Running a seasonal restaurant in a resort town comes with plenty of challenges. Still, that’s nothing compared to the challenges of running a year-round restaurant in a resort town. But that’s exactly what Valerie Mnuchin set out to do when she founded Shelter Island’s Léon 1909 in 2022.
Shelter Island is a picturesque Long Island vacation destination. Like a lot of vacation spots in New York, Shelter Island is a dramatically different place during peak season than it is off-season. As Léon’s Executive Chef Armond Joseph explained, “it's an extremely seasonal place. There are only 2,500 people on the island nine months of the year, and it balloons up to 25,000 during the busy season.”
In spite of the challenges, Léon has become a destination restaurant with a full house all summer long and a sound strategy for surviving the rest of the year. So how exactly do they pull it off? Valerie and Armond both dropped by to share the whole story with co-hosts Claudia Saric and Spencer Michiel on the most recent episode of So You Want To Run a Restaurant.
Paying Tribute
Before launching her first restaurant, Valerie earned a PhD in clinical psychology from NYU and then spent years buying, renovating, and selling homes in the Hamptons. (She calls Shelter Island the “Unhampton” for its comparatively low-key vibe.) So how exactly did she end up here?
Well, that story actually begins years before her birth. The story of Léon 1909 begins with its namesake and inspiration. Léon was Valerie’s paternal grandfather. He was born in 1909 and he had an immense love for adventure, seaside excursions, and fine dining. Valerie never met her grandfather.
“He died before I was born,” said Valerie. “And my parents told me from the minute I can remember, ‘You look like your grandfather. You are your grandfather.’ They always told me about the likeness. So to me, he was a bit of a legend, this myth, this kind of mesmerizing figure.”
Banking on the Future
One of the stories Valerie’s father loved to share was of traveling to an exotic location with his father and watching with fascination as people prepared food over a massive open-fire hearth. Then one day, during a visit to Shelter Island, Valerie’s father had an epiphany.
“My father proposed the idea that we should do a live-fire restaurant here like the one that he grew up going to,” Valerie said. Together, they ran with the concept. It didn’t take long to find the perfect space.
Valerie recalled that “It was a Capital One bank, complete with green shag carpeting, laminate booths, and low popcorn ceilings. And I said ‘This is our spot. This is exactly what we need to make into the fire room!’”
Five Takeaways From Our Chat With Valerie and Chef Armond Joseph
We could tell you what a live-fire oven looks like. (Hint: It’s massive.) But to get the full picture, you really should check out the whole episode above. And read on for a few of our favorite moments.
1. Hospitality as a Way of Life
So what exactly brings a Hamptons house-flipper and a Palestinian-born chef from Detroit together? When you talk to them, you realize that they share at least one very important philosophy. For both, running a restaurant is about much more than food. It’s about welcoming people in, hosting them, and giving them a shared experience.
Armond explained that cooking and food were a big part of life in his household. Today, he channels that spirit into the French and Italian fare that makes up the menu at Léon. As he told us, “Growing up around a lot of Palestinian food – it's more about the sentiment. It's not what we're cooking on the hearth. It's definitely more of the warm hospitality.”
Valerie’s earliest memories share some remarkable parallels. Though she had never previously owned a restaurant, Valerie explained, “My family at large has been in the hospitality business before. I learned at the knees of my parents so I felt like it was an extension of creating a home, of serving people, having people. Hospitality just comes naturally, so I wanted to create a hub where I could do this, not just once a week with friends, but to entertain people every night.”
2. Building a Home
When Valerie talks about creating a restaurant that feels like an extension of home, she’s not just speaking figuratively. That’s because Léon 1909 actually provides housing for all of its staff members. As if it wasn’t already challenging enough to run a year-round restaurant in a seasonal location, Shelter Island is also only accessible by ferry. And that ferry doesn’t run overnight.
“We found very early on that we really had to house basically all of our staff.” Valerie said. “So part of juggling this business is that we provide a lot of housing – for our cooks, our servers, everybody.”
As you might imagine, housing your full kitchen staff in close quarters can lead to some drama. Some might even suggest that it would make a great reality TV show. On the other hand, Valerie said, “It really makes for a family. Hopefully, most people with small businesses like to think of themselves as somewhat of a family….It's all about the people. And that’s extremely true for us, because everybody lives together and works together.”
3. Creating a Culture of Mutual Respect
This unusual dynamic makes workplace culture doubly important for Léon 1909. Valerie is extremely thoughtful about how she approaches her role as the owner and operator. Of her partnership with Armond, she explains, “One of the things we share in this operation is that we want this to be a really great place to work – a place where you’re able to learn and grow as a person. And I think that how you lead affects that.”
Not only does this philosophy help to keep morale high, but it also makes for a perfect partnership between Valerie and Armond. As she noted to us, “If you're not going to find a chef that you love and let them do their thing, I think you're doing yourself a disservice. You have to love and believe enough in what that person is about to give them a lot of rein.”
Of course, that respect goes both ways. Armond told us that “I respect her opinion, and I go to her because she knows the clientele better than I do a lot of times. So it's a continuous conversation”
4. Turning Boredom Into Creativity
That continuous conversation is often about how to keep the menu fresh even as the seasons change. Most chefs operating in the Mid-Atlantic region understand just how much seasonality can affect the availability of certain ingredients. But Chef Armond explained that some of the best innovations on Léon’s menu are as a result of this challenge.
For instance, Armond uses a lot of fermentation, curing, and preservation in his cooking as a way to extend the unique flavors and character of each season, even as the weather shifts.
“These ideas come from a place of creativity and boredom, first and foremost. That’s because I want to use seasonal products, and in the winter, there's not much,” said Armond. “So the question was ‘What do I do about this?’ Well, I have to prepare. I have to extend my pantry. I'll go downstairs and see that we have pickled spruce tips from Shelter Island. Okay. We'll use that.”
5. Handling the Heat
It can get cold on Shelter Island in the off season. But inside Léon 1909, the open hearth can get as hot as 1200°F. So while Léon is a great working environment, not everybody can work that oven, or as Armond calls it, “the Beast.”
“It’s really athletic,” says Armond. “It takes your body at least two weeks to get somewhat comfortable. I have certain cooks that can't cook on it only because they’re allergic to that high temperature. So we have a couple people that stay in our cold kitchen. Then I have other cooks who could just dance on the hearth.”
And you simply can’t argue with the results. Armondo calls the open-fire concept “a chef's dream. We just get to light a big fire and cook over it. So it never intimidated me. Really it's our greatest asset.”
Getting Ready for Showtime
Not only is that open hearth an incredible asset, but it makes for a memorable dining experience, the kind that people travel by land and sea to enjoy. This, said Valerie, makes it worth the grind.
“It's really hard,” said Valerie. “But there is a glamorous side, and I love that about it. You have to like the show to be in this business. Because every night you go on stage and it's the show. The lights go down in this restaurant, the fire gets started, the candles get lit, and it's showtime. Everything stops for those few hours, and you have to love that.”
Of course, before you put on a show, it’s important to have all the right props and set pieces in place. That’s where the tech comes in. Find out how the right solutions can better prepare your restaurant for primetime. For all the tools and tech you’ll need to get started, schedule your free, personalized consultation with one of our in-house restaurant tech experts and we’ll figure it out together.
