What if the customers you’re driving away are exactly why your restaurant works?
Telly Justice and Camille Lindsley built HAGS into one of New York’s most talked-about restaurants by refusing to be for everyone. An 18-seat queer fine-dining room in the East Village, a tasting-menu-only model, pay-what-you-can Sundays, and a point of view sharp enough to repel anyone who doesn’t belong there.
In this conversation, we get into why planting a flag makes you more distinct than your neighbors, why you need eight reasons to be different instead of one, and why scaling a concept means getting it out of your head and into the people you train.
If you’re afraid a strong opinion will cost you customers, this one will change how you think about who you’re actually for.
The Playbook Takeaways
- Planting a flag makes you distinct; being agreeable does not. HAGS is an 18-seat queer fine-dining room in the East Village, tasting-menu only, with pay-what-you-can Sundays and a point of view sharp enough to repel anyone who does not belong. That is precisely what separates it from every neighbour.
- You need eight reasons to be different, not one. A single differentiator is a feature a competitor can copy. A stack of them is a position they cannot.
- Scaling means getting the concept out of your head. A point of view only survives growth once it lives in the people running the room rather than in the founders’ instincts.
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Keep going: restaurant concepts worth building, restaurant marketing solutions that actually work, and how to build a restaurant business plan.
That’s Telly Justice and Camille Lindsley. To learn more about HAGS, visit hagsnyc.com.
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About the Author: Josh Kopel is a Michelin-awarded restaurateur and the host of the Full Comp podcast. He helps independent operators build more profitable, more durable restaurants — more about Josh or learn with Josh.
