Starting California Pizza Kitchen With No Restaurant Experience - Rick Rosenfield

Alan Li (00:01) We got a really special episode today.

We have Rick Rosenfield, the co-founder of California Pizza Kitchen, the birthplace of the barbecue chicken pizza and home to many of my early childhood memories. ⁓ Rick was previously a federal prosecutor and defense attorney and left that lucrative career at age 40 to start CPK with his law partner Larry Flax. Today we're going to dive into the nitty-gritty of how and why that all happened. Rick, thanks so much for joining the opening soon podcast.

Rick Rosenfield (00:32) it's my pleasure. Thanks.

Alan Li (00:34) okay, so Rick, bring me back to nineteen eighty-five when you were forty, you have a great career as a as a lawyer, ⁓ I'm sure you're making great money. Walk us through the decision of you know, why you would leave all that to start a pizza restaurant.

Rick Rosenfield (00:55) Well, Larry and I was inter it's from the we were partners for thirteen years after leaving the federal government as prosecutors. We we both loved food, we loved restaurants, we w we always had one idea after another. We always thought that someday we'd end up in the restaurant business and we we got close a couple of times, but each time we got interrupted by a client who would give us a big retainer and we'd be back in the practice of law.

Alan Li (01:15) Hm.

Rick Rosenfield (01:25) But in eighty four I I had gone back to Chicago, which was my hometown. My brother showed me this pasta cafeteria. So at that time I was running marathons and ⁓ carbohydrate loading was the thing. So that was a it was a great concept. Very very cute, very clean, simple. You walk in, in the front was a case of fresh pasta, you'd walk down the line, choose a a salad perhaps. And very, very simple.

Alan Li (01:30) Okay.

Mm.

Rick Rosenfield (01:54) But we saw th that there was this god awful looking pe I'm sorry, excuse me, out there. So anyway, we came back and and told my partner about it. We said, you know, that's a really interesting concept. So we had a long trial in San Francisco, and we came back, still with this concept in my mind, and a friend told us that there was a place like it in Glendale Galleria, so we drove out, and that's where we saw the same concept basically.

Alan Li (02:14) Mm-hmm.

Rick Rosenfield (02:23) With this god-awful looking pizza under heat lamps swirling around. But we saw some people were taking a slice of pizza. We said, okay, let's put pizza in the pasta concept. So that way, on our way back to our office in Beverly Hills, we started saying, wait a minute, how about this new type of pizza, this California style pizza? And by the time we got back to our law office, we had

This concept of this new emerging California style pizza. Forget the cafeteria. We're going to put a wood-burning oven in the center of the restaurant or build a counter around it. And we had the concept. No name, no menu, no barbecue chicken pizza. But we had this concept at that point. And we were and the long answer was we were frustrated with the practice of law and wanted and we wanted to get out. And we we felt naively that we could do it in the restaurant business.

Alan Li (02:59) Mm.

Yeah.

Mm.

I see. Well so so tell me why the pasta restaurant was ⁓ unique at that time. It's it's because they were putting the ingredients at the forefront or they're showcasing it differently or

Rick Rosenfield (03:30) Yeah,

it was a it was a a case where you had all your different shapes and it just had a s a sign above that said Maranara, you know, with the prize, you know, ⁓ Alfredo with the prize. Just very simple. Today today one it would be similar as as going through a do your own pizza concept or a chipotle. Or a chipotle. It's it was just an about and it's very this very early before any of those, right? But it was basically a

Alan Li (03:40) Mm.

I see.

Yeah. Okay. But this

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (03:59) Do it yourself concept, right? And so it was simple and the simplicity of it seemed good. But but that didn't last. It didn't make it a day when we really got to thinking about it.

Alan Li (04:06) I see.

Okay. ⁓ okay, well I I so you're frustrated with the law practice or or the field of law, but I'm sure, you know, you must be making good money. Did you have a wife and kids at the time too? Like i isn't that pretty daunting to, you know, leave that to to do something like CPK?

Rick Rosenfield (04:28) It it was really

daunting, right? I I have my daughter was three years old, two maybe two at the time we were doing this. But there was there was a mentor that we had, which which we tell the story in the book. It was Burton Goldberg, and Burton owned the Mutiny in Coconut Grove. ⁓ it was a major nightclub. And ⁓ and and i in Miami, he's a founder of Coconut Grove, which is a hot, very hot area today.

Alan Li (04:35) Thinking about it?

Okay.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (04:57) And in

my criminal defense of a union official, I was going to Miami and became friends with Burton. And then Larry and I were creating menu items for this very successful club. So frankly, as I say, it was it was one time so what pushed it over the top was that trial in San Francisco, and Burton had sold the hotel.

Alan Li (05:16) Uh-huh.

Rick Rosenfield (05:23) And he would go to France and rent a villa, and he invited my wife and I for a month to come and stay in Saint Tropez. We've gone before for a week or two, right? And I said, I can't, Burton, I'm going to trial. And he said, You chicken shit lawyers, are you gonna stay and practice law your whole life? Are you gonna do what you want to do? And that so we had him prodding us into this. While while this was while this concept was developing at that time.

Alan Li (05:33) Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (05:53) He was there, we had become very close friends, you know, very successful restaurateur in his own right, pushing us and prodding us and and and challenging us to go to go do this. I I r I realize if Burton hadn't been in our life, and I do mention that I do tell this story in the memoir, if Burton hadn't been in our life, it not it wouldn't it would never have coalesced. It w it wouldn't have happened. It wouldn't

Alan Li (06:05) Mm.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (06:21) The timing wouldn't have been there.

Alan Li (06:21) Wow.

So th this is one of your clients who was a successful restaurateur club club owner and he was basically also a mentor to you and and prodded you to to you know kick off your entrepreneurial journey.

Rick Rosenfield (06:35) Well, he wasn't really

the client. The client was a union official that it was an organized crime case that I was defending in Miami and traveling back and forth. He was the owner of the hotel who knew my client and I became very good friends with Burton.

Alan Li (06:50) he knew your client. I see. Got it. wow. Okay. well I mean that's that's pretty exciting as well. ⁓ so you present this idea of, you know, what you want to do for CBK and he's like, Hey, you guys need to start this or I'm gonna back it, or or you know, what actually k takes it over the edge?

Rick Rosenfield (07:10) Well that's that's that's that's that's

that's a great question. He i it became C PK, right? But at this point it was a concept, no name, right? But it was the idea of doing at that time we that first day we thought of it as spaggo for the masses. So California pizza was credited correctly to Alice Waters, ⁓ in Chapanise in Berkeley. The idea of putting fresh ingredients and there is some dispute in

Alan Li (07:27) Mm.

Rick Rosenfield (07:39) Pizza history, was it Alice Waters or it was it Jeremiah Tower who was the chef at Chapanese that came up with the idea? He says he did. I don't know, I can't say I can't I can't settle that.

Alan Li (07:45) Yeah.

I

I went to I went to Berkeley for undergrad, so I've tried Chapinese a couple of times. Yeah, great.

Rick Rosenfield (07:55) yeah, it's great. So she's so

she's credited correctly, the mother of California cuisine. And so to me, I credit her, and the world does, with this idea of getting away from tomato sauce and goat cheese and fresh ⁓ t ⁓ toppings. Then Puck hired the chef Ed Ladoux from San Francisco. He was at Prego and brought him down for the opening of Spago. And so Spa was famous for its duck sausage pizza and the

smoked salmon pizza which was dubbed the Jewish pizza. So at the by coincidence at that time, Ed Ladoux was looking for a job. He had left Spago looking looking around. So but before we had the name of barbecue chicken, we had this concept and we were gonna be and Spago was a celebrity player. You couldn't get in if you didn't know somebody, took weeks to get a reservation or or you had a

Alan Li (08:28) Mm.

Rick Rosenfield (08:53) slip some money to the Maider D who I understand became very wealthy and retired. I'm I'm I'm teasing, but I that was sort of a rumor. But but so we said let's bring SPAGO for the masses. But so we're Burton, yes, you you're Burton said I'll invest. Okay. And and and for me he he said and listen, if if you fail, you know, I'll save you. Right. He said that. But but that was but you but you know

Alan Li (09:01) Ha ha ha.

He said that to you? ⁓ wow.

Rick Rosenfield (09:23) That only goes so far. He's not well I love Burton. I loved him he's pe passed away a long time ago, but but he wasn't my father, right? So in the in the in the end, in the end it was up to me, right? Me mean me me and Larry, right? ⁓ and Larry had a different issue, which we had tried the business before and his father lost a little money on it, so Larry couldn't go to his father, so they have to put a challenge on Larry, right? ⁓

Alan Li (09:31) Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah.

Okay.

Rick Rosenfield (09:53) But I made up my mind and I was convinced, and then Burton kept pushing Larry because I was ready to sign. So we found the lease in Beverly Hills. But realized still we have no because I know you're you're really into entrepreneurs that are starting businesses like that. We had no menu. We had no name. We had no barbecue I keep saying we had no barbecue chicken pizza. We had this concept of California style pizza, and there was a bar

Alan Li (10:12) Hmm.

Rick Rosenfield (10:21) Beverly Hills location, about six blocks from my house, a little little eighteen hundred and fifty square foot place in a what was called a restaurant graveyard, South Beverly Drive. Now now it's restaurant row, and they tell us we're lucky we found such a good location. Okay. But at that moment it was a restaurant graveyard and this site for restaurants had failed. But I felt I knew the neighborhood.

Alan Li (10:25) Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah, yeah, because you live you live close

by. ⁓ do you do you remember ⁓ how much the rent was or how much it would estimate how much it would cost to open up the restaurant?

Rick Rosenfield (10:50) Yeah, I knew I knew I knew the neighborhood.

Well, I sure I don't I I don't remember exactly the rent, but I know that we signed the lease, personal guarantees, still didn't have a chef, no manager, nothing, no name, right? We signed we signed the lease, we were on our way, ⁓ and we borrowed from our from the bank a quarter of a million dollars ⁓ based on on our cash flow expectations from our law practice.

Banker didn't want to do it, but he did it. So we thought that would do it. We thought, okay, great. And so we brought it back.

Alan Li (11:35) Wait, but did they but did they not

know that you're leaving the law practice to start the restaurant?

Rick Rosenfield (11:39) Well

well we intended to sort of keep the law practice going a little bit. But okay. But what we didn't realize was we never got once we announced we got in the restaurant business, we never got another client. I I call it we took our foot off of first base before we knew we could steal second. And the reason is that our business was basically basically referrals from other attorneys.

Alan Li (12:06) Mm-hmm.

Rick Rosenfield (12:08) Who didn't go into federal court. That day in those days, it's different today. In those days, the federal prosecutors, when they went into defense, were the ones who were ended up in federal court. And state practitioners didn't want to go into two different rules, tough judges, so they would refer it. So but ⁓ for us going into the restaurant business was similar to a brain surgeon going into the restaurant business. Would you want a brain surgeon that you have to

Alan Li (12:26) Okay.

Ha ha ha ha.

Rick Rosenfield (12:38) Yeah, you have to go visit him at his restaurant, right? So so we literally never got another client.

Alan Li (12:41) my gosh.

So your plan

was I'm going to continue my law practice and open this up on the side, but everyone kinda knows I'm opening this up on the side, so you got no more clients. I'm sure that must have been really scary for you, getting no clients, but maybe a great forcing function.

Rick Rosenfield (12:59) Well, it wasn't it wasn't

it wasn't quite that I mean, I n we knew we were getting out of the law practice. So this is not here so it wasn't an aside business. So I literally stopped six I stopped practicing law, took no cases six months before the restaurant opened to focus on opening the restaurant. The idea was that Larry would keep some of the business going for a while. Okay. And and Larry did. He s sort of wrapped up the business because the business was wrapping up. But

Alan Li (13:15) I see.

Mm.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (13:28) But but so we thought though, so we brought a contractor in, so how much will it cost to build a restaurant? And he said around two hundred and fifty thousand. So we borrowed two hundred and fifty thousand. But we've ⁓ we didn't know that didn't include kitchen equipment. You know, we didn't know it didn't include, you know, all the other s soft costs and ⁓ had you know the the the the the s the smallwares, the computer system, ⁓ training, right, inventory.

Alan Li (13:36) Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (13:57) so

all of a sud and of course it ran way over budget right from day one. So now we're face we've got three hundred we're looking we're looking like no this isn't gonna be two hundred and fifty, this is gonna be five hundred thousand. So we so we literally we go to our lawyer and we set ⁓ that of course this is all described in the book, but but we go to our lawyer, great lawyer Bob Kahn, and we form a limited partnership and we make a call.

Alan Li (14:02) Sure.

Wow.

Rick Rosenfield (14:26) to twenty-three friends, not not any criminal law clients, just friends. And we l we raised two hundred thousand dollars. ⁓ I'm sorry, we raised three hundred three hundred thousand dollars in one excuse me ⁓ in one afternoon. From from twenty-two friends. And and Bert Burton was the largest investor. And but but they range from five thousand

Alan Li (14:30) Mm-hmm.

Wow. ⁓ so

Okay.

Rick Rosenfield (14:55) To forty thousand.

Alan Li (14:57) So you in total would have raised two hundred fifty thousand from the bank and then three hundred thousand from friends and family, so five hundred fifty thousand. ⁓ how much did you put in of yourself, you and Larry?

Rick Rosenfield (15:10) It it ended up that we ended up spending that two hundred and fifty thousand and then it ran another fifty thousand over that. So we put in another fifty thousand because we were too embarrassed to go to our investors and asked for the the you know, any more contributions. Right. And and it's interesting, right? It's because our question of our law to our lawyer ⁓ Bob Kahn was would anybody invest in us? You know, we have no restaurant experience.

Alan Li (15:28) Okay.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (15:38) And

he s he said, I believe they will and I will. Right. So these people invested in us because they were friends and they believed in us and they believed in our integrity and they believed that we'd be successful.

Alan Li (15:41) Wow.

And then just for context, for the audience, you know, five hundred thousand dollars in nineteen eighty-five is very different from five hundred thousand dollars today. That's more than forty years ago. Five hundred thousand dollars in nineteen eighty-five is probably the equivalent of maybe two million dollars now.

Rick Rosenfield (16:03) For sure.

That's

that's probably right. I was g I was gonna say a million and a half or more. I've I've I've done a little research sometimes and it's it's like ⁓ three times. Right. Just gener just generally three times is it looking looking at the dollars that we spent or or what our revenues were. Pretty much if you if you triple them, I think we get closer to where we're at today.

Alan Li (16:18) Three times. Okay. And

Yeah. And and

Rick, can you give a sense to the audience of, you know, what you're walking away from? How how much were you making at the law practice? And tell me about the business plan of how much you were expecting to make at the restaurant.

Rick Rosenfield (16:42) That's interesting. I I think we were ⁓ at that time I think we were making a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand dollars a year in in in our yeah, we we were living well. You know, we were we had we ⁓ we we were I wouldn't describe us as wealthy, but we had good income. ⁓ and so here's the problem. Okay, so the prof okay, so you're you're getting right to the to the next problem. So we we do this, let's say we open the restaurant, okay, we

Alan Li (16:50) Wow, back then that's great money.

Ha ha.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (17:11) Now we have no clients. Where's our income? We don't have any now. We don't have any income. We just have expenses. So that's what what so with Bob Kahn, our lawyer, when we set up this limited partnership, we set up our salaries. Now we could draw our salaries. This is interesting. So if I recall correctly, we ended up drawing about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Well, where was that money coming from? It was coming from our investors. Now the

Alan Li (17:14) Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Rick Rosenfield (17:41) This was

no, this was all disclosed, right? So but now we had so and I'm sorry, that was a little later. That wasn't when we that we weren't drawing when we first started. I don't remember exactly when it happened, but as the law practice drew up and and we we we needed a salary. So basically as we expanded and expanded the friends and family and built restaurants, we we were drawing money from from that.

Alan Li (18:00) Sure.

Well well ha were you drawing a hundred fifty thousand each or total between you and there?

Rick Rosenfield (18:15) No, I you know

what, I I th I I suspect that's probably right. I my guess would be my guess would be that at the beginning when we started drawing, we may have been drawing seventy five thousand or or something ⁓ in that in that when when we started drawing. But but but so in we so the business plan, here's where I think it gets particularly interesting, is our bank asked for a business plan. Well we didn't have any business plan. We I never

Alan Li (18:27) Got it.

Okay.

Rick Rosenfield (18:42) We didn't know any business I didn't even know any business terms, right? So I sit down at what then was my word processor, because I w I was the legal writer in in our law firm, and I write CPK's business plan. And I say and realize at the point I'm doing this, now we have a name, California Pizza Kitchen. We still don't have a menu, we still don't have a chef. There at that point there is no barbecue chicken pizza. California style pizza is being defined.

By goat cheese and duck sausage and rabbits on duck sausage, etc. And I write that we are going to California Pizza Kitchen will create the third most and one of the three most important pizza types in America. So along with New York and along with Chicago, California Pizza Kitchen is going to define and but here is I think the greatest chutzpah of all that you know that was hubris was. I said that that.

Alan Li (19:15) Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (19:41) In the future, California style pizza will be defined by whatever Califor I'm whatever California style pizza will be defined by whatever California pizza kitchen defines it. All before the barbecue chicken pizza. Thank God the barbecue chicken pizza came along so I could be proven right.

Alan Li (19:55) Wow. Did you did you w

Yeah. Well

w Rick, wh where did you get this gusto? Is is this something that you're born with or w how how did you have the you know, even the foresight to even write something so so grand?

Rick Rosenfield (20:16) I I guess you're I you know, I guess it's I guess it's my personality, Larry's personality, a lot of confidence in ourselves. Well I I I was scrapping at that point. I didn't I didn't have any real fallback in life. My father, who was a lawyer in in Chicago, passed away when I was twenty-six. ⁓ so I I I was earning it for myself. I went to Department of Justice through the honors program. I you know, I worked my way I was writing briefs in the Supreme Court.

Alan Li (20:24) Yeah.

Mm.

Rick Rosenfield (20:46) Got good cases when got transferred to LA because the US attorney wanted me to come out there. So I had a lot of faith in myself and and and Larry too, and a lot of faith. The other part, let's ⁓ not to get distracted. This was a partnership. Larry and I had faith in each other. We we often refer to it as synergy, right? That that one and one equal three. So so I'm not sure I would have done it by myself.

Alan Li (21:05) Mm.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (21:16) And I don't think I could have done it by myself. I think th that there's I I don't wanna get too distracted on the me part here. This was very much Larry and me. Right.

Alan Li (21:26) Yeah. ⁓

what did your wife say while you were embarking on this adventure with a three year old child?

Rick Rosenfield (21:32) Well

first my wife Esther, who grew up in her daddy's diner in Birmingham, Alabama, who thought she had married this successful lawyer and was very happy with our life, thought that this was a really bad idea. Okay. However, that was only a breath. She has always supported me, has always believed in me. So that didn't last long at all.

Alan Li (21:43) Exactly.

I'm sure.

Rick Rosenfield (22:03) And in fact, when we when we opened the first restaurant, she went in every night and she was the original hostess. And so for those who know my wife, it had a lot to do with our success. She's fabulous. She greet, you know, she greeted the people, she watched what was going on, she she is great at it. She's she's she defines hospitality. She's beautiful and gracious and people loved her.

Alan Li (22:10) Wow.

Rick Rosenfield (22:32) And but still she had to deal with the front door of people in Beverly Hills, so it was a challenge. But but she was all in and was always all in.

Alan Li (22:40) in the beginning, what were you and Larry's roles when the restaurant opened and to what fanfare ⁓ did the restaurant open to? How did it do?

Rick Rosenfield (22:51) So

Larry has i Larry Larry was always more hands on in the restaurant and I was always more of the business. That's how we sort of ended up dividing ourselves. So so the first thing we saw so the w we we had amazing tension at first because we had hired Ed Ledoux as our pizza chef. That's that's the original spago.

Alan Li (23:04) Mm.

Okay.

Yep. From Spargo.

Rick Rosenfield (23:22) In the book there's very, I think, interesting stories of how Ed double crossed us and kept coming back. We couldn't make a deal with him. We finally make a deal with him. And we get the first menu before we open. We only make a deal with him a couple of weeks before we open. We had another chef and that didn't be so here we we were we we were we were behind the eight ball. We finally come to terms with Ed Ladoux.

Alan Li (23:41) Okay.

Rick Rosenfield (23:51) He hands us the first menu and what is it? It's sparklish pizza. It's rabbit sausage pizza and it's lamb sausage pizza, ridiculo pine nut pizza, grape leaf pizza, but barbecue chicken pizza.

Alan Li (24:07) Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (24:08) Okay. So left bottom line is barbecue barbecue chicken pizza is a smash. Nothing else is selling except the two pizzas that Larry and I insisted on for traditional people, which was a mushroom pepperonian sausage and a and a cheese pizza. But so now that so in our in our roles what happened was Woodoo lasted a month or so and he he imploded. He was gone. Now we have it ourselves.

Alan Li (24:15) Yeah.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (24:37) And we see the tension between the front of the house and back of the house of the restaurant. And I deal with that, how we had to deal with it from a culture standpoint. This was a real shot for us. It was a shock, right? That I think it was endemic in the industry. The front of the house and the back of the house didn't like each other, right? It was cultural it was cultural. It was cultural. That the back of the house was primarily Hispanic and the front of the house was basically Caucasian.

Alan Li (24:56) But but w but why?

Rick Rosenfield (25:06) And there was natural tensions. They didn't respect each other. So this is very much part of my book is how we broke that down. We were no novices, but we were ki use common sense. This doesn't work. Okay? Everybody's got to get along here. So we we we developed a culture that later became rock. Years later. But but yeah, that was years later. First thing we did is

Alan Li (25:10) I see.

Yeah, yeah. T tell us tell

Rick Rosenfield (25:35) We didn't know the term culture. Okay. So what we said was, Listen, Ca California Pizza Kitchen is colorblind, gender blind, race blind, education blind. We don't care who you know. All we we have to respect each other and we have to get along.

Alan Li (25:45) Mm.

Mm.

Yeah. ⁓

the because c you know, for small business owners and people who have, you know, one location or just a couple locations, ⁓ that you always hear how important culture is. But, you know, when you're running something in the early stages, there's so many things going on operationally, you know, culture might be the last thing you think about. But here you're you're saying culture was really important to the success. Wha why?

Rick Rosenfield (26:19) That's a that's a great question, and and it's it's not only important, it's the most imp it's the most important thing. I believe I so we here we are here realize look the the best way to describe it is think of it. Here we are with these smart lawyers, we could do all this, we take all this risk. And what did we have? We had a concept. We didn't have a restaurant business, we had a concept. So all of a sudden.

Alan Li (26:37) Yeah.

Okay, sure.

Rick Rosenfield (26:47) We come in and we have all these tensions. The chef is a disaster, okay. We end up having getting rid of him. We're scared out of our minds. Okay we we take a a guy that the chef had brought in, Gary Beauregard. He take great for us to take control of the kitchen. We're frightened out of our mind. But what we realized early, and I run I can say it now after having done this for twenty-five years, because I didn't use it in term of

to define it in terms of culture then is hey it was we only had a concept. In order to be successful, it took people. You have to have a business. You have to empower people and you have to have people that get along. Okay, yeah I we all know how businesses implode because partners don't along, people don't get along. In us it's like people want need to our success, CPK success,

Alan Li (27:25) Mm.

Rick Rosenfield (27:44) was of course it was the barbecue chicken pizza that got people in the door right but the success was we trained people if I can talk about for a moment that culture evolved into what we called rock took years to to to codify it so to speak it was r for respect, O for opportunity, C for communication and K for kindness. And the kindness was the key, right? So

Alan Li (27:48) Yeah.

Sure.

Mm.

Rick Rosenfield (28:14) What we would say to we'd go and we'd talk to the restaurants with staff, we'd say, respect works both ways. You have to earn respect. You can't demand respect. But the kindness, what we wanted was people that wanted to come to work, and that's what that's the secret of our success. Our success was of course we were committed to quality, my God, yes. But in the end, it was we created a culture where people wanted to come to work.

Alan Li (28:20) Yeah.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (28:43) And they were committed to our values. And and the beauty is they were real. If you looked at my LinkedIn now, it's so much fun for me. It's new to go on LinkedIn and see all the people that fur that that have worked for C PK that are talking about it was the greatest job ever and what fun it was. That's so gratifying to me as you can imagine.

Alan Li (28:45) Mm.

Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah. Well, I I love the concept of rock, but I think ⁓ you know, people oftentimes write down principles or ⁓ codes of ⁓ maybe like ethics or or culture, but how do you actually implement it? Because it's it's there in writing, but like, you know, you you get it during orientation but you then you forget about it. How how does it actually get implemented?

Rick Rosenfield (29:27) That's a that's a another great question

because I well ev even when I say it, right, it's question really is, is it are you talking the talk or do you walk it? Right. I mean and and the if you guys it rock was real. So we had rock star awards, right? We we gave out rock star awards. The in the the staff handed rock star they chose their own rock star award rock stars in each restaurant.

Alan Li (29:39) Yeah.

Mm.

Rick Rosenfield (29:57) Right, to

⁓ be so we created a culture of friends. So if it was real as and the real was I I believe that Larry and I had a mantra which was do the right thing. When we had complicated questions come to us or questions said, just think about it. Do the right thing. Right. And and I know that people there were there were periods which I describe in the book.

where it where our culture failed. Right. Okay. But and that was the lowest point in my life because at one point there was a question whether that was credible. And it was a and I was it I get to describe it, it was well Pepsi owned two thirds of us at one point, PepsiCo. And and they had cut the quality. We were in a period where they stopped expanding

Alan Li (30:30) Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (30:56) And I was at in Miami speaking to staff to management having dinner and I said, you know, we're really committed to quality and and I saw a woman manager roll her eyes over to looking at another manager, like, does he really believe that? And I went back to the room and I called Larry and I said, Boy, are we in trouble? You know.

Alan Li (31:08) ⁓

Wow.

okay, I think we're j we're jumping a little bit ahead here because Pepsi ended up doing an acquisition of yours, but ⁓ just to go back to that first restaurant, you know, when when did you realize this is a concept that was working and then how did you think about the second and subsequent, you know, twenty plus restaurants that you opened?

Rick Rosenfield (31:37) So we opened at on March twenty seventh at five PM. We had a sign in the door, about that that big, it's you know, and a panel on the door said that's when we were opening. ⁓ first person in was the the actress Shirley McLean at right five o'clock, and she ordered a cup of coffee, that pizza. Her agent was upstairs, so she'd been waiting for him. Okay. But a couple of minutes later, people started drifting in and

Alan Li (31:48) Sure.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (32:07) Barbecue chicken pizza was off the charts. So I we off the charts. Buzzword in the community. We were packed. It was only a small restaurant. Still is still there, 67 seats. People were waiting out on the street, waiting in line on the street, and from day one. And we said, I okay, we've got it. I mean naively naive I might add.

Alan Li (32:11) Just from the get go.

Rick Rosenfield (32:36) We felt day one, and so let's get going. So it just so happened that one of our customers owned the Beverly Center, which was became our second location. And then so all of a sudden and then Esquire named us one of the best new restaurants in nineteen eighty five. And so we had developers developers coming after us right from the beginning. So we needed to raise more raise more capital, but we were

Alan Li (32:46) I see.

I see.

Rick Rosenfield (33:03) First of all, we never intended to as I said, we we went in it expecting to build a national and international brand, as naive as we were, okay, and and as egotistical as that sounds, because it is, right. I mean you gotta call it I gotta call it for what it is. Make makes looking back it makes no I said I laugh because ⁓ if if I knew now then what I know now, I'm not sure I would have had the guts to do it.

Alan Li (33:17) That's why you y y you need a little bit of that.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (33:33) But but but on pure naivete, we did it, right? But but we we were expanding immediately. We we were a smash hit. Right from the opening right from the op right from the opening day. Right. Right.

Alan Li (33:43) just from the get-go because the barbecue chicken pizza and you got written up by Esquire, and you you

essentially went viral in the sense of how it was to go viral back then, which is by press.

Rick Rosenfield (33:54) Right. That was to

the extent you could go viral then, that was the kind of buzz going and going through the neighborhood. You know, we had one guy have lunch, come he would come back he came back for dinner, then he picked up his wife at the air ⁓ at the airport, brought her over and he had another pizza. Right. So I mean it it was a craze. It was an it was all driven by barbecue chicken pizza.

Alan Li (34:17) Wow. What what were the challenges then, if any?

Rick Rosenfield (34:21) well again, our big our challenge then was Ed Wadou, the chef. Right. He if we he thought the two lawyers shouldn't even be in the restaurant. As far as he was concerned, you know, we ba we were backing him. I don't know where he got that idea because because we sure never said it. But he thought we should stay in our law practice and leave the restaurant to him, okay? And if and he he just imploded. I mean he he lasted a month. So

The day we fired him because he treated a server wrongly, we fired him on the spot when we learned about it. And we and so to go back and what you care so much about that and in your and your audience does, Larry and I and Esther, the day we fired him, the night we fired him, we sat in my our law office, we had moved next door, we sat in the floor of my law office and we cried.

Alan Li (34:56) Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, were you not scared that you had a restaurant and no chef?

Rick Rosenfield (35:22) We

had a successful restaurant ostensibly and no chef. Right. And we had no we w it but it was Gary Beauregard, who this kitchen manager, right, who had come to us from Spock. He he was he he actually went to Berkeley himself. He was he he was a and he was doing social work. Perfect, perfect for the restaurant business. Very, very calm, unflappable.

Alan Li (35:43) ⁓ good. Go bears.

Rick Rosenfield (35:52) And we had engaged with Gary earlier, feeling that Ed would never make it. And Gary was a line cook one day at Spago and a waiter the other times. But he took charge of the kitchen, calmed everybody down, and then we worked with Gary for I forget ten or twelve or fourteen years. He became we never gave him the term chef. He was our food guy guru who we

Alan Li (36:04) Mm-hmm.

Well

Rick Rosenfield (36:20) Well Larry so what happened is then Larry and I created the menu items. We did we did it through our whole twenty five years. We they were we inspired the menu items and then we would work with our team to tweak them. We'd say, Let's do this. The first thing we did when we got rid of Ledoux, let's let's do a Thai chicken pizza, right? ⁓ let's do an Italian chop salad, right? Well let

Alan Li (36:39) Hmm.

My wife's

favorite pizza is the tostada pizza.

Rick Rosenfield (36:46) Tostada,

right. So we that started as a Santa Fe chicken. It evolved over years. That was Esther in my creation, was the Santa Fe chicken. Right. It evolved, it evolved into Tostada. But here's the here's here's what happened. So what we saw from the reaction to barbecue chicken pizza and the rejection of the other exotic pizzas was there was no spago for the masses. There wasn't then, and I doubt there would be now.

Alan Li (36:54) You created that one? Nice.

Come on.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (37:16) Right.

That that people weren't interested in exotic. What they were interested in is something they could envision in their mind and taste. And so but just hadn't had on a pizza before. What's the evolution of Thai chicken? Easy. Everybody goes to a a Thai restaurant and they buy saute and when when you run out of the chicken, you dip the naan in it, right? So anything that works, we export all flavors.

Alan Li (37:26) Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (37:46) That would work on a sandwich or bread, work on a pizza in our mind. Right and then then that evolved into the t in the tostada and that's how we evolved the menu.

Alan Li (37:57) I see. Rick, you go from one store in nineteen eighty-five to twenty-five stores by nineteen ninety-two. Just I mean, briefly walk me through that sort of breakneck growth and you know, how you were able to manage that. ⁓ did you have to hire a lot of people to help support? ⁓ how were you able to scale so fast?

Rick Rosenfield (38:22) That

was the easy I th I look back, that was probably the easiest period compared to later periods. Okay. But I'll extend that. But but so here we were, now developers are c coming after us. We opened the successful restaurant. ⁓ Second second one is Beverly Center. Third is Topanga Plaza in right next to a Nordstrom. And now we it's get this idea that our future

Alan Li (38:42) Okay.

Rick Rosenfield (38:51) Is naturally shopping centers because we expect we intended from day one we were family oriented. We wanted a place that all family members could agree on. Now we found the shopping centers and here we have this natural traffic. So in that sense, we were pioneer at that nineteen eighty-five, mall food was hot dog on a stick and orange julius. So we literally were the first.

Alan Li (38:59) Mm.

Mm.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (39:21) upscale casual dining to go to shopping centers. Of course other people followed us, but now the shopping centers were after us. So we had three and Lennox Square in Atlanta, which is the premier mall in the southeast, they come after they c y you know Lennox? So they so they come after us. And they offer us this unbelievable site that's still there after nineteen eighty seven in the center court of Wimbledon. I called it

Alan Li (39:26) I see.

I grew up in Atlanta. Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (39:50) People say, why did you go to Atlanta? I said, because we were offered Center Court Wimbledon. And here it is, this open, massive restaurant in the center, no walls, and we pipe our yellow smokestacks up straight up the three stores up through the mall atrium. And and we're in Wimbledon. Now we're getting more attention. but here let's do the next one. So s ⁓ which is how did we get there? With one restaurant, very happened to meet

Alan Li (39:55) Ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (40:20) Steve Wynne. So at that time Steve Wynn owed the golden nugget, pre mirage, right? So he he's very glaring an energizer bunny and again and convinces Steve that we have this great concept, he should come see it.

Alan Li (40:22) No way. Come on.

Was was Steve was he was he who he was then, n who he is now? And and for the context for the audience, Steve Wynn is like one of the

Rick Rosenfield (40:44) He was he was the same

he was the same genius then. Okay. But this is before the Mirage and okay, and we'll go there's another story when we talk about his other hotel and and fun if we touch on it, which I'll tell you because it's a great story. But Steve came and visited us. He he loved the concept, so he became our biggest investor in by the time of restaurant two. So we restaurant two, we go to raise six hundred thousand. Steve

Alan Li (40:58) Okay.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (41:13) And does 250,000. In 1989, Steve opens the Mirage and he calls us and says, I'd like to be a franchisee. Now we didn't want to do we didn't want to do franchising in domestically, only internationally. But when Steve Wynn showed us his plans for the Mirage, and he's going to put us in next to Siegfried and Roy to Roy and the Tigers, we said, yes, absolutely, we'll give you a franchise.

Alan Li (41:28) Yeah.

Ha

Wow.

Rick Rosenfield (41:44) So that became I call the billboard that paid us with the opening of the Mirage. That was the most expensive hotel in the world at the time. We were in the sports book next to the Tigers and everybody w you know, thirty million people a year would come to Vegas and see CPK at the Mirage. We we had enormous lines. And then the shopping center developers had their shopping center convention there and everybody saw us there.

So that spot in the Mirage had a lot to do ⁓ with with it. And if I can I'll tell you a story on the book, which is cute a couple years later, because I I don't want to miss this for you, is we got a call from his Steve secretary that said, Can you are you guys available in LA tomorrow? He said, Yes. He said, Steve wants to see you. He comes in and he says, Guys, you know, you guys are creative. I have this property next to the Mirage. And

Alan Li (42:14) Mm.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Rick Rosenfield (42:43) I can't come up with a name for it. So we think you guys have to help me. So I think about it overnight. Larry thinks about it overnight. Larry calls me in the morning, he's leaving town, he says, I name Steve Hotel. So what's that? He said, Treasure Island. I said, that's it. So I call Steve's secretary and I said, Larry's named the hotel. Where's Steve? And she says he's on the plane on the way to Australia. So so I get a call five minutes later from the plane. Ricky.

Alan Li (42:59) Ha ha.

Rick Rosenfield (43:14) What's up? I said, Well ⁓ Steve Larry named your hotel. He said, What's that? Treasure Island. He goes, That's it. Give him a kiss. So I'll end the story I'll end the story fast. So he comes off a couple days later. Steve comes back from Australia. He gets off the plane. He's wearing a pirate outfit, right? And he's interviewed by CNN and he's talking about the Mirage, and he's interviewed by CNN and he and they ask, How'd you come up with this idea?

Alan Li (43:23) That's how that's how the name came to be?

No

Rick Rosenfield (43:43) Steve said I didn't that a friend of mine who's chairman California Pizza Kitchen did. Fun story. ⁓

Alan Li (43:53) That's

incredible. These are these are just incredible stories from back then.

Rick Rosenfield (43:57) It is it is these are great. They're all in my memoir. But now you've heard them. But but they have fun.

Alan Li (44:01) That's yeah, that's that's so

cool. Okay, so it it seems like the period of expansion is more of a pull from everyone else wanting you to be there because you were successful, this It was

Rick Rosenfield (44:13) Yeah w it was so easy. It was okay, it was

so easy. Then we would go to and I eat still from a money standpoint, from things are people go we were throwing darts. It's like it's like we're expanding the friends and family. What's the company worth? It's not making any money, but it's but but the restaurants are successful. Right. So so the restaurants are generating cash, but we're burning that cash into building new restaurants.

Alan Li (44:24) Yeah.

Yeah.

New locations.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (44:42) and

and infrastructure, but we have wonderful young people who are doing this work with us, right? That are inspired to do it right, to has you know, to carry it on. It was it was a wonderful time. We didn't well when you're asking, it wasn't as difficult because we had great people and everybody loved it. And and we were superstars. I mean I don't mean we, Larry and Rick. I mean the company was superstars. And so

Alan Li (44:57) That's

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (45:10) So but we but the fun part from investing we started we threw darts. What's this what's this company worth? Those original limited partners. I'm sorry in the first restaurant, when we opened the second one, we made them investors, stockholders in California Pizza Kitchen Inc. So we grew the corporation.

Alan Li (45:31) Mm.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (45:35) But we

had to come up with a number. What's what's what's their value, et cetera. So we threw darts, we said, company's worth five million dollars. Now when we go out for Beverly Center, we say company's worth six million dollars. When we went out for Topanga, I I remember it was eight point five million dollars. And then it's fifteen million dollars, it's thirty two million. So we were evaluating, we kept raising the price of the shares. But it's compl realize it's completely private.

Alan Li (45:53) Mm.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (46:04) Completely throwing darts, so and we're not making money, so why are people investing? They're investing in us, they're investing in believing in it. And that leads to the story of PepsiCo, of course, at tw twenty five restaurants.

Alan Li (46:18) Yeah.

Yeah. So tell us briefly about PepsiCo in nineteen ninety-two. I read that they acquired about sixty or so percent of the business for a hundred million dollars.

Rick Rosenfield (46:31) That's that's your your information's correct, right? That that along come we're first of all, we were we were ready to go public. We were okay, we we we had our lawyers, we had created the registration statement, and we get a call from the chairman of Lowry's restaurants that said, Will will you guys take a call from a Fortune 100 company? We said, Sure, we'll talk to anybody. It was PepsiCo.

Alan Li (46:39) wow.

Rick Rosenfield (46:59) And at that time they owned Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hub. They were the largest restaurant chain in the world. And they said, We're really interested in you guys. We've looked at casual dining. We think you are the best out there for your training in particular. And we'd like to buy in, but we don't want to buy you and Larry out. Okay. We want to buy your investors out and we want to invest in in you. And that led to them

Making a tender offer, buying out offering to buy out the original investors, ⁓ we wouldn't c cram it down, meaning we had a right to force them out, we wouldn't do it. We gave the investors the right to take it or not. And but and bottom line is yes, when the smoke cleared, PepsiCo owned two thirds of the company, but because of our great lawyer Bob Kahn, they only have fifty percent of the vote.

Alan Li (47:29) Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

smart.

Rick Rosenfield (47:58) Inter but

but but i interesting you're I think people will find interesting if you were one of those original twenty two investors in in CPK, you never made any money for that seven years while we grew to twenty five, never got a dividend. Okay. But if you sold to PepsiCo, well if you didn't sell to PepsiCo, let's say you put twenty thousand dollars in the first restaurant, if you did not sell if you did not sell to PepsiCo.

Alan Li (48:07) Sure.

Sure.

Rick Rosenfield (48:26) You got a hundred and eighty nine thousand dollar dividend and you still had your shares. Okay. If you did if you did sell to PepsiCo, you got four hundred and twenty-four thousand dollars for your twenty thousand dollars.

Alan Li (48:32) ⁓ wow.

Wow. That's a pretty good twenty X. That's a great return.

Rick Rosenfield (48:41) And so what's interesting is, right, is

but but right, but and many of those original investors invested each time that we went out for money. Right. And some came in later. So even if you were the last investor in like a year before, you made four times your money. So so this was a great opportunity for us to reward investors, reward ourselves, you know, take some liquidity, take money off the table. But pushing us was I wanted

Alan Li (48:51) Mm.

Yeah, yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (49:11) to settle the issue for investors that we could make money for them. So that was very much be of course it was I was making money on it too, but that wasn't the primary motivation. Primary vo motivation was can these guys make money for their investors?

Alan Li (49:27) Yeah,

you're rewarding your investors for being patient, giving them some liquidity. ⁓ I hear you and Larry each walk away with close to eighteen million dollars through that transaction.

Rick Rosenfield (49:30) Right.

I think it was seventeen I think it was seventeen million

each. And that was a a great story that I tell in my book. How we came to that valuation to come to that number and force that down on a PepsiGo that we wouldn't take less. But it's a it's a it's a it's a really cute long story.

Alan Li (49:55) How how did it feel when when you had seventeen million dollars in your bank account?

Rick Rosenfield (49:58) Well, it was ten million after tax. That's what we that's that's what that's what we that's what we actually told them. We said, you guys, okay, we're not gonna do this unless Larry and I in addition to rewarding our investors, okay, we want ten million dollars in cash after tax in the bank. And that's how they came up with the valuation. Because they w they wanted this deal so bad. We said, that's stu I I said, you guys figure out the math, okay.

Alan Li (50:17) Ha ha

That's how you did it?

My gosh.

Rick Rosenfield (50:29) yeah.

Because here's the thing, we were debating, they're originally said the companies were s we were doing about fifty million dollars in sales. We were barely profitable. Their first offer for the value of the company, the total enterprise, was sixty million. Our first offer was two hundred million. Okay. We were miles apart. Okay. And ultimately we we weren't moving and we said, okay, here's the deal. You figure out the numbers

Alan Li (50:36) Sure.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (50:58) Gets us this result. That came out to closer to our number, came out to a hundred and forty million dollar valuation. Right. And then that's that's but that's exactly how it got done. We said, here's here's here's the number we want after tax in the bank, so if it doesn't work out, we can walk away happy, okay, and we can have some curity. And th we that that was our demand, and finally they accepted that. That was fun.

Alan Li (51:06) Sure. I see.

Yeah, you're protected.

That's incredible.

And ten million in ninety two is at the mo the rule of three, roughly thirty million today's. That's that's that's awesome.

Rick Rosenfield (51:32) Yeah. Yeah. That was that

was because a friend of Larry's had told him that you're not really wealthy or successful in this town unless you have ten million dollars cash in the bank. That's how we came up with that number. A a wealthy guy, quite wealthy guy, ⁓ Dick Simon, big real estate guy, told told Larry that. And that's what we use. Yeah.

Alan Li (51:43) Yeah.

my gosh.

Is that of Simon Properties?

my gosh, yeah, we we see them a lot. Okay, incredible. ⁓ were you still motivated after this transaction?

Rick Rosenfield (52:03) Yeah.

⁓

totally motivated. And but that's but at that point, that's where we ran into the first problem. They gave us an unlimited check. They they they literally said it. So our deal, that the way they came to that deal, the way they came to the math was we can justify the hundred and forty million dollar valuation if you guys build fifteen restaurants next year. Is it the numbers crunchers, right? Is if you build fifteen restaurants next year.

twenty-eight restaurants every year thereafter. Okay. And and they operate and they live and they have they achieve the same cash flow and growth that the first twenty-five do. They're doing this right, they're crunching this thing. And if if all of those things if all of those things together, that the company's worth 140 million and we can make this deal. So our deal was, you know, okay, open fifteen the next year and twenty-eight the second. Now we have a problem.

Alan Li (52:51) Yeah, it's a it's a sp it's a spreadsheet.

Rick Rosenfield (53:07) Okay. So we did get fifteen fifteen open and we did get twenty eight open. But but in the meantime they put John Martin on our board. John Martin was the president of Taco Bell or chairman of Taco Bell. And he said, You wimps, you wimps, why would you buy build twenty eight restaurants here? Talking to our senior team. Build build fifty, build a hundred. You've got a blank check from PepsiCo. So now we had to build

Alan Li (53:13) Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (53:37) Imagine the problem of building the pipeline, right? To to get 15 open off of 25, to build 15 the next year, 28 the next year, and 28 or more next year. So now we've got real estate teams. So now Larry and I are not walking and seeing the sites. We saw every site before that. Now we're relying on other people to pick the site.

Alan Li (53:45) Yeah.

Mm.

Rick Rosenfield (54:05) Okay, and teams of people. And yeah, yeah, we under ultimately sign it, but we but based on what Pepsi was telling us, put in green areas, you know, put in middle income areas, put everywhere, and then we'll see what works. Well, all of a sudden they're going, Whoa, hold on, they're not doing some of these aren't doing well. Well, that's a big surprise, right? Okay. And that that was that led to the most

Alan Li (54:27) Sure.

Rick Rosenfield (54:34) troublesome time. So they they they pulled the plug at that moment. When we already had opened fifteen and twenty-eight being built and they pulled the plug. Crash. Now that was the start of the worst period of our CPK lives. Now we're getting laying off people in that real estate team. Now

Alan Li (54:51) Wow.

Rick Rosenfield (55:04) we're no longer the got this momentum. They they crashed us, right? And and then they wanted to put their own person in to help and run and cut costs. And and Larry and I felt horrible. We we we we we we were at our low point. We had failed, right? That but what we didn't know was PepsiCo was developing a master plan of its own.

Alan Li (55:11) Yeah.

Yeah.

Rick Rosenfield (55:34) to get out of the restaurant business. That come that came later when they spun off Yum, right. Soon thereafter, nineteen ninety six. Right. This this was nineteen ninety four, and they were planning to get out of the restaurant business.

Alan Li (55:37) I see.

I see.

Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Rick, I know we're running a bit up on time and I wanna just I wanna quickly go over the timeline from, you know, PepsiCo acquisition to where we are today. And then, you know, for the audience who wants to get more into the weeds, ⁓ Rick has written a memoir on his entire journey as the co-founder of of CPK, which which dives into a lot of the nitty-gritty. But ⁓ you know, ninety-two PepsiCo buys two-thirds of the business. I think in ninety-seven they end up selling to

a private equity firm, it IPOs, so C P K goes public in two thousand. I think you and Larry were brought back in two thousand three. You ran it to two thousand eleven, of which another private equity firm, Golden Gate Capital, buys CPK. ⁓

And then I think you you may not have been involved afterwards. CPK goes bankrupt in 2020 for chapter 11. Another firm buys it out of bankruptcy, and today we still have 185 locations roughly throughout the world. Is that is that accurate? Okay.

Rick Rosenfield (57:01) That's that that's a that's a that's a accurate summary. With with with with with

the note that after we sold, we were never in bow.

Alan Li (57:11) After you sold in two thousand eleven you weren't involved anymore.

Rick Rosenfield (57:13) Two thousand after two thousand eleven, we we were never

involved in the aftermath.

Alan Li (57:18) Got it. ⁓ Rick, what what a journey.

Rick Rosenfield (57:23) Yeah, it's quite a it has been quite a journey.

Alan Li (57:27) ⁓ one question that I always like to ask is knowing what you know now and looking back over this forty plus years of of being in CPK and doing business, what would you have changed, if anything?

Rick Rosenfield (57:42) I I don't I don't I d I don't know that I would have changed. Well ⁓ I go back to that. ⁓ whole separate issue about whether I would have sold the company if I knew we were not going to be involved. Okay. That's a whole separate question. I deal with that in the book is but in terms of how we grew it, sure we made mistakes along the way. ⁓ but but

Alan Li (57:55) Mm.

Rick Rosenfield (58:11) The advice that I give is what we were talking about earlier to is understand that this your success is about your ability to delegate to people and to have people believe in your vision. That without that, okay, concept means nothing. Of course you have to have capital, but in even more important in a sense than capital.

Alan Li (58:28) Mm.

Rick Rosenfield (58:41) Maybe maybe nothing is more important. You can't do it without capital. But but other than capital is you have to have people that share your vision.

Alan Li (58:44) Sure.

Mm-hmm. I like that. Rick, this is this has been a lot of fun. If people want to learn more or follow along, how do they do so?

Rick Rosenfield (59:02) Is my book's available for it's gonna be released on July twenty first. It's now available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. ⁓ you can go to my website, rickrosenfield dot com. it it's been fun and it's this has been a great interview. I I appreciate it. You asked some great questions that I think I think can be h very helpful to people.

Alan Li (59:26) Yeah, no, I I'm sure our audience is gonna is gonna really love this.

Rick Rosenfield (59:30) Well well, I deal with all of

it in my book and more, right? And ⁓ but not

Alan Li (59:34) Exactly. This will be a great

teaser for the for the book. So ⁓ Rick, really appreciate you taking the time today. This has been a lot of fun. you know, I I'm in LA right now. I I might just go stop by the the Beverly Hills location later tonight for ⁓ for a slice for a pie.

Rick Rosenfield (59:51) Right, that's

great. Very nice, thank you.

Alan Li (59:55) Right.