Episode 126 - Redefining Fine Dining in a Pandemic with Mark Canlis
Food & Wine Magazine once called Canlis “one of the 40 most important restaurants in the past 40 years.” They’ve humbly received 22 consecutive Wine Spectator Grand Awards and have been nominated for 15 James Beard Awards and we've won three of them.
But today’s podcast guest, Mark Canlis, won’t tell you that. Instead, he’ll talk to you about the lives he gets to interact with every day, both in the kitchen and on the floor.
And he’ll also happily tell you about the work they’re doing to provide food to Seattle in light of the pandemic shutdown. Mark is a great storyteller, his work is inspiring, and he was a delight to talk to. We think you’ll agree.
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Episode Transcript
*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDE movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Henry Kasetner: Mark, we're excited to have you on the show. Thank you for join us.
Mark Canlis: Thanks for having me. It's good to be here.
Henry Kasetner: We love the Canlis story. It was great for me to hear for the first time, really, I guess three or four months ago. But it's one that's been going on for more than a century. And love to hear about the Canlis story. And we want to get into that. But first, I want to give our listeners a bit of your personal background. You grew up in a restaurant family. So it seems that restaurant business is in your blood and you're also kept in the Air Force. Walk us through a bit of who you are. That brings us through to today. And then we'll get back into maybe the older family business all man.
Mark Canlis: Maybe it's more of an unlikely story than you'd think. I got a couple of brothers. I grew up in the restaurant business. We're fourth generation, its third generation restaurant. It's pitting where you start that story. And none of us thought we'd do this. We didn't at all think that we'd go into the business despite the legacy attached to it. But two of us are doing. So here we are. Yeah. Like you said, it's been if you include our great grandparents and since 1910, they're going to run in restaurants. And so I went away for school for a bit, ended up in the military for a bed, and then got out and came back this way and was working at my mom and dad. And they very kindly and humbly said, maybe you should go get your brother. I think you'd really help your situation. I was having a hard time in the company and sure enough, bringing Bran on board was a great help to us. To me personally and to the business as well. So that was back in 2003. So we've been it together as brothers for 15 years or 20, whatever that is, 17, 18 years now.
Henry Kasetner: So where do you go now? Walk us through.
Mark Canlis: Not sure what business I'm in right now, but so, you know, I'm prepared to make time. We ran a fine dining restaurant here in Seattle. It was in its 70th year as a dinner only spot. And as you'll know, Seattle sort of brought the pandemic to the United States. We got it first and early on, decided to close the restaurant and see if we couldn't creatively come up with ways to keep everybody employed. So we're just a family spot. We got 110 employees. That's a lot of folks, though, when you just kind of flying by the seat, your pants and, you know, you are 18 or 19 weeks end of this pandemic and haven't had to lay anyone off just yet. So you're finding us right now. Today, we're opening a restaurant in our parking lot, for example. But you're finding six or seven projects in to, you know, creating a need out of a company that wasn't needed to find any is not exactly what you want. When we're all social distancing and paying attention to health and germs and new ways. And so we just decided do something else.
Henry Kasetner: So I really want to get into that. I think that's what was particularly unique. And obviously one of the reasons we want to have you on about the way that you as an entrepreneur are dealing with this challenge, but also this very real opportunity. Before we get there, though, I'm facing I love multigenerational businesses. And you talking about everybody on this program that's listening. Loves food, would love a longer story. 1910 First Canlis Restaurant opens. What's the story behind that? Is there also by way from where one hundred years is there like a family recipe that is kind of like being shepherded through the generations? Tell us about that first restaurant, though.
Mark Canlis: Sure. My great grandparents, Nicholas and Suzanne, he was from Greece. He was a runaway. Ends up, we think, hopping on a fishing boat from Greece to Turkey swam in the rest of the way as the family legend has it. And he finds his way to Cairo. And President Teddy Roosevelt just sort of finished up his presidency and was heading out on a safari. I guess the way he did back then and he hired a bunch of folks. So my great grandfather's working at the MENA House Hotel. It's still there in Cairo. They met and it was he was hired on as a cook or a steward. We're not entirely sure what was going on. My great grandmother was Lebanese, an amazing cook, just a real talent. And I remember him, but I remember her quite vividly. And a lot of the sentiment of this restaurant came from her. Anyway, they meet at some point. That's far I would end and they kind of immigrate into the States.
Henry Kasetner: So he's, but just get this right. Your great grandfather is like on safari with Teddy Roosevelt, like into like Botswana and like on big game hunting and killing lions and all that kind of stuff.
Mark Canlis: Yeah. Roosevelt went over there under the auspices of science, you know, collecting flora and fauna. I think it was also, I think just a lot of a little R and R having finished up a difficult job. And so, yeah, they were. But I think for a year and a half yet a huge crew and they brought a lot of that stuff back. A lot of taxidermy stuff in the Natural Museum of History in the Upper West Side of New York City that you can just showcase. But anyway, yes, they were. I know they're eaten probably big game, but that's what they were cooking back then. That's not really a tradition we've held onto here. But they would open a restaurant in Stockton, California, called the Fish Grotto and Seafood Palace said name. We kind of have even the past, but it was a mom and pop shop. It was. They had four kids. Now we're raised in it. And one of them is my grandfather. And he very much want to do his own thing. He was kind of a first generation immigrant chip on his shoulder and he wanted to make a name for himself and fine dining. So because of Pearl Harbor, he was in Hawaii and because of all that, like a lot of folks went to go help out at the base after the bombing and whatnot and would find his way into food service there. And he end up running most the food service there for the USO during the war and after that just opened a restaurant and whites kind of made sense. That was the first one called the broiler. It was 1947. And then he came here to Seattle, opened candles in 1950. So he ran it. So he passed away. And my parents ran it for 30 years. And my brother and I are having a go at it, trying to do 100 years as fast as I possibly can.
Henry Kasetner: Yes. So you did too fast, so slow you down toward the end. So we'll do the most recent generation. Your parents, your parents shepherd the countless restaurants for 30 years. Talk about some lessons you learned about the business from them and maybe not just the lessons about the business, but just what was it that they did that impacted the way that you run cannolis today and the way that you think about your life?
Mark Canlis: Yeah, let's not disassociate business lessons from families since there's no separation of church and state on us. It's not over here. So the most important thing they did was to raise us in a. Loving home, and I don't say that sort of flippantly or like, oh, shucks, thinking sentimentally about my parents. I think that's the most cutting edge and strategic thing you could ever do for your children. We had meals together on the table. A family came first before the business and everyone knew it. And just for the business minded people out there, the business suffered. Plain and simple. You want to run a company? Put your company first. It'll help the company, but it won't help the family. So I think the most important thing that Dad did was he shrank the company, which might be antithetical to most business people's instincts. But a dear board member said to him, Chris, I've known you a lot of years, not the kind of guy who could run three restaurants and three cities and stay married and raised three children and have it all worked. So choose something that's not going to work and focus on the other. So Dad sold a couple of restaurants. He ended up just with this one in Seattle. Mom celebrate 50 years, married next year. And near as I can tell. We all love them still. So that's a business lesson, is what I'm trying to tell you. Particularly in generational transfer. There's a really important lesson there to be learned about having your priorities straight. And that is maybe the thing that has guided us the truest over all these years. It's just keep our priorities straight. So that notwithstanding, we were raised with a lot of freedom, but also high standards. And I don't think there needs to be a separation between those two things. And we run the company today with that same mindset. There's a lot of love in this company, but that is not a compromise to the excellence and to the precision and to the high standards with which we operate. And in fact, just the opposite. That's an expectation. The expectation is not that you're going to impress me with your performance. The expectation is that you're the best. The best. Doesn't impress me. We hired you because we thought you were the best. One impresses me is who you're growing into, who you're becoming as a woman or as a man. What kind of human being. Are you talk to me about your character development while you're doing the very best job you can. And so that's just the way we were raised as kids. And that's the way we treat our staff. And I think that's probably also set aside a good course over the years.
Rusty Rueff: I think it's fair for our listeners to understand. Only 19 percent, less than 20 percent of generational transfer of businesses actually succeed. So you're in rare percent say.
Mark Canlis: In restaurants. It's significantly lower than that. Some are in the five to six percent range, we can talk about generational transfer for hours. But I think maybe the one thing to mention on that is that and this is true. I think that a lot of what we do in business, it's the holding of two truths at the same time. Or maybe we'll stay. It's keeping things in tension that allows you to transfer from one generation to the next. And so the two truths are mom and dad have incredible value. What they did in this company is unprecedented. They were the gold standard in many ways for best practices and that kind of thing. That's true. Another truth is they're not the best team to take it into the next generation. There's a story that says something like, Brian and I are young and inexperienced, don't know what we're doing, but also have the creativity, have the tenacity, have the loyalty, have the values which are pillars that we can stand on as we move the thing for it. And a lot of companies, I think, just trip up on those things. It's hard for that one generation to let go with the right amount of let go. It's hard for the next generation to take over with the right amount of takeover if you envision maybe two runners running a relay race. Think of those runners being off in their speed. And we saw that fix a few years back. Right. So if the one in back is too fast, he runs over the line, front line in France, too slow or too fast. Right. That's a really delicate thing. And that's what's happening between generations, is there is this incredible dance that happens where you've got to get everyone moving the same speed. And that's not easy to do. It also takes a lot of years. We worked for 10 years on transferring between generations. So that's a real privilege to do that. You know, my grandfather passed away as a dad, just kind of had it all of a sudden thrown in his lap. But when you have that strength, that sort of family strength of multiple generations, investing in, pouring into, that's just an incredible resource. No different than raising children. You can do it as a single parent. I think it's easier to do it to parents. I think it's easier to do with two parents and a couple of grandparents. Right. So I think of this as a real asset and having multiple generations of company, you know, to stay with your metaphor there of the relay race.
Rusty Rueff: Right. The person who's going to receive the baton can't leave too early.
Mark Canlis: Yeah, and can't ask for it.
Rusty Rueff: Exactly. So they have to wait for the one behind them. Take that into maybe your experience of when you modernized the restaurant, modernize the business.
Mark Canlis: So that isn't a mark on a timeline. The modernization of Canlis, I think, is a bit of a misnomer. You know, when Brian and I came in, there was a lot of. National attention. And that's just because there's newness going on and a lot of that attention focused on the things that we were doing inside the company. But we didn't start that and we won't finish it. So I believe that a business is always changing. Always growing. Always model. No different than you and I. Right. So, you know, you meet that guy who's like 50 and he's still wearing his letterman jacket from high school. And you're like, bro, like, move on, man. Like, you're not that person anymore. You're going to be like, it's cool. Like maybe, hey,.
Rusty Rueff: Are you talking to Henry? You're talking to Henry.
Mark Canlis: I might be, I don't know. He's not wearing one right now. You know, it's what you're seeing there as someone who did not allow themselves to be changed by time. They chose a moment in time to a special to them and they clutched it. They held onto it and they wouldn't let it go. And there's something inside of us that knows that lesson. Is anything wrong with those glory years of what you did in high school or college or at any moment in time? But we had to embrace today. We have to let go of yesterday.
We have to prepare ourselves for tomorrow. And so if we're doing that personally, why would we not do that with our companies that make sense? So that's what's been happening all along. Our role as owners of this company is to be shepherding what is Kamras no different than Justin Roy of a Rusty. What you guys are doing? You set. Who am I today? And you look around the world and you say, wow, that's what the world is out there. What does that mean for me? How do I need to change? How do I need to grow? So we're doing that in here. That's what I think makes us healthy and holistic, folks. And we all have that same process for our company. You got to be willing to look at something and say that is no longer good enough. This needs to change. That feels tired. And so, yeah, we did a lot of that stuff in our own way, in our own time. But mom and dad did it. And our grandfather was doing it. It was never. People think of a restaurant as like, you get together, chef, and come with your recipes. I want you to figure out. Poof, it's done. It's not software. You don't figure it out and release it to the masses for download. Right. It's something it is changing. Night by night, by night by night by night. So I really like in the process of this company the same one that we're going through personal and.
Look, when we hire someone, that is the only question that matters to me, it's like this company is currently in process. It is currently broken. It is currently not enough. And at the same time, it is amazing. It is remarkable. It is blessed. Right. So know that that's what you're joining. Right. And then what I want to know from the person is how are we working here? Helped you become who you're hoping to become? Because you are beautiful. You are blessed. You are remarkable. And also, you are in process. You have yet to be redeemed. You are broken in ways. Right. And so tell me about those places. Tell me how you work here for a week or for 30 years. You're going to grow as a human being because you're here. That's what I want to know. And we line those things up from the very beginning when we're hiring. And in that way we're all going through the same process together. So how do you know? I don't know what the question was at this point. I'm just sort of like, OK, so it just it doesn't matter.
Rusty Rueff: That was a great answer.
Mark Canlis: All right, cool. What are we talking about? I got a lot of thoughts.
William Norvell: We think people for pretty loose structure around here. Our audience is very accustomed to this. Mark, this is William here. So great to have you on. I was telling you right before we start, I got to see you and your other brother, the Blacksheep, the pastor brother that said, you know, restaurants aren't for me at a conference, gosh, three years ago. And seeing you guys together was just such a treat. And just listening to your story right now and I remember some of these quotes, but also I don't remember others just to hear, you know, basically you eat your own dog food for lack of. But he's like, yeah, I can tell that you've continued to change things and continued to push for. I do remember that interview question, and I want to highlight that, you know, how will working here help you become who you are trying to become?
Mark Canlis: The remarkable thing about that question to me is imagine not asking it. And I don't say that not poking fun at other people who hire. I poke it at myself we used to not ask. What does that say of us? So if I'm going to hire you and I never ask you that question. And for your three or four or five years here, we never go there. Do I care about you? I don't know. And so I don't wanna be the kind of guy that runs a company or all of their employees. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't really care about us. What matters is the mission of the company. Wow. I hope no one says that at my funeral. So this was like we just came to this understanding of if we want people to speak well of us, we better be truly caring for them and about them from the outset, which means we need to design a company that does that. They can't be at odds with the company. It is the business to care for the people. Those two things are perfectly aligned. Does that make sense?
William Norvell: It Does. The question I hear, especially maybe in some bigger companies, but smaller too, is you see so many people leave and some version of their answer is, do I matter? And they've come to a place where they they think they don't. Right. And I bet a lot of people didn't know that. Right. They didn't know. One, you don't ask you you don't know who someone's trying to become. And to you, cant design something around it.
Mark Canlis: Well. And were groomed that way. We're in business school. There's this sort of understanding that you need to use one another to get ahead. We even call it the bottom line, as if it was what mattered most. So we've done it to ourselves, right? We've said to ourselves, well, we all know what really matters. The bottom line. Well, if that's the case on day one, you should look the new employee in the face and say, just so you know, you don't matter to me as much as profit. So when it comes time to choose, I'm gonna choose money over you. This human being. Right. People see that you have to do that. You don't have to do that. Actually, I would contest that Camila's as a 70 year hypothesis. Proving the opposite is true. Right. And there are many companies doing this right. It's just that I don't know who done a good job inculcating the business culture with a truer version of how this could work. And so at least right here, our goal aspiration is to live in to the values that the company values aren't things that you've accomplished. There are things that you're becoming. So I'm looking for people who are trustworthy and generous and others. Those would be like the things that we live. And our belief is that that makes us a better restaurant. It literally is a competitive advantage. So not only does it feel like the right thing to do for my soul, but there is the business brain of me that knows that that works as well.
William Norvell: Amen. And I want to shift to this. I imagine this helped you during this time. I mean, we sit here in a crazy time, especially for the restaurant business, as we talked about briefly back then. How did that culture impact where you are today? You've had to shut down your restaurant. I know you've launched a couple of other things that let our listeners into how your entrepreneurial spirit and I assume how that culture of having a team that was already bonded together by this pivoted for lack of a better word. But it's big when our entrepreneurs used to try to keep people employed, to try to continue to serve people, to try to continue to be high quality. Could you walk us through what you've done there?
Mark Canlis: So we decided that employing people was most important, keeping their health care, keeping a job and money coming in. You've got to think this is back before, for example, we had to justify the use of the term social distancing when we did not have even heard of that term. Right. Wait, what. Why would you. How come this is before PBB is before all of this sort of. And so what we wanted to do was just take a look around us and say, OK, sure, things are hydrogen's, but what do we have to be thankful for? What do we have? And maybe we're playing a game where all the rules just changed. And have we really allowed ourselves to think freely about that? Or are we operating in a mindset that is tired and no longer appropriate? And so we looked around and said, where are the new rules? It was literally as if you're playing a game of soccer. Suddenly, the referee blew the whistle for kicking the ball. It was like, what? I thought we were supposed to kick the ball, right. So we went and listed all of the rules, like, this is what it seems like business is about right now. And then given that set of parameters and given our resources like we still have 100 hundred and please, we have a kitchen that's on a really busy road. I wonder how we could operate. I wonder how we can play what we good strategy for this new game. Right. And so we just kind of start putting a bunch of ideas on the table and six or seven of them stuck. Right. So the first one was to open up as a drive through burger stand. You know, we're a fine dining restaurant on a busy road. No fine dining restaurant. Ever dreamed of being his dark road.
You want to be like a little vineyard or on some remote island in Greece. You don't want to be on a freeway. That's not cool thing. Right. So we all want the guest spacing that way towards the mountain and the lakes and. City, but suddenly it was like, whoa, wait a second. Maybe this road is the greatest asset ever. Now we just can't get out of your car. You just pull up. You order a burger and we take it to you. And, you know, we have lines around the block. In fact, there is an hour and a half. Wait to get a burger. We serve fifteen hundred burgers and a couple of hours. So that proved to be a really popular idea. And from there, we opened a bagel shed. We happened to have a shipping container, our parking lot as a bread oven and the flour mill. All right. Well that looks like a bakery. What if we just invited people in and one of our incredible employees was an amazing baker and she's like, I make the best bagels. Let's just the bagel. So we opened the bagel shed and, you know, that's an hour to get a bagel. All those things sold out just almost immediately. And then we were still cooking family meal and we thought, well, we can cook for the staff. We can cook for people down the street. And I've got all these servers that need jobs and they can take food from a kitchen to the table than they can take the food from the kitchen to their car to your house. Like, why not just so we a delivery service. We had some software written for us and just started cooking family meals for our neighbors and delivering them all over town. And that proved to be popular, you know. That was waitlist of four or five hundred people a night trying to get one of those. And then one of the employees was like, hey, because we I say fine dining is the most considered form of dining.
And they're like, well, what if we just played the piano in the dining room and livestream that. Then when you're sitting at home, would open up your box of Canlis to go. You could listen to the music. And then another employee was like, where do we put bingo cards in? And then you can play bingo with your kids if we livestream the bingo show. So it just sort of rolled like that.
And we built a piano livestream. Thousands of people around the world listened. We made a bingo show and a couple thousand people a night played bingo across the city. And it was an opportunity to bring in musicians and to have just like an encouraging words spoken out over the town. And the idea here, right, is that I know dreams are hard right now, but if we can focus on what we can do. If we can still practice being thankful for if we can do that old fashioned, you can count your blessings if we can still gather around the table. Maybe you've been quarantined or on that damn table for the last four months. OK, but maybe your quarantine with someone you love and you could say out loud. Here's a toast to you who somehow got trapped with me in this tiny apartment for four straight months. Bless you for putting up with me. What if I could get all of Seattle to raise a toast or to laugh or playing a game of bingo or to listen to some piano music quietly? What if we can restore and say what's true about this time? One of the things that's hard. What's true is that it's broken and hard and devastating and blah, blah, blah. Pick a headline up. Read it out loud. That's true. Most of get ready. I think it's true. We're still together. It is true of most of us are healthy. Most of us have incredible privilege. If you're in this country. If. If. If. If. If. What if we counted those things. And so we just did that as a company.
And we just said to ourselves, what can we we have a parking lot right now inside. Dining is not cool. It's not safe. It isn't comfortable. It feels weird. A lot of restaurants don't have parking. So we just said, hey, what are we just built a restaurant in our parking lot? Like, awesome. So that's what we're doing today, right? We're opening a crab shack. I've never run a crab shack before. I don't know what we're doing, but we're just going to roll with it. So that's kind of what we did when this whole thing came in, was just to sort of check ourselves. And I'm not saying to not read the headlines, but I bet you don't need to do it as much as we're doing it. And I think starting the day off with being thankful for what we have instead of complaining about what we don't. Again, it's important that we be aware what's happening in the world that's import. We don't stick our head in the sand.
Henry Kasetner: You live in a unique city, lots of turmoil, and you're losing some of that. What's it look like to be a Christian in that environment? Where are the opportunities to bear witness to your faith with gentleness and respect? How does that happen with your staff? Has it happened in the larger community? Seattle's not known for being a very church city. Some you undoubtedly have some unique challenges. What is it look like?
Mark Canlis: I love this town. It is a remarkable place to live. And I feel privileged, blessed to build, to live here. It's not easy to be a Christian here necessarily, but you know it. You know, get over it. It's not easy anywhere. So I'd rather focus on how best to say, yep, this is a really liberal town and you take the good with the bad. We're doing some remarkably progressive things out here. And I'm proud of the city for that. It's also a city that really, really wrestles with faith and a lot of ways. And I'm proud to be a part of that. You know, part of that wrestling has shaped me in ways that I needed.
I used to live in the south. I love the south. And it was just a whole lot easier to go to church in the south because, hell, the whole neighborhood was going right. Like it was just a simple thing. And up here, you're like the only ones awake at 8:00 in the morning on a Sunday. And by gosh, you put a nice shirt on. They were like, what in the world is around here? So it's a different deal. But I don't think when we talk about Christianity, it's about faith right now, particularly in this unusual time.
We are all in the exact same boat. I don't care where you live. We're all have this opportunity now to do something remarkable and maybe I can use hospitality or my own business to sort of illustrate that. When we talk about the hospitality, it's the one largest industries in the world, mostly now. We've reduced it to transactions. It's like here. I'll give you what you want. You give me what I want. We'll go our separate ways. Our relationship and a transaction is a deal. It's a brokering of a trade. And it's nothing wrong with that. But in the hospitality business, when that's all we do, we have cut the heart out of what the word actually means.
Look at ancient hospitality. We're talking about always the exchange of power and authority for someone who is vulnerable. Right. I'm traveling down the road and I'm a foreigner and I'm bearded and I'm stinky and I'm needy. I'm out of water and out of shelter. I'm out of daylight. Maybe maybe I'm out of food. I am in a place of need. And I'm not from your town, not from your tribe, not of your people. I don't look like you. I probably don't believe you believe I'm different. I am the other capital. Oh, I am the stranger. And I knock on your door. Right. And you have an opportunity here. You're in your place of safety. You're in your place of strength. You're with your own people. You're in a place of power. And I'm in a place of need. Hospitality was always an exchange of power for need. It was never something we did up here in our minds. It doesn't make sense logically. If you run if you do the math, you should say no to me. You should turn me away. I'm dangerous. I'm a risk. It does not make sense to take me in. You are not prepared for me. You don't get anything out of the deal. I have nothing to offer you right now. But in here, in our hearts, there is something that connects this one human to the other human. I don't care where you're born on this planet. You open the door and you see that person and your heart breaks for them. Now it's like, what? This isn't right. This can't be and I'm not okay with this. Right. That's hospitality. And you override your mind with your heart. You say, screw it, I'm going to do it anyway. And now you go justify to your wife or your friends or your kids. You got to say, no, I know this doesn't make sense, but look at me. We can't let this happen. It's not OK. And so in this country where there I don't care what state you live in, you're in that place. I don't care if the topic is corona or racism or whatever else. Maybe you think that you believe something different, religiously or politically. I don't care. The call here all through the Scriptures is to open up to the stranger. We see it in the Old Testament nonstop. We see God say, look, hear me. Don't fear those other things out there. That was a hard world. You think it's hard right now? We got a virus around because politically and racially, we have to think of that stuff out. That's hard. I want to make that less hard that it isn't hard. It's not as hard as what we were reading about in the scripture. Look, America didn't have to pack up and walk across the border to Canada. We're not a nomadic nation right now. We're not being attacked on all sides. We're having plagues, killing off people. Right. It's hard. But that was also hard. We have a beautiful model drawn out for us. And God, it seems, in the Old Testament. Look, it's hard out there. It's a scary world. Fear me. And so I feel that when I see someone who believes differently than me from a Christian perspective or when I want to wear a mask and someone doesn't, or when I want to read a headline, it angers me because I feel differently from my little lens. I see the world differently, but I hear someone saying, Mark, don't fear what's different or other. Don't fear the stranger. Fear me. Right. And so that's what it is to be in business. That's what it is to be a restaurant. That's what it is to be a Christian. That's what it is. Live in Seattle. We just need to stay focused on what we know. That's what it's like to be a Christian. So there's a light in there.
Henry Kasetner: That's a beautiful answer. I think that there's coming back and saying the whole narrative in scripture and God's word is about overcoming adversity and fearing God in hospitality is woven into the very fabric of the message of taking care of the alien and the fact that we're welcomed into the house of God and we're invited in. And you're saying that that's something you're seeing? Undoubtedly, people that come across you and see something different about are saying, wait a second, these guys have transcended the transaction. They are about something bigger. There's something that's creative in them. There's something is driving them. There's a different sense of hospitality and creativity in all that. Do you get a chance to say, actually, there's a lineage here, there's a legacy that we're tapping into that's an encouragement and inspiration for us and what we do? What does it look like? And I don't want to prescribe how it should look like. I'm just curious about do people say what is different about Mark Canlis?
Mark Canlis: I hope not. I hope they say what's same about him. I mean, look...
Mark Canlis: But you're not same. You're leading the very finest restaurant, Seattle. You're innovating creative. Come out with six new entrepreneurial initiatives out of it. You're starting a crab shack in your restaurant. We interview a lot of people. You're not same.
It's same. Let me tell you. Sure. From the outside looking in, doesn't it look like we have all the answers? Doesn't it look like we figured it out. It looks like we were so smart. Don't believe that. That's not true. We don't know how we're doing. Well, here's what's same. I'm the broken guy. I'm the one that needs letting in. That's what. All of the scriptures. Is God saying to each of us, I invite you in. We're the broken ones. So what you have here is just a company, I think, or at least a couple of leaders. My brother and I are parents who were trying to say, if that's the invitation to us broken and unfigured out an unredeemed with all of our issues. We've got so many issues. You want to talk about sam. We should spend the rest of this podcast just talking about how. Call my wife. You want to know how same it is. Asked her how often I fail to tell my children to ask them a dad ever gets angry or frustrated or doesn't have the words for...it's easy to talk on a podcast or to say look we're building a crab shack. That's the easy stuff. What's hard is what's happening in here. I'm all messed up in here. I need help in here. I need to be redeemed in here. I need forgiveness. I need so. I get it from the outside. There's been so much attention. Yes, this is one of the first restaurants that shut down one of the first cities to get it. And there's been a lot of focus on that. But what happens then is people say, well, that's their story. I couldn't do that. And, you know, I don't know if that's true. That's to say you can't open a restaurant, you're pregnant and maybe you're pregnant, maybe no restaurant. That's not what's happening. What's happening is I'm trying to get 110 people. All the people who live here just say to themselves, you guys, there is something bigger to fear. There is something more important going on. And it isn't about looked before you guys even put this on the air. This place could crash. All of us could get corona. I could give someone food poisoning. Maybe the place burns down. Three nights ago the place across the street burnt down. There is no promise. So am I fearing going out of business? A little bit. I hope I'm fearing it less than I'm hearing doing the right thing before our Lord and Savior. Am I fearing getting covid? Yeah. I hate being sick. I've had pneumonia four times. I don't want that thing, but I hope engineering. Am I fearing the headlines that I so viscerally disagree with? Yes. But I hope I'm hearing them less then. Does that makes sense? So I hope I'm not beating the dead horse, but it's from that place that you can then go out and do what we're trying to do as a company, which is to press on day by day. It says a lamp unto your feet. A lamp gives you like have you ever held a lamp in a forest? It gives you like four feet of light. Rest of the forest is dark, it's not a search light, dear. You don't say it's a lamp. People you don't get to see very many days ahead and think Corona's reminding us and business leaders it's so tempting to try to climb up the answers for the vision, the future. So tell the whole train where we're going, you know, and to see down, we get praised as leaders for seeing and now, you know, what's guaranteed about business right now? You don't know, Jack, about next week. Restaurants might not even be allowed to serve next week. Right. So it's a beautiful reminder to bring us back to be present to what we have. We have today. We have today. What can we do? That's where Canlis is coming from.
William Norvell: Amen with great unfortunate words. We have to move towards our close. But hopefully on a day that you're not opening in a restaurant. And your place doesn't burn down. And some of those things don't come true. We'll have you back. And I would love to hear how God continues to move in, you and your restaurant and in the future. But as we come to a close, one of things we'd love to do is that we're always interested in how God connects our listeners to our guest through his word. And so we'd love to ask you if there's something you mentioned, a few scripture verses could be one of those and that he's working on you with. It could be this morning. To your point about living today. It could be the season could be over a time. Just tell a story or passage. Yeah, we're going to take it down. I mean, you know, you've been personally is pretty good. We're gonna go one layer deeper.
Mark Canlis: The word that keeps sticking in me is hard hearted and keeps jumping out at me. And I wonder if this isn't a season to soften my own heart. I can't fix the pain. I'm literally looking out of a window over the entire city into eastern Washington, over the mountains. I see all these people and I can't fix the headlines. I can't get them out of their quarantined homes and not a doctor. There's no vaccine here. I have no economic ability to fix the brokenness. No one is Ever going to vote for me for politics. I can't fix it. So I guess I keep taking that and I say why? What I can do is soften my own heart. Again, you read through all that Old Testament. All those stories. jeepers, like the hard hearted, is not a good thing. It just never gets played.
It doesn't get any good screen time. That's right. Maybe it's good and just needs a new PR campaign. But you do not want to be hard-hearted. It doesn't go well for you really ever in the Bible. So and then I look at my own self and I'm like, wow, what am I wound up over? What am I so bitter about? His anger, my response and my response to it all the time. And so that's the thing. I just wonder. For me personally and then because I'm a one on the Enneagram and dying to have influence on the world. I wonder for that as a country, is now a time when you got nothing else to do maybe, or where you're so hemmed in by so many constraints? Isn't it time that we can just say to ourselves, how do I soften? What does that look like myself? And maybe maybe that's a good idea. Now, that's what's been hitting me almost every morning of the last 18 weeks, is that word just kind of jumps out at me.
William Norvell: Mark, thank you for joining us. I would tell people to go to the Crab Shack. But by the time we release the. I'm worried you may run a different strategy by then.
Mark Canlis: We might be. Stay tuned. I don't think we're gonna open an outdoor restaurant in the rainy Seattle winter, but I don't know. We'll figure something out then. All right. Well, thanks for having me.
William Norvell: Amazing. Amazing to have you. Thank you for joining us. And indeed, grateful, Mark. Thank you very much.
Mark Canlis: You bet.