EP 15: Restaurant Life vs. Family Life

Interview with Tony Maws / Award-Winning Chef, Restauranteur, Lead Dad

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Famed chef, Tony Maws was a central part of the Boston food scene for more than two decades. He won a slew of chef honors, including the highest – a James Beard Award. One of his restaurants, Craigie on Main, attracted a loyal foodie following who gathered around his famed chef’s table. (He also had a more casual burger joint because, well, who doesn’t love a good burger?) But being the chef-owner and being there for your family isn’t always compatible. The pandemic changed Maws’ thinking. He is embracing being a Lead Dad for his teenage son and wife, a public school teacher. Listen to him talk about restaurants, family and the greatness of a roasted chicken. (It’s on the menu at least once a week in his home.)

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Transcript

00;00;04;24 - 00;00;29;05
Paul Sullivan
I'm Paul Sullivan, your host of the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, sublime, strange and silly aspects of being a dad in a world where men often feel they have to hide, or at least not talk about their parents. For I know this from firsthand experience as the lead dad to my three girls, three dogs, three cats, and somewhat remarkably, three fish, I did this all while managing my career and striving to be an above average husband.

00;00;29;07 - 00;00;51;05
Paul Sullivan
One thing I know for sure about being a dad is it's not a normal. You're not doing with. Dads have traditionally done going to work and leaving the parenting to mom or someone else. Nor are you always welcome into the world where moms are the primary caregivers. But here at the Company of Dads, our goal is to shake all that off and focus on what really matters family, friendship, finance, and fun.

00;00;51;08 - 00;01;14;08
Paul Sullivan
Today my guest is Tony Maws, famed Boston chef, James Beard Award winner and newly minted Leed dad. Tony is a legend in the Boston restaurant scene. Craigie on Main attracted a loyal following, eager to indulge in the chef's creations. It spawned other restaurants, including a burger joint by Fenway Park. Yet being the chef owner and being there for your family isn't always easy.

00;01;14;10 - 00;01;39;01
Paul Sullivan
People dine at night and they want you, their spouses and kids, or at work or in school during the day when you have more free time. Tony never closed his restaurants during the pandemic, shifting things around to make it work, but it did force him to rethink a few things. And top of that list was the years he would have left with his son before he went off to college, and how he could support his wife, a public school teacher in the most challenging educational climate in recent memory.

00;01;39;03 - 00;01;41;17
Paul Sullivan
Tony, thanks for being my guest today.

00;01;41;19 - 00;01;51;20
Tony Maws
So amazing to be here. I love that introduction. I have, I got some catching up to do. I only have one wife, one kid and one dog and no cats.

00;01;51;22 - 00;01;57;27
Paul Sullivan
The key is, you can expand it to a cat, but just stay with one wife, okay? Have a good story.

00;01;58;02 - 00;02;00;29
Tony Maws
Guys like that.

00;02;01;01 - 00;02;07;12
Tony Maws
I'm all for that. But, you know, you get a good one. Things are okay, so I keep. I got a great. I got a great one.

00;02;07;15 - 00;02;28;02
Paul Sullivan
My wife knew this. This person, once he found out that, her husband had a whole other family in France, and it just blew my mind. I'm like, that's so complicated. Enough being, like the husband to one person and the dad like, a whole separate family in a whole. In a different country. It didn't end well. And that's because of that same.

00;02;28;07 - 00;02;30;26
Tony Maws
Husband that is probably a different kind of podcast, too.

00;02;31;02 - 00;02;50;04
Paul Sullivan
That's a different type, I guess. But yeah. Look, chef, I know we've talked before, you know, chef story that, you know, once a chef, always a chef, but a great ever. Let's start off with, you know, the cooking question. What was your least favorite thing that someone ordered at Craig? Any you know, the thing that had to be on the menu.

00;02;50;07 - 00;02;53;26
Paul Sullivan
But when they ordered you, like, I can't believe they ordered that.

00;02;53;28 - 00;03;17;06
Tony Maws
You know, that's a great that's an interesting question. I was not anticipating this route. We we, we were fortunate to, Craig. I mean, to be able to write, you know, menus daily and change them daily to, you know, sort of suit our whim and my whim and stuff like that, too. But every once in a while, you'd have someone who, you know, not I don't even want to say it was like the worst, because that would be a terrible way to put it.

00;03;17;06 - 00;03;42;19
Tony Maws
They can't. Like we were always honored to have people come into the restaurant, and it's like, you didn't come in if you did your homework, you didn't come into this restaurant to do your thing. It just wasn't that kind of restaurant we're supposed to be. You know, it's a very chef driven restaurant. So, God, I mean, you know, the funny, the funnier ones were always the, you know, at one point we had, we were very famous for our hamburger.

00;03;42;19 - 00;03;58;17
Tony Maws
We're not a burger joint by any means, but we are famous for our burger at the bar was on the cover of Bon Appetit and all this stuff. It was absolutely nuts. And then people were like, oh, you should really do a vegetarian burger. And I was like, no, no, no. Finally, you know, one year I said, fine, fine, we'll do it.

00;03;58;17 - 00;04;15;18
Tony Maws
We'll do a veggie burger. You know, everyone's been asking for this veggie burger. We put it on the menu and no one ordered it. Like, everyone was like, that's so cool. All of the all the regular, you know, the regular burger, you know, or or they need to have people come in to try it and they'd be like, so can I get bacon on my veggie burger?

00;04;15;19 - 00;04;19;10
Tony Maws
And you're just like, what's the point? Absolutely.

00;04;19;10 - 00;04;24;10
Paul Sullivan
Did you eat the veggie burger with some fog put on top of it like fog bacon, you know.

00;04;24;12 - 00;04;29;12
Tony Maws
Absolutely. You're like, yep, here we go. That's totally fine. Glad I worked so hard on this. All I got.

00;04;29;13 - 00;04;43;21
Paul Sullivan
I got it for you. It is another news you can use. Question I'm under the impression that. Yeah, whenever I go to a restaurant. Nice restaurant. I never order the chicken. I always think like, why should I order the chicken? I'm not gonna order. The chef's going to do other stuff. And particularly like the restaurant. Is that a mistake?

00;04;43;21 - 00;04;49;12
Paul Sullivan
I know every great chef can can really, you know, roast a tiny. But as I don't know this.

00;04;49;15 - 00;05;06;04
Tony Maws
Asking the right guy or the wrong guy because you're about to go down a rabbit hole, you're like a roast chicken to me, is one of the most sublime, beautiful things to eat. It's just perfect, God said. Like, if it's the type of restaurant that's going to look at it as this ubiquitous thing that they have to have on the menu, no, you should not order it there.

00;05;06;07 - 00;05;23;03
Tony Maws
But if it's the type of restaurant that's going to like a real chicken that's been raised well fed, well like that actually tastes like something, it doesn't taste like the thing that comes wrapped in silver, classic or whatever in the market that literally is as bland as can be. But sometimes people would be like, that's like my shirt of the chicken.

00;05;23;03 - 00;05;46;26
Tony Maws
It's gonna be bland. No, a real chicken. A real chicken is unbelievable. So if you can, if you have faith in, the sort of thing in the restaurant and the and the chef and the cooking and all that stuff, I think it's a wonderful way to, like, enjoy a meal. That's that's my take. And, you know, we have a roast chicken in our house at home at least once a week, and I literally mean at least once a week.

00;05;46;29 - 00;05;59;28
Paul Sullivan
Okay. All right. See, I've learned something new, right? Think, how do you keep everything going? You know, in the pandemic, I mean, if it's tough for everybody, it was particularly tough in the restaurant business. And I know, you know, you just made it work. But how did that happen?

00;05;59;28 - 00;06;23;02
Tony Maws
Like, I have no idea. You know, you know, I, I'm, I'm a pretty competitive guy and I, and I like we never closed the. Yeah. I mean, through snowstorms. We were famous for the menus been put out, like, people would literally, cross-country ski to the restaurant and we would check their skis at the door and have these great things.

00;06;23;03 - 00;06;41;01
Tony Maws
You know, we we were always there for our community. We didn't close in the marathon bombing. We didn't do it. We were two blocks away from, you know, a lot of the craziness around Cambridge that happened. So, you know, all of that. So my mentality was like, we need to be here for the community. It wasn't about keeping them in the beginning.

00;06;41;01 - 00;06;58;08
Tony Maws
Certainly it wasn't about keeping the business afloat. We didn't even had time to think about that. We were like, if you, you know, you just if you can go back to that period, everything just closed and no one knew what to do and no one knew what was going to happen. And like, you know, two weeks, like everyone knew it wasn't going to be two weeks, certainly not in these parts.

00;06;58;08 - 00;07;12;10
Tony Maws
Right? And we were like, well, we got to feed people like, that's what we gotta do. And especially when there are all these grocery store shortages and all the things that you read about. Right. Well, I have access, you know, it's a great stuff, but let's do it. So we just put our helmets on.

00;07;12;12 - 00;07;20;15
Paul Sullivan
Were you like like your regular customers, were you giving them, like, you know, a roll of toilet paper and some paper towels with their meal because you had access, you know, because that that was the rush.

00;07;20;18 - 00;07;37;06
Tony Maws
Roll it. Roll toilet paper is. No, you get that. Why did I think of that? But like, you know, we were out, you know, on the, on the menu, we had all these family style meals that we were developing and, you know, then we we'd also sell like 5 pounds of flour and, you know, some eggs and this butter and spice rubs that we were making.

00;07;37;06 - 00;07;52;19
Tony Maws
And so like, that's the people, you know, we're having a tough time finding some of these basics. Knew that they could place a food order with us and then also not have to worry about some of the, the staples. But, I mean, just going back to your question, how do we do it? We we will do it.

00;07;52;20 - 00;08;12;23
Tony Maws
We just didn't see stopping as an option. And in a weird way, if you can put that period in a vacuum, it was the most creative period. I think that I and the restaurant had ever seen because we had to we complete I mean, we were a fine dining tasting menu restaurant. That food doesn't go in a box.

00;08;12;25 - 00;08;29;13
Tony Maws
Yeah. You know, it just doesn't work. The first day I did, I tried to put it in the box and I looked down and I saw this cute little, you know, whatever. It was a little sad. Sad. Yeah. In this box. And I'm like, oh my God, it's not traveling, you know, ten feet to a table to be consumed within the next five minutes.

00;08;29;13 - 00;08;45;12
Tony Maws
It's going, I don't know how many miles being consumed and I don't know how much time, and I don't know if they're gonna put in the microwave or drop it, or it's going to turn upside down in the car ride home, but they're going to eat it and have to enjoy it. So we had to rethink everything. And and not in that way.

00;08;45;12 - 00;09;06;29
Tony Maws
It was exciting. I had a unfortunately, I couldn't always think of it that way because there's so much else swirling around that was so awful. We just kept on doing the work. I mean, I also, you know, we had a furlough, the majority of our staff, and I was coming in with just a barebones little crew of I think it was four of us and someone's girlfriend, you know, down us.

00;09;07;02 - 00;09;30;07
Tony Maws
And, I went from being the whatever my title was, you know, chef owner of three different restaurants to being the prep cook, dishwasher, pastry chef, line cook, everything marketing guy, every part of it, to make it all go. But that's also what led me to the decision to step away.

00;09;30;09 - 00;09;30;26
Paul Sullivan
Yeah.

00;09;30;28 - 00;09;31;04
Tony Maws
You know.

00;09;31;05 - 00;09;45;16
Paul Sullivan
Welcome. We'll come back to that. But, you know, I'm thinking you know, we're now just past sort of when we're talking the two year anniversary of sort of when everything shut down and, you know, had somebody told us back then, you know, this is going to last for about, you know, two years, we wouldn't have believed it.

00;09;45;16 - 00;10;00;15
Paul Sullivan
We wouldn't have been able to handle it. You know, when you start in a crisis, it's that passion, that power that that that desire to design. But you think in your mind, you may not put a time period on it, but I think that's for a couple months. This is this is a United States where we'll figure this out.

00;10;00;15 - 00;10;14;25
Paul Sullivan
I mean, this will be done by and of course, that's not what happened. So what was it like? The sort of ebbs and flows of both your own business. But then, you know, your wife is a public school teacher, so she's, you know, teaching remotely again. Does anybody think you're going to teach remotely for more than a year?

00;10;14;26 - 00;10;28;27
Paul Sullivan
No. A couple of months, maybe. And then you have a son who's, you know, it was, you guessed, junior high school, then about to go to high school now. But how did all of that, all those different factors, how did you sort of, you know, way at all in balance at all as you were trying to keep going?

00;10;28;27 - 00;10;31;03
Paul Sullivan
All three of you, all three of the people in your family.

00;10;31;05 - 00;10;56;15
Tony Maws
I mean, sometimes to our own detriment, you know, we're just as humans, we can be pretty resilient. So I think when part of the not knowing forces us to keep on pushing forward and, you know, without the answers, just saying tomorrow's going to be a better day. We're going to figure this out. Let's, you know, my little family unit, you know, we would remind ourselves, you know, we're sticking together, you know, literally my wife, my son and I would be like, we're in this together.

00;10;56;15 - 00;11;00;26
Tony Maws
We're going to we're going to be there for each other. And,

00;11;00;28 - 00;11;26;02
Tony Maws
I mean, beyond that, I think, how do you balance? I mean, it never felt there was an option, a balance. It was so out of balance and so out of whack. And you're just holding on for dear life. And I don't want to sound like, overly like, dramatic, but that's the way it felt. I mean, I was having panic attacks, you know, there was nothing that I.

00;11;26;05 - 00;11;52;22
Tony Maws
I'm proud of everything we did. But I can't look back on it as, like, the glory days because it was nothing like that at all. It was just not having the answers and watching, you know, our financial, you know, position with the restaurants and stuff like that just literally go through the floor, not to the floor, like through the floor, you know, and and, you know, again, we didn't know peep was coming in those days.

00;11;52;22 - 00;12;22;20
Tony Maws
There was no talk of that yet. And, you know, other grants and stuff like that, that all came much later. So in those first few months, I mean, there was just me sitting alone in a dark restaurant after people would have left saying, I can't believe this is the way it's going to end. Like, you know, crap. Well, you know, and definitely a little woe is me until like, you know, my wife and and some good friends were like.

00;12;22;22 - 00;12;39;06
Tony Maws
You're going to figure this out or it's gone. You know, you've got you've got some talents and some skills, like it might not be in the restaurant business, but this is you're going to be okay. And your family like you've got such an amazing family. And that might sound cliche too, but I do. I have an amazing, amazing family.

00;12;39;06 - 00;13;00;22
Tony Maws
Both, you know, in here in this little house of mine and also the ones that are, you know, that I've grown up with just, you know, cousins and mom and dad like everybody. Brother, you know, I've been just terrific. So, you know, I there were dark days and there was, a lot of asking for for help and guidance.

00;13;00;24 - 00;13;01;25
Tony Maws
Yeah. You know.

00;13;01;27 - 00;13;26;14
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, you miss it. You will it through, you make it through the pandemic. And then, you know, when you and I talked before, you sort of have this moment, you know, last summer where you decide, you know, it's time for change. It's time, you know, I'm, I'm I'm Tony Moore's, you know, great Boston chef, James Beard award winner, you know, famous restaurant, you know, well known throughout the northeast and beyond.

00;13;26;14 - 00;13;36;06
Paul Sullivan
And but you said, you know, it's time for a change to talk to me about that, that that moment and some of those conversations. You have your wife and your son. Yeah.

00;13;36;08 - 00;14;03;18
Tony Maws
I mean, I love to cook food for people, and I was never burnt out of that. You know, both before the pandemic. It was never for being this great chef or anything like that. I truly enjoyed cooking food and cooking food for people. And, and in that sense, the pandemic really fed into that, too, because people were so happy, so grateful for what we were doing, what we were providing for them.

00;14;03;20 - 00;14;30;13
Tony Maws
But, you know, not that. Yeah, I'm 52 now. You know, my son is 13. And I was thinking like, I don't see this ending, not just in the pandemic, but restaurants in the industry have had a lot of challenges in terms of, a whole formula for a long time now. So even, you know, before the pandemic, I was asking myself, how does this continue?

00;14;30;16 - 00;14;52;17
Tony Maws
And then as we kept on pushing and pushing and pushing through all the ebbs and flows, the highs and the lows, I began really trying to think like, where's the math going to work with this when we do get out of this? And so much has changed. And it's not like my lease changed, you know, it's not like my landlord all of a sudden changed, but I changed and the dining public changed.

00;14;52;20 - 00;15;12;04
Tony Maws
And what they're looking for is change in their perception of what's safe and not, you know, what they're looking for is all different. And I don't know if I can wait that out. And I'm sitting there at this point with literally knee braces on my knees. You know, because I've been, I wasn't at this point in my career supposed to be running up and down the stairs.

00;15;12;04 - 00;15;48;13
Tony Maws
And, I mean, I told you, my joke is like my little watch was telling me I had done 25,000 steps daily, you know, and there was no chiropractor, you know, that was going to be able to take care of me. And I was like, Holy crap. And I was seeing my family even less, you know, I was out the door before eight in the morning, was coming home late when everyone is asleep and I'm like, and I'm like, just enough that actually the part that it's harder was more of my ego telling me that, what am I going to be if I'm not a chef?

00;15;48;14 - 00;16;10;28
Tony Maws
And actually making the decision not to continue on with the restaurant, if that makes sense. Because my my identity is just been tied up in this world for, you know, I've been an owner now for almost 20 years. I've been cooking for over 30 years. This is what I've done. And, and I, I certainly wanted some things to be a little bit different, but I never thought for a second that I wouldn't be doing this.

00;16;10;29 - 00;16;39;00
Tony Maws
It wasn't like a plan to one day stop. So I really had to kind of go through the mental process of figuring out, if and when I did stop, then what happens? You know, am I okay with that? And I didn't have the answers. And it was really it was really challenging. It was really hard. It was, it created a lot of anxiety because I didn't know, you know, I think I told you to I might, you know, I was joking with my wife, like, well, I'm supposed to be having a midlife crisis.

00;16;39;04 - 00;16;50;17
Tony Maws
Here we go. You know, this is a little bit maybe bigger than what I thought it was going to be and not so made up. Like I'm literally about to change everything. Everything.

00;16;50;19 - 00;17;10;12
Paul Sullivan
But you make a good point that, Tony, when you talk about about ego, and, like, who we are as men and it's something that I, you know, wrestled with in the year that I thought about, you know, starting the company of dads because as I've told everybody, the only thing I want it to be as a kid growing up was a writer for The New York Times.

00;17;10;12 - 00;17;22;07
Paul Sullivan
That was it. If I didn't and I didn't ever think it would happen, I was like, I don't know. I grew up in, you know, outside of Springfield, Massachusetts. I don't see how this is going to have. And it did. And but when you think about when you said, like, you know, what am I going to be if I'm not a chef?

00;17;22;07 - 00;17;39;12
Paul Sullivan
And I thought you had the most ridiculous thoughts when you know what what matters in life is, is your family and you know you're going to have a career. You'll find a way to support your, your, your family. But you have to, you know, if you don't have your family, what do you have? And I remember thinking at one point in the year of saying that, it's like, I wonder if they'll take away my New York Times email address.

00;17;39;12 - 00;17;57;00
Paul Sullivan
You know, it's like there's certain power to having a New York Times email address. And then I was like, what a stupid thing to think about. But what is that? If not? Yeah, identity and an ego. And you know, you still live in Cambridge and you move in shortly, but you know, you walk in the streets where people know you.

00;17;57;03 - 00;18;11;14
Paul Sullivan
What's the reaction been? Not just from the, you know, public a large it's a hey, there's Tony Mars, but but from those that the customers, those clients, those really loyal people who came in, you know, several times a month and, you know, they became your friends.

00;18;11;16 - 00;18;34;19
Tony Maws
Oh, my God, they absolutely became my friends. And there's so such wonderful people across the board. I mean, we, I've had nothing but support and and well wishes that said that, you know, they're, like, cautious about it too, because, you know, I haven't I haven't come out and said, well, I'm doing it because I also don't know what I'm doing, you know, what I'm doing yet.

00;18;34;19 - 00;19;05;09
Tony Maws
So they don't know if they're supposed to be cheering me on, like full on or consoling me or or what, you know, and it's I think it's actually a combination of, anything and everything, every emotion that you could see because there's absolutely some loss and, and part of giving up this thing and, but the identity and my restaurant, the closest thing that I could I think a credit to is, is, is mourning, you know, this is who I had a, I had a bury this this is who I've been.

00;19;05;09 - 00;19;07;19
Tony Maws
I'd almost bury that Tony Mars and, but.

00;19;07;19 - 00;19;11;02
Paul Sullivan
You think about you work so hard to become that that Tony mom.

00;19;11;03 - 00;19;34;09
Tony Maws
Had yourself like. Yeah, like you said, that's all I ever wanted to be. I mean, before I'm old man, you know, before. Before there was Instagram. Before there were, you know, anything on TV? You know, I was that kid who was watching Julia Child and stuff like that, and. And the. We didn't know the chefs names. That's not what it was about, but I, I was 15 years old when I was a dishwasher and the cook showed up drunk and they fired him.

00;19;34;09 - 00;19;54;23
Tony Maws
They said, Tony, get over here. And I, I was the happiest kid in the world. This is unbelievable. This is the best game in town. And I never wanted to look back. So, you know, people have been, I think, curious and, and, you know, for a while, I think they were hopeful that I would come back.

00;19;54;23 - 00;20;22;17
Tony Maws
And then I came out and said, nope, that's not happening. I think, you know, most everyone understood. I mean, the thing about it happening now is that there's been so much change. We've read about so many different people and industries that have just undergone such incredible dramatic transition and that sense, it wasn't, like, you know, crazy news like, oh my God, he just completely did a 180 or something like that.

00;20;22;17 - 00;20;28;23
Tony Maws
It wasn't like that. If anything, I'm almost falling in line with a huge segment of the population.

00;20;28;25 - 00;20;32;03
Paul Sullivan
It's like the Great Resignation just in a different way. Yeah, yeah.

00;20;32;05 - 00;20;54;09
Tony Maws
Yeah, I, I resigned from myself. But it's the community has been awesome and, and, and as I go through, you know, right now and I'm like the king, you know, coffee, data and stuff like that. I'm just having coffee with anybody and everybody I can just trying to figure out, like what? What's out there in this world, you know, it's a completely different.

00;20;54;11 - 00;21;14;01
Tony Maws
I haven't had to think about it. There's jobs that exist now that didn't exist last time. I had to look for a job. So it's been it's been a lot of fun just reaching out there with I read a resume for the first time in 25 years, just to go through the act of it and, and look at it and, you know, you take out the word chef and all of a sudden I'm looking at this, I'm like, wow, it's like an entrepreneur.

00;21;14;01 - 00;21;41;09
Tony Maws
I, I manage teams and I, you know, I came up with the customer service model and I, you know, did the financial stuff and I did the marketing and the PR and I'm the head of the creative department, like, wow, how do I, how do I frame this now? And people are I've been kind of actually excited to talk to me because I think I bring a different, background to some of the things that I've been talking to people about.

00;21;41;09 - 00;21;57;17
Paul Sullivan
So plus, I'd be willing to bet that this is probably the first time that you've really been able to reflect, like to reflect back on, you know, 20 years as a chef owner, 30 years as a chef, because before it was just like, okay, head down, got to do this. I'm going to create something new. I'm going to, you know, try a new restaurant.

00;21;57;17 - 00;22;17;29
Tony Maws
And so you're and it's and it's gone through an evolution. I mean all that reflecting there was the early days where I was freaking out. And then there was the, you know, like I tell you about this walk I had with my son, we were on vacation, and this is just, you know, a little while after we we had closed without before I had made the formal decision to actually be done.

00;22;17;29 - 00;22;44;08
Tony Maws
Done. And my my son Charlie looked at me and say, dad, this is so awesome to have you here. You're not on your phone. You know how to do computer. You're not placing orders, you're not talking. Your sous chefs. You're actually here with us. This is awesome. And I started to cry. And he looked at me. And because he's such a great kid, he's like, no, no, no, no, not like those other times are so bad, you know?

00;22;44;11 - 00;23;03;05
Tony Maws
But this is just really awesome. And I went back and I like a challenge in my life. And I was like, I think I just made up my mind like, I think I'm done like this, whatever, you know? So I had to get through that part of the reflection before I can then actually think about the next. And it took a lot longer.

00;23;03;05 - 00;23;22;06
Tony Maws
I mean, you read about burnout and, you know, and mourning and things like that, and you think that you can just muscle through it because like I said earlier, because of the pandemic, you put your helmet on and just plow right through. Yeah, but your brain brain is a complicated thing. And it didn't want me to. I would sit down to try to write, you know, the story.

00;23;22;12 - 00;23;41;04
Tony Maws
Some people wanted me to write the story or or the resume or reach out to people. And I literally couldn't I couldn't get there. I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. Yet it wasn't ready. And it was only two months ago, you know, I closed in August and I was just like two months ago that I actually began thinking, okay, here we go.

00;23;41;06 - 00;23;59;08
Tony Maws
Let's let's figure out what this next is. Let's start having the conversations. Let's, you know, because it's also really it's really humbling. It's scary. Like, I have to admit, not just now to myself, but when I'm doing this, I'm admitting to other people that this is a different Tony than what they had known before, and I might not be good at it.

00;23;59;08 - 00;24;07;29
Tony Maws
I'm not coming. I'm coming with whatever expertise I had. But now I'm talking to you about something completely different. And that's holy crap, that's that's scary.

00;24;08;01 - 00;24;29;23
Paul Sullivan
I love that story about you and your son, you know, walking on the beach and the moment, you know, I have three daughters. But my favorite thing to do is not to take all three of them out at once. That's actually a horrible thing to do, because in this fight, it's actually no fun at all. But it's those moments I get with just one because I know that something is going to be set, something.

00;24;29;27 - 00;24;45;15
Paul Sullivan
There's going to be an interesting conversation. There's going to be a sort of a deepening of our relationship, but I don't know when it's going to happen. You know, it's just it's not like, you know, with being laid down, being a parent, you can't just say, okay, hey, I got this time, it's, 730 on a Tuesday night.

00;24;45;18 - 00;25;02;15
Paul Sullivan
Let's sit down and talk. You know, it doesn't come out that way. It's it's moments like that. It's that walk on the beach, you know what you're saying. Or, you know, I love taking my daughters around to different things with their friends because I turn the radio off and, you know, all this stuff, but you only get that by being able to, to be there.

00;25;02;17 - 00;25;17;05
Tony Maws
Well, also. Exactly. So it's been there. So now I've had a ton of those conversations and they're not they don't need to be in such a profound place. They can be on the way to hockey practice. They can be on the way like I, but I didn't have those moments before I was in the restaurant, you know.

00;25;17;05 - 00;25;39;00
Tony Maws
Yeah. And I would I would convince myself that I was being, you know, present that I, I was that guy and I would like almost forced myself into conversation sometimes or something like that. But they didn't happen naturally. And now, like, he and I will go for a walk and like, go to a coffee shop or we've had, you know, go to a taco joint together or have fun and but it's us.

00;25;39;01 - 00;26;04;17
Tony Maws
It's us being us and talking about something or nothing. Sometimes it's deep and meaningful and sometimes it's about the Red Sox. But it doesn't matter. The point is that I'm I'm actually present in those conversations. Yeah. Physically and mentally. There were times before where I'd be sitting at the breakfast table and I'd basically, you know, be so tired and so overworked and so stressed out, and I'd be, like, drooling on myself and I'd be like, I hate to say it.

00;26;04;17 - 00;26;25;24
Tony Maws
I'd almost be like faking it to him and to my wife like that. I was present, and sometimes my wife would call me on it. You know, she's like, you're not here, you know you're not here. And it never I mean, it's my own. It's my own thing. I, I don't regret any of the things that I've been able to do, because I've been very fortunate.

00;26;25;24 - 00;26;36;13
Tony Maws
But I had to get beaten over the head with a pandemic to actually realize what I thought was important, what I, what I really believe in and how I, how strongly I feel about being there for my family.

00;26;36;16 - 00;26;54;19
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. Talk to me about I know you you you're home now. I hear you have, the most demanding, restaurant clientele ever. That you've been cooking a lot for your wife and son. Yeah. What's it been like? What if you talk to me about your days? I mean, because this is, like, before you're throwing a party every night, and you may be free on a Tuesday evening beyond.

00;26;54;19 - 00;27;04;10
Paul Sullivan
But you certainly weren't free on a Friday or Saturday because I want to see. Exactly. Yeah. What's what's it been like, you know, these past, you know, six, seven months, being there.

00;27;04;12 - 00;27;45;05
Tony Maws
It's, I don't know if there's one word that would encapsulate, you know, everything about it except for that. I know that I made the right decision. I just feel incredibly grateful and happy and content and, you know, nervous about the future, of course. But, but we we were a strong little family before, and now we're even stronger, you know, so just being able to to be, like I said before, be presents, you know, my wife, you know, I, you can't put on a scale like which populations of people have had it worse, but let's just say teachers are not having a great time that they didn't have a good time in the

00;27;45;05 - 00;28;06;04
Tony Maws
pandemic. They're not having a great time now. It's just the holy, holy moly, you know, and and she has to put her boots and her helmet on every single day to go to go teach, just, to make this happen and to be there now, to be supportive. And yeah, I'm a cook and I can put together breakfast and lunch really easy and make sure dinner, you know, is happening and stuff like that too.

00;28;06;04 - 00;28;25;14
Tony Maws
So mechanically, so to speak, you know, I can make that happen really easy, but it's more about just taking that away from her. So she doesn't have to think about it. There's just I mean, I'm sure you're realizing this now too, and I never I pretended to appreciate it, but now I really appreciate it. Like taking care of the house, even if you're not 100%.

00;28;25;16 - 00;28;40;01
Tony Maws
You know, it takes a lot of time. It just does. Like, I'll turn around and realize, oh, my God, it's it's like 4:00 in the afternoon. Weird. My day go. And you know, what I've done is I've gone to Costco and Wegmans and taking the kids to hockey practice and took the dog for a walk into the vet.

00;28;40;01 - 00;29;09;06
Tony Maws
And you know, and it's it's real work. It takes real time. So just to to be able to and they enable her to not have to think about this right now. You know, not that I'm doing a better or worse than she did or whoever might, but just that she doesn't have to worry about it. You know, that's that's just been humongous because there are days she literally comes home, I imagine, similar to the way I would like.

00;29;09;06 - 00;29;22;10
Tony Maws
She's so exhausted, so beat up. And has to come back and do it again the next day. And I just, I'm like, what do you need, babe? You tell me what you need. You need. I'm taking Charlie at hockey today. You don't even have to worry about it. You know, your lunch is already ready for tomorrow.

00;29;22;10 - 00;29;35;03
Tony Maws
Don't worry about it. You know, Mac needs grooming. You know, our dogs are cool. Don't even worry about it. You know, I'm on it. I'm on it. I'm going to go pick up my mom and my dad, take them to the whatever. You know, just tell me what you need. And to be able to ask that question.

00;29;35;05 - 00;29;56;04
Tony Maws
Hey, what do you need for someone else? Regularly is pretty amazing. And it's not just my little family. I mean, it's my my nearest and dearest other parts of the family and my friends. You know, one of my best friend's father passed away, and it is a dad, you know, that I grew up with. He was I've known him forever.

00;29;56;05 - 00;30;14;05
Tony Maws
And so he was like another dad to me, you know, and I was able to be there for him. Family was sitting shiva and I was there, and I literally turned down and Pete and I was like, you know, I, I wouldn't have been able to do this before. I'm so grateful that I can be here for you.

00;30;14;05 - 00;30;38;27
Tony Maws
I feel like I owe you for all the years that I missed being there for you, you know? And of course I don't. He doesn't think of it that way, but it just meant it was meaningful that I could not just for him, but for me to be there for that guy. So, you know, I there are all these books that are written about how we're moving too fast and all the decisions we're making and, and how, you know, harmful it is.

00;30;38;27 - 00;30;58;22
Tony Maws
And, and you read them and you're like, yeah, yeah, at least I was I get it. But then you didn't get it because you would go off and you continue being you. And to be able to transition to the place where, I'm really I'm really happy to be able to be a dad and husband and a friend son.

00;30;58;22 - 00;31;03;19
Tony Maws
And, you know, you know, in ways that I wasn't able to be for a long time.

00;31;03;21 - 00;31;19;23
Paul Sullivan
Tony, thanks for being my guest today in the Company of Dads podcast. I always, give my guests the last word, but I have to ask the question because you're you're a great chef and you're cooking up these meals every day, but I can just imagine, like this mound of of, like, pots and pans and, like, carrots all over the floor.

00;31;19;23 - 00;31;23;19
Paul Sullivan
What? Like who cleans up? Are you everything now? Are you back to being everything?

00;31;23;22 - 00;31;43;20
Tony Maws
I know? Yeah. My. Every once in a while, Carolyn will be like, you know, you don't have, this writing career to come by. That's right. You know, where we take turns, it's coincided really, really well with the uptick in the amount of chores that Charlie has to do.

00;31;43;22 - 00;31;45;22
Paul Sullivan
So building character right there, I love it.

00;31;45;28 - 00;32;04;17
Tony Maws
Exactly. He he he wants a new phone and, you know, some other responsibilities. And he you got to earn it, buddy. So here we go. No, we we we all take care of each other. It's it's part of it, but it's, and it's a lot of fun cooking at home. It's a lot of fun cooking at home.

00;32;04;19 - 00;32;14;15
Paul Sullivan
That's great. Thank you. Tony. I'm looking forward to your next move. I know you literally moving house, but what have you do next? I know it's going to be interesting and exciting. And thank you again for talking to me today.

00;32;14;18 - 00;32;21;13
Tony Maws
Oh my God, thank you. And I look forward to seeing this incredible podcast and website of yours continue to grow. It's it's really been fun to watch.