What you’ll hear in this episode

• Sam Hellman-Mass’ culinary background
• Farm to table
• The creativity of cooking
• Being a restaurant founder

Sam Hellman-Mass is a chef and restauranteur based in Austin, Texas. Hellman-Mass has contributed a great deal to the Austin food scene through being a partner and sous chef at Barley Swine, being a partner and chef at Odd Duck, and most recently opening his restaurant in East Austin, Suerte. He found his love for cooking early on and furthered it through a culinary arts program at his Boston high school; soon after owning a restaurant became his goal. Hellman-Mass earn a degree in finance and entrepreneurship from Boston University but continued cooking throughout the summers, and realized cooking was his true passion.

“The most expensive piece of equipment in a kitchen is the garbage can…when you cook with quality ingredients you have to learn to use all of it.”

Hellman-Mass can be attributed to the rise in popularity of farm to table in Austin restaurants. Throughout his culinary education, sourcing directly from farmers was ingrained in him. Hellman-Mass says that this led to his creativity and innovation in cooking because it forced him to find a way to use everything and every part of the ingredients bought for the restaurants. He was taught that “the most expensive piece of equipment in a kitchen is the garbage can,” because “when you cook with quality ingredients you have to learn to use all of it.”

Though starting a restaurant has high failure rates, Hellman-Mass wasn’t deterred. With opening his first restaurant, Barley Swine, he felt he’d make it work no matter what. This doesn’t mean it is easy though; there is always the self-doubt and stress involved. He believes a good portion of the failure rate is due to people thinking it’s easy, glamorous work when it is the exact opposite.

Hellman-Mass’s latest endeavor, Suerte, began with the simple question of, “have you ever had a great tortilla?” This question sent him down a wormhole of learning how to make a fantastic corn tortilla, and from that, the idea came of opening a restaurant surrounding the tortilla.

Listen to our ninth installment of Masters and Founders to hear more about Hellman-Mass’ journey from chef to restaurant owner, how his farm to tables background has helped his cooking creativity and innovation, and why he believes he has had the success he has. If you like what you hear or have learned something new, be sure to share this episode with a friend or colleague!

Masters & Founders is a founding_media podcast created in collaboration with foundingAUSTIN.

Hosts: Dan Dillard & Ryan Francis

Guest: Sam Hellman-Mass

 

Transcript:

while farm to table might seem like the Norman many upscale restaurants these days in Austin we can thanks Sam Hellman mass for his contributions in making it so popular and delicious from our doc and Marty swung into his new venture sweat Sam is slowly amassing his own tasty empire let’s find out what inspired Sam’s journey to culinary greatness and how he got started on his global food adventure here’s our conversation with Sam home
hello everyone and welcome to founding Austin masters and founders live podcasts were here was Sam home in mass we’re gonna be talking a little bit of entrepreneurship restaurateur ship and chef things so it’s a little bit of both masters and founders
I want to thank all of our sponsors for for letting us do this still lost in tiny house coffee kind bar Waterloo sparkling water and of course we were at Russell collection fine art gallery I’m gonna jump into this and and asked well for anybody that doesn’t know I have a personal connection with Sam I I I cook on the side and Sam was one of my original mentors that kind of you know took me from nothing to a whole lot of something and really spent a lot of time with me so I’m really excited for this Sam can we ask a little bit about your story where restaurants came into your life why cooking it’s it’s insanely difficult on your body so is their passion behind it is it more than passion do you love the business all that good stuff
yeah so I kind of screwed around for high school starting get in trouble and it’s not really apply myself in school and my school had a culinary arts program where the students ran a little cafeteria that the teachers and students in the program did outside of Boston that’s where I grew up and I kind of just always love cooking since I was a teenager watching like I’m a great chefs in the world in this coverage and on of your member that and just kinda captivated me so I started doing that in high school and I and I liked it I like being in school I like being good at something in trying in class and then my mom you know my parents had they were happy to see me like trying anything and my mom had a friend whose co workers husbands brothers and then ran a restaurant in central square and so I would take the train and go work for free couple days a week in this Caribbean restaurant which is actually really good feeling plantations and doing whatever and so from then on I just kind of had that early goal since I was like I don’t know fourteen or fifteen of like I wanna open a restaurant one day and our price I want to go to cooking school my dad’s a professor of economics at a public university just retired outside of Boston so being a person of of of education is of you push me said you know go to a four year school and if you still want to go to culinary school you know you can figure that out after so I went to school and studied study finance in entrepreneurship Abbas university in the summers always just cooking so that a dream since I was like fourteen or fifteen and always just kind of working towards that figured I’d learn about business and finance in school and learn about the restaurant by you know experience and working kitchens and through that I think I found out that I really love to cook more than I liked anything else and so I just threw myself at that and move to Colorado in Chicago and just work in kitchens and coming full circle you know stepping on this project I have now it’s where they like I’m not the chef but that experience I think service really really well and and I’m glad I also kind of learn a little bit about business and finance and all that because it’s a part of it that’s important to know about so yeah
a little ask a little about the innovation takes to cook because I think so many people don’t understand that being a cook in a restaurant or shop there’s a lot that goes into it from artistic standpoint I think one of the I mean one thing that’s I don’t know where this was kind of ingrained somewhere along my culinary education was never something was in question was just like sourcing ingredients from farmers it was never something was like maybe we’ll do it maybe you almost every place I’ve worked that had a focus on doing that and I think when you sourcing greens that way confining yourself to be creative when you’re not just going to buy anything in the catalog forces you to like create flavor from all of the ingredients you buy and and that part of being creative I really love right so if you if you make I don’t know and what’s a good example tomatoes when they’re in season you buy and all of them in your plans in your feeling on and your cooking down the sauce and then will you have all the skin so you can drive them and make it’s a metal powder and then use that and something else or if you’re buying a lot of chilis when they’re in season you know you have to save all this crap and soak it in vinegar to make chili vinegar and all these different kinds of you know what can you get out of what you have marks got that great saying most expensive piece of equipment in the kitchen is a garbage can I think that’s kind of stress the point where you know if you’re gonna cook with quality ingredients you’ve got to figure out how to use all of it and and create flavor from all of it right like taking a filet Mignon cooking it to medium rare and slicing it it takes some technique and skill to do that it takes a lot more to take the bones from a pagan make a amazing soup out of that you know right the creativity is there comes a time in using your senses
we have a passion for cooking is we use a second ago is that where the passion is the creative cooking or or is it just make it a wonderful flavors and feeding people or what works what doesn’t I think both making stuff with your hands that makes other people happy and it’s delicious is a is a fun thing to do people I said that doesn’t get old I think the passion I think comes with that and also I mean one thing that’s so fun about the restaurant industry is all the different people who gets interact with right these kind of quirky cast of characters whether it’s like the ninety waiter whose I don’t know just like a a wacko but loves doing what he does or whether it’s dealing with you know the lady who used to be in the CIA was started farming bees and now makes honey you know all these people have things they’ve done in their lives and like getting to interact with those people is amazing because all summer all of them have passion about what they’re doing whether it’s a farmer who raises goats or vegetable farmer or someone that makes come which so you kind of figure out how to make your restaurant a reflection of all the people you source from the people you work with that’s fun
I have a question on the founder side starting your own restaurant to be part owner in a restaurant and I were your path takes you it takes a special something I would think because you hear that start in restaurants on the hardest things to do with high failure rates without ever scare you offers I mean how did you see that so when I first moved down here to start release one price you had the food trailer was starting a restaurant and I moved down here because I like my job in Chicago and I wanted to I had a good new prices a fantastic cook and thought of I I you know at the very least and learn what it takes to open a restaurant we open that restaurant here you know eight nine years ago and it costs very little money compared to what it costs now to open a place and we need a little more money so I chipped in kind of what I’d save them was a partner prices business but was a small partner and you know kind of through that experience I learned a lot learn how to you know we open that restaurant in the walk and we just had a region free agent we put the butter on the top because if it froze it didn’t matter next to can can answer you know that kind of just like make it happen what you have and I wasn’t scared of that because I coming down here I just felt like we it was forty seats and we were going to make good food it was gonna gonna work I don’t know the step of of where we’re at now with with with our dog and swear that still feel like we have all the tools to to to execute what we’re trying to do a really high level I’m not I’m not scared of that but yeah there’s tons of moments along the way we like fuck like is this going to work on the tables too close together is the you know is the kitchen set up good how did why don’t why don’t we do that that way all those kind of self doubt moments and I think just now seeing the place come together in open it’s like it is everything I hoped it would be and that stresses like it’s it’s useful because it pushes you to like the weed on the more you question stuffer seek other people’s opinions and all that makes your thing better but it can be painful right you tell yourself up too much along the way so I don’t know the starting a restaurant is you do always hear that high failure rates but I think part of that is because there’s so many idiots that are trying to open a restaurant about how many people are starting a semiconductor company with no experience in semiconductors meanwhile Jane who makes really nice salads at home thing she wants a restaurant you know she might make it but I think a lot of those folks that just see it as a glamorous fun things their friends their own places like it’s a grind every day and you know if you haven’t been in that in that game you might be surprised

it’s the complete opposite of glamorous actually right I mean the the hours the work especially if you’re running a scratch kitchen and you’re doing everything from from bone up it’s like of that’s a fuck ton of work I I know that I’ve seen I’ve seen Sam work eighteen hour days for months and months and months and it was it was one of the craziest thing where years sacrificing personal health I mean there’s there’s so much behind it but I do want to get to to swear to a can you tell us a little bit about what you’re doing with swear today where the whole idea stemmed from why Mexican yeah for sure so I think it kind of started almost as innocently as someone asking me like we ever had a great corn tortilla and that when we when I wear a barley so many of the original small as a kind of shit like I don’t know where you find one and there’s not there’s not too many places that Nixon allies corn from from you know Ellen corn in and grind it every day so to find that kind of let me down a worm hole of like I go to Mexico and check out how it’s made in get a small calling runners are making ourselves and we started doing that on duck for like one dish on the menu I just got more and more obsessive than started thinking like I want to do a restaurant focused around this because you know it’s a it’s a craft just like making pasta is to Italian food or natural eleven sourdough bread or find pastry it you know making masa and so base and propose us and tacos and tortillas in court date as like it’s all that all that nuances there it’s just its own set of things so I wanted to create a restaurant focused on that process and and local ingredients and that idea was was worth it and and yeah US open
yeah it’s really it’s really exciting when are you guys opening that’s the big question I can’t say that right now and I’m gonna put out the little released it soon that just won’t go out before then so it’s okay but what what I do how home port was a learning process of actually building something that you’re not you you you have no real experience and you know and and laying out blueprints and understanding everything that a restaurant needs and all the care did you did you grow I mean you’ve not seen that process twice and had a barley are those really thought it was really small and we had the prince we had to get permits we had a G. C. at all the elements out ducks a thing it was a it was a landlord leasehold improvements deal so they give us some TI and then we raise the money and and and work for the bank to finance the rest of it so this had the added layer of I raise the money to buy the the real estate and then do the restaurant and that was you know a layer of Johns but again it’s like it having a bit of a background finance like I’m not scared to talk to a bank or make a spreadsheet or you know pitch to investors because I I don’t have to just ask someone to make the numbers for me like I can I can do that part of it and the real status is I I you know I see a lot of people in the industry leasing properties in there can be great deals that releases but if you have the opportunity to do it all in and in one investment I can make a it can make a lot of sense you know instead of paying thing right you’re paying off your your note in which you pay in rent or what you pay for your note can be close to you can be more of the same or less depending on all the terms and interest rates and all that so that that was that’s a good a good story bina find a property and all that yeah
so the podcast is obviously about masters and founders mastering the craft this is gonna be the first restaurant that your not cooking and and how does that feel being that you you’re a chef yeah and I don’t know yeah I mean it’s pretty I think it’s good I’m enjoying what I’m doing a lot and it’s fun to I you know not only focus on one area I got to see the whole picture someone has to see the all the different sides including the front of the house and the marketing and all that in the kitchen and you know I can go in the kitchen and having worked in the kitchen for a long time like see what’s going on to see feel the energy they organize it they ready their behind taste the food and offer my thoughts and so I’m still in the game in that regard because I think for mean really values my my thoughts bin and knows that I can help him reads a mountain top in some way and in push him I think he’d be values my thought and
maybe a lot to think about the moment but this is step one of other pro other projects you have reminders is I hope so but I know that I to quote bill Belichick you know the main thing the main thing the main thing all that so yeah we we got it we gotta do this first and again if we do a really good job then we’ll have a lot of opportunities to to go from there but if we don’t take if you don’t take the first step right I think we’re going to stifle our gonna we’re gonna come out of this printer block a little slow if we don’t you know like secure for now good old fashioned brick by brick in a way that soon
so I do an ask one thing that we’ve been asking everybody touching on on failure and has there ever been a time where you’d actually did hit a wall and and if not what do you feel about about failure and and how do you overcome it for anybody out there listening on the shelf for entrepreneurship side that’s a good question I’ve had some jobs or experiences that you know when I was younger I would I wish I would have done a little bit differently I have not opened a business and quote unquote just like failed on one level but I don’t know I mean I guess on some level you know originally my my partner and investor bottom a lot of the songs and we were trying to do for the restaurant side originally and the neighborhood association kind of made it tough for us to move forward or alcohol permit and so like it wasn’t going to be there and in the face of that like maybe it’s not going to happen I found this other opportunity and put that property under contract with only the earnest money and have ninety days to like figure the rest out so it’s like on the on the other side of that great disappointment was a great opportunity I think a things were seem to work out like that a lot you know most often they do from all the stores were done that’s the question so now hope to use like that when one door shuts really others open which actually you have to make the door open so you can’t dwell on this didn’t work in and those fears and doubts and and
you have a really hard to to make that step to go I’m going to do this project you know outside of the partners that I had been up a part of doing too great restaurants that are still great Clinton to say you know what I’m gonna do this because it’s it’s what I want to see the most that I can be a part of it poly pension venture the person
is there anything else we knew about sorted would open some I’m I’m looking for to hear things where there’s going to be tasty I mean if you know being at that party last night Ryan and and see and the food for means make and then the energy in the space I gotta I got a really good feeling they were going to do something something special there so we’ll really have is with the story especially because as a matter of under the people out there that have ideas just like using how execute and sometimes it is it is taking this path pardon with others and and kind of pursuing that passion then you just have to have to make that happen yeah so I really enjoy the story of where you’re you’re taking it from one step two step three step in now notes here so they’re also looking for to see some great things over
I think that we’re good to go yours is in the in the other comes from just want to say to everybody listening in Austin Texas gotta go to swear to a support Sanford Maine Carlos they’re going to do some great stuff thanks for having me on guys and they can
is anyone else hungry now if your ever in Austin make sure to check out one of Sam’s restaurants and maybe stop by sorted and see how those corn tortillas are doing thank you Sam for speaking with me and my guest co host Ryan Francis the men’s room founders team includes medium Dillard and producer right gossip you so much to all the folks at Fannie Austin if you enjoy the show so far please tell a friend we are available wherever you get your podcast please rate subscribe and share it all helps thanks for listening