Explore Gardy Desrouleaux's journey in the Food Retail Industry

Thanks for inviting me.

A lot comes to mind. Primarily, my parents are immigrants. They’re from Haiti. I’m an American but 100% of the time I get asked where I am from. I tell them I was born here, but I don’t fit in that community and then I don’t fit in the Haitian community as well. So how do you make that work? You have to create your own roots.

I grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts. I was born in Brighton, but my parents found a home in Brockton and made it home. I went to Brockton High School, had a lot of success. My parents were right. 

Growing up in Brockton was extraordinary. A lot of times people ask me what it was like growing up in Brockton but we were sheltered, we didn’t see any of the troubled times in our community at that time. There was something in my life that was working, but I was super popular and I had a lot of friends, and everything was going so great within those walls. I was playing basketball, track team, and volleyball. It was an extraordinary time period. I also got involved in music on top of that, a jazz band. It was a dope time. I went to Brockton High. I wanted to be a pediatrician at that time but during that high school time, I was blessed to meet someone from a big restaurant. It was the Cheesecake Factory, the biggest Box restaurant you could probably meet. I was given the opportunity, and I decided to become a host. Really quickly, I went from host to classroom facilitator, skipped a bunch of steps, just because I was having fun and I bought into that culture. – Gardy Desrouleaux

I ultimately went to Florida Atlantic University.

So I had to make a decision whether I was going to commit to Cheesecake Factory or commit to becoming a pediatrician. My parents were both in the healthcare field but it didn’t resonate with me anymore. There was something pulling me and calling me. So, I doubled down and went 100% of my time at the Cheesecake Factory. I was extremely young, but extremely successful really, really quick.

Absolutely not. Well, one of the biggest things about challenging your parents’ thought process is first, being able to understand where they come from and kind of the confinements that exist there. So, they’re confined to a few things. They are uprooted from where they come from so they have to go ahead and assimilate and the assimilation may not have been the way that they imagined it. You have to kind of understand that they have their best interests for you at heart but at the same time, you’re trying to figure things out for yourself. Remember that you know nothing. That’s kind of the assumption you have to take. I didn’t take that assumption. I thought I knew everything. It was a constant battle of trying to help them understand that it was not for me. But eventually what had to happen was a definitive decision. That’s what you gotta have, the faith that you’re going to make it. So I took that step. I even moved out and I had stability with the Cheesecake Factory enough to do that. – Gardy Desrouleaux

It was , it was a big, big moment because I was doing well. I can study, I’m a personable person but the decision was made feeling that I was at home in the hospitality industry. So when I made that decision, it rocked everyone, personal friends, my parents, and family. So it took a few years of figuring it out because, again, it’s not just the job, it’s it’s life in general. In life you have to figure out what affects the job as well. So when you make that decision, you’re not making that decision just for the job, you’re making that decision for your entire life. You have to map out the entire thing. – Gardy Desrouleaux

Oh, man. I was 18.

Joy. So everybody knows that when you wake up in the morning, there’s only three things you can be: you can be glad, you could be mad or you can be sad. But you have to choose one of those three. it’s easy to be mad and then change from that. you have to eventually become glad because there are points in your day. So the difference between being glad or happy is that the opposite of happiness is sadness. Everybody understands that. But what’s the opposite of joy? It’s depression. So if you are rocked at your core, then you’re going to have a difficult time getting to wherever you need to get. But if your core is stabilized and you find joy, then things are going to be okay. People don’t have to be pessimistic. They choose to be pessimistic. So that optimistic approach opened doors. So at the time in The Cheesecake Factory, different leaders from different divisions saw that. So ,they invested and they took the time to invest in me because they didn’t see closed doors. I just asked questions, I wanted to read things, I wanted to know. – Gardy Desrouleaux

The Cheesecake Factory was unique because they tried to hide a lot of, they layered a lot of the things that would be normally innate in the hospitality industry. They did a phenomenal job creating foundations, foundational values. so that’s what resonated. you needed to give a virtual hug to people and you could do that with your words. I can give you a physical hug or I can give you a virtual hug and they did a fantastic job consistently giving you a virtual hug and right. That resonated with me because again, I was not a depressed human being. I was a joyful human being. I wanted to spread positivity, not knowing how to define that being so young. But today, when I look back, that’s what the foundation was.– Gardy Desrouleaux

There were personal matters that needed resolution with my parents, which threw me for a loop. So I was on the up and up; everything was going great. And then came the news that, within my family, an adoption was happening. This created a level of depression in my life. I couldn’t uphold the same foundations I thought I had. Looking around, I needed a massive shift. So I left the country. I left everything I knew. Didn’t know the language or anything like that. Ended up in Germany. When I arrived, it was an extraordinary change of pace. There was a wonderful article published about how different parts of the US were being repopulated because there weren’t enough people there. Germany was doing similar things. I was fortunate that they subsidized a business idea I had, despite not knowing the language or anything else. It provided a foundation for me to start over in a new country, specifically for a software company.– Gardy Desrouleaux

Not even close. I was just reading, and felt like I could do that. So, I was able to partner with a bunch of software engineers and they built the software and we were very successful.

Well, I think all in all, in every community, there are opportunities, whether it’s in government, grants, or anything like that. You have to be able to Google. I Google a lot, right? You start reading. Start reading what’s available. You’d never know. There are government contracts, military contracts that are available to just you and me. But nobody thinks of going and looking. You have to look for these things. So in Germany, it was amazing to see this program that just came out of the blue. It was available to anyone in Germany, or even outside. My day-to-day involves a lot of Googling. Because I didn’t know the language, I would walk around and ask people what they did for a living and let them know, “Hey, I’m American. I don’t know your language, but I want to learn.” So they would converse with me to help me learn the language. Something as simple as that. And I met someone who was extraordinary. She invited me to church. I gave my life to Jesus, and it started a whole different path of understanding for me.– Gardy Desrouleaux

So it started clicking as to why I had a foundation of joy. I began to understand why I had this outlook on life. I discovered that I was loved, and because I felt loved, there was no vacuum.  didn’t look for anything to love me anymore because I felt love.

It has to be somebody different. They’re not enough because they’re human, right? They make mistakes and say the wrong things all the time. But that basic act of forgiveness can’t come from them. You know, love is kind. Love is patient. And so once you understand those intricacies, then you realize that you are enough through God, through Jesus, for me.- Gardy Desrouleaux

So I went back home in 2017. It was time to return. I met my wife. So after meeting Jesus, I met my wife, and I had kids. It happened so quickly. I met her in Germany. I met her in March, proposed in April, and we got married in September. It was wild. Then, my wife thought it was time for us to leave. She’s from Germany but had never left the country. So we came back to the States, and I wanted to re-enter the industry and see whether it was still the same? Could I still do it? So I partnered with local restaurants. I opened local restaurants, and it worked. One of the basic things about being joyful is being amazed when people notice that about you. So I had a vendor in one of my restaurants who suggested I meet someone he knew. He thought we needed to meet and create a restaurant concept. So I met Doug, and he was the most electrifying person you’ll meet, the most composed, and he loves people as much as I love people. So it was fireworks. We didn’t talk about our backgrounds or anything like that. We just talked about our love for people. And right there, we knew a partnership had to be forged.– Gardy Desrouleaux

So you lay a lot of seeds. When you lay seeds, it’s life or death, if you speak negatively, you’re laying seeds of death. If you speak positively, you lay seeds of life. Doug was someone you could tell laid so many positive seeds. So you go back years and meet people, and you realize those same people still love him today. That’s what happened. So he had a high school friend. You meet people in high school, and you don’t know where they’ll end up. But this high school friend owned property and was successful. Because of his interactions with Doug back then, he decided to give us an opportunity to open a little test kitchen in one of his locations. That’s what launched all of this – the fact that he laid the seed way back then. The friend gave him an opportunity, and then we had this little test kitchen. That test kitchen put everything into perspective for us. He is a dreamer. Doug is a dreamer. He dreams up wonderful and amazing things. I’m the operational guy; I’m more interested in the numbers and that test kitchen allowed us to dream.- Gardy Desrouleaux

So the original dream – and I’ll share this because you have to be able to pivot. Back when I was with Cheesecake Factory, what was pretty amazing is that during the recession, they really put me through the ringer. They were very communicative about what was happening and how they changed things, which set us up for Covid. I knew you can’t stay the same after going through something like that. You have to innovate and be faithful to your thought processes. So the foundational thought process remained the same, but the functional thought processes needed to change. With Doug, we knew what we had and what we needed to do. When Covid hit, we needed to adapt. The original thought process was that we would focus only on office buildings. Many businesses have cafeterias, and we wanted to transform these cafeterias into food halls. Initially, we aimed at amenity locations – places that catered exclusively to their team members or employees. However, Covid showed me that this approach wouldn’t work because everyone was working from home. Why invest in a $1 million cafeteria if people aren’t there? So drawing from all my experience, we shifted our focus to retail locations – open to the public where anyone can come in.– Gardy Desrouleaux

It’s different for everyone. Doug’s wife is extraordinary as well; she handled the accounting side of things. They come from a different background, particularly quick service restaurants, which operate on a completely different model. So I basically had to build it and demonstrate to them. The initial conversation was not fruitful. We didn’t write anything down; it was all in our heads. We assessed what would work and what wouldn’t because we were bootstrapping everything. We were fortunate to have a foundation, relying on credit cards and things like that. We had to do it all on our own.– Gardy Desrouleaux

A few small entrepreneurs can simply say, with $10,000, you can open up a business, and it’s true. But what about the second $10,000, right? So you have to make sure that you’re ready to take those hits. Our initial thought process was figuring out what we can achieve without going hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt. We’ve already experienced in the past what happens when you bring in venture capitalists—they take control, and you can’t run operations the way you want anymore. So we laid all our credit cards on the table. Then, pay back those credit cards. You have to be straightforward with your landlords. If you have a foundation of joy and faith that opens doors, you can have transparent conversations with your landlords and ask if they can agree for a few months of free rent or maybe years? It might be a hundred no’s at first, maybe even a thousand. But once you get that first yes, take advantage of that.- Gardy Desrouleaux

We were blessed to receive a ‘yes’ sooner. Yes, there were only a couple of no’s. The one ‘no’ indicated they believed in the project, but they could get higher rent from other operators. The rejections were quite serious.

It was in Waltham, Massachusetts. It wasn’t strategic; they simply gave us a positive answer. We’re so thankful. Yeah, he gave us the initial yes. Because he gave us the initial yes at a time when he didn’t have to; his partners were not in agreement, but he was. He was there for us.

So three things that were extremely important. First, competency. You have to pitch that you’re competent, that you understand the financial ramifications of what you’re doing. If you can’t help them understand that, then they can’t see the path forward, because even though they’re gracious right now and give you that first yes, they still need to get paid back. They still need to see revenue and everything like that. So that’s the first pitch: How does this work? The second pitch is how is it viable? How does it work for the long term? Because they’re not saying yes just for now; this is not an experiment. So what’s the viability? And third, what’s your integrity? That plays a big role.– Gardy Desrouleaux

It’s crucial because the past obviously shapes your experiences and how you handle them. Because if you’re given a little and you fail, how could you be trusted with more? The way we handle the small things reflects how we handle larger ones. So you have to take every step very seriously.

Our company policy is you don’t have to like anyone. You have to love everyone. Our tagline is “love, energy, food” and it helps you understand what we’re all about. Food is necessary. It’s the way you break bread. It’s how you get together. It’s how you make sure you stay together. It’s essential to be alive. Then we have the energy piece, that’s electrifying. Because if you’re having a bad day, someone in your circle needs to hook up with you and recharge you because it is inevitable that you have a bad day. However, the people around you will help you and show you why you should be gracious. The gratitude piece is extraordinary. You’re reminding yourself that these are the reasons why you’re here, and there’s more good than bad. The love piece of it is, that love is patient, love is kind, it’s a long suffering. What are the things that you’re putting into place to ensure that you’re showing love? You have to be the light. So, you get all those things in Craft Food Halls. We have a unique cooking style as well. We sous vide items, which is a temperature-controlled cooking process that was created in France, so we cook stuff underwater. It’s a cool concept.– Gardy Desrouleaux

It’s just the best quality. You can take something that’s tough. Everybody has at least once put a steak in your oven and thought it is the toughest thing in the world because you tend to overcook it or maybe you’re not happy with it. But cooking it sous vide style, it holds all of the flavors in, and the texture is just so immaculate. It’s an amazing cooking style.

In a traditional food hall, you have a bunch of vendors. So the whole thought process is that we want control. We can’t have 100 vendors and not have control over the vibe they bring in. So the next thing is, we have to do it ourselves; we have to be the vendors as well. Doug was a pizza champion master, an extraordinary prodigy. I mean, he was extraordinary. So he created this immaculate crust. Then we strategically put together flavors to ensure culinary excellence. Next, we have our sous vide side, ensuring five-star cooking with immaculate flavors. Then we have our offerings, which include strategic nutrition meeting our standards. It’s a big deal. We’re incorporating things like ashwagandha and using ingredients that are essential for promoting good health. So we create these three elements. Again, Doug is a dreamer; he sees what others are doing and wants to try it as well. He positions it well, and internally, we develop and adjust recipes. My background at the Cheesecake Factory was invaluable because we needed to understand flavor profiles and how to achieve balance. At the end of the day, all the food products that come out are refined with input from our talented team, ensuring they are the best they can be.- Gardy Desrouleaux

You have to be careful because they have to be bold in flavor. They have to be true to what you’re doing, but they also have to be cost-effective. In this community right now, prices are being driven so high. You have to be very selective about the ingredients you choose. You want the best quality ingredients, but you don’t want to charge people prices that they can’t afford.– Gardy Desrouleaux

It’s a couple of distributors, actually three main distributors that we’re utilizing. But we don’t have a concept that focuses on locality because of our vision to grow beyond our local area. We aim to be present in every community, so we prioritize maintaining consistency across all locations.

For us, it’s about creating an environment where people can heal. The hospitality industry is filled with immigrants who just want to support their families locally and abroad, often facing mistreatment that’s hard to understand. We wanted to create a place where those in hospitality feel valued, offering a new perspective on the industry. if they were already in the hospitality industry, then they come here and they have a whole different vision of the hospitality industry. If they haven’t been in the hospitality industry, they’re getting assimilated. So what we promote is self-confidence. This empowerment extends beyond our walls, helping immigrants advocate for their children in schools. That’s how we do it. They know that we love them. We just don’t have to like them. I don’t have to like the food that they like. I don’t have to like the drinks that they like, the movies that they like, the sports that they like but I have their back. So that foundation creates the love, the reciprocal love and they’re looking to do things the way that we ask them to do it.- Gardy Desrouleaux

Well, we focus on mercy versus guilt. So in the guilt aspect, it’s about focusing on what you did wrong, getting written up, and so forth, which distances you from a relationship. Mercy identifies the mistake, acknowledges it, and promotes forgiveness. So team members always know where they stand with leadership, whether hourly or salary team members. My director levels always know how and where they stand with me because we don’t do annual reviews, for example. How can I tell you how you did in February come December? It doesn’t make sense. Instead, we have daily reviews where we connect daily and ensure everyone understands their current status. Team members don’t go home questioning themselves. For instance, we have a no sarcasm policy because sarcasm always comes from a negative place, no matter the context. In Boston, sarcasm is common, but it can leave team members replaying negative feelings rather than remembering exact words. With our foundation, everyone stays on the same page. While mistakes happen, such as forgetting a policy or rule, we immediately communicate transparently so they don’t feel a grudge. We show mercy rather than guilt.– Gardy Desrouleaux

Well, fundamentally, you have to learn to let go. If you can’t delegate, then you won’t be successful in the scalability of things. We have ambitious goals—we aim for a thousand locations. That’s what it is. In order for that to happen, you must delegate. So as I mentioned before, my team is constantly communicating with each other, ensuring everyone understands and aligns with the vision. Once the vision is set, it’s their responsibility to uphold it. If you refuse to delegate and let go, then you can’t grow.– Gardy Desrouleaux

So it’s interesting you mention that because I often advise my partner Doug to slow down, take a look and take it in. He is in a different stage of his life. He and his wife Melissa have been through a lot. My commitment to them is to ensure our partnership drives success forward. However, when you’re going 100 miles per hour, you also need to put gas in the car sometimes. So take a moment and take a look. That realization hit me after Covid struck. We opened our second location on October 17th, 2020, in Lexington. It was then that people in those communities bought thousands of dollars in gift cards and never used them. That’s when we realized we had created something special because people identified with our mission, vision, and values.– Gardy Desrouleaux

My first and foremost responsibility is my family. I’ve been married for ten years and have three children—a nine-year-old, an eight-year-old, and a five-year-old. They are my top priority. My wife home schools our children, which makes her an entrepreneur in her own right, ensuring their stability, growth, and well-being. We start our day with prayer, high fives, and gratitude for our blessings. Then, I transition to ensuring I’m balanced for my team by catching up on emails, reports, and other tasks. I make my initial calls to the top leadership of my team to check in on how they’re doing because their well-being directly impacts their ability to support their teams. I also fulfill my community responsibilities, including serving on the Waltham and Lexington Chamber of Commerce, the board for the American Diabetes Association, and the tourism committee for Lexington. Additionally, I mentor entrepreneurs through programs at a bank and Commonwealth Kitchen, assisting them with financials, business plans, and PNLs. Everything gets filled this way. I’m highly involved in my church, I have to communicate with church leadership and whatever their needs are, and make sure I’m available to support growth and stability needs. We just have to be active and strong parts of the community as a whole. Then I’m checking around and making sure that I’m up to speed on innovation and information, to make sure that I’m a proper resource for the people around me.– Gardy Desrouleaux

Actually, it varies by season. During opening seasons, you have to ensure you’re available. My wife is understanding and gracious about last-minute plumbing and details that have to be orchestrated. My team is solid enough to handle everything during such openings, like when we opened our Austin location followed by our Boxborough location three weeks later, and now preparing to open our Cambridge location in two weeks. So this demands a lot of my time but in normal seasons, I try to be home by five.- Gardy Desrouleaux

One of my biggest realizations has been that when you give a little, you must do it well to be entrusted with more. Throughout my journey, I’ve learned what true leadership means. Is it kind and gracious? Are you able to reciprocally give time to each other? It cannot involve any form of abuse or even feel like it. When considering the time you give, it’s crucial to be guided and aware. In today’s community, we see extremes—from past generations who lacked communication and took their aggression out on other people, to today’s generation that often wants everything handed to them and personal time. However, not everything can revolve around personal time. Within our organization, we emphasize life-life balance, not just work-life balance. This means understanding that your day is significant. What are you contributing to it, and what is it contributing to you? It must be mutually beneficial. It cannot be one-sided, with the organization giving everything while neglecting your personal well-being. If you’re a mother or a father or dealing with personal issues, the organization must show empathy and support. If they only view you as a dollar figure and fail to see your mental health and overall well-being, they do not value you as they should. You deserve to be loved and appreciated by your employers and they deserve that in return.– Gardy Desrouleaux

You need to approach life with an open heart, recognizing that your perspective isn’t the only one. There are multiple viewpoints, and even if you disagree, the key is to commit. Commitment is crucial; you might not agree on everything, but choosing to commit is what matters most. Transparency is equally important. Everyone goes through tough times, and it’s okay to have had dark days—you’re forgiven for that. However, it’s essential to be transparent about how you’re progressing and where you need support. Financial transparency is also crucial because not everyone has everything figured out, and financial literacy isn’t universally taught. Therefore, it’s vital not to misrepresent metrics or pretend to understand things you don’t. This transparency is lacking in the hospitality industry, where many haven’t been properly educated. Simply put, honesty about your situation is essential.– Gardy Desrouleaux

I view hospitality as a calling. You are either called to it or you’re not. Unfortunately, due to the damage done on hospitality over the years, people have forgotten that it is indeed a calling. When considering the current vision of hospitality, it’s all about what you want from it and what you put into it. Its essence should be about joy, happiness, love, and similar qualities. So, how do you contribute to your ecosystem to cultivate these aspects of hospitality? I view hospitality as one of the most amazing workplaces or places to work in the world. It creates connectivity. It creates passion, it has artistry, It is extraordinary. It can’t be considered anything less than a calling.- Gardy Desrouleaux

I say, make sure you find people who can support your faith. Again, optimism opens doors. So you have to find people, whether they’re in your hometown or far away, who can support your faith. You have to be willing to do the things necessary to establish a foundation, because it is not true that you have to spend 400-500 years building something. You can spend one year building something, but you have to have the right intentions in doing it. So, do it.– Gardy Desrouleaux

That you’re loved, that you’re important, that you’re special, that you were made intentionally. That means every part of you is appreciated and loved and perfect.

This was fun. You’re awesome. Thank you for inviting me.