Building Relationships in the Hospitality Industry With John Silva of Always Fishing Hospitality Group

Plan Better EventsSmart Event TipsLeadership InsightsPodcast

Jul 14

Guest: John Silva

John Silva is the President of Always Fishing Hospitality Group. In 2009, he started Culinary Eye Catering and Events, a company that started as a farm-to-table food program before transitioning to catering and event planning. John has 24 years of experience in the food and hospitality industry. He brings a diverse range of skill sets to everything he does, from concept development to execution.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Why John Silva founded Always Fishing Hospitality Group
How having multiple brands benefits Always Fishing
The major challenges businesses face in the hospitality industry and how they can overcome them
How John builds relationships with his employees and clients
John shares his innovative brand concepts
John’s tips for creating interactive customer experiences

In this episode…

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the trajectory of the hospitality industry and consumer demands have shifted as more people seek a vibrant dining experience. So, how can you hone your brand to engage with your clients?

According to John Silva, the key to ensuring your restaurant brand makes a lasting impression is by building relationships with your customers. This requires generating and implementing creative brand concepts that encourage clients to interact with each other. By leveraging opportunities such as customized cocktails, immersive dining environments, or food offerings, you can create a personalized experience so your customers feel included.

On this episode of “Solution Seekers,” Paige Buck talks with John Silva, President of Always Fishing Hospitality Group, about transforming your business for a memorable customer experience. John talks about how he builds relationships with his employees and clients, his innovative brand concepts, and shares his tips for creating interactive dining experiences.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:04

Welcome to the Kennedy Events Podcast where we feature top marketing, communications and future of work leaders and share their biggest takeaways and insights. We love these conversations and hope you will too. Let's get started.

Paige Buck 0:24

Hi, today I'm talking with John Silva. If Willy Wonka and Thomas Edison sponsored a love child, and had Emeril Lagasse bring it into this world, it would be John Silva. And John thinks his parents would be okay with that description. Today, when he's not wearing spandex and trying to save the world. He is the president of a hospitality company called Always Fishing that focuses on creating memorable moments, narrated by food and beverage. Hello, John.

John Silva 0:53

Hey, I'm so happy to be here today.

Paige Buck 0:55

I'm so glad you're here with me. It's great to catch up with you. Um, so tell us about Always Fishing and how it got started?

John Silva 1:02

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, in 2009, I started my own catering company, which was called Culinary Eye Catering and Events. And so we started out as a, you know, farm to table food program that we were bringing farmers that we knew, connecting them to clients serving dinners. And then over the course of 10 years, the business grew to a point where we were doing planning and design and working with incredible partners to bring events into the world. In 2020, we kind of all went into this new cycle together of ups and downs and the pendulum swinging. And it was sort of an interesting time, not only for events, but it also just in the psychology of being a business owner as to what the next step should be, especially if the events role was to come back, right, because nobody really knew at that point.

Paige Buck 1:57

I know. I know. And there was a time it felt like, oh, we just got to hang on for a couple of weeks. Okay, a couple of months. Okay, I might need to go do something else for a little while.

John Silva 2:06

Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, I legitimately went on walkabout had, I packed a backpack and told my family, I needed some headspace and went into the woods. So, you know, it was, it was it was interesting. During all this, I mean, I had a I had a colleague who had started his company as a catering company, in an event space. And we had been flirting with this idea for about a year about if the event world comes back, how do we come back stronger? How do we come back? With better offering? How do we create a team that's very supportive for everything that's in this industry. And so at that point, we decided to create basically a hospitality suite, which we now call Always Fishing Hospitality. And so underneath the suite, we've got Culinary Eye, which was my catering company, we've got Metal and Match Catering, which is the business that he started, we've got a venue, which is an Oakland, it's in downtown Oakland that hosts 120 people for cocktail parties and sit down dinners and sort of a lot of social and corporate events. And then we have a bartending company, which is called Barcard that independently can go out and service people just for bar programs, which is sort of our new feather in our hats, these really incredible Airstream trailers that pop out and can go in office as well. So that was it, you know, we decided to collaborate, kind of reinforce everything we did and build on top of that and be I don't know if a one stop shop is a phrase anybody uses any more, but we feel we can fulfill a lot of needs in the industry.

Paige Buck 3:41

Think one stop shop is better than turnkey, one of my least favorite phrases ever.

John Silva 3:48

Right?

Paige Buck 3:50

I don't ever want to be turnkey. I know you're not turnkey. And but what do you what does it do for you? Like if you're not a one stop shop? What does it do for you? What does it do for your clients to be this suite of services and and brands now?

John Silva 4:06

Yeah, well, they you know, the the reality is that it allows us to solve more problems, right, we were able to provide more amenities, more offerings, metal and match is specifically designed to have menus that we built that are seasonal, where we know our farmers or we know who the purveyors are, that go into the components of each dish. And for a client that's coming in and they want something that is easily accessible in the planning side and doesn't have so much emphasis on customization. Metal Match offers that to them. So whether this is a corporate event or 10, or large tech launch for 5000 people, all of this menu in the structure is designed right it's like methodically gone through so that you can choose from pre established menus and we activated for you Culinary Eye will just always be somewhat of a unique thing, right? The focus from day one was very unique experiences where we have conversations with the couple if it's their wedding or corporate client, if it's a tech launch, or any sort of social event about what the goal is. And that might be nuance of verbiage for the menu or specific product that's going on to the world or first meals together as a couple that's dating. So we'll build the menu off of that. And we'll build the service style off of that and the function and then we'll design the food stations based off of that. So it satisfies people that want something that may only be done once and done really well just for them.

Paige Buck 5:42

Fascinating. So you've been in a long time. And you just kind of took me through your recent evolution into Always Fishing and I think you said you say you started Culinary Eye in 2009. Yeah, do you? That's fine. And okay, cool. Take me further in the Wayback Machine. How did you get started? And what were the early days of your career? Like?

John Silva 6:02

Yeah, I mean, way back in the day. And my mom would joke about this is when I used to get in trouble, which was probably more than I needed to when I was a kid, the way that I got in trouble is she would take away galloping Gourmet and Julia Child and Yan mechanic cook all the shows that I love. It's kind of geeking out on the weekends or after school watching. So that was sort of my, that was my penance. You know, she said, you can get a watch to your cooking shows. So I've always been really fascinated with walking into a kitchen or going into a garden and taking something and transforming it into something that people can eat. Right? It's this kind of magical alchemy

Paige Buck 6:39

of it. Yeah. Well, and so podcasts are an audio medium. But we are also recording this for YouTube. So in visual medium, describe what's behind you.

John Silva 6:50

Yeah. Yeah, I live. I live in Marin. So north of San Francisco, I'm lucky enough that we found a home or a backyard is inking into China camp, which is a skate park up here. So in my background, if I look at my little screen that's on your big screen, we've got kind of this rolling hill, I've got tomato vines, which are starting to right behind me that'll grow up. And over the course of this season, they'll actually extend and cover this whole window, we'll have this really sort of awesome stained glass window of tomato vines. And then we have a ton of ton of herbs growing in the back and seasonally with grow lettuces and all that stuff. So you know, being connected to that food cycle has always been big in my life. And we're lucky now that we live in a place where I mean, it's right in my backyard.

Paige Buck 7:38

Yeah, that's, that's amazing. What do you think, is some of the real challenges that we're feeling in this moment in hospitality, even as like, people want us again, and live events are happening and there's pent up demand? It still feels like there's a lot of pain out there. What's what's driving that?

John Silva 7:57

Yeah, the thing, pain is an interesting word where the I think what we're seeing right now is we're seeing a request for turnarounds for events that are based on timelines, that would be awesome if we could do it. But the reality is like, everything just takes a little bit longer, right, you have to get the rentals, you gotta make sure you have the right staff, you got to make sure that everybody that you're sourcing food from to make the meals can get you those things, and then that trickles all the way to the day of the event. So I wish that it was as fluid and quick as it was a couple of years ago. But we're sort of seeing that the expectation is there that we can make things happen or make magic happen within days, where historically, we were making all that magic happen, but we have months to do it. So that's one of the big ones

Paige Buck 8:47

tighter. Demand for tighter turnaround is one. And then the challenge of like, not being able to turn it around as fast as you'd like. Yeah, I'm having a man we're

John Silva 8:58

also just seeing this kind of across everywhere is that a lot of the people don't exist anymore. So yeah, you know, a lot of people are just gone, or they've moved on or they physically moved, or they've decided that the industry isn't right for them for some myriad of reasons. And so just getting the right people back into the event cycle is, I mean, it's present for everybody every day.

Paige Buck 9:22

Yeah, yeah. And so for those of us who are still standing in a stressful industry, I think this invites an opportunity, but I mean, a business opportunity to harness like the what, what folks want and then give it to them. But there's also an opportunity maybe to like pause and reflect and be like, Okay, I got through this. And here we are, and if I want to get through the next 20 years of my career, or however long I'm in this, I need to do some things to shore up my like, personal sanity and you know, you mentioned going on a walkabout what are some of your take way as from from muddling through or like finding space on Saturday? And like, what would you do? You know, the next time the next time there's a serious hiccup? What will? How might you bring some of that into, into self care?

John Silva 10:14

Yeah, self care. I mean, I think the self care, especially as a business owner, somebody that's grown something from day one on is that the reality is, I mean, to some extent, had defined who I was. So having it taken away by something that was out of my control. You know, it's sort of an insane moment where you go, Wow, I'm sort of losing part of meaning and part of this core part of my definition of myself. And there's no way that I can prevent that from happening, except for keep pushing into some new creative facet. So during the pandemic, we built new businesses that were all underneath the original framework of Culinary Eye.

Paige Buck 10:57

What does that feel like? At first, what you just described that scary, kind of like, ego identity moment of like, okay, a part of me is going away right now. i It's completely out of my control. What does that feel like? Then?

John Silva 11:10

Yeah, I think, you know, the creation moment, I think it was, I'm also a father, right. So I have two kids, I was having this. So it was almost like losing a kid, or all my employees, I do almost created an archetype where it felt responsible for all of them. So that hopelessness of losing like a child to some extent, although it's not that extreme, right. was sad. It was scary. You know, it was, it was helpless.

Paige Buck 11:36

Yeah, helplessness sad, and scary. And so how did you sit with that? Or how did you ultimately overcome it? Besides? I mean, I see what you did you you invested a lot of energy and building new things, which is exciting. But before you got there, would you do?

John Silva 11:54

Yeah, I mean, I think you got a breakdown, you know, I think, I think I said, Oh, my God, what's happening? And how do we do this? You know, does this make sense? How do we support all these people, and then sort of have to double down and made sure that the next thing that we're building would support more people and kind of came out of it, what I really took away from it, the end of the day was that, you know, a business that you build is a business, right? It is something that functionally should support your life, it should support the people that are inside the business and do write on them. But it is not you, right, I own a business, I've developed it, I've grown it, but at the end of the day, if that's gone, I still exist. And so that, you know, when I went into my walkabout, I kind of was trying to think of that I was like, well, this might be done, or on pause, or whatever that means. But there's so much more of me that still is present. And I'm still a father, and I'm still a husband, I still live in a creative world, I still love to cook, and all those things are the core, and everything else just grows out of that. So it wasn't really losing me. But it took me a minute to realize that I wasn't losing me, I was just losing a thing that I had built. And all that was completely ambiguous anyways, because I didn't know if I was losing it. It was just sort of future tripping where we're gonna go.

Paige Buck 13:11

Right, right. That's great. And so I sorry, I kind of interrupted my own question, which was like, what would you take from that and apply to without future tripping? Well, would you be able to draw on that? And what would you you know, what would you do the next time there's a major hurdle? Yeah, looks like a COVID. hurdle? Yeah,

John Silva 13:31

I mean, we've built we've built this now we're a we're diversified in the business, huh. Be it's supported, you know, I have a business partner now. So instead of it all being on my shoulders, we collaborate on where we're going to go, we have a team that understands that we are nimble enough to work around the next blip, and whatever that's going to be, and also just in the structure have built more of a runway ahead of us. So you know, strategically now, I think all of us are starting to go towards this idea of like, work, what if this happens again. And if you're not ready for it, and not expecting it, then it's sort of shame on you. So that's where I'm at. I also understand that this business is a business and that the decisions we make are for the business, they're not for me as a person necessarily. And that detachment is a really good place to be in and growth, because I can grow with the business and the business can now grow without me as long as they placed myself in the right position.

Paige Buck 14:32

Oh, that's sounds really wise, where you see yourself and then how you see yourself in relation to the thing you're building.

John Silva 14:41

Yeah, I mean, I'd love to see it go bigger than me and bigger than my ideas and bigger than my control over it. Because that's, you know, I think that's where you get to something that's evergreen and get to something that has its own momentum and you know, magnet to it, so that the people in the system behind it grow bigger than you could have ever imagine it being just with your own creativity?

Paige Buck 15:03

Absolutely. I think that's what scaling looks like. I think that's what Maggie and I are trying to do with Kennedy Events, even though I want to build a thing that where I'm replaceable, and I'm not needed to for the, you know, the wheel to spin. But then I also know that right now, I can't picture myself being out of it. I don't want to be out of it. I want to be in it.

John Silva 15:25

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think we're all gonna want to be in it. Yeah, yeah. Love it. I still I still love all the dopamine hits of the wins, and even some of the losses and all the sidesteps and all that stuff. I don't want to get out of it.

Paige Buck 15:40

Cool. Tell me, okay, big or small. You just went there. Tell me about Tell me about a recent win

John Silva 15:47

a recent win, I think for hiring really well, right now. It's not, it's not like a specific event, I just think that we've brought back some sort of a culture of the business where people want to work here. And they want to feel like they're part of something that is dynamic, and providing service and making people smile again. So we've had a couple of recent hires that you can see the light like the twinkles back in them. And so I feel like now those winds of people coming in and being engaged are what are driving me it's sort of this. It's a, you know, finances aside and event specifics aside, seeing people come in that want it to be better and do better. I feel like those are the big wins right now.

Paige Buck 16:32

That's, that's really cool. What are you? What are you building? What, what are you cultivating? Or what are some of your values that are attracting these awesome people?

John Silva 16:40

Yeah, I think, you know, I think that you can be in this industry and do right on the people that work inside of the business, and you can treat them well and treat them like talented, unique individuals and give them a give them a state, you know, let them put some stake down and have a say in what it's going to be and, and not be so mandated. So that that component in adding in creativity in the option and opportunity for people to bring their own light to this fire that we're lighting, I think is really cool, right? People go like, Oh, I can design the station, or I can customize cocktails, or we can talk about different service styles, or, you know, we can streamline this like planning booklet for our clients. So they understand what the system is going forward and take out the Oh my God, why haven't we talked in a day component? You know, that that like engagement into the team is I think what's making people want to join, you know, they want to they want to bring it back. Like they want to be part of it, and grow. It

Paige Buck 17:46

sounds like you have a team where everybody has individual creativity, concepts, ideas to come to contribute. Yeah, contribute twice, instead of being told, like, oh, no, no, we do it like this, or just hang tight? I'll let you know when I need you.

John Silva 18:02

Yeah, yeah, it's part of the it's part of the call to action weekly, you know, like, I expect to have the team challenged by individuals, you know, and whether that's with driving new creative components, or looking at stuff that we're doing and saying, Hey, there's an infinite amount of opportunities here that we can streamline or better the system. And so people are expected to have a say, and I think they like that, you know, it's not just hitting a timestamp every day, it's seeing it grow.

Paige Buck 18:27

Yes, absolutely. What are some of the things you think I'll stick with just for the moment, like corporate clients in particular, what do you think they get wrong about you or don't understand about you and what you create,

John Silva 18:40

ah, you know, we so we are tasked constantly to, on the very base level provide like food and drinks to people. The reality is, you know, within that we're also the conduit for people gathering. And we're the trigger for the way people bond together. So when they come to us, and they're tasking us to, you know, create some sort of food offering or an activation or an immersive environment or some sort of thing that people are bonding around. I don't think they understand that we're also helping them get to this bigger goal at the end of the tunnel, right? I mean, we're making it all a lot easier and we're doing our very best so that when people leave that they feel like they've stuck to each other recruiting stickiness, you know, which is good and beverage and all that. So

Paige Buck 19:30

yeah, we as humans sometimes aren't really very good at articulating why something is so important to us. What why food and drink like cuz I because it's not like because I just needed to fuel myself. That's not what you're creating. It's bigger than that. Yeah, you hit on something really beautiful. We sometimes say building community. I like what you said like moments where people are bonding. And I think you also use Always Fishing to describe like memorable moments. So people creating memories together. They reflect back on that experience. It stays with them. That's the stickiness you described, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. So what are you had? This is something when I ask creatives, I feel silly or foolish, but like, where do you get your inspiration? How do you stay? Like, you know, there's a lot popping around in our brain of yours that sparks like incredible. Like you said, Willy Wonka style creativity. Where do you get that from?

John Silva 20:26

Yeah, well, I mean, I was an art kid, you know. So I grew up and my mom was an artist, and my dad was a creative and you know, I grew up in the mountains, and had, you know, acreage to play in and all that stuff. So I get it. I mean, I really think I get my inspiration from physical things in the world. So you know, I'll go to antique fairs and walk around and pick stuff up and think about alternatives for the way it can be used. Or I'll go into a grocery store and look at different colors of produce, or different textures of things and try to think what would be like a shocking way to eat those sort of things, or consume them in some sort of way, or just the physicality of walking in space? And I was like, alright, well, where's the bottleneck? And how do you create a cool moment in the bottleneck? Because you can't get rid of the bottleneck? But well, you know, how do you engage with that? So probably just spend too much time in my own head, just thinking about weird stuff. So

Paige Buck 21:26

that kind of dovetails into a question about like, what are some of your strange quirks habits or hobbies? much about weird stuff?

John Silva 21:34

Yeah, I, you know, before culinary I had a pottery company. So, you know, in growing up as an art kid, I didn't really think that I would be in catering as a business or an event production as a business. I started working in kitchens when I was 16. So I've been in the industry forever, but I thought I was going to be a ceramic instructor. And I thought I was going to sit around at a college teaching kids how to throw clay and, you know, do all that. So I still do pottery. I mean, it centers me, you know, to use the word is a pioneer, you know, whatever. I like it. I also spend a lot of time on my bike, I call it therapy, some, you know, how to call it like, it's read therapy time, and in a Spaniard, you know, a couple hours riding through the headwinds, and all you really get is a lot of headspace. And that gives you time to think about things and developing your mind without distractions from everything like a computer screen or people asking you questions.

Paige Buck 22:31

I heard, like an agnostic or an atheist describe the the, they think of the word God as being an acronym for the great outdoors. Yeah. I like that. That works for me. Yeah, I love that idea. Yeah. So you're like out there connecting with? Course. Yeah.

John Silva 22:49

without the distractions of you know, everything else that we're living in our day to day lives. I think if you can give yourself a pause, or give yourself a little bit of respite from, you know, external questions. I think that's really important. I think that's why pottery is interesting, because you're, you're focused on a center. I mean, it's all about centering, and it's all about pulling and pushing, and spinning, and all that stuff in your main something. And I think, for some reasons, cycling is similar to me. You think about focus and balance and Ford motion and spinning wheels and all that stuff. And I just think I think you open yourself up to that. It, it recycles your mind. And I think that's

Paige Buck 23:29

there. And now you're being funny, but I love that like, way you tie those things together in circles. I really like that a lot. What do you what are some things that you're like super, like projects or experience you do you've created in any of the brands under Always Fishing that you're proud of stuff?

John Silva 23:48

Yeah, I think that, you know, I think going oddly, three dimensional in our food has been something that I've really loved that we do, where you can walk into an environment and you know, pull food out of trees or pull things off of walls or have peekaboo windows pop out, or chefs handing you something. I think those those punchy moments where it's unexpected, they read really well to people, and the food's always really good. But the service or the function of the food going into the world, you know, if it can be captured as an image or be part of the conversation that Bond's people together. That's where I really sort of love what I do. It's not just using the plate to place it right, it's using the place to place it in that place becomes sort of important in just navigating people through their event space.

Paige Buck 24:40

Very cool. Very cool. You and You mentioned a little bit with bar car that it's I mean, in and of itself visually compelling and three dimensional because you're doing it in Airstreams Yeah. How What's your tiniest Airstream and how you gonna get it up into a corporate office tower?

John Silva 24:57

Yeah, so it's you know, the the trailers that cells are pulled, you know, they're incredible Airstream trailers have been converted, so they pop open, it's very like Inspector Gadget, you know, or bartenders sit inside of them. There's a mobile bar component to, which actually scales from a, you know, five foot bar, and it has a length, and it's all the flashing, it's all the metal of the airstream itself, that can be inserted onto a roof deck, or it can go into somebody's office, or it can stand in between the two carts, you know, and then in the same sort of playful way that we work with food now we're able to do cocktails that have whimsy to them and cool ingredients and incredible show ability to it. So you know, as a new feather in our hat, just playing around with those offerings is it's real fun. I mean, as it's all really excited.

Paige Buck 25:47

I love it. So you have like a small option for a bar cart that can look like that can look like an Airstream. It's got that. Yeah, all that flashing, like the metal and the rivets and exactly, folks, that bigger component, which is a lot of Airstreams it just sort of say playful to me. They just Yeah, yeah, fantastic. Um, where do you like, within the industry? Like, where do you see opportunity? Where do you see like, you know, if you, if you had to forecast for the future, what do you think like the next two to three years that like, exciting opportunity look like?

John Silva 26:24

I think that I think if we all focus on the interaction of our clients as the epicenter of where events will get better, I think that that's it, right. So for the people that are providing food and beverage, and they're doing it more as a function of satiating hunger and thirst, I think that's a limiting, limiting idea, now are limiting maybe our time, because people are maybe not going back to the office, right? So if you're just doing food, and you're just doing beverage, I mean, who cares, you can do that at home, it's not a big deal. But if you can create some sort of an event or some sort of lasting impression, and you can make people engage and interact with each other in a new way that really Bond's them together. I think that's the opportunity. You know, I think that, you know, I have a bunch of friends, I now know a lot of people that have been hired and fired and change jobs and all that stuff. And I mean, they actually have not met coworkers. Yeah, they get together in office, and they're meeting, you know, what is it, it's going to be the plus loss to the

Paige Buck 27:33

well, and make that moment lasting, like you were talking about the stickiness factor, like, because that is going to, in some way, sustain people satiate some part of them that really wanted to connect with one another. But if it's just like, Hey, you took a meeting, you hung out, you were given a box to lunch, and you went and sat in the corner and ate it. Yeah. No fun. No fun. Yeah, we were

John Silva 27:57

to do, we were just asked to do a really big event, a really large event. And they just wanted buffets, and people are coming back to the office for the first time. And the guest count was really big. And we turned the business away, because I couldn't get around my head the benefit of being an employee to go stand in line and eat out of a buffet. And I don't know if that's smart for the business of what we do. But for the long term experience of what we're trying to help people create, just kind of get there, you know, so and somebody's there, somebody else fill that need for him. It's just not, I think what we want to do going forward. So that happened. And then we had another client that was really just all about engagement. So we ended up doing this really fun oyster shucking Olympics prior to their dinner. And then the oyster stations were something that everybody had got to hang around with. There was a component of, you know, pleading it, there was the speed challenge part of it, and just seeing people laugh and make fun of each other and have victories and all that stuff. I mean, it wasn't incredibly, I don't know, nuanced, right? It was just shocking. But at the end of the day, I mean, we still are getting feedback from that client that on the next one, they want to do something else similar to that because it was such a good way for their team to bond and meet each other.

Paige Buck 29:09

Yeah, that doesn't have to be like overwrought or incredibly high production. I assume you had the chainmail gloves, though. Like no, no hands having

John Silva 29:20

it but we thoroughly hazed people that cut themselves.

Paige Buck 29:24

Oh, gosh, that'll solve it. Just Shame, shame. Shame to write on the thing is, who else does a good job at this like when you if you have an opportunity and you're out in the world and you're seeing other folks in our industry? Who else is good at getting the the memorable, bonding interactive connecting part of this?

John Silva 29:49

Yeah, I think there's no there's a company out of LA that I think is really focused on the way they collaborate with their guests and the way their guests experience things. There's two of them. One is called 14 carats, and then contemporary catering down there. And I think, you know, when we look outside of our own bubble, the Bay Area, and we see other people do stuff that seems cool. They're doing it. Yeah. There's a company out of New York called pinch food design does really interesting artistic displays. And that's kind of the core function of them. Is these kind of WoW, food experiences.

Paige Buck 30:29

Yes. Hi. On the interaction in the visual. Yeah, we've we've gotten to work with pinch a couple of times in the New York area. And it's been a while but yeah, they do. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah.

John Silva 30:40

So I think that's, you know, those are like we've got, we've got some East Coast, West Coast, peers, I guess, that are doing things that are fun. You know, and then the competitive side of me, we're always trying to like, step up the game and do things that are better. So it's good to have those sort of people in your, you know, periphery. Yeah, it's awesome. Like, you know, it's keep pushing the industry forward,

Paige Buck 31:04

but also give you somebody to look at and say, like, Oh, I'm doing okay, if they're doing that, and I'm doing this. I'm doing okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, who else do you think of as, like, who mentors you? Who, who has inspired you? Or giving you good advice out there in the world?

John Silva 31:23

Yeah, mentors. I have a mentor, actually, not in my industry. And it's a good, it's a good place for me to have somebody that I work with. Because not that I know everything that I'm just perfectly opinionated enough that when I collaborate, when I collaborate with other caterers, and they're not, they're not on a hard push for going forward, I get a little stubborn. So I have a mentor, his name's Mark, he actually is, he's a serial entrepreneur from the tech industry. And he challenges me constantly just to reevaluate, you know, he has he, it sort of drives me nuts, but he's always like, is this a product? Or is this a service? And he goes, you know, because if it's a product, you can scale it, if it's a service that needs this day, sort of boutique in my world. And so when we roll things out, and we're thinking about whether or not it can scale, or be repeated, or should become something that we do over and over again, that always triggers in my head, you know, is this a product? Or is this a service?

Paige Buck 32:25

Yeah, yes. And I've heard in the tech industry, I've heard people talk about like, are you building a piece of technology? Or are you building human in the loop? Right, which is a product with a service components, which can't scale in this or can scale but can't scale in exactly the same way as it sounds like sometimes you're, you're building a human in the loop? Yeah, I

John Silva 32:48

mean, a lot of times we are. And I think that's, you know, on the on the culinary eyesight, it's what sets us apart. And on the middle and match side, it's what solves that problem of, you know, yes, this is a product like he specifically built all these menus and all this service so that if it's not what you want to make something that's a one off like, this is this is it, you know, this solves this for you. And we can do this all for as many guests as you want. And it's quick to turn around on our site. But if you want something that's really niche and nuanced to you as a business, or you as a couple, or you as a company, then it's just going to take a little more work, you know, we probably only do it once.

Paige Buck 33:31

Right? Right. I think that's a great, it's super clarifying for you and hopefully super clarifying for the customer to Yeah, yeah. Nice. All right, I'm going to ask you one last question. I feel sure you're gonna have something really fun here. What is the craziest thing you've ever done? Oh, my God.

John Silva 33:47

There's so many, there's so many weird things that we've done. Probably one of the hardest and craziest things, we actually catered a movie shoot on Angel Island. But the caveat was like we could not come back from the island until the shoot was over. So we hired a barge, we had our bees go out there, we had staged and staggered all the food so it would be serviceable over the course of five days. And then we've gone in it with the planning that it was going to be this nighttime. Now there was gonna be a daytime shoot for this military film that we're doing. We get out there. And of course, like the weather isn't good during the day, so they shipped everything to the night. Food shifted to the night, which means all the planning kind of was out the window and we realized we had 40 Like bodybuilders on set. During the daytime, all they wanted to do is eat food. So here we are, and we're 40 knot winds, and we're feeding these giant men and we're staging food out and we're like, having random people shuttled food over and boats and all that stuff. And I mean, in hindsight, you look back and it was like really funny. Yeah, when you're, you're going this is sort of insane that we're doing this. So I think

Paige Buck 34:59

those are Often, but even in the moment when I'm having that this isn't saying This is exhausting. This is not going away. I thought it was going. I know in three weeks or three months, I'm going to be laughing about this. And sometimes that helps be a little less like, okay, maybe I can laugh at it a little bit a little bit now.

John Silva 35:16

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's really funny because I can I can still see it and feel it. To some extent, I might still have scars. from it.

Paige Buck 35:26

Cold if you think about it. Yeah. It's just that

John Silva 35:29

whole thing. I mean, you can you can always plan in plan everything down to the tee. But, you know, there's some forces out there that are bigger than that. And you just kind of have to just keep going forward.

Paige Buck 35:38

Yeah. All right. Well, I've been talking to John Silva, president of Always Fishing Hospitality Group. John, where can people learn more about you?

John Silva 35:47

Yeah, we've got we've got our websites up. So culinaryeye.com, you can check out Metal and Match. Yeah, you can see our suite at alwaysfishinghg.com. And, of course, we're all over Instagram, and I think we're on Twitter.

Paige Buck 36:05

And if you've found this podcast, you'll be able to find the show notes that have all of those links in them too. So was awesome talking with you today.

John Silva 36:14

You too? Yeah.

Outro 36:19

Thanks for listening to the Kennedy Events Podcast. Come back next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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PAIGE BUCK

Paige Buck is the co-owner of Kennedy Events, a large-scale event management company based in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. Our team creates stress-free conferences and events with a positive impact, which allows our clients to resonate with their audience. Kennedy Events specializes in producing flawless product launches, award ceremonies, fundraisers, and multi-day conferences while keeping our eye on retention and engagement goals.

About Kennedy Events

Kennedy Events began with one goal in mind—to produce high-level corporate events with just as much strategy as style. Maggie founded the company in 2000, found her match in Paige, and in 2011 the two became official partners. Since then, these two resourceful and brilliant creatives have pooled their strengths to build one one of the most the most sought after corporate event companies in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.