Scarr Pimentel — The restaurant industry in New York is mid and super overrated. Ft. Scarr Pimental
Summary
Scarr Pimentel, owner of Scarr's Pizza, thinks New York's restaurant scene is mid and overrated. His reason? The industry's been taken over by VC and private equity money in the last six or seven years. He tells Kareem how to spot a venture-backed restaurant: if the Instagram looks too polished, if they've got merch ready before they even open, if TikTok influencers show up on day one. That's VC. Meanwhile, small business owners like Pimentel face brutal red tape, endless fines, and zero tax breaks while Starbucks and McDonald's get corporate handouts. He's been open almost ten years and still doesn't know how he's survived. His advice for aspiring restaurateurs? Hope your family's rich, or just open in Minnesota instead, make your money there, and come back when you're loaded.
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Full Transcript
So, what's your take? Restaurant industry in New York's mid and super overrated.
Wow. 100% disagree. Reason being is a lot of them are fronts for like VC and private equities that people don't realize. The whole industry has shifted in the last six, seven years.
It used to be that you come to New York, you open a restaurant,
Correct.
With some money that your friends gave you or through a small business loan. It's not like that anymore.
And now they say, "I need $4 million," and you get investors. Correct. From all VC types. And also a lot of VCs and private equity, they're like, "Hey, instead of buying a cool brand or whatnot," they just say, "Hey, let's just do it ourselves." They'll open up hamburger spots, they'll open up pizzerias, they'll open up everything. Anything you can imagine and be like, "Hey, we're going to just do it ourselves." Like tall to signs or like how an Instagram is too perfectly curated. That's VC.
If the Instagram account for a restaurant is too nice, that's VC. Also, like they already have a merch rack, they have merch ready before they even open.
If they got the merch ready before the food, that's VC. Tik Tok influencers, they pay a lot for those. If you got Tik Tok influencers at the restaurant
Like off the rip.
That's VC. Those are not even open. They already got a hype hype train behind them.
Well, what are people supposed to do? It's so hard. From what I understand, it's so hard to open a restaurant in New York City. Now that we got Zeldin, hopefully he could change that for us. We also have our councilman in my neighborhood, uh, Christopher Marte, who helps a lot of the small businesses.
Is there a lot of red tape? There's a lot of red tape, a lot of fines, a lot of taxes.
So, do you think that the city is hostile towards restaurant owners? And if they weren't like that, that there would be more people opening restaurants without VC money? They give tax breaks to corporate spots like Starbucks, McDonald's.
They don't give tax breaks to the small restaurant. No, not not like, not like the bigger corporations though. Not at all. We don't get the same tax cuts though.
What restaurant do you own? I own Scar's Pizza.
Pretty good pizza. I don't even know how we stayed open. We've been open almost ten years and I don't know how we did it.
Any advice for people who are looking to start their first restaurant in New York? Hopefully their families are rich. That's, or they worked on Wall Street for a long time and saved up their money. Like for New York, at least New York City, I'd say just open up outside of New York. Let's be honest. So you make more money.
Go open a restaurant in Minnesota And then come back here when you make your zillions over there and come back here.