How Rick Smilow Acquired Cooking School With a Cold Call and Grew The Institute of Culinary Education to a National Institution

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 Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Rick Smilow. Rick is the CEO and Chairman of the Institute of Culinary Education, better known as ICE.

For more than 50 years, ICE has trained aspiring chefs in hospitality pros through hands-on programs in culinary arts, pastry and baking, restaurant management, and even health-focused cooking. With campuses in both New York City and Los Angeles and flexible online options, the school now counts over 19,000 alumni working in kitchens around the world.

Under Rick’s guidance, ICE has been named best culinary school in America by USA Today and has seen faculty and graduates collect James Beard awards. He himself serves on the board of Daniel Beloud’s Denex Restaurant Group, City Harvest, and the Careers Through Culinary Arts program, showing his commitment to industry excellence and food rescue efforts. Today, we’ll hear how he grew a vocational school.

into a global culinary community. But before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. So imagine being able to give your restaurant employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications. And here’s the fun part.

The program actually puts more money into your employees’ pockets. And the companies too. One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per employee per year. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbecbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, Chairman and CEO of Institute of Culinary Education, Rick Smilow.

Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Rick Smilow (02:12)
Well, it’s a pleasure to be here.

Anthony Codispoti (02:14)
So Rick, before we get into ICE, you’ve got an interesting work history. You started your career back in late 70s and early 80s in something that many people aren’t familiar with today, print magazines. And you were on the sales and distribution side of things. Talk about how that work laid a foundation for you going forward.

Rick Smilow (02:36)
Well, yeah, to put it in an overall concept, everybody thinks that I was a chef or a restaurateur, and that’s not the case. I would consider myself a marketing guy. When I went to business school, my focus was on marketing. And I always wanted to eventually become an entrepreneur. But the first, yeah, my first job out of college was in the magazine business, but not on the editorial side. It was in advertising space sales.

back when there was no such thing as internet advertising or social media advertising. ⁓ I would, you know, there’s a ⁓ general adage. It’s something my late father said, it’s it’s always good to be in sales. When you spend time in sales early in your career, ⁓ you learn how to listen to people. You learn how to be persuasive. And ⁓ I think those skills ⁓ serve someone forever.

But a little bit of the, to add to it, you say, well, why magazines? I think from an early age, I recognized that I liked what we call content as a product, but I wanted to be on the business side of it. And clearly, magazines, you know, in the 70s and 80s and 90s and to this day, are repositories of content. And in a similar related way,

a culinary school is a repository of content. So ⁓ the linkage between what I do now isn’t so much that I was in advertising sales, but that they were both content businesses.

Anthony Codispoti (04:15)
Okay, interesting. Let’s continue to connect the dots because after that, you went to MBA school. And then you worked under the Nabisco Brands umbrella as a product manager for Fleischmann’s, which among other things, made margarine, right? Help us continue to connect the dots here. What did you pick up in terms of work knowledge and experience here?

Rick Smilow (04:31)
Right, that was…

⁓ I picked up the idea that I hope I or nobody else I ever meet or like has to go to a margarine tasting. Yeah, but I had gone to ⁓ Northwestern Business School Kellogg, Kellogg Business School, and at the time it had a real ⁓ reputation and sort of pipeline into the big consumer package goods companies and Nabisco,

Anthony Codispoti (04:48)
Okay, say more about that. Not a big fan, huh?

Great school, yeah.

Rick Smilow (05:08)
which was a freestanding company at the time, was one of those. And I thought it would be good for myself to have sort of a classic consumer package, a good marketing job. And I mean, those sort of jobs still exist. An interesting ⁓ thing about that is that if you’re in the product management team on Fleischmann’s Margarine, you’re not thinking about Oreos or Fig Newtons or Jell-O pudding.

It’s just that product and you think about the product from all sides and in that way it in a way is good training for being an entrepreneur. You you’re thinking about the packaging, how it tastes, the advertising, the merchandising coupons, ⁓ the distribution channels. You’re not in control of all of those things but ⁓ it just has a particular product focus that I think is

good training for anything and including being an entrepreneur.

Anthony Codispoti (06:12)
So not a fan of margarine, but you gained some good work experience there that I’m gonna guess you were able to leverage as you started your own ⁓ pet food manufacturing company.

Rick Smilow (06:24)
Yeah.

so, and you know, you can, at that point in my life, I was very, ⁓ my idea of, of products were physical products that you could hold in your hand. didn’t think of services or education as a product as, as I now do. And, yeah, I, I started a company called wagging tail limited and I was trying to be, to put it in names, you’d be more familiar with the Ben and Jerry’s of dog and cat snack.

⁓ I was also inspired by ⁓ these brands that are, we don’t think of them at all as innovative anymore, but back in the late 80s and 90s they were, and things like Celestial Seasonings Tea and Smart Food and ⁓ Snapple, had sort of a, between the different flavors and the packaging, they had a little bit more of a ⁓ lifestyle type.

positioning and to younger people today that wouldn’t make any sense but at the time it did. So I was trying to do that with pet snacks and ⁓ I a good friend of mine joined me as a partner in the business and we did a lot of things right but we just ⁓ the way I described is we picked the wrong products because dog snacks dogs eat a lot and dog snacks are often bought in bulk.

and cats don’t eat very much and ⁓ of our two lines, the cat snacks did better and at the point we were able to sell the company, not for any great multiple or success, but it was maybe the product called Jackie’s Cat Snacks. If there’s anyone out there listening who remembers that brand, that would be, please send me an email. ⁓

But maybe we were in 2000 supermarkets, which sounds pretty good. You know, and was the better stop in shops or Vons or Rous or Jewel, whatever city you’re in. The problem is that a loyal user would buy about a box a month for $2.50, of which we made 30 cents. So even though I was a Kellogg MBA, maybe I hadn’t done the math. you know, when a loyal customer ⁓ is spending that little,

and you compare that to Ben and Jerry’s or Snapple or Smartfood, you know, it was just hard to make it ⁓ much of a business. And we were competing at the time with cat snack products from ⁓ Ralston Purina, Quaker Oats, and Heinz. So it ⁓ was really, yeah, was ⁓ amazing that we got as far as we did, but ⁓ it was just a bad idea.

Anthony Codispoti (09:06)
All the big boys.

I do you think

it was a bad idea? Or do you think it was ahead of its time? Like, I mean, people loved and doted on their pets back then, but they do so a lot more now. Like, do you think that idea would have had more legs today?

Rick Smilow (09:29)
maybe. ⁓ I don’t know. I think the underlying math of being a very small business, a startup in that space wouldn’t have worked out well. I did get, you know, and the products were made by co-packers who would make smaller brands for companies. And I remember getting the advice from ⁓ the owner of one of the co-packers. ⁓

who if he was alive now would probably be 110. And he was giving me grandfatherly advice. said, Rick, your idea is interesting. I admire entrepreneurs. But I think you should think about main meal pet food and higher quality. I’ve heard of these brands called Science Diet and Iams that are just, they’re catching steam out west. And maybe there’s more potential there. And it just seemed more difficult.

you bulky products and so i i really didn’t go in that direction and of course that’s where in terms of the pet food market that’s where the growth was i mean it was you know there was a time when everything was bought in it in in old school old school well in supermarkets are old school pet supply stores anyway but enough about pet food

Anthony Codispoti (10:44)
Yeah.

Enough about pet food. How did we get from pet food to you acquiring ICE? Where did the idea come about?

Rick Smilow (10:54)
So

what I actually acquired in 1995 was what I call the predecessor school. It was called Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School. It was on the Upper East Side in New York City. And it was started by a gentleman named Peter Kump. He started in his apartment, then they moved to a real space. He is also well known. He was the founding

really the founding president of the James Beard Foundation. He was friendly with Julia Child and ⁓ James Beard. And this is in the late 80s, ⁓ before I was ever involved. You could say the culinary world was a lot smaller then, and all of those names I just mentioned where people were friendly with one another. ⁓ anyway, the story of how I got to be interested in that is pretty interesting. ⁓

I, in this Pets, I had moved from being a corporate person to an entrepreneur and after we sold the Petsnack business, I was looking for a way to stay an entrepreneur, but by ⁓ finding a small business to buy or maybe finding a family business, ⁓ someone else’s family, where there was no succession plan. And I was, you know, looking at deals, but small deals. And ⁓ at one point, something that

came across the radar ⁓ was, believe it or not, the Barbizon Modeling Schools, which ⁓ I don’t even know if any exists anymore. And it was run as a franchise business. tended to be, you know, and these were ⁓ essentially after school programs for ⁓ teenagers, mostly girls. There was, you know, they used modeling as the hook, but it was really about ⁓

teaching poise and manners and self-confidence. you know, it was, if you think of it that way, was a service and an education business. And I spent a few months, you know, leaning into that and decided it wasn’t for me, but it sort of was one of those things. It opened my mind, yeah. And so I was working with a series of brokers and

Anthony Codispoti (13:11)
kind of opened your mind to this idea of like education.

Rick Smilow (13:19)
And I said, you know, I had never mentioned this before, but could you do a search of education businesses within a 30 mile radius, under a certain size, and see what you come up with, and then make cold calls? And I wasn’t in the room when this happened, but one day there was a call, hi, I’m Rich DeMichael from the Woodbridge Group, and we have a client that might be interested in investing in or buying your school. ⁓

and the phone call was taken by the general manager of Peter Kump’s New York cooking school and he said, yes, there might be interest because Mr. Kump himself was having a relapse of cancer and there was no succession plan. ⁓ ever since then, personally, I’ve had a soft spot for cold calls, whereas the normal person hangs up after two seconds, I give them at least seven or eight seconds.

because I see how it worked out for me. ⁓ you know, at the, ⁓ and it all happened ⁓ very, very quickly. And part of the equation ⁓ in my mind, I mean, I didn’t know anything about cooking schools or schools or education or didn’t know that much about, you know, the restaurant business. But ⁓ I figured the way to make it grow was ⁓

through product development and marketing and branding, and therefore I could ⁓ add value. And I always have been, ⁓ foodies don’t like the phrase foodie, but I am a foodie. ⁓ And it’s not just enjoying food, but the cultural aspects, the historic aspects, the geographic aspects, the social aspects. ⁓ So really, and the school

was a real school, but it was small. was sort of breaking even. ⁓ It had a professional program that wasn’t very professional, but well thought of. If you can put that together. Yeah, yeah, it was, ⁓ and ⁓ yeah, and there were a lot of things. ⁓ It was sort of like a bourgeois trade school, you know, where there’s a trade school where

Anthony Codispoti (15:28)
Okay, was well respected, but…

There were areas for improvement, room for improvement.

Rick Smilow (15:46)
two thirds of the students had already been to college. But as far as cooking and cooking fundamentals, ⁓ it was well regarded. And by the way, Peter Cump had started it as a recreational cooking school. when I say it was professional, he had loyal students who wanted to take more and more classes and have a progressive sequence. And so he gave them some sort of credential. It wasn’t accredited.

And anyway, I, I, you know, someone like you might ask me a question on a interview like this, you know, what advice would you give to other would be entrepreneurs? And I would never advise someone to do what I did, which is to jump into a business they know nothing about. But, you know, ⁓ I couldn’t wait. The time timing was, was everything. It would have gone in some other direction and it,

Anthony Codispoti (16:15)
So.

Rick Smilow (16:45)
building the business has been a huge financial commitment but at the time at that starting point it wasn’t that big and yeah you know it’s just a

Anthony Codispoti (16:54)
So help us

understand kind of what it looked like when you took over. You said most of the students had already been to some sort of college, started out as recreational cooking, but people wanted this progression. And so were people just looking to, most of them at the time anyways, looking to get better at cooking at home? Or were they wanting to turn this into a career or enhance a career in culinary that they already had?

Rick Smilow (17:21)
By 1995 when I got there, was, I would say it was mostly for career, but his recreational classes and some of the ones we still have today, there’s a very well-known course called Techniques of Fine Cooking Level 1. It’s five lessons. Then there was a level two, then a three, four, five, six, seven, and all of a sudden, you know, people are taking 50 lessons. it was extremely French.

But in, it was teaching, ⁓ well frankly, it was teaching a lot of the fundamental techniques that a good chef, whether it was a new American or a French chef in New York City would want you to know. And in that regard, it was training for professional cooking. But ⁓ a lot of the things that go along with a professional training school, we weren’t doing yet. They weren’t doing yet.

Anthony Codispoti (18:18)
And so what was your initial vision as you came in in 1995? How were you going to get this from breaking even to turning a profit?

Rick Smilow (18:26)
⁓ Well, first I had to learn the business versus learning it before I bought it. So there’s that timing thing. And sort of deciding whether there was more potential on the recreational side or the career side. And ⁓ if you think about it, recreational, your possibility could be millions and millions and millions of people in a country of 350 million people.

On the career side, it’s more serious. There’s only so many people who want to be chefs or pastry chefs or restaurateurs. But I think I came to the conclusion that if you had a serious, well-regarded career school, ⁓ you could put things underneath that ⁓ that could do well. But if you tried to go the other way, ⁓

you know, recreational school wouldn’t get the prestige of a career school. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (19:27)
So if you started as a career school, if you wanted to, you

could also offer those recreational classes because you would have the prestige, but you couldn’t go the other

Rick Smilow (19:33)
Yeah, and we did.

As we’ve grown in other ways, we’ve cut back on the recreational classes, but we were for sure the largest place of hands-on recreational classes per year. A lot of cooking classes, mean, wherever someone is who’s listening to this, there might be a cooking class at their local Williams-Sonoma.

And what that class is, is it’s a demonstration class. You’re sitting, you’re watching, maybe you’re called up and you help the chef and you taste something. to us, cooking school has always been fully hands-on and three, four hour classes. instead of, if there’s 16 students in the class, there’s six ranges, not one range. So the ways, so I

pretty quickly determined that the way to grow was on the career side. And that meant doing things like ⁓ having a real externship program, ⁓ getting accredited, financial aid, ⁓ a uniform policy where, just like if you were working in a professional kitchen, you’d be wearing a uniform. ⁓ Back when I got there, ⁓

you know, there weren’t as many classes and fewer classes for days. Every class ended with eating what you had cooked and some wine. I mean, how many other trade schools have every class ended? No wonder it was popular. So, ⁓ yeah, and again, it’s pretty, if you think of us as a

Anthony Codispoti (21:14)
Sounds like a pretty good deal. That’s a class I’d want to take.

Rick Smilow (21:29)
as a sophisticated or fancy trade school, ⁓ for a trade school to grow out of a recreational school in any field is pretty unusual. mean maybe in massage therapy or something like that ⁓ where both

Anthony Codispoti (21:47)
So what was the

biggest challenge in making that transition? Was it the accreditation?

Rick Smilow (21:53)
⁓ I know the biggest challenge was, ⁓ first of all, it’s a very place-based business. So at some point, you need more kitchens to have a bigger business. And kitchens are expensive to build. And then there are other schools, and the facility needs to be ⁓ attractive and aspirational. ⁓

You know, as education goes, culinary schools are expensive to run. mean, every school you could think of, whether it’s you know, third grade class or a college English class, you you need a teacher, you need an instructor, and you need a space. But in the case of a culinary school, you have all this equipment, you have all these utilities, you have all the food and ingredients, and inherently, your students make a mess, so you gotta clean it up. So…

no wonder culinary schools cost more.

Anthony Codispoti (22:53)
So how are you funding all of this?

Rick Smilow (22:56)
A combination of family loans and ⁓ some savings and bank loans. We moved several times and ⁓ when you sign a new lease for substantial space, there’s ⁓ what’s called a tenant work letter, ⁓ some amount of money from the landlord. But it’s been a… ⁓

would have to say to the extent that culinary schools ⁓ are a place-based business, it’s expensive to grow, but those are also barriers to entry to other people, let alone the rent and all of that.

Anthony Codispoti (23:37)
Right.

So at what point, actually, let me ask this a slightly different way. Was there a big inflection point where you felt like, this is finally working?

Rick Smilow (23:52)
Well, there was, ⁓ you know, the Department of Education, it’s when we got title for funding from the US Department of Education, just like every other college. Well, it’s federal student loans. And you know, you can use those federal student loans to go to University of Chicago or Bridgeport Community College or, you know, Apex Trade School, or trade schools that are big enough to… ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (24:04)
What does that mean? What is Title IV funding?

Rick Smilow (24:20)
sort of manage all that. you know, it’s a source of lower interest loans and or grants and that sort of puts you in the bigger league. it does, you know, there’s, and of course, as you do that, you can only be part of the federal student loan system if you’ve been accredited and you can only be accredited if you’re approved by your state. And all of that comes with a level of

regulation and ⁓ compliance that ⁓ most people would be surprised. You’d think, a cooking school, what do they have to comply with? Well, you’d be surprised. And it’s all because people can get, ⁓ if they want and qualify and choose to take them, federal student loans. ⁓ some of the rules are a little, it’s one of those government cases where they paint with a very wide brush.

And it’s broadly speaking in the name of consumer protection, but it makes things harder like changing our prices. If you think about it, so if we had a class beginning soon and somebody came along who couldn’t afford the school and we’re not like a huge institution with lots of scholarships from endowments.

You know, we can’t give a break to somebody at the last minute. ⁓ An airline can do it. A hotel can do it. A restaurant can do it. Even at colleges. Think about it. You talk to 50 people who go to the certain college and they paid 50 different prices for all sorts of reasons that are not particularly bad, but at least there’s that flexibility ⁓ in a typical, you know,

licensed vocational school like ours, you’re just not allowed to do that. if I was lobbying to Department of Education, well, there’s no Department of Education left. You know, this is something I point out is if there was more dynamic pricing, ⁓ we could lower our price for some people and provide, you know, when it made sense and provide more opportunity, but we’re not allowed to.

Anthony Codispoti (26:39)
So you’re saying that colleges and universities have the legal flexibility to be able to adjust their prices. Vocational institutes are bound by different rules?

Rick Smilow (26:49)
That’s pretty much exactly the case. might think of it as, ⁓ you’ve heard the expression, the ivory tower. Well, things are different at the top of the ivory tower than the bottom of the ivory tower. Yeah, yeah, mean, ⁓ very, very few people think of it that way. There’s also another oddity in US financial aid in that it’s almost easier to get ⁓ more money.

Anthony Codispoti (27:00)
Okay, interesting. I had no idea.

Rick Smilow (27:17)
to go to school longer than it is to get money to go to school shorter amount of time. So it encourages ⁓ schools to make their programs longer when it might not even be necessary. ⁓ mean, if you’re talking about training to be a brain surgeon, I think that training should go on a long time. there are other fields. ⁓ yeah, ⁓ this is a lot about Department of Education regulations.

Anthony Codispoti (27:28)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, so

Rick Smilow (27:47)
Did it, you know, I had the natural sunshine on me. It’s got, is, am I still light enough or should I?

Anthony Codispoti (27:53)
Well, one side of your face is light and then we’ve got a dramatic effect on the other side.

Rick Smilow (27:58)
Let’s, that’s.

Anthony Codispoti (28:07)
As as you’re playing with the lighting, I’ll kind of move into my next question, because I’m curious, because you’re a marketing guy, right? You got the MBA, what were some of the big marketing growth levers that you were able to pull? So you go through the accreditation process, right? You get the ability to be able to, you know, accept student loans. ⁓ But how did you get the word out? How did people know that I see he was a thing and come to you guys?

Rick Smilow (28:34)
Well, you know, the, hold on a second here. The central part of it is it really goes back to ⁓ creating a great school and having good products and a strong brand. ⁓ There’s word of mouth and reputation really plays a big part. ⁓ you know, as you may know, we’re a big culinary school with lots of different programs.

But this is all we do, we’re focused in this field. There’s other larger, often publicly traded trade school companies where they have automotive technology and medical reporting and culinary and that sort of combination. And in those scenarios, the leadership, the ownership is not gonna be as focused.

and the culinary field as say I am in what we do. So that’s part of it. ⁓ But to talk about the tools, ⁓ in the earlier years there was TV advertising, sometimes those late night commercials, ⁓ print advertising. mean in all the years I’ve been doing this, the idea of digital advertising has ⁓

certainly developed and changed so much. mean, it’s changed the whole world of marketing and first digital advertising and search engine optimization and then somewhere along the way social media has come along. And of course, that’s ⁓ a huge driver of for gaining awareness and reputation. ⁓

you know is as as you may know personally or for some of your other other guests it’s it’s really gotten ⁓ quite complicated you know we spend you know x millions of dollars on that and you know how you spend that and getting the most for that is ⁓ is very complicated ⁓ you know the big companies in that space ⁓ you know google and meta they they work with you but they also want to grow and

You know, there’s the whole, you know, in so much of life now, we all, you you hear people talk about the algorithms. Well, in school advertising and how we spend our money, algorithms matter. And, you know, there’s things we could, most of it we can’t control. ⁓ you know, my marketing team tries to, we figure it out. We work with outside consultants and eight months later, ⁓ the rules of the road have changed.

Anthony Codispoti (31:28)
Yeah, you got to, you got to stay on your toes with this for sure. Talk to us, Rick, a little bit about the programs that you offer and the kinds of folks that you’re seeing come through the program.

Rick Smilow (31:41)
Yeah, well, the ⁓ first, you know, the core is culinary arts. We also have pastry and baking. We have a health centered culinary arts. have restaurant and culinary management. And then we have we have hospitality management. And then there’s ⁓ shorter, more specialized programs still at a professional level in bread baking, cake decorating and sommelier training. And for ⁓

All those programs, the main credential is a diploma. And interestingly, that’s something that you can ⁓ earn in about seven or eight months. And that’s going to be a surprise to a lot of your listeners. There aren’t as many culinary schools in America as there used to be. But some of the ones that are out there and many of the ones that existed in the past, they really stressed associates degrees, which can take

Anthony Codispoti (32:19)
Yeah.

Rick Smilow (32:37)
generally take two years. Now we also, we have two campuses, you we’re in New York City and in the Los Angeles area, actually in Pasadena we have a campus. In California we are licensed to offer an associate’s degree and somebody could get through that in about 15 or 16 months, less than two years, and then both again in California and New York you could go through a diploma in seven or eight months.

We also now, we have joined the game of online degrees. ⁓ also run out of our California location. ⁓ You know, people always ask, well, can you really learn cooking, you know, online? And it is ⁓ more, it’s challenging. ⁓ I would say it, here’s one way of looking at it. It costs half as much as being on campus, but you learn 65 % as much. So, you the math is pretty good.

Anthony Codispoti (33:32)
Hahaha.

Rick Smilow (33:34)
And what you have, you know, it’s, have, to the best of our ability, we’ve applied the same series of sequential foundational techniques over 52 weeks that we would, you know, online that someone would do if they were on campus. And it is true, clearly, that, you know, there’s no chef instructor there to taste what you’ve made, but the,

The discipline of feedback is much more than you would think from video and photos and description. ⁓ And a good chef instructor can tell a lot by looking and hearing even if they haven’t tasted. Is it exactly, is it as good as being on campus? ⁓ No, but ⁓ if for whatever reason you can’t get there, ⁓ it’s a reasonable substitute.

Anthony Codispoti (34:32)
So speaking specifically of the in-person programs, whether it’s the seventh to eighth month program or the 15 month program, when people graduate, what are they prepared to do? What does that line them up for?

Rick Smilow (34:46)
⁓ Well, you’re prepared to get ⁓ an entry-level job in the kitchen of a very good restaurant. And ⁓ typically there’s different stations in a kitchen. They may call it a garde-manger, which would be making appetizers or salads. Sometimes it ⁓ could be a junior line cook ⁓ in a…

You know, there’s a lot of French terminology in kitchens, even if there’s no French people. And ⁓ if ⁓ you were to go to the kitchen at Thomas Keller’s French Laundry or Daniel Balloud’s ⁓ restaurant, Danielle, there’s a position called COMIS. But that’s a word you’ve never heard of. And that’s sort of like entry level, ⁓ got some good training.

must be serious position. ⁓ So that’s the answer. And on the pastry and baking side, ⁓ it could be ⁓ as an assistant pastry chef. Pastry departments are obviously smaller. And some people, ⁓ it’s interesting. Can I talk about what people’s ambitions are ⁓ in this?

Anthony Codispoti (36:08)
Yeah, I assume

that people are coming in, they want to be a chef for the rest of their life. Is that accurate? Okay.

Rick Smilow (36:14)
⁓ In half the case, that is true, and

in half the case, it’s not. I think if you were to go talk to our students right now, or the same thing at the Culinary Institute of America, and ask what people want to be doing in five years, ⁓ maybe half would say restaurant chef, but for other people it’s being a personal chef or a caterer, or ⁓ moving with their significant other to an island and opening a bed and breakfast.

It could be, I’ve met people who ⁓ like selling things and maybe they sold computer equipment and now they’d like to sell pastry and baking equipment to hotels and country clubs. There’s the whole food media realm. mean, realistically, there’s a limited number of jobs there, but ⁓ at our school, we just have had ⁓ a tremendous ⁓ track record of

people sort of launching these alternative careers. ⁓ One of my more interesting examples is a guy named Dr. Nate Woods, and he was going to Wayne State ⁓ Medical School in Michigan, took a year off, moved to New York, went through our culinary arts program, ⁓ went back to medical school, and now he is a

on staff, on faculty at Yale Medical School teaching culinary nutrition to future doctors. so culinary school training in the middle of medical school, we’ve had people who’ve started nonprofits. There’s a guy named Andrew Rigi who started the New York City Hospitality Alliance. New York’s incoming Mayor Mondami has asked Andrew to be on a

you know, advisory committee for restaurants and nightlife. ⁓ So there’s, you know, in something, you know, and there’s other people who work in test kitchens. ⁓ I can think of a graduate who works for McCormick Spice Company, ⁓ you know, developing ⁓ recipes using their spices. So all of that is far afield from, ⁓ you know, from being a restaurant chef.

Anthony Codispoti (38:33)
Interesting. So you guys you started out in New York, obviously, that’s where it was based when you first acquired the business and started to grow it. You’ve already referenced the second location that you have out in Pasadena. Why do a second location you talked about how expensive it is to open up physical locations? Yeah.

Rick Smilow (38:53)
Well,

we found a way to do it inexpensively. No, I would say ⁓ the part of me that’s ⁓ just solely ambitious, I wanted something more than New York. I wanted it to be more of a national business. ⁓ certainly having the biggest culinary school in the two biggest cities in America makes me feel like we have a national business.

Anthony Codispoti (38:56)
All right, let’s hear about that.

Rick Smilow (39:21)
But the specific is there was ⁓ a big, going back 15, 20 years ago, a company called Career Education Corp, a public corporation that had a culinary school division and they operated all of the Le Cordon Bleu culinary schools or Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts. it’s a longer story that your listeners don’t want to hear right now, but.

⁓ That type of business and the way they were set up and their relationship with the government at some point stopped working. So they decided to get out of the culinary education business. We were interested in, they had 16 locations in 16 cities. It was much too big to buy. ⁓ And they, ⁓ we entertained buying one or two of their locations. They decided for.

certain reasons they didn’t want to sell any of them and they were going to close them out ⁓ on an orderly basis. And so it’s a stay in the good graces of the Department of Education. Well through that process we were familiar with all of their leases and in Pasadena ⁓ they had a lot of time left on the lease. They were planning on ⁓ paying the lease but not using the space and so we

We approached them with a win-win situation. ⁓ If you would give us a discount on the lease and some incentive, we would legally assume it from you. And that was good idea right from the start. And it needed a little refurbishment, but basically it was already built. ⁓ so, whereas, and we had just finished ⁓ our huge

very expensive build out of where we are in New York City. And I almost feel like if whatever that number is, if that cost 100 % for just two or 3 % more, we got another campus. again, it was sort of like the situation of me acquiring Peter Comps New York Cooking School to begin with is that it’s when the opportunity came up, but you couldn’t wait very long, it would have gone away and to replicate what we were able to take over.

⁓ would have cost infinitely more.

Anthony Codispoti (41:48)
Yeah, timing was critical here, just like it was when you first purchased the business. And so how quickly were you able to staff it up and then fill it up with students?

Rick Smilow (41:59)
Well, you know, we were looking at some of their other locations first, I mean at the same time, and one of the considerations of which, you know, we could only pick one city, and we were also evaluating who did we meet there that was working there that was, soon knew they were going to be unemployed because the school was closing, would be interested in working with us and that we liked and were simpatico.

And in Pasadena, you know, it was, ⁓ I guess, sort of the sun, the moon, and the stars line. You know, there was a good facility with a good lease and a motivated seller of the lease. The man who was the campus president there was ⁓ very interested. Frankly, he saw working with us as a way for him to keep the job that he liked. And it also was interesting because, I mean, years prior to when

this is all happening around 2018, years prior that school was just huge. It had more space and leases than we took over. But he was familiar with two or three hundred, over the coming years there’s literally hundreds of people who’ve applied to work for us there who once worked where he worked. Not necessarily for him, but he knew of them. So he could do a first level ⁓ of filtering.

Anthony Codispoti (43:20)
Yeah.

It’s an easy

filter for him. Yeah.

Rick Smilow (43:28)
It’s

an easy filter, you know, it’s like, you know, you know, I remember that was my coworker in 2003. Did I like her, you know?

Anthony Codispoti (43:37)
So what’s the future of ICE look like? More campuses, more programs, kind of stay in the course?

Rick Smilow (43:46)
Well, one of the challenges for us and the other culinary schools in America and the restaurant trade is that increasingly young Americans are not attracted to working in service businesses and the restaurant part of it has a reputation.

You know, there’s a reputation about how hard it is, and then there’s also ⁓ the comparison to other things someone could do. Maybe jobs and careers they don’t even want, but it seems easier. ⁓ all of this is tough for the restaurant trade. I’m sure, I know you interview a lot of… ⁓

restaurateurs and restaurant owners, and I’m sure they all talk about staffing as an issue. yes, there are, ⁓ we haven’t mentioned the word entrepreneur yet ⁓ from the point of view of that so many of our students ⁓ have entrepreneurial ⁓ dreams and aspirations. starting anything is difficult. Let me just.

I don’t know if you hear my phone beeping, I just gotta turn it off, hold on. Yeah, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (45:14)
It’s like a little drummer boy over there, which

is appropriate as we record this on December 22nd.

Rick Smilow (45:20)
Right, right. ⁓ So, ⁓ but you know, for everyone who wants to be an entrepreneur, you need people ⁓ who are going to work for those entrepreneurs. ⁓ you know, overall enrollment in culinary school is flat. And ⁓

And obviously with 30 years experience, I have a pretty good ⁓ perspective on all of this. And the idea that we should go out and open five or six more ⁓ doesn’t necessarily seem like a good idea. But one of the specific things is we, I was talking before about the value of

that we bring because our programs are faster and our diploma ⁓ oriented. But for people who haven’t gone to college, ⁓ getting an associate’s degree does have higher value. And for reasons that are bureaucratic and hard to explain, ⁓ in New York state it is very hard for us or for any other trade school at this point to get the credentials to offer an associate’s degree.

is something we’re working on. ⁓ And that would be a good source of growth and it would be great. It would draw people to our school and other schools and then into the restaurant field and ⁓ would be a good thing. But that’s my Albany problem.

Anthony Codispoti (47:00)
Yeah,

I get it. ⁓ You know, plus, yeah, coming out of COVID, a lot of people left the service industry haven’t come back. It’s made staffing tough. Like you said, people, some people aren’t interested in being in the field. for those folks who do come through your schools, Rick, I wonder what help are they getting in terms of job placement? Do you have relationships with, you know, a lot of the restaurants out there that are looking for folks?

Rick Smilow (47:26)
Yeah, yeah.

Well, in most of our programs, an externship is required. And we have a fantastic relationship with the biggest and best restaurant groups in ⁓ New York ⁓ and other parts of the country and then in Los Angeles. ⁓ About half the time, the externship turns into a job offer. ⁓ When it doesn’t, it’s for all, maybe there’s just no space or no opening.

But in New York City, the restaurants of Eric Rappair and Danny Meyer and Tom Clicchio and Jean-George Vangericht, we have people ⁓ in them all the time. ⁓ we don’t have any advertisements to say this, but you could say we get our people into some really good doors. And I mean the kitchen door. And that would be hard.

hard to do on your own. ⁓ And there is a real, ⁓ you know, whether it’s Chicago, New York, ⁓ Atlanta, ⁓ you know, the bigger chef-driven restaurants ⁓ that are

focus on good food and a high level experience, generally have people running them who have kitchens where you will get good training. that training can, you know, so if you think of it this way, ⁓ if you can, let’s say your local paper has a star system, if you’re right out of culinary school and you can get an entry level job at a three star restaurant,

you you’re going to be at the bottom of the totem pole, but the habits you’re going to learn, the things you’re going to see, the quality of the ingredients will be really informative when you get your second job, you know, at a two-star restaurant. And then when you get, you know, become a sous chef or chef de cuisine at a one-star restaurant, you’re going to have that training ⁓ that you got in the better places. ⁓ it’s a, that’s sort of a system and a way of

of job development that ⁓ exists all over America and all over the world in a sense. it’s, you know, do you have to go to culinary school to get in those kitchens? ⁓ You don’t, but it would be hard otherwise. yeah, that, and it’s also when you begin to do that, ⁓ you also meet people like yourself, you become part of a community.

⁓ We have 20,000 alumni at this point and many of them, you know, I mean, there’s people who have, you know, met at, ⁓ I mean, I can think of one couple. ⁓ They were both, you know, junior people working at Thomas Keller’s, per se, in New York. They met there, started dating, went off working at other places, got married, and now they have three or four restaurants.

Anthony Codispoti (50:12)
crazy.

Rick Smilow (50:36)
of their own doing well, children, good marriage, and they met being junior employees at a great restaurant. And it’s interesting. ⁓

⁓ Our tagline is, find your culinary voice, which ⁓ was suggested to us by a marketing agency probably about 20 years ago. And when I first heard it, I thought it was sort of corny. ⁓ And then pretty quickly I realized it fits so well because that’s what people want to do. And ⁓ we find that so many of our students have some cultural or ethnic

background, you know, be it Swedish or Turkish or Japanese or Korean. ⁓ And somehow, so often, once they get to be executive chefs or chef owners, ⁓ they express that in their cooking. So for example, this couple I was talking about, they ⁓ had a restaurant that was highly regarded called Uncle Boon’s Kitchen. Now they have a place called Thai Diner.

in New York City, very popular. It’s not fancy, but and the food is you would recognize it as Thai, but the sauce, you know, these two chefs have worked in a classic, in a kitchen where people were classically trained and they understand how to make sauces in a French way. And you taste this Thai food and it’s just better. And they, you know, couldn’t have

I and Anne is, yes, I missed that point. Anne’s ⁓ cultural background is Thai. ⁓ Her husband is, as American could be, you know, they have another, smaller restaurant, or they have in the past that focused on roast beef sandwiches. So there’s nothing Thai about that. But this idea of people finding their culinary voice ⁓ is really interesting. And you you see it play out time and time again.

Anthony Codispoti (52:40)
Okay. Yeah, right.

You know, and you were talking about this idea of community. And I know you’ve given back through organizations like City Harvest and Join Israel. How have you seen work with these types of groups affect positive change that you’re talking about?

Rick Smilow (53:05)
Yeah, let me, ⁓ I’m gonna put on a light in the room that I’ve been in another light. This is funny. I mean, I had the shade closed because there was too much sunshine and now, ⁓ okay, hold on.

Anthony Codispoti (53:16)
Sure, sure, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, for folks who

are just listening to the audio and the video component of this, we’re filming later in the day and the sun has been setting. And so it’s presenting all kinds of shadows ⁓ for Rick, who still looks handsome as can be. So talk about ⁓ City Harvest, Join Israel, the idea of the community aspect of what you like to get involved

Rick Smilow (53:32)
Yeah, well.

Well, overall, I like the idea of giving back and doing what I can do to make the world a better place. ⁓ You you mentioned those two charities. There’s some other ones too. And I ⁓ did want to share my philosophy about, you know, where to give, whether it’s your time, your brain, or your money. And so City Harvest is ⁓ New York City’s primary and largest food relief agency.

So since the schools in New York City and our market is national, certainly the biggest majority of the people are already in the New York area. And City Harvest, for years, well predating me, always ⁓ looked to the restaurant community ⁓ for support and ⁓ some visibility. was initially on like a

a culinary industry advisory council and then moved up to the regular board. ⁓ But what I wanted to share was, while I said I’d like to make the world a better place, I admit when I wake up in the morning, that’s not on my to-do list most days. And it’s hard to do. And ⁓ that’s true of most people. But I know people. ⁓

that I’ve been introduced to or that maybe used to work for me who have decided to become full-time professional do-gooders. I call them angels. There’s big-time angels like Mother Teresa and Jose Andres, and then there’s the angels you don’t know. And ⁓ my thought is that all of us, when we can, should support the angels, the little angels that we know.

because other people don’t, they have their own angels. You know, it’s like when I ask some of my friends to make a donation to some of these charities, they say maybe, but it’s gonna be very small. They’re not, you know, they don’t know that angel. They’re not think, they have their own angels. And it’s almost like investing in venture capital or, you know, in venture capital, it’s better to make a lot of, I mean, venture capitalists make a lot of investments, not just one. And, you know, they pick them for various reasons.

You know, for example, there’s a charity I support called Streets International. And it was started by a man who used to teach restaurant management at the school. And he and his significant other moved to Vietnam and started a culinary and hospitality training program for sort of 17 to 21-year-olds from backgrounds where they would

probably never have a career, but if they learn ⁓ some front of house hospitality skills, some culinary skills, and some rudimentary English, ⁓ they can work in the burgeoning tourist trade in Vietnam forever. I know this guy, I admire what he’s doing. It’s quite an entrepreneurial feat that he got this off the ground. You can imagine the

local people in Hoi An, Vietnam saying, you know, want to do what with these young people? And, you know, I, because I appreciate him and know him, I feel like I should support him because 99.9 % of the world is never going to know him or appreciate him the way that I do. And if everybody looks in their life and does the same sort of thing, then we can do a lot of good.

Anthony Codispoti (57:30)
I love that. Rick, I think I’ve just got one more question for you today. But before I ask it, I want to do three quick things. First of all, anybody who wants to get in touch with Rick, two options. First of all, for the Institute, you can just go to ic.edu. Very short, easy to remember, ic.edu for the Institute of Culinary Education. And if you want to get in touch with Rick directly,

He’s given us his email address that we can share. rsmilow, rsmilow at iche.edu. And we’ll have links to both of those things in the show notes. Also as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to therapists, doctors and prescription medications that I don’t know, can you believe it? Like actually puts more money into the company’s pocket. Reach out to us at addbackbenefits.com. ⁓

Rick Smilow (58:16)
you

Anthony Codispoti (58:20)
And if you’re enjoying the show today, a quick comment or review on your favorite podcast app goes a long way. It means more than you might think. So thank you. So last question for you, Rick, we’ve talked about some of your ups, some of your downs, but I’d be interested in exploring a big serious challenge that you’ve overcome in your life, how you navigated that and what you learned coming through it.

Rick Smilow (58:46)
You know, it’s not the most profound answer, was about, know, within New York City we’ve had three different homes and as I think I alluded to before, it’s a very place-based business. mean, our facility now, we have like nine restaurant kitchens in what would be the equivalent of a, I mean, it’s sort of a nice New York City office building. It’s all very expensive to build. So we had a location on 23rd Street and,

⁓ The lease was coming up and we hired a broker to go with us to ⁓ negotiate a renewal and did all the research and all of that. And we go to the landlord and the first thing he says, like, hello, gentlemen. ⁓ How are you? Let me make this meeting very short. ⁓ We like you guys, but we don’t want to talk about a renewal.

I have other ideas for the space. I sort of look around like, ⁓ could you repeat that? And he repeats it and I say, but David, this is gonna be really hard. It’s a hard business to move. ⁓ And this was a point in New York City’s chronology when a lot of building going on and very expensive, ⁓ not that it’s ever not been expensive. And he says, well, you’ll…

Anthony Codispoti (59:47)
⁓

Rick Smilow (1:00:13)
you know, know that Rick, but you’re a smart guy and you’ll figure it out and in the end you’ll be better. You know, but I sort of muttered, if this isn’t the end. And it was living through that and the whole combination of finding where to move to, you know, finding, know, designing something we felt good about, then being able to pay for it. And, you know, these are…

If you’re building in Manhattan, it’s probably going to be in some mixed-use building, so there’s all sorts of complications. It’s a lot of union construction. ⁓ it’s in, you didn’t ask me this, but a lot of, for a lot of business owners, they would say the toughest thing was the pandemic and, you know, working through it and whether it was keeping employees or keeping the business open. We…

were able to reopen on a limited basis after six months in the pandemic and, you know, on a voluntary basis, you know, and a lot of our students, keep in mind, they’re, you they weren’t living in dormitories. They were living wherever they lived. They would travel there. A lot of them are sort of in the 20 to 30 year old range. They weren’t 17 or 18 year olds with their, you know, and I mean, where colleges were closed, we were able to open.

And we had all sorts of protocol and people were tested and, know, thermo, you know, forehead readers. But I realized when we were doing that, everyone in the world, you know, business and consumer, but every business was going through the same thing. So you had a lot of company and all of that. But when you have a big place based business and, you know, you’re going to lose your lease.

It’s only your problem. There’s, I mean, there’s my, there was my key team to go through within my family, but I, I sort of uniquely remember during the pandemic thinking, this isn’t as bad as, or as expensive as what we had to do before. And anyway, I’m not alone in this. Everybody’s going through this. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:28)
with the non-lease

renewal, yeah, you’re on an island by yourself for the most part.

Rick Smilow (1:02:32)
Yeah,

I mean, I’ve always, you know, I have a lot of resilience. I’m good at, ⁓ I don’t know that I’m good at figuring things out quickly, but eventually figuring them out. And what if, and what if, and should we try this and ⁓ eventually ⁓ work to a solution? ⁓ But that was, ⁓ it was, it was a real, it was quite a shocker when the meeting.

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:00)
So what was

the solution? How did you work through it?

Rick Smilow (1:03:01)
That way.

⁓

I mean, coming up with a plan and what we thought we could afford, and of course it ends up costing much more, and then you got to deal with that. by the time that you figure out it’s going to cost a lot more, you’ve already begun. And yeah, just a lot of hard work and resilience and borrowing. But that was a…

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:09)
You found a new location, obviously.

Rick Smilow (1:03:38)
That was hard.

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:39)
Any bigger picture lessons that now that you kind of look in the rear view mirror that are, I don’t know, you’re able to apply to today or kind of push you in a different direction that you wouldn’t have gone in had you not gone through this hardship.

Rick Smilow (1:03:58)
No, don’t think so. mean, in an ideal world, if you have a place-based business, it’s nice to own the space. And we did have to think of, ⁓ I mean, for those of you that are familiar with the New York City geography, ⁓ when we had to move, we thought about, what about Jersey City or Hoboken in New Jersey, or what about ⁓ Brooklyn section? And those would have been easier.

certainly less expensive solutions, they’re not as easy to, the thing about Manhattan and New York City transportation is sort of all lines, know, roads, but train lines and subway lines sort of converge in Manhattan. ⁓ it just, we said, you know, to keep our, and we had a real, we had a major competitor at the time who we’ve since ⁓ subsumed or acquired.

⁓ which we haven’t even talked about, but ⁓ there was just a real, we got to figure out how to stay in the Manhattan part of New York City.

Anthony Codispoti (1:05:06)
It was sort of keeping up with the Joneses to some degree.

Rick Smilow (1:05:09)
⁓ Keeping up with the Joneses or…

Anthony Codispoti (1:05:15)
gotta be where your clientele is.

Rick Smilow (1:05:16)
Yeah, and how they can get there. mean, frankly, you know, most of our students do not live in Manhattan. And so if they live in New Jersey or Brooklyn or Bronx or Westchester, they will cross a bridge somehow, whether it’s by subway or commuter train or car. And sort of everyone is the thought was everyone anyone will cross one bridge or tunnel to go to school.

But almost no one will cross too.

Anthony Codispoti (1:05:49)
So if you were in

Jersey and your students were in Brooklyn, they’re not coming or vice versa. Got it. And so real quick, how did that happen? The acquisition or what was the other word you used?

Rick Smilow (1:05:52)
That’s right. exactly.

Well, it was

called the French Culinary Institute, and they eventually changed their name to the International Culinary Center. when I began all this, they were a bigger, prominent school. Then we sort of got even ⁓ in terms of all that. Then they ⁓ were for sale, but nobody, ⁓ they always wanted too much money. We were interested, and then they would lower the price, and no one was interested.

We were still in the lower range. they didn’t count on was the pandemic. ⁓ They went into it ⁓ in a weaker state and just didn’t have the staying power. And then we were always there as sort of the buyer of last resort. we ⁓ were able to, really we made a licensing arrangement with them where we would pay them over time on our

our growth because of them, but we didn’t have to take their assets or assume their lease. So ⁓ this is, I’m not the only story like this, but this is ⁓ a case where the pandemic led to a merger and acquisition activity that wouldn’t have happened without the pandemic. the pandemic was, there’s another reason why the pandemic wasn’t so bad for the Institute of Culinary Education. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (1:07:26)
All right.

Rick Smilow (1:07:27)
And all these things, I I’m telling you, you’ve been hearing some anecdotes and stories over 30 years. You can’t predict any of this stuff. over 30 years, lot of things happen. being committed to the business, proud of the business has been a key part of it.

I have a partner in the business who, ⁓ you know, he’s the day-to-day president of it. And ⁓ if you would ask him, well, what, ⁓ initially, like going back 14 years ago, and if you asked him, well, you know, what was your impression of Rick after the first meeting? said, well, he seemed very committed and proud of the business and I liked that. So there’s a good lesson there.

Anthony Codispoti (1:08:26)
love it. Rick Smilow from Institute of Culinary Education. want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate you, Rick.

Rick Smilow (1:08:36)
All right, well, it’s been a pleasure. And ⁓ I don’t know how many emails I’m going to get. If there’s anyone who took a class at Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School, that would be a, or even with Peter Kump himself, that would be amazing. I only know of a couple people ⁓ in the world I could point to who did that. Any. Yes. All right.

Anthony Codispoti (1:08:56)
Well, maybe you get some reunions here. All right, folks,

that’s a wrap on another episode of the inspired stories podcast. I appreciate that. Thanks for learning with us today.