Walkabout: NYC
A recounting of a Sunday in late July in New York City with Jack, Luke, and Anne Frances. Kathy was on injured reserve with a broken little toe...don’t worry, she's fine and will heroically appear later.
9am
LIRR to the city. Got okie-doked by the Sunday schedule, so slower than ideal. But all good.
11 am
Salt Hank...viral Canadian youtuber who makes monster comfort food sandwiches...opened a brick mortar place last year in the city. The hype is real, with a line down the block at opening, which we skipped via online takeout and ate in the park down on the corner. Truly excellent French dip with best-in-class ingredients.
3 pm
Bar Snack (recently rated the #3 bar in North America) in Greenwich Village...super casual hipster vibe, nice cocktails and a spice bag (chips, chicken, onions, peppers with spices with curry dip). Very good neighborhood spot with high level f&b execution. #3 in North America? Who am I to say. The salad negroni with nectarine and champagne vinegar notes was v good.
4 pm
Superbueno...#9 bar in North America...also GV...also casual but more distinctively and artfully branded. Excellent Mexican snacks including the best chips and guac since the last time I was in Houston. Great cocktails (no margs listed!) with very creative riffs off the Mexican flavor wheel, nice hospitality vibe. They had a clarified tomatini that I'm gonna make the next time I get together with friends and a blender.
5:30 pm
Couldn't get into Double Chicken Please (#35), but the line mistress recommended Citizen M hotel. Drinks were meh (she said they were), but a very cool view over SoHo (she said that, too).
7:30pm
Struck out a Grand Central (the Oyster Bar was on their Chik-Fil-A schedule but probably for different reasons; The Campbell had a private event; Palladino’s has inflexible rules). So, we went to 929, a Canto/Mando-pop themed speakeasy near the spot where the Avengers first formed up (Kathy now with us!) with a swanky vibe, vinyl music, and weird cocktails that didn't quite land for me...but I loved the place.
9pm
Dinner at da Toscano in the Iroquois Hotel. Tiny, pretty place with rich riffs on classic Italian...lamb ragu, bordelaise sauce over beef, great pastas...octopus carpaccio was stunning. Cool hotel lobby bar, too, with lots of old NY pics and vibes. Right next to the Algonquin, did not see Dorothy Parker.
11:30pm
Brian started the drive home (Kathy brought the car), Kathy finished it, thankfully.
We also went to Eataly and the Met in the afternoon. The museum was very cool (suits of armor!). Eataly (home of the now thoroughly dethroned former best sandwich Jack has ever had...porchetta at their roast meat counter) used to be cool. Time marches on.
The next morning
Pepto and war stories for breakfast.
Note: I will be in CDMX, where bars #2, 5, 12, 13, and 19 are on that "top 50 bars in NA" list in October for Dia de Los Muertos. 😉Also hit #6 and #21 earlier this year in Nola. It's a busy year. 🍸🍹🍶🥂
Cheers,
Brian
Everyone asks…”what is your concept?”
Executive Summary & Timeline (work in progress)
Sons will be a new, independently owned restaurant concept located in the Uptown New Orleans market. Owned and operated by co-proprietors Jack and Brian Johnson, the restaurant is scheduled to open in late Q3 or early Q4 2027.
The concept will seamlessly blend European and international small-plate dining culture with the vibrant flavors, local ingredients, and distinct hospitality of New Orleans. The menu will combine quick-service snacks and tapas with a rotating selection of shareable entrée specials. Designed to evoke the feel of a “globetrotting family’s living room meets pintxo bar,” the space will cultivate an intentionally communal environment centered on the unifying power of family, food, and travel.
Space & Front of House Design
The restaurant will occupy a 1,400 to 1,800 square foot space, optimized for comfort and guest flow. The front-of-house design will feature:
A central service bar facing a lively group of standing-height cocktail tables.
A dining room balanced by a handful of intimate wall-side two-tops.
Multiple comfortable but dining functional lounge-style seating pods tailored for groups of 4 to 8 guests.
Menu Engineering & Beverage Program
The culinary program will prioritize quick service, effortless shareability, and back-of-house operational efficiency. To minimize waste and maximize ingredient cross-utilization, the total menu will consist of fewer than 20 items across the following categories:
Core Small Plates: Hot items featuring multiple international flavor profiles for each base component (such as protein brochettes, patatas, and croquetas).
Fresh Market Items: A concise daily selection of fresh, seasonal vegetable dishes and salads.
Large Format Platters: A rotating lineup of scalable protein platters.
Desserts: A curated selection of non-traditional, shareable sweet endings.
The beverage program will remain intentionally uncomplicated to drive high margins. Staff will utilize a "somm-lite" sales approach, presenting wines by broad taste profiles (e.g., crisp, oaky, big, bubbles) before introducing more specific tasting notes. Beer and wine selections will lean heavily towards Spain, Portugal, and local makers with some seasonal or promotional rotation and be available by both glass and bottle. While a full cocktail program may be integrated depending on the final site selection, it will not be treated as a requirement for the initial launch. Jack disagrees with this approach, and I get it. We will figure it out as a team and in combination with site selection.
Operations & BOH Infrastructure
The business model will rely on a lean operational footprint by securing a second-generation restaurant space. The kitchen will utilize existing infrastructure, including a functional Type 1 vent hood, commercial-capacity grease trap, and a logical service-pass workflow. The team will include a chef advisor to assist in menu engineering, kitchen build out, recipe design, pre-opening pop ups and menu tasting previews, and ongoing staff training. Post-launch BOH ops will be led by a seasoned team of line and prep cooks.
Capital Expenditure Strategy
Real Estate: Options for owned or leased space, depending on market availability.
New Equipment: Refrigeration units and bathroom fixtures will be purchased brand new to ensure reliability.
Used/Leased Equipment: All other large capital equipment will be leased or purchased used to minimize upfront investment.
Future Planning: Catering capabilities and prep stages will be fully integrated into the kitchen design from day one.
Planned Hours of Operation
Tuesday–Saturday: 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM
Sunday Brunch: 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Note: Hours will remain flexible and adapt based on initial market data.
Staffing, Sourcing, & Financial Targets
The project will be funded by the Johnson family.
Sons will champion a competitive market compensation structure and a cross-trained service model. This collaborative, team-first approach will drive a long-term career development strategy aimed at superior staff recruitment and retention.
Supply chains will remain hyper-local. The kitchen will source seafood, bread, produce, meats, and dairy directly from producers and purveyors within New Orleans and the near-Gulf region.
Through precise menu engineering, management will target highly efficient cost margins:
Target Food Cost: 25–30% (anchored by high-margin, low-cost items like patatas, croquetas, and dips with fry bread).
Target Beverage Cost: 24–26%.
Marketing & Community Engagement
Marketing efforts will balance digital visibility with grassroots community integration.
Digital Foundations: The brand will launch with a streamlined, SEO-optimized website, a verified Google location listing, and an active Yelp presence to capture search traffic and reviews. Instagram and Facebook will serve as the primary hubs for digital community building.
Local Programming: To build a dedicated base of neighborhood regulars, the restaurant will host consistent community events. These initiatives will include daily happy hour pintxos, vendor and artisan nights, local loyalty incentives, and active participation in local food festivals.
Long-Term Vision & Governance
Beyond operating as a successful restaurant, Sons will serve as a family-centered, multi-generational business platform. The brand identity, design aesthetics, and corporate governance structure will be intentionally built around heritage, stewardship, and long-term family value creation. This is intended to be a family business that we launch together and will support for as long as we need to, but Jack leads forward to future glory.
To ensure execution matches this vision, the owners will collaborate with local market and subject-matter experts for pre-opening build-out, concept design, menu development, and staff training. We are thrilled to be collaborating with the great Beth D’Addono on market intel and advisory introductions now.
The final concept will deliver a distinct culinary point of view, a right-sized operational footprint, and a compelling financial model tailored for success in Uptown New Orleans.
It started with my dad…or maybe with Mama.
Off we go.
My dad taught me to love food.
He worked at a hospital on a 7am - 3:30pm shift, which meant he got home early enough to cook the family dinner. I got home from school around the same time as he got home from work every weekday. This worked great for him and maybe better for me, as I was fully happy to avoid both my homework and trombone practice to hang out with him in the kitchen. It also worked nicely for Mom, great at all kinds of things but never a big fan of the kitchen.
We were a small family and had enough, but not a lot. Dinners were classic ‘70s value meals a lot of times. Hamburger Helper. Spaghetti. Breakfast for dinner. Pot roast in a bag. Gringo tacos. Sloppy Joes. Skinny pork chops (and after that famous Brady Bunch episode, always with applesauce). Cheap, simple, homey classics.
But Dad was raised by a lady (actually his mom’s sister’s daughter, who me and my brothers knew as Mama) who was a classic southern cook. He learned a few things from her. Fried chicken and chops. Black-eyed peas swimming with fatback. Pole beans that she let us strip and snap for her. Country ham with red-eye gravy. Cornbread, or course, made in a cast iron skillet on the stove top. Plenty of Crisco and a cigarette always hanging from her lips as she fretted over dinner. Dad was sneakier with the smoking, but he was fully present at the stove.
Dad was also a creative guy who liked to watch the early TV cooking shows. Julia, of course. The Gourmets…both Galloping and Frugal. Justin Wilson. I loved to watch them with him. We’d laugh at Julia’s loopy high notes and Wilson’s crazy, fake-assed Cajun accent. But we watched them cook just like he did with Mama, paying attention to the details, the spices, the techniques, and the influences.
All that good attention to detail and more made it into our house’s kitchen. Coq au vin. Chicken Cordon Bleu and Kiev. Crepes thin enough to read the newspaper through. Chunky ratatouille. Fresh grouper with onions, tomatoes, and garlic, miraculously cooked to perfection in an early model Amana Radar Range Mama bought for our family one Christmas. Teriyaki steak with killer homemade marinade grilled on the coals of a comically small backyard hibachi. To this date, still the best banana ice cream I have ever had, cranked up in the backyard in bucket crusted with ice and rock salt.
These were the first dishes Dad taught me. He also helped me develop a deep appreciation for sarcasm and truly terrible dad jokes. He reveled in purposely bad imitations of foreign accents. He had an appreciation of literature and critical self-expression. Cool vocabulary words. A casual snootiness about food that made us laugh and served us well, pushing us to find ways to honor our taste buds and share our thoughts on “what good tastes like” without wearing out his checkbook. Of course, he shared lots of other stuff that a loving dad shares with his son, too.
My sons (and my wife) will recognize this list of things my dad shared with me in the kitchen as “90% of my entire personality.” I didn’t have the same kind of schedule as my dad, but whenever it was time to eat and we were all together, I have invited my sons to the kitchen to prep, cook, taste, laugh, and love each other. Lucky me, lucky them, lucky us.
Every second of the time I have spent bonding with my sons over our love of food and cooking has been special. As we carry our family’s story forward, I hope that we can help create more special and delicious moments with all of you, too.
Cheers,
Brian