Felipe Donnelly on Trust and Basic Kindness

I actually interviewed you for Zagat a couple years ago, right at the beginning of the pandemic—in April 2020. 

I remember very well. I mean, I try not to remember. 

You’d be forgiven for suppressing all those memories. But going back further, I want to make sure I have some chronology straight. You opened your first restaurant, Comodo, back in 2012 right? But you shut down because of a rent hike? 

Yeah, the rent went up significantly—like 50%. 

Yikes. How did that play out?

We had a five-year lease, and the five years were up. Honestly, it was for the best because the space was less than ideal. We didn’t have a liquor license. It just wasn’t working at the level it could have. The relationship with the landlord was fine, but it wasn’t anything special. I say that now because I have amazing landlords in Brooklyn that are fantastic to work with. 

Okay, so Comodo closed in 2017, but you’d also opened up Colonia Verde in the interim?

Exactly, in 2014. 

How did you decide to open a new restaurant so soon after your first?

“Blindly and instantly” would be the right way to put it.  

Did you go for a second place that quick because you were having so much success with Comodo, or was it something else?

We were a team of four partners originally with Comodo number one, and we felt we were too many for one space that small. We found that 219 DeKalb spot for Colonia Verde serendipitously. We weren’t ready, and we weren’t expecting to jump into a second location. But the opportunity came, and the space was spectacular. We fell in love with it, and just let it roll.  

So after Comodo closed, you just had Colonia Verde going for a few years. And how did you get through the pandemic after we talked in early 2020?

Business-wise, we were smooth. It was less than ideal, obviously, but we were able to keep the doors open. We were able to keep people working. We were able to make some kind of money to make the business work. We made it to October 2021 with meal prep and the restaurant. 

I didn’t realize you kept doing the meal prep that long. 

Yeah, we kept on doing it way into the pandemic. And and then by October 2021, we were just like, we’re done. We can’t do everything. It was too much. 

Speaking of doing a lot, that same year of 2021 you opened Disco Tacos in May, and reopened Comodo that October. How did all that happen?

Disco Tacos was a deal we had negotiated a long, long time ago. We opened up a wine bar in that space in October of 2019 called Cósmico. It was basically a bar in the service of operating a food and beverage space for National Sawdust and their concerts. The moment that concerts weren’t a thing anymore due to the pandemic, that bar really didn’t have much to stand on. It stayed open as a bar that served tacos in 2020, and so in 2021, we just fully rebranded it as Disco Tacos. And we started to negotiate the deal for the new Comodo in March of 2021.

Did you always intend to bring Comodo back in some form? 

Oh, no, no, no. Not at all. But it was definitely another one of those things when we saw the space, it was like an immediate reaction—this is what Comodo would have been, had we had the right budget to do it originally. We already had the brand, we had everything worked out. So it was kind of easy. 

So how did you get involved in even looking at the space in the first place, if you weren’t really looking?

Matt Kliegman and the guys from the Smile were the ones that threw our name into the hat. They’re already there. They’ve been partners with the hotel from the get go. 

Putting a restaurant in a hotel is a different deal than the standalone restaurants you’ve done previously. What was it like for you?

There’s a huge difference concerning the amount of risk that we personally have in our other restaurants, versus much less risk in a hotel. That was very appealing. But at the same time, there was a lot of added pressure, because now we have partners where before we only had ourselves. Our numbers need to be where they need to be. But the deal and the negotiating were actually kind of fun. It wasn’t that hard. And these are really good people who are listening and understand what we need. 

You’re at that point of scaling up to a number of venues where you’ve had to delegate to operate. Was that a difficult change from being more hands-on?

We’ve recruited some of the most amazing people through the past ten years that have stayed within our inner circle—people we can trust and delegate to. You can find people to just do a job. But it’s not as easy to find people like these who can continue our philosophy of hospitality. That goes a long way. 

What about delegating not just as a restaurateur and operator, but as a chef?

It’s great. I have chefs spread out at Comodo, Colonia Verde, Disco Tacos, and our catering company who know what they’re doing. I work closely with them constantly about what kind of food we’re putting out, why we’re doing it, and what it means. I like it a lot. It’s been a lot of fun. 

And are you experiencing the crunch in hospitality labor and staff? 

The labor market hasn’t gotten any better. Hopefully we’ll see some change in September. We’ve always tried to be forward thinking in how we do our recruiting and HR—giving as much benefits as we can and all that. But now that’s a requirement. You need to be able to offer things that are just basic requirements for living in the city—healthcare and retirement plans. And avoiding things people don’t want. We try not to be assholes in the kitchen. That kind of toxic kitchen restaurant vibe still exists, unfortunately. But I think a lot of restaurants have been changing that. 

I’ve heard both owners and restaurant workers talk about putting a lot more emphasis on working with people they know and trust, versus just taking the highest paycheck or whoever’s available. Stability seems like a premium these days.

It’s super important. Who in your past and who in your present has listened to you and taken care of you? It’s not so much about the prestige of working at such and such place. You ask yourself instead why you’re working there. It’s become much more personal. Trust is a big thing. Basic kindness is also a big thing. I think that makes a lot of sense, and I’m happy to see it. 

In the bigger picture sense, how do you think the New York restaurant scene is coping?

Manhattan still hasn’t come back. I mean, the West Village and East Village are doing well. But the rest of Manhattan is still very much not where it used to be. That’s the hard part for me to see. When you’re up above 14th Street, there’s a lot of no man’s lands. 

I was just in Midtown for the first time in about a year, and there still was almost nobody around.

Yeah, it’s going to be a while. And I think because of that, landlords have gotten—well, “scared” isn’t the right word, but I think they got alerted to how fucked up the situation was. But I don’t think there’s going to be a permanent change in restaurant real estate. I think landlords will go right back to their old ways when they can. 

The biggest changes, and the changes that will be more long-lasting, are going to be in how restaurants actually operate, and the care they have for employees. I think that’s going to be the big takeaway from all of this. 

It must be personally gratifying to have gotten such a positive reaction from bringing Comodor back, especially in tough times like these.

It’s very, very gratifying. A lot of work and a lot of energy get put into everything we do and how we do it. I’s really nice to see people not only recognizing that, but getting it, and feeling it, and drinking it in. 

So are you planning to open anything else in the near future?

No, no, no. Definitely keeping it relaxed for the time being. I don’t want to fall into the mistake of scaling too fast. And I want to make sure we keep a small-business mentality when it comes to all of our restaurants. I want to make sure the love and energy we’re putting into these places is maintained on a constant basis.