in handy because it's not a one and done. It's a continual practice and you really have to obsess over the practice. And that also if you have your values right and you're obsessive about continual improvement and delivering. Internally and externally to all the stakeholders.

I, I think that's really where the magic happens. Um, I in this new business of yours, um, as far as being a coach, being a facilitator, um, hosting retreats, doing keynotes, who's the ideal client for you?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: The ideal client, I would say is someone with a growth mindset who is looking to grow, uh, opposite of [01:04:00] the person that you described earlier in our conversation that says, I'm good. fully baked. I think someone that has a growth mindset, that has a willingness to be somewhat vulnerable, because some of the terminology that we use, people might think, oh, that's way too relational for a professional context.

But the reality is, is that we are as humans. Who we are as humans, and that's how we show up at work. That's how we show up relationship. And so it's someone who understands the myth of compartmentalization when it comes to us as people. You know, I'm one guy, and you know, we can say, well, that's my work life and that's my home life. We all know our home life affects our work life. So I think that the ideal person to work with [01:05:00] this content is someone who understands that the way we do relationships is almost the way we do everything. I.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Love it. I love it. Um, if people wanted to learn more or connect with you or see how to engage you, or we'll put the book in the link, but if people wanted to learn more about how to get you as a keynote, how to do a retreat, how to bring you on as a coach, or just connect with you, um, what's the best way for them to do that?

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: They can go to our website, which is stevefortunato.com

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: Awesome. And I will put that in our links. I'll put the link to your book in there. Um, this has been fascinating and really instructive for me, and I know we're gonna. Keep talking once this thing is over because you've just struck a lot of, a lot of chords and have been re very resonant with a lot of my beliefs and things.

So I'm so glad to have met you. I'm so glad that, [01:06:00] and happy and, and really overjoyed that you were able to help share your journey and really detailed thinking about how to bring hospitality into everything that we do, um, and how to value others. 'cause I think that that is really a magical place that we're really losing, like you said, as people are going away from the office more and we're in this hybrid space.

So thank you, thank you.

thank you.

steve_1_08-13-2025_091847: you so much, Dan. It's been a privilege to be with you today.

dan-ryan_13_08-13-2025_121847: And also to our listeners, um, if this changed the way you think about hospitality or if you think you, you've had a conversation with someone who's looking for a coach or a facilitator or a keynote or to do a retreat. Pass, pass this on to them. We've grown mostly by word of mouth. Um, and without all of your ears and eyeballs on us, I wouldn't be here meeting and talking to really cool people and learning from these amazing people like Steve.

So thank you to all the listeners. Don't forget to like and subscribe and leave it rating. It helps with [01:07:00] distribution and we'll catch you next time.