From Windsurfing Rep to Parisian Café Owner: Laurent Vrignaud’s 40-Year Journey to Moulin

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspodi and today’s guest is Laurent Vrigno. He is the founder of Moulin, a Parisian style cafe in Newport Beach, California.

established in 2014. Mulan is known for delivering an authentic French experience through fresh baked breads. Let’s do that again. Mulan is known for delivering an authentic French experience through fresh baked breads, handmade pastries, and savory dishes that transport you straight to Paris. They’ve gained recognition for their dedication to traditional French culinary craftsmanship, which has earned them a loyal following.

Before becoming a successful restaurateur, Laurent was a competitive windsurfer who became an independent sales representative in the action sports world at just 19 years old. Working entirely on commission, he continued to grow his business until he was 45. During the explosive growth of the action sports business, he expanded from being a single sales rep to hiring multiple reps, eventually representing Burton Snowboards for the Western half of America.

As the internet emerged, he later became responsible for managing online accounts like Zoomies, REI, and Amazon. While a transition from action sports to French cafes doesn’t sound like an obvious path, we’re going to connect the dots in his story today. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and

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contact us today at adbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, the founder of Mulan, Laurent. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Laurent (02:29)
Thank you, welcome.

Anthony Codispoti (02:30)
So how poorly did I do on my French pronunciations of your name and the name of the cafe?

Laurent (02:36)
I think you cheated, I think you had French in high school.

Anthony Codispoti (02:39)
I did not not a lick All right. So let’s get back to the story here is towards the beginning You came to the USA as an 18 year old competitive windsurfer because as I understand it California has some of the best conditions in the world

Laurent (02:57)
Yeah, I landed in the Bay Area ⁓ in the late 70s, early 80s when the sport of windsurfing was a pretty big deal in Europe and long story short, just I was attracted by Northern California, the Bay Area, eventually Hawaii, but Hawaii was a little further. So I figured let’s start in San Francisco and ⁓ what probably I didn’t have a time frame, but I didn’t I certainly didn’t think I was going to spend my entire life.

in California and 42 years later I’m still here. Not windsurfing as much but I started off in again windsurfing. mean even so it was a very popular sport. It was pretty grungy. I mean this was the early 80s ⁓ but I just I was passionate about it and I figured if I can you know I knew I wasn’t going to become any kind of world champion or professional you know.

I wasn’t going to make a living windsurfing all day, but I was a good windsurfer and all of a sudden some of the companies and I had a little bit of what’s called a gift of gab and windsurfing being so big in France and Europe. A couple of the companies were helping me with equipment said, hey, why don’t you go knock on doors and see if those were French companies, see if some of the California stores would be interested about buying our product.

And if you manage to get us some orders, we’ll give you a commission. And that’s how I learned about the commission business. Now, what happened is when I was figuring that out, because I needed to make a living and I was doing two things, besides windsurfing every single day. I was working in a windsurfing shop during the day, mostly in the morning, early afternoon, and then off to the water after that.

And interesting enough, I was waiting tables. was a busser in a French restaurant in Redwood City, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, a restaurant called Natura-Fell, the Eiffel Tower. And that allowed me to have a little bit of money. And then right as those companies started talking to me, being in a wind-swifting shop during the day, I noticed reps coming in. I didn’t know what a sales rep was, but I noticed some people were coming in.

Talking to the store owners and then what happened is this is an interesting story But I was 18 this guy was a guy kept coming in every few weeks He was 22 23 years old and he drove a Porsche 911 And I would always notice this guy coming in to me coming from France a guy almost my age driving a Porsche 911 He would come in talk to the owner of the store for 30 45 minutes and he would leave and then

Anthony Codispoti (05:31)
Yeah.

Laurent (05:46)
That’s one day I walked up to the owner, said, what does this guy do? Then he comes see you on a regular basis. And he said, he’s a sales rep. He talks to me about different product line he represents. We eventually place orders for some of the product he represents. And he is, he makes a commission. The day I heard the commission based business and I associated with this guy driving the Porsche 911 my age, I was like, you know what? That’s what I’m gonna do.

At the same time, French companies were like Laurent, why don’t you go knock on doors and see if…

Anthony Codispoti (06:19)
So these two things happen simultaneously, basically. This realization of what a sales rep was and then the French companies coming to you offering you that kind of position.

Laurent (06:22)
this yes yes

exactly.

And interesting enough in the 80s and prior to that but as far as I’m in my field but if you look back in America a lot of people I always tell this to friends of mine everybody’s selling something not in France but in America everybody’s selling something to someone and back then 50 60 70s 80s 90s and then it kind of went away but a lot of industries had independent sales reps.

People had a zone, they represent a brand or two, they work for themselves and they made a commission. Now, Commission on. Commission on. Now, now I deal with reps and walk into my store to sell me wine, to sell me butter. None of them are independent. They’re all in-house reps. That can be a rep for Cisco, for US food, for this butter company, for this wine company. The model of in-house.

Anthony Codispoti (07:02)
Commission only, there was no salary, right? Because you’re independent, you’re on your own.

Laurent (07:23)
The model has become an in-house model because the nature of most industries is different now. I’ll tell you the number one reason because I was in the independent sales web business for so long. The margins are so small in every industry, most industries cannot afford to bounce 7, 8, 9, 10 % to an independent guy being a middleman. That’s the whole margin game.

Anthony Codispoti (07:50)
So the brands that had come to you, they were French brands. Were these French brands really big in action sports then? Is that sort of like an epicenter? No, okay.

Laurent (07:56)
No, no, no,

no, no, they were not big at all. ⁓ Some of them had set up a little office on the East Coast. They were trying to penetrate the US business. New York being a lot closer than San Francisco. And ⁓ so they had an office in the US. that allowed me, all of a sudden they were like, all along, you’re in California, you’re in the Bay Area, where windsurfing is happening. ⁓ Why don’t you, on top of getting equipment for free and competing, why don’t you knock on doors?

pay you a commission to talk about our sales, our boards, our fins and blah blah blah. And what happened is I started making a little bit of money and as soon as I made a little bit of money ⁓ I went to Hawaii. And when I went to Maui that’s when windsurfing that was the bet the the Mecca of windsurfing the North Shore of Maui and I met the founders of some of the most epic Hawaiian windsurfing brands. I was a good windsurfer. I had the gift of gab.

I told them I was a rep in California and some of those brands said, you know what? Us being based in Hawaii, we could use a guy like you. So I ditched, I started ditching the French brands out of New York, New Jersey. And I was representing Hawaiian brands, which had all the aura, the names and the technology. Yes, the gear was just next level.

Anthony Codispoti (09:14)
They were more established, more well known at that point.

Laurent (09:20)
And that’s how I started making a name for myself. was 19, I was 20, I was 21, 22 years old. The sport of windsurfing was exploding. I was representing some of the biggest brands, American brands that is, and I was starting to make a pretty good living.

Anthony Codispoti (09:35)
And so from 19 to age 45, you really blew this thing up. Talk to us about some of those in between years, because I know it’s not all up and to the right. There’s got to be some ups and downs.

Laurent (09:47)
So,

so the, know, if I had stuck to windsurfing, I would have been out of business and back in France by 25 years old. But yeah, it was, you know, windsurfing is a hard sport. You know, it’s got to get windy. It’s got to be windy. Not everybody is going to the ocean. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s an individual sport. ⁓ But what happened is I went to compete in February, ⁓ February, 88 in Mexico and I got hurt.

Anthony Codispoti (09:57)
windsurfing’s too small of a niche, you had to expand.

Laurent (10:17)
And so instead of staying down in Baja, Mexico, which we did all every winter for weeks at a time, I came back to the Bay Area and I was doing a little rehab on my leg and I started visiting some accounts. had nothing better to do in February. And a couple of the accounts were like, hey, we’re heading to Las Vegas in the next couple of weeks. Some of those accounts being in the ski business. I never been to Las Vegas. There was no reason for me to go to Las Vegas.

no wind, water really. And I found out there’s people who are heading to something called SIA, Snow Sport Industry of America. The largest trade show in North America for the snow sport industry was in Las Vegas. So I figured, you know what, I’ll go to Las Vegas. I’ll go check it out. Not being busy in the winter, not being in Mexico. And in the back of my head, the winter before, I never skied before, but the winter before, someone had loaned me a snowboard.

Someone had loaned me a snowboard and I’d gone to Lake Tahoe and I’d gone snowboarding for three days. At Boyle ski resort on a noner snowboard. Because I like everything and glide. And I’d done it three days the winter before and gone back to my winter things, blah blah blah. I was like, I’m the ski show, Las Vegas, maybe snowboarding. I’ll go check it out. So I went over there. And this was March.

March 89, that’s right, March 89. And I walked into the straight show where everything was big. There was nothing like a surf show, nothing like a windsurfing show, nothing like the crazy apparel, California. People were in suits, big brands from Europe, Rossignol, Salomon, Norica, Austrian brands, German brand, French brands. I was like, wow, this is the big league. This is the ski industry, right? And after a couple of hours of walking around,

⁓ I stumbled on a booth which had snowboards on the wall. And what cut my eye beside the snowboard on the wall was the fact that there was a television with a VCR right in front of the booth with a snowboard flick. And I’d never seen snowboard on television. was just like, keep in mind, this is 1989. This is the infancy of the internet. I was like, wow, snowboarding. And I was infatuated by this movie. And on this booth was a retailer.

talking to someone and this retailer saw me and what happened is this was the Burden snowboard group out of Burlington. I mean I’m sorry. Burden originally was based at Manchester Center in Vermont. I never heard of Vermont. I never heard of Burden snowboards but this retailer which was buying wind surfing products from me saw me and he walked out to the television booth and he said hey Ron. ⁓

I’m talking to the people from Vermont. I’m ordering a few snowboards from a ski shop. And in the conversation, I just found out they might be looking for a rep. And I think you should talk with them. And I was, mean, it was like someone putting a coin in the machine. I was like, let’s go. Who do I need to talk to? In a 23 year period, I’d be the largest agency for bird snowboarding.

Anthony Codispoti (13:24)
serendipity.

So at that time, most people didn’t know Burton. And again, like you said, it was still the early days of snowboarding in general, but eventually Burton becomes the name in snowboarding.

Laurent (13:40)
No!

The early days of snowboarding, snowboarding was not

in the Olympics. Nobody had ever heard of Sean White, which was six years old at the time, flying tomato. ⁓ Nobody had heard of Jake Burton. Five minutes later, this guy with long hair, 10 years older than me, I’m sitting in front of this dude, Jake Burton Carpenter. He said, where are from? I go out from France because I can tell by your accent, blah, blah, Because I’m learning to speak French, learning to speak German because of.

European distribution, let me buy you a cup of coffee and can wrap. And then I wrapped with the guy for an hour. you know, independent wrap. So he’s like, well, we think we need someone for the West Coast. You know, said, well, the West Coast, that’s a pretty big territory. And, know, I’m based in Northern California, Lake Tahoe and blah, And he said, well, I don’t want employees. And I said, well, I wouldn’t be an employee. I would be an independent sales rep. You know, I would

I your brand based on commission. I’d take orders when you ship next fall, next winter, and you get paid, you pay no commission. I would not represent. I’d send you no, I’d send you interaction. They had zero reps in North America. They had zero rep, had distribut- Jake had just set up some distribution in Japan, in Europe. He had distributors which were buying his product and reselling it. But in the US, had a bunch of phone guys in Manchester, Vermont.

Anthony Codispoti (14:52)
So you were kind of explaining the independent sales rep structure to him.

Laurent (15:12)
where he was based out of and he had just opened an office in Denver. He had put a couple of employees in Denver because of the Colorado market and no independent sales rep. And so we wrapped for about an hour. I explained to him the whole commission and go, you know, the smaller the item, the bigger the commission, the bigger the item, the smaller the commission, hard goods, soft goods. He goes, okay, you know what? Come back, let me think about it. Come back tomorrow morning, we’ll have coffee again. The following morning I rolled in, nine o’clock. He goes, okay, let’s try a…

You’ll be my guy, Northern California. Handshake.

Anthony Codispoti (15:45)
So how many brands did you end up repping?

Laurent (15:48)
Well, so at the time my main business was the wind surfing business. So I represented a half dozen wind surfing companies and then I added Burden Snowboard. And Burden Snowboard at the time only had one brand, Burden Snowboards. Eventually, as we got into the 90s and the 2000s, Burden started other brands. Grabbed a footwear, analog streetwear, Pan-on optics, back-heel kids wear, and then Burden bought form snowboards and a competitor acquired it.

Anthony Codispoti (15:51)
Right.

Laurent (16:18)
But Channel 9 and Serve Board out of Santa Barbara acquired it. So as for, yes. So for 10 years, I was the Northern California rep. I hired one employee, two employees. I had a half dozen employees in Northern California for 10 years, 89 to 99. And Burton launched a couple of other brands. I was representing all the brands. I opened a showroom in downtown San Francisco, which Burton had never heard of.

Anthony Codispoti (16:22)
And so you just grew with Burton or were you taking brands outside of that and outside of the

Laurent (16:46)
So I figured the retail would come to us to look at the product line, I would control the environment. So Bert really liked the way I was doing things and then ⁓ Jake was like, listen, I like the way you’re doing your agency, I like the way you’re hiring people. Can you start traveling the world with us on our behalf? And as we set up distribution in other countries, maybe you can talk to other reps in Italy, in France, in Japan, you know. And so I started flying around the world on Jake’s dime.

you know, with his sales managers as an independent rep saying, listen, I’ve been the independent rep for Burden in Northern California for 10 years. ⁓ This is the way I’ve set up my showroom. This is the way I hire. This is the way we do business and it works. And so, you know, Burden, court and me as an independent, we’re just marching along and Jake and I were super close and we were snowboarding all over the world. And next thing I’m in Argentina snowboarding.

mean, New Zealand snowboarding with Jake, ⁓ getting on and off helicopters. mean, was life was grand. mean.

Anthony Codispoti (17:53)
And the upside for you on that is just sort of the traveling and the kinsmanship with Burton.

Laurent (17:58)
I and

this was growing. I I was selling millions of dollars.

Anthony Codispoti (18:03)
But were

you getting any part of the other sales reps that you were helping set up?

Laurent (18:06)
No, no, no, no. I was

doing it as, Jig’s my buddy, he gave me a shot in the 80s, we’re growing, we’re having fun, ⁓ I was single.

Anthony Codispoti (18:16)
Pay it forward.

Help some other people get started.

Laurent (18:20)
Jake was like, hey, I’ll put you on the plane. We’ll stay in the nicest hotel. We’ll eat the best food. We’ll have the best cocktails. And we’re just gonna, it was really like, I don’t want to, I’m not a big church guy, but if you look at a painting of ⁓ Jesus and the Last Supper with the apote, I was one of the guys and went out. And there was, back then, a lot of people call it the inner circle.

Jake had an inner circle. And over the 90s, there was a half dozen of us. ⁓ Some of the European distributors used to call us the dons. So Jake had a half dozen of us, which were there since day one. And we traveled the world with him. And whatever he preached, we just made sure people got it.

Anthony Codispoti (19:11)
So you built this, did crazy well for a little over 20 years, and then at the age of 45, you decide to step away. Why?

Laurent (19:21)
So, so okay, so quick. 1999, 10 years into it, on my way to Europe, Jake’s like, hey stop in Vermont. I want to talk to you, I’ve got a couple ideas. I stopped in Vermont on my way to France in the spring after the selling season was over in Sacramento. I love the way you’re doing things in NorCal. You’ve been with me for 10 years, independent as ever. I want you to take the Western United States. I was like, Jake, how can I be the rep for multiple states, Hawaii, Arizona and Nevada?

is like I want you to be a super rep. I want you to grow your agency. I want you to keep hiring the way you’re hiring. I want you to open an office in Southern California. Go big or go back to France. I’m like sure, no problem, let’s go. And that was a huge turnaround because in 99, 2000, I came to Southern California. I opened an incredible showroom. I hired people and then the business. Every year we thought we cannot do better.

from 2000 to 2008 Olympics, the flying tomato, the business. I I used to tell people it’s better than selling blow. It was crazy. It was right place at the right time with the right organization. Keep in mind that in a business, and this will relate to the restaurant business later on, in a business which originally was kind of a boys club,

Anthony Codispoti (20:35)
You were in the right place at the right time with the right product.

Laurent (20:49)
Let’s party, let’s have fun, let’s surf, let’s snowboard, let’s ride, let’s skate, let’s dress the way. It was very cultish. Wherever we travel the world, the way we look, we could recognize people. It was a big club and everybody wanted to be part of that club. And we were selling product that there was no tomorrow. Retailers would wait in line at the trade shows just to be able to place an order.

We were coming off the Blackjack table in Vegas. We’d be gambling all night, liquored up, and people would just wait in line to hand us a hundred, a quarter million dollar order for the ski shop. Going along, just, I don’t want to worry about the detail. Ship me as much goods as you think I can sell. It was, was for people. The industry was on fire. The surf industry was on fire. The skate, snow, footwear, apparel, shades, boom!

Anthony Codispoti (21:34)
Wow, industry was on fire.

Laurent (21:47)
Yes. One last note and then we go into the rest. We go into the break in the restaurant business. 94, 95. A guy that worked at Bird, Andy Latz, good friend of mine, of hard goods, Burlington Vermont. I had worked for Jake for five, six years. Calls me out of the blue. goes, I just walked out of Jake’s office. I resigned. I’m like, dude, we’re just getting started. What’s your problem? He goes, I’m going back to school.

Anthony Codispoti (21:48)
So, yeah.

Laurent (22:13)
I’ve been accepted, I’m going to Stanford MBA. Keep in mind, this is a guy right here that doesn’t have a high school diploma, but I know a little bit about Stanford. I’m like, dude, Stanford is at the end of my street. I own a house in Palo Alto, because that’s why I’m calling. And I stay on your couch for two or three weeks while I figure school out. I said, sure. And he became my roommate. On year two of his MBA program, come back from a road trip. This guy’s going to school every day, learning everything I didn’t learn in school.

He goes, hey, remember my buddy Chad in Southern California in San Diego? I said, yeah, he’s coming next week. Him and I have an idea. We want to present it to you. We met at a we met at a cafe, Cafe Verona, downtown Palo Alto. Italian version of Moulin, interesting enough. Those two are like, you know what, Laurent? There’s no cool watch company. There’s no cool watch company in this business. Everything’s been done, the t-shirts, the snowboard, the footwear, blah, blah.

Anthony Codispoti (23:03)
There’s no cool

watch company anywhere, or specifically like in the action sports space.

Laurent (23:06)
No cool

watch in the action sports space. There is no cool watch company. Chad and I want to start a watch company. We have no money. Would you please be the seed money? I’m like, what does that mean? Okay, so Andy being a scholar says, well, this is the way it works. We started Nixon Watches, which we sold to Gallabong in 2001.

Anthony Codispoti (23:28)
and talk about that ride. Give us a sense of how successful it became.

Laurent (23:36)
⁓

Anthony Codispoti (23:36)
clearly successful enough that somebody wanted to buy it, but help fill in sort of some of the blanks here.

Laurent (23:42)
Well, put it in perspective. So I was the seed investor, okay? And so Andy and Chad, with my seed money, went to work for a few months, seven, eight months, and then they came back to me and said, okay, the good news is you’ve not lost your money. We are gonna start Nixon Watchers, but now the real work starts. All the work we’ve done to be able to launch this brand now, when we’ve done all the homeworks, we need to raise real money. And Andy, being the scholar than he was, he said, listen, we’re gonna sell 38 % of the company.

company he valued the company at 2.7 million we’re not sold a single watch we’re not made a single watch and keep in mind this is in the mid 90s right so yeah he said we need to gather whoever we know that has money we’re gonna gather them in a room I’m gonna talk about the brand that’s Andy Chad’s gonna talk about the marketing and the team and the athletes because that’s his background and you Laurent being a sales rep you’re gonna talk about the distribution and the fact that Nixon watches can be in all the cool stores overnight

Anthony Codispoti (24:20)
Quite a valuation back then.

Laurent (24:43)
So we presented to about 25 people. Minimum investment was 50 grand. Okay, we needed 1.2 million. So we sold seven years later and we did an earn out five years and one day after that. Every friend of mine in the Bay Area, which is still a friend of mine, probably a better friend now, every friend of mine then gave us a check for 50 grand. The first time around, got a check for 900 seven years later. And then five years after that, got a check for 1.2 million.

Anthony Codispoti (25:12)
Okay, not too shabby.

Laurent (25:15)
Not too shabby.

Anthony Codispoti (25:16)
What was it that you guys did that made this the cool brand in the space? What was different about

Laurent (25:22)
Well,

Chad, Andy, myself and all the others were from the, we were on the inside looking out. In most industries, people on the outside and they want to get in.

starting with Jake, Andy had worked with, for Jake, I had worked with Jake. And I give a lot of credit to Jake Burden Carpentier, which unfortunately passed away four years ago next month. You know, we’ve all learned from someone. Some people go to school, some people fly next to a pilot and become a pilot. A lot of us, myself included, ⁓ you know, worked for a founder such as Jake Burden, and eventually Andy also became a founder.

And then eventually I became a founder and that’s why I started my brand in the restaurant business. So, you know, some people never, you know, I think all of us have things coming in front of us and it’s either there’s no luck. mean, you know, people meet people every day. Are you a good listener? Are you paying attention? Are you noticing the wins and the losses? And are you learning in the process? And if you are and have the guts, one day you do your own thing. That’s certainly what I did.

Anthony Codispoti (26:36)
But what

made this brand so attractive? I think a big part of it has to be, again, like you said, you were on the inside. You had relationships with the cool stores, with the retailers, right? So you could go in and say, hey, trust me, this is good stuff. This is going to go well. And a lot of people would place orders first time around. But what is it that really caused it to gain traction and do so well?

Laurent (27:01)
So the product was unique in the fact that we launched five watches. All the watches retail for between $70 and $100, which at the time was considered a lot of money for a surfer, skateboarder, snowboarder. it’s interesting. We’ll get back to it in the restaurant business. But we went, the team, and this is something we had learned from Burton. It was the athlete. It’s the athlete and we presented the brand. Because of our connections,

because of Chad’s connection, Andy’s connection, my connection, we were able to attract team riders, sponsored athletes, for very little money if any, but because we were on the inner circle, we were part of the inner circle, and they were part of the inner circle, we managed to convince some very good athletes in surf, snow, and skate to have a Nixon logo on their snowboard, to have a Nixon t-shirt on the beach, to have a Nixon watch on their wrist.

And it just… And we had the distribution. I was the burn rep in California. My friend Andre was the burn rep in Quebec. ⁓ My friend Johnny D was the burn rep in Colorado. ⁓ So between the burn reps, the Vulcan reps, we had all the right reps talking to all the right retailers. So this new watch brand instantly got front and center displays in some of the most prominent action sports stores in the world.

Anthony Codispoti (28:29)
Was there any thought of sort of taking this magic elixir that you guys had put together and trying to apply it to other products? You’re on the inside. You can get the athletes to represent to where to promote, to use your product. You’ve got relationships with the key accounts so you can get the distribution pretty quickly. mean, those are two pretty powerful forces. Was there any thought to try to use that again?

Laurent (28:57)
No,

because at the end of the day, Andy and Chad were very true to the mission, which was Nixon premium accessories, watches, and driven by the athletes. I mean, we made some bags, we made a little bit of apparel and so on. we, you know, and it’s interesting what you say, because in a lot of industries, and I could talk for hours about what happened to the surf industry or the action sport industry in general.

The problem is everybody started putting their names on everything. I don’t want to name names, okay? But if you take some of the biggest brands, which not only started putting their names on everything, but next thing, they got traded publicly. They went to the stock market. And the stock market doesn’t care as long as it keeps growing. So, know, Quicksilver board shorts, you know, in the late 70s, early 80s, whenever I, if I saw someone at an airport with a Quicksilver board short, he was a surfer. There was no doubt. He was part of the club.

Well 20 years later, Subway was being sold at a discount at Costco. No wonder it went 1BK.

Anthony Codispoti (30:06)
Okay,

I want to make sure we leave enough time to talk about the restaurant here because this yes, yes. How did you how did the inspiration come about to start a restaurant you were killing it in action sports.

Laurent (30:10)
I’m just and say, sandwiches, I’m really hungry.

So,

yes, but a couple things happen. When I was 20 years old, now keep in mind, I grew up in Paris, and as a young teenager, just like most European kids, you have a side job on the weekend, summer vacation. I always served in cafes, okay, I love cafes. Growing up in Paris, when you did school, you were sitting in the cafe before school, at lunch, you talk to the girls, you play pinball, you play foosball.

gathering. You still go to Paris today or Rome, okay, or Barcelona. People hang out in the cafes all day, sipping wine, smoking cigarettes, talking stories. When I was a kid growing up in Paris, the guy or the lady that owned the cafe, to me they were the, I call them the Papa du Cartier, the district godfather, okay. People told them their stories over the counter. They made people laugh.

But they owned the cafe and they would tell us kids, go back to school. You’ve been at the cafe here too. So I always wanted to have a cafe. And then now fast forward, I’m 20 years old. I’m in San Francisco, 20, 22, 25. I’m killing it in action sport. And all my friends, European friends, windsurfer friends in Silicon Valley, all in the high tech business, they’re like, oh, this fun business you in, it’s not gonna last. It looks too much fun. You’re making money. Then what?

I day it stops, I’ll open a cafe. Okay, I’m 25 years old. I don’t see this. And then I started taking my American friends to Paris. We started traveling on the coast, going surfing and all that. Hanging out at the cafes again with my American friends. know, chasing the girls, blah, blah. And they were like, that lifestyle is so freaking cool. We’re eating sandwiches, they don’t cost much money. Out of baguettes and croissants. I’m like, yeah, that’s what Europeans do. That’s what French people do. One day.

And I always talked about it. One day, I’ll have one. 20, 25, 30, 35. Married. I moved to Laguna Beach with my daughter. The first thing I tell my wife, Laguna Beach, there’s no cafe here, one day. And then my daughter was growing, eight years old, nine years old. The other thing I always tell people, you’ve gotta know your place. And I had been in the action sport business for so long. And I always compared to going to the elevator.

You go into the elevator, the elevator goes up, and I felt it. I was 40 years old now, 41, 42, 08, the global economy crisis. I was a middleman, commission guy, commission. I had a lot of employees, 40 employees, making lots of commission, but the companies were becoming, not burn in particular, but companies were changing. The companies were looking at margins. The retailers were looking at margins.

And the companies, the first guy that saw that, and I happened to, I met him a couple of times in Palo Alto. When Steve Jobs opened his Apple stores, he was the first guy to realize, I’ve got to talk to the consumer first. Forget the middle guy. Forget the middle, independent reps, middle retailers. They kill the margins and they don’t talk to brand. Right? And they have his brand next to their other brands. So long story short.

You’ve got to know your place. And I felt for all kinds of different reasons. Between the fact that I was, I’m not a big number guy, but I was over 40. I had been around the action sport business for close to 25 years. My daughter was growing. I had a great career. The Nixon thing had worked out really well to set up my family and I. The global crisis. I was like, you know what? And I always tell people, you, you, you.

Sportsmen, musician, actors, business guys. Look at how many people do one too many movies, one too many songs, one too many games. The last thing you want is someone to tell you, you know what? You don’t belong. You’re past your prime. You know, and I used to tell you, I wanted to go out and talk. I was on top in 2010. And I surprised a lot of people in the industry. I surprised my employees. I surprised other.

Anthony Codispoti (34:22)
You’re Pastor Brian.

You wanted to go out on top and you’re like the elevator is at the peak. I think this is good.

Laurent (34:38)
distributors and burn wraps all over the world when I announced and I would leave that I would stop working and the first people I announced it to my wife and daughter when my daughter turned eight I said in one year from now when we turn nine years old next May 30th at the end of the selling season for the winner I will call it quit I figured it would take me one year to dismantle my agency pissed it out I had nothing to sell I was a service guy okay I didn’t own burn okay I didn’t own any of the brands

I was a commission based guy, but I figured I’ll part ways with the companies on great terms. We’ll make sure that some of my original sales rep end up with pieces of it. So some of my original reps ended up with Bernie in Southern California, Bernie in Northern California, Nixon, and so on. And a year later in 2010, May 30th on my daughter’s birthday, all my contracts were over. And my wife, daughter and I traveled the world in and out of Newport Beach for two and a half, almost three years.

Anthony Codispoti (35:39)
And at what point did you get bored and decide to open the cafes?

Laurent (35:42)
Well,

it wasn’t really getting bored. was a combination. Also, my wife saying, hey, your daughter, you know, she needs to enter a more regular cycle of school, you know, the zigzagging. And I was getting a little bit bored. And I had, you know, and had this cafe thing inside me. And then one day I told my wife and daughter on the kitchen counter, I said, you know what? I’m going to open a cafe. I’m going open a little cafe. And I called it that. said, I’m going to open a little cafe in Newport Beach.

Anthony Codispoti (35:44)
No?

Laurent (36:11)
And I wanted my daughter, which is born in San Francisco, to kind of know this environment. You know, I grew up in in Paris and I miss the product. I miss the lifestyle, the sandwich with the jambon and the egg players and the salads and the omelets and all the basic Parisian cafe food. And when I said that to my wife, I want to open a little cafe, she said, oh, I’ve known you for a long time. You won’t be little. And I was convinced it was.

I would open a little cafe. opened 11 years ago, two weeks ago. I opened with 10 employees, a single location here right on the street. then 11 years later, we have eight locations and 200 employees.

Anthony Codispoti (36:57)
So was it a success right out of the gate or did it take a while to get some traction?

Laurent (37:00)
No,

it was a success right out of the gate, as a matter of

Anthony Codispoti (37:03)
Why? That

doesn’t happen very often. What were you guys doing?

Laurent (37:07)
Well, a couple of reasons. ⁓ Number one, I had the means to open a real establishment. Most form.

Anthony Codispoti (37:16)
You didn’t have to do

it on a shoestring budget. You could do it the way that you wanted. It was nice. The quality was there. Yeah.

Laurent (37:21)
I

had the budget to do it right. Now keep in mind I’m not a baker, not a pastry chef, I’m not technically a restaurant guy. So I figured okay and I figured in Orange County not so much the French bar but the restaurant bar and the public as well travel. So I’m gonna get one shot and a lot of people were like, Alain this restaurant industry you’re about to turn 50. Why? You’ve done great.

You can do nothing, you can do other things. Why would you want to get into the most difficult business of it all when most restaurants close within one year? Now, remember I come from a sports background and I’m very competitive. Not only back in the day with windsurfing, but the last 25 years I fell in love with long distance running, in particular the marathon. So I’ve traveled and competed in the marathon all over the world, which is why my voice is a little weird because I had a great training session this morning at six a.m.

And I’m just a competitive person and I also…

Very few people play the long game. I’m a huge fan of the long game. Nothing happens instantly. The only thing that happens instantly, if you’re lucky enough, is to win the lottery. But everything in life, you’ve got to put in some time. Hard time, good times, but you have to put in some time. If you want to make it to the Boston Marathon, I can assure you that for a few years, you’ve got to go run every day. Okay? Especially now. And I’ll be in Boston on April 20th. And I go to Boston every year. But that took a long time. The first 10 years, I could not go to Boston.

had to go running every day. It took that long to make it to the Boston Marathon. It’s the same thing in the restaurant business. So I had the means to do it well. I had the means to hire well. And out of the gate, I figured I got to sell a real deal. My croissant have to be as good as a croissant Paris. My crêpes, my croque monsieur, my sandwich, my baguette, my jambon. We make the ham. No one makes the ham in Southern California. No one makes the ham, which is called a jambon blanc de Paris. When people talk about

Anthony Codispoti (39:26)
What’s different about

the ham? Why can’t you just get it from, I don’t know, Cisco?

Laurent (39:29)
Low on

sodium, curated all night, low on sodium, shredded very thin. Very white, not pink. If your ham is pink, walk away. Okay. It should be a very light ⁓ rose, almost on white. It’s fake, it’s industrial. Industrial ham. Yeah. So the jambon was a staple, know, Americans eat turkey, French people eat ham. Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (39:40)
Why?

And when it’s pink, what does it mean?

Laurent (39:58)
staple product is a jambon from a jambon cheese a mental Swiss cheese on a baguette so she saw salami with a little pickles and so on

Anthony Codispoti (40:09)
So I don’t want everybody to think that your life was just all roses, no struggles, no challenges. There had to have been some issues that you overcame early on with the restaurant. Can we maybe explore one of those and how you worked through it?

Laurent (40:25)
Well, number one, mean, OK, when you build a restaurant, it takes time, permitting, money. If you do it on a shoestring, it’s not going to work. ⁓ If they tell you it’s going to cost a half a million to build it, it’s going to cost a million. That’s called change orders. ⁓ So you’ve got the whole city process, health department process. I there are a lot of rules and regulations. Of course, you’re going to make something people are going to put in their mouth. ⁓ So there’s a lot of rules and regulations about that.

how to make food and sell food to the public, which is fine. Time, money, and then the public. I mean, as much as I want, and I do sell the real deal, French product, Americans, especially Californians, especially Southern California, especially Orange County folks, especially Newport Beach customers, want it their way. It’s called entitlement. People would love to change everything on my menu.

Welcome to Moulin, you don’t get to change anything. Whatever you think you want, if it’s not on my menu, you get to make it at home. We sell the real deal.

Anthony Codispoti (41:34)
Meaning what?

Like what’s something that somebody would ask for that you would decline?

Laurent (41:39)
Well, there’s a staple French product that every cafe in France call a coq monsieur. It’s a grilled ham and cheese with a slice of ham in the middle. It’s called a coq monsieur. When it has a sunny side on top of it, it’s called a coq madame. There’s no such thing as a coq monsieur or coq madame without ham. There’s a lot of other things we sell without ham. And I respect people that don’t want to eat ham, based on whatever, religion or the fact they don’t like ham and so on. But when you ask for a coq monsieur, can you pour me each?

the first two years people would say I’ll take the coq monsieur without him. There’s no such thing. What you want is a grilled cheese. I don’t sell grilled cheese. The place across the street sells grilled cheese. Okay well I want a Coca-Cola because you’re being an ass so give me a Coke. But then we don’t sell American sodas here. You don’t? Why? No we don’t. We still don’t. We only sell French lemonade, French Orangina, French Perrier, French Avion. Okay what about California wine?

You know, I hear the Californians make great wine. Okay, well don’t sell California wine. You know what? Because the French make great wine. I only sell French wine, water. Everything in my place is French. But not only that, the décor, everything is authentic. Every table, every chair, every light, every sign on the wall is from the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. I go to France every year. I fill up 40 foot containers of objects. speak history. History means experience. When you walk into my place,

Anthony Codispoti (43:03)
It’s almost like you want

your guests walking through a portal where it’s like they walked from Orange County into a little slice of Paris. Everything in there is Parisian, it’s French.

Laurent (43:15)
No jet lag, no attitude. Those are the two things you can leave at the door. We’re nice. I think we’re a little nicer than your average cafe guy in Paris. And you’re not jet lagged. You have not traveled 11 hours to fly to Paris. But then, you’re back to the struggles. ⁓ So the consumer, the city officials, that was fine. Rules are the rules. And then the consumers. And then the employees. The big difference between action sport and the restaurant business.

In action sport, everybody that I hired, every sales rep or merchandiser that I hired, ultimately wanted to do what I did for a living. In my business, in the restaurant business, except for the people in the back, the bakers, the pastry chefs, the cooks, the line cooks, the preps, they’re professionals. They want to be in the restaurant business. But remember, it doesn’t matter what I do to the establishment, it doesn’t matter what my team and I make as far as the product is concerned.

Service, service, service. If a server delivers the product the wrong way, doesn’t smile, doesn’t agree, doesn’t say thank you, you will not come back. You will not come back. Because other people make a great product across the street.

Anthony Codispoti (44:31)
So in order to pull all this off, obviously a lot of things have to line up from the food execution to the service. Labor’s tough. It’s a tough labor market, right? It’s hard to find good folks. When you find them, it’s hard to hold on to them. What have you found in terms of recruiting, retention that works? How do you get the right people to pull off what it is that you’re creating?

Laurent (44:55)
So the one thing where I was lucky is by growing and keep in mind and I never thought I’d have two stores but a customer a year and a half into it which would eat lunch on a regular basis at Muna in Yucca Beach stopped me in my truck one day and said, why are you familiar with the Laguna Beach forest avenue? I said, of course, I raised my family in Laguna Beach. While we’re on the building where Scandia Bakery has been for 38 years, they are retiring and leaving in a few months.

Would you please consider doing a second one in the beauty beach? We met the following day and shake. Number three happened the exact same way. Number four, I have never left when I’m looking for another space. The reason why I was a little late on this podcast by a minute is because as I’m sure you know, Starbucks last weekend closed hundreds of stores in North America, 40 of them in Orange County in the last seven days.

have had five language homie and said, can we talk to you about taking over the Starbucks location in our building?

I say no 99 % of the time. This morning, because of customer. This is interesting, and this is typical of Orange County. A lot of customers that I serve every day, I don’t ask people what they do for a living. The phone will eventually stop ringing. This is the office phone. Yes. A lot of our customers, especially in Orange County, our property owners, developers and so on. I don’t ask people what they own or what they do for a living, but interesting enough.

Anthony Codispoti (46:19)
Hey, this is how this is how it goes. We’re getting an inside look.

Laurent (46:32)
all of sudden this guy last week, which is a regular, said, hey, Ron, I own the building on PCH next door to Sterling BMW, where the Starbucks is or was, and I talked to you, would you please consider taking it over and doing a Moulin? And that’s how every location’s happened. Yes. And I say no 99 % of the time, and I’m the first one to say, if I had built Moulin at 35 years old, I’d have 100 of them in the state of California.

Anthony Codispoti (46:48)
Wow. Somebody always comes to you trying to fill a space.

Now, here’s one of the things that’s really interesting to me. ⁓ COVID decimated a lot of business, most restaurant businesses. You guys actually thrived during that time. Why?

Laurent (47:14)
Yes.

Okay, so I didn’t finish on your original question. The way we retain people is because I was able to grow. By growing, you’re growing your revenues. By growing locations, you need more help. So what happened is today, every single location is run by someone that used to be a server seven, eight, nine years ago at Moulin-Youkoudis. So someone that was at the time 21, 22, 23.

Anthony Codispoti (47:18)
Please.

Laurent (47:43)
and might have worked at the time for $20 an hour, give or take. He’s now a store manager in Laguna Beach, in a point, San Quentinene, Southwest Plaza, SoCo, Nippur Beach. So when you grow, your people can grow. If you don’t grow, your good people are gonna leave. They should, right? I’ll be the first one to help them. And I’ve had some great people work with me, but because I was able to grow, I’ve been able to. Of course.

Anthony Codispoti (48:08)
you’re giving them a chance for advancement. They can see

a career path. It’s not a dead end for them.

Laurent (48:13)
management, salary,

responsibilities, more money, building a family, eventually buying a house, blah, blah, blah. So that’s a huge part. again, going back to the Nixon thing, what I told you, a big part of the success was betting on the team, the athletes at the time, same thing with Bird and Snowboard, who are in my brand, relying on the team. ⁓

without the right people. There is no growth. don’t care what kind of ham you’re making. You you need good pastry chef, good bakers, good everything, good service, good managers, and growth allows you to do that. Now to go back to COVID, what happened with COVID is number one, all my locations at the time I had four and about 75 employees because of friends, cafe vibe, and I had always had huge patios. I was a huge fan of

mean we’re in Southern California where it’s 80 degrees every day. So I was a big fan of patios. I had a little bit of seating inside but a lot of seating outside. Keep in mind also that you pay rent inside. If you’re a good negotiator you don’t pay rent outside. Okay? Keep in mind that when you put chairs and tables inside you’re limited with walls. But when you go on the sidewalk, just like in Paris, you start with 12 chairs. When nobody’s looking you got 16 chairs. When nobody’s looking you got 24 chairs.

And next thing you’re on the entire sidewalk, and don’t quote me on that with the next landlord, next thing you got chairs and tables and umbrellas everywhere. That’s the business I’m in. So number one, I had huge patios. Number two, everything we did since day one was available for here or to go. So when the government said everybody needs to eat outside, and eventually everybody needs to not eat outside but take it away and cannot stay on premise.

I had it all worked out. And on top of that, different locations around me, prime locations, became available. And landlords were starving for good operators and could make it, could be open, could be serving during COVID and pay rent. My best deals were all inked during COVID. The landlord came back running with more offers. Better deals.

Anthony Codispoti (50:41)
They were desperate to fill the space.

Laurent (50:42)
desperate to

fill an existing space, which by the way, I learned a lot before COVID. I took over locations, gutted them out and spend sometime in excess of a million dollars to open a cafe. Once COVID hit, it all became second generation restaurant. And today, I mean, we just talked about Starbucks. You know how many Starbucks can be taken over in this country? 1,000, 1,215, 2,000 square feet. The bones are correct.

The plumbing is there. The grease straps are there. The electricity is there. I can go into your Starbucks, change the counters, paint my table, my chairs, my art, my signs, my croissant, my sandwich, and I’ll give Starbucks a run for their money.

Anthony Codispoti (51:28)
So prior ⁓ redoing a location might cost you million dollars. What is it you’re putting in now?

Laurent (51:37)
quarter million at the most. And so, you know, it’s interesting. mean, and I have the most respect for Starbucks in and out, Chipotle and all those huge change around me. But, know, a lot of people talk about Starbucks and I like to talk about Starbucks because the CEO of Starbucks as of a year ago is someone from New Port Beach. was the CEO of Chipotle. It was all over the paper.

Anthony Codispoti (51:38)
⁓ wow, that’s a huge savings. That’s a lot of croissants.

Laurent (52:04)
about the fact that Starbucks had gotten for a huge package, blah, blah. And the first thing he did in the last few months ago, he analyzed what he had worldwide, but one of the statement he made is, a few months ago he said, Starbucks needs to get back into an experienced type of business. Obviously, a few months later he realized, forget the experience. mean, Starbucks is not an experienced place. It’s a convenient place. When I fly somewhere and there’s a Starbucks at the airport, I’m the first one in line to get my cup of Starbucks, a little oatmeal.

and fight. But nobody’s hanging out at Starbucks anymore. I’m in the experience business. You come into my place, you spend $3 for a drip coffee, $4 for a cappuccino or a latte, maybe you add a croissant to it. You can sit there for two hours on the patio. You’re going to hear people talking all kinds of different languages. Business is getting done on my patios. And when you experience business, the music streams from Paris.

The servers, ⁓ we have servers from all over the world. A lot of them being French. A lot of non-French servers speak French now because they’ve been with me for so long. At least they got the basic French and the basic yelling. When I yell in French, I don’t yell. When I speak French, they get it 10 years later. ⁓ I’m in the experience business. And at the same time, approaching 60, I’m not chasing anything. I really want people.

you have a great experience. want my employees and I had a manager’s meeting this morning. Once again, every manager meeting I tell them, if we have good employees, if we have happy employees, we will translate to good customers. It all starts with the employees. So I take really good care of employees because of the size we are, we’re able to offer health insurance. We have a saving plan for people that have been with us for a long time and we promote, we promote within.

That’s the hardest thing in my business. I can’t hire a manager from the outside. He’s not gonna have the culture. He’s just not. If you wanna come in and you’re willing to pay your dues and you’re somewhat street smart and have common sense, you can move up pretty quickly. You just need to show up.

Anthony Codispoti (54:22)
So what’s the future of Mulan look like? More growth, more locations, you retiring?

Laurent (54:27)
Yeah,

no, me retiring? Seriously? I love what I do. No, every year I tell my wife it’s my last marathon. She’s like, you know I’m going to Boston next day, but I said yeah, but that’ll be my last one. It’s the same thing. I really love this service business. I love talking about pairs to customers. It’s actually got a lot easier. My day to day is a lot easier. I’ve got a great management team, eight direct reports, a couple hundred employees.

I mean all the cafes all the time serving people, busing on the patios with the gloves on, picking up the paper everywhere. I work with everybody at the ground level. I actually spend more time at the ground level than I am. I’m not a big meeting guy. I’m not a big anti-corp even so I own a small corporation now. My wife and I own everything except the real estate because where we want to be the real estate is never for sale. We have no debt. And our daughter

My youngest daughter, the two oldest kids have gone back to France, my youngest daughter is involved with us. A lot of people say, is she going to take over? She’s the first one to say that. It’s already too big. I can’t imagine running this place. But she loves being part of it. My wife is extremely involved on the product. ⁓ Her and I having grown in Paris, ⁓ she’s very familiar with the product. So she’s involved with all the chefs. Nothing gets into our menus and displays unless she’s

put a video on it and approved it. And I’m more involved with the marketing, the social media. The only thing I’ve never delegated by the way is the whole social media. If you go to Instagram at Moulin, every picture, every video, every word is from me, posting, filming. That’s a huge thing for me because if you discover us out of New York City or out of Dubai and you land on our

page, moona.com or Instagram or Facebook. I want to be able to kind of, I want you to think, I got to go there. I got to meet this guy. I got to walk in and see what this product is all about. You know, I’m serious. And this is one thing I tell all our managers and employees, I’m serious. We’re very serious, but we don’t take ourselves seriously. Okay. I’m known to goof off with the customers, with the employees. ⁓ We work hard. We play hard.

and I learned that from Jay Bird. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (56:57)
Laurent, what advice would you give to entrepreneurs who are looking to trying to build something meaningful?

Laurent (57:05)
Okay, so a couple of advice. If you have it here, you gotta do it. I have a lot of friends, know, they turn 50 years old, change of careers, this and that, and they come to me and they go to, I’m like, what’s here? If there’s something that’s been brewing here for, don’t care for how long, you’ve gotta do it. Okay, maybe you were being held back by married kids. Now you’re 50, 55.

Sounds to me like you want to do something else. Do what’s here. Don’t do something because someone else has it there. one. Number two, whatever you do, you got to be all in. All in. Long game. All in. And last, this is very important. I’ve only had one partner in life, and that’s my wife. Okay. You better off doing a smaller business without a partner.

So many people walk up to me going, I’ve got a great idea and I present it to you, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, how are you going to do it? Well, I’m going to get partners. I’m going to get investors.

You start writing someone else’s check. Yes, not the same. Every check.

Anthony Codispoti (58:17)
But that’s what you did.

Isn’t that what you did with Nixon?

Laurent (58:21)
Yeah, I was young, foolish, and it worked out.

But with Mulan, my own brand, and now we’ve got to relate to the restaurant business. The restaurant industry and getting into the restaurant industry is a high-tech item. It’s expensive. And I started the action sport business like most in my garage. most, I don’t care if it’s Bob McKnight with Quicksilver or Jake Burton with Burton Snowboard in a barn. We all started in a barn, in a garage, in a kitchen.

Anthony Codispoti (58:29)
Do as I say, not as I do.

Laurent (58:56)
In 2025, it’s hard to be small. It’s really hard to be small. So right off the bat, people show up with a freaking business plan. I’m going to raise a million. I’m going to raise 10 million. And then next thing, you’re writing checks. it’s, you I mean, I was neither rich or poor when I started Moulin. I was somewhere in between. But at the end of the day, I was still writing my checks.

And I could have jeopardized a bit, you know, my family. But that’s, I think that’s important. That’s important to put it all on the edge. There has to be risk and you have to be scared. I’m scared. I’m going to the Marine Corps Marathon in two weeks in Washington, DC. I’m scared. And I’ve been running Marathon for 25 years. You have to be scared.

Anthony Codispoti (59:50)
How do you manage the fear? Because I think for a lot of people, the fear is what interrupts their progress or interrupts them taking the chance.

Laurent (59:57)
You train,

you train for that. You train. This morning I went on a run and I had target paces to hit. I got up at five as usual and knowing that I would meet a couple guys that I run with and I’m just as serious as I am. Am I going to be able to hit those paces? And I did, but I was scared. And I’m scared about the Marathon. And I’m scared about that. 11 years into it.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:21)
So you do it in spite of the fear, not because you’ve overcome it.

Laurent (1:00:26)
Yeah, mean, and as successful as we are, I show up every day because I’m scared that we might not do the right thing, deliver the right product. A competitor could come in across the street. You I don’t take anything for granted. Yeah, we have not made it. I have never showed up here going, made it. That’s never gonna happen.

And on another note, going back to you said, hey, what’s the next thing, blah, blah. People ask me, you need to be in LA, San Diego, Vegas. I’m like, we’re going to be in LA. The day you see a moon eye in LA, I just won’t be the owner. The day you see Coca-Cola on the display, I won’t be the owner. You’ve got to stay true.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:11)
So Mulan, more locations, no more locations, what are you saying? Not ready to commit either way?

Laurent (1:01:17)
Yeah, I mean…

No, I’m going to continue when I’m an opportunistic. Am I going to fill up the next 40 Starbucks in Orange County? No. But if there’s a location I can’t pass, I won’t be able to help it. It’s in my DNA. I’m French at heart, but I’ve been here 42 years. I’m going to be 60 next month. It’s in my DNA. I can’t help it. I’m a French kid in an American adult body.

I can’t help it. Luckily my wife is my sounding board and my wife being very frank, said, hold on tiger, okay? Just pace yourself, right? But you never know. I’m also, know, maybe a strategic partner will come along. Someone that I get along with and go look, we’ve got some of the expertise you have in the more of the process, more of the system, know, growing is one thing, but you have to be.

process-driven. You don’t start operating, you we serve 25 to 3000 people daily, every single day, and 200 employees. It’s a little machine. We’re not Disney, man. We’re not small either. And with that, ⁓ growing is one thing, but yeah, it process systems. So maybe an entity will come along and go, hey, can we partner up with you?

Am I looking for someone to write me a check and I go back to Maui? No. But I’m not against anything having had all my adult business life in California. again, I just told you, I’m not into partners, but I also believe that maybe something will come along in the next couple of years where it’ll make sense to merge. I’d love to see Tony Moulin in Southern California.

We’re everywhere in Orange County, but we’re nowhere. All the Mulan are 20 minutes or 20 miles from my house. We’ve been in my rules since day one. We’re not in Long Beach, we’re not in Orange, we’re not in Tustin, we’re not in Corona Del Mar, we’re not in Mission Viejo, we’re not in Laguna Hill, we’re not in San Juan Capistrano. Right there, I can double my footprint. And I’m still within 20 miles or 20 minutes of my house.

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:41)
So you’re open to interesting opportunities if everything’s aligned. Yeah, that’s it.

Laurent (1:03:41)
Let’s do it.

Yes, it’s all

about, you know, but again, pace. I’ve got, I’m patient. I’m very patient.

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:54)
So, Laurent, I’ve just got one more question for you, but before I ask it, I wanna do three things. First of all, anybody who wants to get in touch with the brand or Laurent himself, I’m gonna first direct you to their website, moulin.com, moulin.com. You can email Laurent directly. He was kind enough to give out his email, Laurent at moulin.com. His first name is spelled L-A-U-R-E-N-T, L-A-U-R-E-N-T, at.

O U L I N dot com. And they’ve also got the hashtag, hashtag Mulan and Instagram and Laurent just shared with us that everything you see on there, all the pictures and videos, they come right from him. Second thing is as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to benefits that won’t hurt them financially and carries a financial upside for the company, reach out to us at adbackbenefits.com. And finally, if you take just a moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast app, we’ll hold a special place in my heart forever.

So last question for you, what’s your superpower?

Laurent (1:05:00)
Well, I mean, I’m just very driven.

very driven. I always show up. I always show up. You know, I’m just like everybody else. mean, there’s days where I’m like, maybe I don’t want to go down to the restaurant. Maybe I stay home. Or maybe instead of taking a one-week vacation, I stay longer. Or you have to show up. You have to show up when you don’t want to show up. There’s days where I don’t want to go running. But I want to make it to the boss room. Should I go running? Rain or shine?

⁓ So, I’m not a scholar and I think maybe that is the superpower. The fact that I didn’t go to school. I don’t have a high school diploma, no college degrees. ⁓ I bailed out of school very young. ⁓ I’ve always worked. ⁓ I grew up in boarding school, I’m 6-16. So, my parents were, the word is volage. My parents were not really there, but my grandparents.

were always there on both my mother’s side and my father’s side. And my grandparents, know, ⁓ being born in the twenties, were very, very hard workers. They had lived through World War II in France, being occupied. they were both, both my grandparents were independent business people. ⁓ And I watched that as a kid. I was eight, I was 10, I was 12. And I just watched hard work pay off. And… ⁓

So that’s the super part.

Anthony Codispoti (1:06:37)
Mulan from, I’m sorry, redo that. Laurent from Mulan, the ⁓ chain of Parisian cafes in Orange County. Small chain, we’ll do it one more time. Laurent from the small chain of Parisian cafes in Orange County of Mulan. Thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today, I really appreciate it.

Laurent (1:06:48)
Small change, small change, small change.

Come to the cafe, ask for Laurent, tell him or ask for anyone and tell him I know Laurent, where is he at? I want him in my cookery, always.

Anthony Codispoti (1:07:12)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.