The Uncommon Path of Sam Buffa

Bond Street

You’ve had a pretty varied career. How do you think your experience in fashion marketing helped you in your current endeavors?

Sam Buffa

You know, I sort of came up through retail in general and I think in customer service and sales and any sort of marketing in general you’re working with people and trying to create experiences and environments and all that sort of stuff. In New York, I think a lot of us have done so many different things and as you look back-20/20 hindsight-it makes sense at a certain point.

Bond Street

Did you ever have anyone mentoring you or guiding you along the way?

Sam Buffa

Yes. I’ve definitely been fortunate to have friends that I’ve met along the way that are other business owners, like my partner Will [Tigertt] or ex-partner Tavo [Somer] from Freeman’s Restaurant. They had opened Freeman’s before me and were in the life cycle of being entrepreneurs ahead of me obviously and so they were great people to learn off of. One of my best friends that I met after opening the first barber shop was a gentleman named Zeb Stewart who owns Union Pool and Café Colette and Hotel Delmano; he’s also been a great resource.

I think what’s great about New York-and I think Brooklyn even more so-is that there’s a great group of entrepreneurs that have been opening restaurants and bars and retail throughout the years that don’t see each other as competition, which I think is obviously the way it should be, but it’s also kind of rare.

Bond Street

I wonder why that is-the difference in comradery between Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Sam Buffa

I think that-especially originally-going into Brooklyn there weren’t as many people doing it and so maybe that’s changed now, maybe there is a sort of older guard. But I think that it’s kind of like: “Oh, you’re doing this thing that I’m doing and I’m happy to have someone else out here.”

Bond Street

What do you look for in your business partnerships?

Sam Buffa

It’s really hard to know going in, but you want someone that is going to grow with you through the good times and the bad. When you’re jumping into a new project it’s fun and exciting and everything is positive, but it doesn’t last forever. Being a small business owner you go through so many ups and downs that having a partner that has a positive outlook and a realistic outlook throughout those times… that’s the most important. It’s nice when you have someone that you can also hang out with and grab a drink with, but it’s even better on a day-to-day basis if you’re able to see eye-to- eye.

Bond Street

So what drove you from barber shops to restaurants? I mean they seem, at least on the surface, dramatically different.

Sam Buffa

Yeah, hair and food should never mix.

Bond Street

Don’t ever open a hair restaurant.

Sam Buffa

Yeah. I mean for me, I always wanted to open a restaurant or a bar. Ever since I was a little kid, it’s been something that I was fascinated with. When I opened the barber shop I was, at that time, looking to open a bar or a restaurant or a café, but it seemed like something that was obviously a little bit more difficult. It also didn’t seem that unique. When I started thinking about the barber shop originally, it really was that there was this lack of that type of service at the time.

The restaurant had always been in the back of my mind. When I met my girlfriend, she happened to be a chef and I always knew that if I was ever going to do a restaurant, I needed to do it with someone who had many years of experience. My process, in a lot of ways, is finding the space and creating the space. I do have all the interiors, all the design-and-build, and so finding someone that I can partner up with that can do the day-to-day [business] is very important.

Bond Street

Just how important is the the design of a space to you-creating environments for customers?

Sam Buffa

For me, it’s huge. The second you walk into a place you should have a feeling. From that point, it’s up to us to add to that. Hopefully, with the spaces that I design, the room brings a level of comfort and puts you at ease and makes you feel welcome.

Bond Street

What are your expansion plans for Fellow Barber and Vinegar Hill house?

Sam Buffa

With Fellow Barber, we just opened a new shop in San Francisco over the summer so we have our second location out there, and we’re looking to open a few more in New York sometime next year. We’re always looking. It’s obviously becoming a little bit harder to find the right rent. We’re still a service business and you can only do so many haircuts.

With Vinegar Hill, we signed a lease and we’ll be opening a new location in the Empire Stores, which is a new development in Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is right off of Dumbo. It’s an amazing building. It’s actually been vacant for 60 years– it’s like a hundred-thousand square-foot footprint, six stories tall. SoHo House is going to be on the roof doing the beer garden. We’re going in there, Shinola’s going in there, a bunch of other restaurants. It’s an exciting project, and our first big push after seven years of business.

Bond Street

How have you approached financing in the past and what drew you to Bond Street specifically?

Sam Buffa

We’ve done financing through credit cards. We have our bank that we work with. Obviously the main reason that we’re drawn to Bond Street is that going through a bank is very difficult, especially for a restaurant. Restaurants are notoriously not bankable even when you have six, seven years’ experience, which can be frustrating. With Bond Street, they obviously see the opportunity and see that we have a great cash-flow business-and so, why not lend.

We’ve done banks, credit cards, we’ve taken on partners and stuff like that. With Vinegar Hill house especially, we have a great team and we’re excited to be able to do the next project with Bond Street as the main finance partner and not need to go out to new partners. It’s very rare when you’re able to find great people that you can work with over an extended period of time so we’re excited to keep that partnership whole.

Bond Street

What’s the biggest challenge NYC restaurant owners face?

Sam Buffa

As a restaurateur, I think the biggest challenge is the competition, in addition to staying unique enough to draw in new business while still being able to service your local customers. And so I think it’s about staying current but also staying true to what you do at the core and not latching onto all the trends. With the restaurant business, it is very tough to just keep your food costs down, your staffing costs down. If any of these variables move either way into a different percent, they make a big difference. It’s really about minding the balance sheet every single day.

Bond Street

When you first got into the restaurant business what was the learning curve, the growing pains?

Sam Buffa

For Vinegar Hill, it was interesting because we were actually insanely successful for the first year. We thought no one was going to come and within two weeks we were way over capacity. We were always just trying to stay ahead of the curve.

For the first three months we couldn’t order enough food. It was like “Okay, this week we’re ordering this much food for the weekend and there’s no way we’re going to sell out of the pork chop or the chicken or whatever.” Then that weekend we would literally sell out on Saturday, and Sunday. So, we weren’t really nitpicky about every little detail in the beginning because we had this great ride.

Then, year five and six, we were still busy but rent goes up, your payroll goes up, your staffing and food cost… you have this realization that the people are still coming through the door but you’re not making as much money as you used to. You’ve got to go line by line and really see if you need to pay for a certain service or not. It can get away from you really quick. I think as a small business, you only have so many people–between myself and the main managing partner-that can really look at everything on a day-to-day basis. At the end of the day, you don’t have a big network or a big stack of people that’s really making sure that everything is super, super tight so it’s important to stay on task.

Bond Street

What are the secrets creating an enduring restaurant? You guys have been open for a substantial amount of time, especially for New York where everything changes so quickly. What’s the recipe there-the magic?

Sam Buffa

I think that’s always hard to put a finger on, but I think that we’re in a unique location and that was definitely one of the reasons we were drawn to putting a restaurant there. It’s sort of a magical little street that actually hasn’t changed. The food at Vinegar Hill House also hasn’t changed. You have to keep the product a certain quality. My partner is a chef, and it’s very important to her that the food taste exactly the same as it did, if not better, from the last time you came in.

Bond Street

Back to Fellow Barber. What determines what markets you’ll look to break into?

Sam Buffa

For us, it’s really important that we’re in a neighborhood with a type of clientele that is professional, but creative. We have guys that seek us out from all over the city, but we do best in neighborhoods that are more downtown and with more creative types. It also needs to be a neighborhood that people live in and work in. It’s important that there’s a great office community on a day-to-day basis, but also a thriving weekend community.

Bond Street

You guys were really at the forefront of this grooming thing. Do you have new challenges facing the business now that there’s more competition in the market?

Sam Buffa

I think the competition is great. When I first opened the original shop, there literally was no one else that had elevated the idea of the barber shop. It had been stagnant for 30, 40 years, if not more. I love that we’ve been at the forefront of really pushing the craft and elevating the price point.

When we first opened, we charged $40 a haircut. Now, we charge $45. It’s become a new norm for a men’s haircut. In the beginning, at a barber shop, it was $15, $20. We kind of single-handedly doubled that price, and we’re really proud of that. Now, we have the opportunity to bring the whole industry along.

At the same time, I think it’s very important for us-and I hope with the other shops that are opening up- to really put a lot of time and effort into training. Unfortunately, the barber school system is pretty antiquated and it hasn’t changed for 40, 50 years. It’s on us to up the game of the craft.

Bond Street

What inspired the creation of Fellow Barber’s in-house line of products?

Sam Buffa

We developed the product line out of necessity. There’s a lot of great products that are starting to come out now, but when we first opened, most guys were still buying their products at Duane Reade, getting these antiquated products that are generally cheap and pumped with a lot of different chemicals. We really wanted to create something that was not only for the home, but also really for professional use. At the end of the day, all of our products were really developed in-house by the barbers, for the barbers, so that the guys when they do get home they can continue the look that they were able to achieve in the chair.

Bond Street

Final question. What’s the best piece of advice that you would give someone considering starting their own business?

Sam Buffa

It’s sort of a tough one, but I think it’s finding something that feels right for you and making sure there’s a need for it in the market. A lot of people go into a business because it’s something that they feel very passionate about, which is great, but I think it’s important to find something that is actually needed in the space, as well, whether it’s a restaurant or retail or whatnot. At the end of the day, there’s a lot of great people doing a lot of great things. If you can find something that’s unique or needed, it’s just going to make your life a lot easier.