What’s the recipe behind some of the world’s most-successful partnerships? Why do some flourish while others fail disastrously? In their dual memoir, “Black, White and The Grey: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant,” co-owners Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano detail how a Black chef from Queens and a white media entrepreneur from Staten Island built an award-winning restaurant in Savannah, Ga., called The Grey. Theirs is a masterclass on building a company while bridging biases on race, class, gender and culture in the heart of the Deep South. In this episode of the podcast "The Next Chapter" by American Express Business Class, Bailey, Morisano and host Cardiff Garcia explore the coveted ingredients needed to forge a powerful alliance.
What’s the recipe behind some of the world’s most-successful partnerships? Why do some flourish while others fail disastrously? In their dual memoir, “Black, White and The Grey: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant,” co-owners Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano detail how a Black chef from Queens and a white media entrepreneur from Staten Island built an award-winning restaurant in Savannah, Ga., called The Grey. Theirs is a masterclass on building a company while bridging biases on race, class, gender and culture in the heart of the Deep South. In this episode of the podcast "The Next Chapter" by American Express Business Class, Bailey, Morisano and host Cardiff Garcia explore the coveted ingredients needed to forge a powerful alliance.
Cardiff: Having a business partner can be a deeply rewarding experience, especially if you’re starting a new company. But choosing the right partner, and developing the right working dynamic with that partner, is one of the toughest and most important challenges that an entrepreneur can face. Well today, I'm speaking with two people who pulled it off when they found each other. And they did it to break into one of the hardest industries to succeed in: restaurants.
Hi, I'm Cardiff Garcia, and welcome to The Next Chapter by American Express Business Class. In each episode we are introducing you to a bestselling book that everyone in the world of business can learn from. We're going to hear how the author's advice has evolved since they published their work, and what they would write for their next chapter.
For this episode, we're speaking with Mashama Bailey and Johno Morisano, who wrote "Black, White, and The Grey", a book about their experience partnering together to open the James Beard award winning restaurant in Savannah Georgia called "The Grey".
Back in 2013, Johno, an entrepreneur who didn’t know much about restaurants, found Mashama, a chef who had never started a business before, and together the two of them launched The Grey. But building a true partnership did not come easy. It forced the two of them, a black woman and a white man, to navigate complicated issues of class and race. To reconcile their different perspectives. To open up to each other when it was not easy. And to figure out how they would share not only their business responsibilities, but their financial stakes in the company.
I sat down with Mashama and Johno to discuss how they made it work so well, and what goes into finding the right business partner.
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ACT I
Cardiff: Mashama Bailey and Johno Morisano. Thanks for being our guests on The Next Chapter.
Mashama: We're excited.
Johno: Thanks for having us. Happy to be here.
Cardiff: By the way I took that from your book. Thanks for being our guests. See?
Mashama: Oh I see what you did there. I didn't notice, I have to be honest.
Cardiff: I’m learning already.
Johno: It's true though, right? Makes people feel welcome when you talk to 'em about being a guest as opposed to a…
Mashama: A customer.
Cardiff: Or a client, exactly. I wanna start by asking about your approach to storytelling, which is what this book is. And you do something different from what most co-authors do.
Most co-authors essentially agree on one consistent voice. You told this book through alternating passages that included each of your voices. So there'd be long sequences from Johno and long sequences from Mashama. And it was really interesting cuz it created this kind of dynamic tension and it let the two of you be fully yourselves in alternating passages, almost like it was in conversation.
Can you just tell us what was behind the decision to write the book that way?
Mashama: We had to write the book that way. I don't think we could have done it any other way. We tried a first version, we tried to do it more of, this is Johno telling the story of the restaurant and how we became business partners.
And it felt forced and it felt… marginalizing.
Cardiff: Marginalizing because your voice wasn't as included in the first draft.
Mashama: It wasn't as included. My passages were literally going to be published in the margins of the book. I went back and I said, listen, this doesn't feel right.
And I think we all felt that way. And, uh, we decided to rewrite it.
Cardiff: You went to Paris, you holed yourselves up in an apartment, and the two of you together wrote the current version of the book. Johno this idea that you had this whole first draft, and then in conversation with Mashama, you realized this isn't gonna do it.
What were you thinking, you know, in that moment about like, Hey, we have to actually do this all over again?
Johno: Yeah, I think that for me... this is my point of view: Mashama was not fully invested in the book at first.
She was doing it. I don't wanna say as a favor to me, and I don't wanna put words in Mashama's mouth, which is how we ended up writing the book the way we did, because she taught me early on, don't put words in anyone's mouth, particularly her mouth. And I would say like by morning three in Paris, sitting in this apartment finding a rhythm, we were like, oh, this is gonna be hard, but it's gonna work.
Mashama: but it was grueling though, because he had written for, you know, a couple years, yeah, two years. And, and when I got the first version of the manuscript, I was reactionary because I wasn't included really.
So that time in Paris, it just gave us both an opportunity to kind of exhaust ourselves with the feelings that we were getting from reading each other's passages and actually, like ask questions to one another, which made the book even richer because we got a fuller understanding of the perspective from the other person, not just what was on the page, but like, why we reacted the way we did to something that the other one was saying.
Cardiff: Yeah, I've gotta imagine that it brought the two of you maybe closer together because it was almost like a forced communications platform. Right?
Mashama: It was so forced.
Cardiff: You had to talk to each other in explicit terms.
Mashama: It was downright aggressive.
Johno: It was.
Cardiff: Should more people do this, by the way? Should more people who are partners…
Johno: Yes. Yes.
Cardiff: …in business be forced to talk to each other in such a way?
Mashama: The best result of it, I think, is that we didn't really know each other and we were really focused on building a business and that perspective and the guests and the food and the location and the town and you know, Savannah and everything.
And that really took up a lot of our time. And so writing the book we got to understand each other, a lot better. And it could have, I mean, I'm grateful that we actually like each other cuz it could have ruined the partnership.
Johno: No it could have ruined the business. It really could have.
Mashama: You know, because it was very, it was hard, it was grueling.
We had to spend time away from the restaurant. We had to spend time together like getting to know each other really below the surface. And so the book was definitely a conversation that we never had before and we were writing a book about our relationship that we weren't ready for, I don't think.
Cardiff: Yeah. I want to ask a little bit about your careers before you joined up as partners and launched The Grey. Mashama, I'll start with you. You describe yourself as somebody who will start doing something but who gets a little bit impatient after a certain number of years, you want to keep stretching yourself.
And so just to list a few of the things you've done, you've worked in some of New York's high-end restaurants and kitchens. You've worked as a private chef, you have trained in Paris, and you say that like every four years or so, you're like, I gotta do something else. Is there something important in that?
Like is there a lesson in that for how people should not get complacent and should be looking to move on to something new, if they really want to end up doing something special?
Mashama: Oh, absolutely I, I thought it was like a learning disorder for me, but, um, and it probably is, but, I don't think you should be afraid to evolve as a person and afraid to do things that make you uncomfortable.
And I'm finding as I get older, the more that I stretch myself out and sort of take these leaps and I finished this level, you know, and I can move to the next level. So I think what someone could learn from that is what you don't like. You know? Learn like, what you're actually good at.
Cardiff: Yeah. And Johno, something about your background was similar to Mashama is that you tried a bunch of different things in your career as well.
You were a serial entrepreneur. Crucially, something that distinguishes the two of you is that you had no experience in restaurants whatsoever. You knew a lot about food. You knew you liked it and you wanted to start working in it, but this was something totally new for you. So how'd you make that decision?
Johno: Well, I think. For me, reinvention has become an important part of my life, I think. And standing in one place not only seems boring, but I think that if you're gonna have vision for something, and vision's a word that I don't really like because it sounds very haughty and pretentious, but you have to be able to see things in order to execute on them or manifest them.
And so the not standing in place is, really, really important. But I think the thing that I learned from all these different startups that I did over the years is that you have to be fearless. But there is a fine line between fearless and reckless. And I've been both, right? And the thing that you really have to know is what you don't know, and where you need the help.
And I knew that I liked food. I knew that I liked wine. I knew that I loved restaurant experiences. Loved them.
But I also knew that I couldn't execute on a restaurant experience by myself. And that I needed someone who worked in restaurants, who knew the back of house. They didn't have to know it well, because Mashama had never really run her own kitchen. You know, she had never been an executive chef before, but somebody who was willing to sort of go all in with me, so know what you don't know.
And then the other thing is, realize that that costs, like, you know, you have to be able to pay for that and that, and pay for that in equity. Like we're 50-50 partners, right? Because what Mashama brings to the table was and is as valuable as what I brought to the table in terms of an idea for building a restaurant and some of the financing to build that restaurant.
Right? And that's really the secret sauce on this whole thing is that, is that respect between the two of us and what we do well and what we don't do well.
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ACT II
Cardiff: Let's talk about the process of the two of you coming together and joining up as business partners and launching The Grey.
Um, some of my favorite parts in the book were actually before Johno approached you, Mashama, because both of your voices are represented, but Johno, you're having all these conversations with like the designers and some others about what you wanted to do with the space. And occasionally in the book, there's a sequence from, uh, Mashama, where she's like, I wish I'd have been around for those parts of the conversation because come on, look at, they're making all these these mistakes, right?
Mashama: I do, I do.
Cardiff: Um, but it seems like those mistakes were maybe crucial because you eventually realized that you wanted a partner who had a very different background than you, Johno, somebody who didn't come from the same place, somebody who had a different racial or ethnic background as well.
And you decided at one point that you were like, I am gonna find a Black woman chef and business partner, to join me in this venture. Why was that important and why is it crucial for somebody to find others from other backgrounds and not just from the same kind of background as you?
Johno: Okay, so I'm gonna be really honest in my answering of that question. It was a business decision at first. And it was about Savannah being a racially mixed city, you know, majority, Black city and slight minority White city.
And how do we reach that audience, right? How do we reach all of that audience, right? Because we wanted to be a local restaurant, right? That's where I saw the niche when I was figuring this out originally before I met Mashama. It's like, all of the restaurants in Savannah that were doing kind of fine dining, were very, very geared at the tourist community, like the visitors who were coming through town.
And I wanted The Grey to be a local restaurant, a local restaurant for everybody because, you know, the bigger the pool of people who are coming in, the more revenue you can generate.
And so sort of the default answer was, God, if I could find a Black woman to be my business partner in this, then we can really talk to all of Savannah, you know, as peers as opposed to a White guy trying to talk to the White community and the Black community, which I didn't think was possible.
And then the evolution of that was, oh wow, that's something culturally important too. But that was not my first thought. My first thought as a businessman was like, how do we reach a larger audience? And then the culture, and that part of it, frankly, is still unfolding. I think the book was just the beginning of it.
Mashama: Yeah.
Johno: Yeah. And, and our relationship was just the beginning of it.
Mashama: Yeah. I think the cultural part of it is still unfolding and I think that happened a few years in to our relationship that we realized that, you know, this is a cultural conversation in order for us to have the guests in the space that we want to have, this is a cultural conversation. I understand what Johno's saying about it being a business decision at first to, to partner with a Black woman. I think that there's a lot of points in the book where Johno calls me like, guarded or skeptical. And I think deep down inside I knew that it was a business decision and I had to wrestle with that.
Like, okay, do I feel comfortable going into business with a White person that I don't know to open up a restaurant in the south? Is this a business decision for me? You know, so there were some things that I had to wrestle with that, in the beginning of that business partnership.
Cardiff: Finding each other was an interesting process too. One of my favorite parts of the book is actually Johno when you're talking to, I think your designers of the restaurant, this was before you'd found Mashama, and you told them, you're like, guys, I want to find a Black woman chef to be my business partner.
And they were like, where are you gonna find one of those?
You know, and then there's a passage from Mashama who's like, guys, we're not unicorns. We're out there. Just uh, do a little work, right?
Mashama: Do a little work.
Cardiff: Um, but I'm, I'm curious about that part of it, of like, when you know what you want in a business partner, actually going out there and finding that business partner, it takes deliberate conscious effort, right? In your case, Johno, you, you had to actually search for Mashama. You ended up being introduced to a mutual friend. Can you kind of give us like some lessons from that process and what people should know about how that works?
Johno: With The Grey, I just felt like the vision for what it could be was clear.
And when I knew that the person who I should partner with looked opposite of me, I just became, and my wife really encouraged this, like, she really did. She's like, you need to now go find that person. You, now you've said it, so don't be lazy about it. If you know that something makes sense as a business person, then you have to make it happen. You have to make it happen. And it doesn't have to be a hundred percent of what you hoped for, but 90 percent's better than 0% or then not trying, you know?
Cardiff: How important is it for business partners to be able to ask each other for help when they need it? And to essentially reveal that there are some things that they're not as good at as the things that they brought and to say hey, I can't actually do this without you, this is where I, I need us to be talking and to be, you know, backing each other up?
Mashama: That's like the holy grail of a business partner.
Johno: Yeah exactly, the most important. Yeah.
Mashama: Yeah, exactly. Like if you can get there, then you're good. Even if you break up as business partners, you're good. Right?
Because you can see it, you're having that conversation mutually, So I think it's very important and I think it took us a while to get there.
But I think if you don't do that, you really start to, there's a division that's going to happen. Um, it's inevitable because you're not, you're sort of keeping secrets. You're not keeping that open communication, and I think that that is probably the most important part about having a, a healthy business partnership.
Johno: I mean, I just agree that's it. It's the number one thing. At this point we literally, there are no decisions that we don't make with each other. I mean, there's day-to-day stuff and you know, like menuing or whatever, but, as we grow the business, there's nothing, like last night we had, we got to town, we had a late lunch, early dinner, and then Mashama and I went and sat in front of my computer because we had a bunch of design decisions and, and visual identity decisions to make on a project we were working on.
And we do 'em together. Like anything that's important we do together. And otherwise, how are you both invested in the process if you're not both invested in the process? It'll just breed resentment.
Cardiff: One of the hardest things that I imagine two business partners have to do is work out the financial arrangement. You know, who owns what part of the business, how much of it, how do you share decision making power?
And originally, two two of you were not equal partners in the equity of The Grey. Johno was the primary stakeholder. But over time you both came to the conclusion that you did need to share ownership equally. So what's your advice here for new business partners who want to construct a relationship that the two of you have now?
Mashama: My advice is to, try to get what you're worth, you know, um, in the partnership, I think.
And I think for me, in the beginning it was like, okay, this is your percentage of the business and this is your compensation for participating in the business. And I think as you become more vested in the business, you have to be flexible in what you're receiving from that business financially.
Johno: Yeah, I mean, I think that when we started out, it was a really traditional financial slash talent relationship, if you put it in terms of like, creative talent.
And it tied us up in knots, I would say, for like five years. Because it was very objective at first, but the more we got to know each other and the more we relied on each other, it became subjective. And the best thing we ever did was just be like, we're 50. We've always been 50-50 from a decision making point of view, but we're just 50-50 partners in this business, so let's just affect that.
Right? Recognize what you don't know as an entrepreneur and recognize that you have to pay for, in equity, in everything for the things you don't know. So you have to be willing to like really accept that as not just a theory, but the practical elements of your relationship, especially when you're business partners.
And if you're not willing to do that, if you're going to worry about equity, then you, you probably shouldn't be an entrepreneur. Like, and I mean that sincerely, like I really do. I think the great entrepreneurs make sure that everybody feels equal in what they're contributing and what they're receiving.
And I think that we were really, really good at that because we never stopped talking about it and we never said, oh, we're, that's it. We're done. Like, it was always a work in progress until we, now we're done. Like there's no other place to go from here, right? And now it's interesting, because Mashama and I did our first deal last year where we're also equal financial partners in the deal.
Right? So that's an interesting sort of development in how we're growing the business.
Cardiff: A willingness to renegotiate the arrangement as you go.
Johno: A hundred percent.
Mashama: As we go, yeah. Yeah, I, I really like what you said there. I think that that was really it. It was like there's an investment that your partner brings and you have to be willing to accept that as an investment and pay for that.
And I think that that part was the part that I had to grow into. Because the idea of being partners in the beginning just didn't feel genuine. It didn't feel a hundred percent, it was just sort of like, okay. You know, um, I just felt like he had more veto power, you know what I mean?
Cuz he had more of an investment. And I think now that we’re 50-50 partners, it's like, it's, it's very black and white. It's very easy for me to understand what my role is.
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Cardiff: You’re listening to The Next Chapter by American Express Business Class. When we come back, I’ll ask Johno and Mashama about what they would write for their next chapter, and we’ll hear Mashama’s thoughts on the benefits of having a nemesis at her former restaurant Prune.
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ACT III
Cardiff: I want to now ask both of you a question that we ask all our guests on this show, which is, now that the book's been out for a little while, given the response to the book and what you've learned in the time since, if you could add one chapter to it, what would that chapter be? Mashama, you wanna go first?
Mashama: No, I never wanna go first. Um…
Cardiff: Johno you wanna go first?
Johno: I, I'll go first. That's kind of our relationship. Um, I, so, when we've, you know, gotten a lot of reviews from the book and I, you know, having been in this business now for a long time, I read every review we get everywhere.
So I've read every review the book has ever received, and you always take them with a grain of salt, right?
Cardiff: I was gonna say, is that a good idea?
Johno: No well, you know, um, as long as you take reviews with a grain of salt, you, you can read them and you can extract nuggets of good information from them. But there was one review that always stuck with me, and it was just like a simple kind of throwaway, a couple of lines. It's like, "It sounds like they didn't have any fun."
Like, it didn't sound like they had any joy during this whole process, so why are they writing this book? And it's like, no, we had a lot of joy like, I would write a chapter called joy, and it would be about what is so fulfilling about this business and like, how it feeds my soul and how it makes me want to get up every morning and go to work.
Because I do think we talk so much about the trials and tribulations of the relationship and the building of the restaurant and the, and the making guests happy and the, the, the conflicts over race and class and culture that we, we do miss some of the joy of it. And that's what I would do.
Cardiff: And maybe the joy is the thing that gets you through all those.
Johno: Yeah, I mean the joy of this relationship. It's like this really, this relationship is the thing that makes this so fulfilling for me personally.
Mashama: That's cool. I didn't think you were gonna say that. He never talks about joy.
Johno: I'm, I'm maturing.
Cardiff: It's there. He’s not talking about it, but it's there.
Mashama: Yeah. Um, I think that I would probably talk more about like the growth between the partnership, like financially, I think. I think I would dive a little bit more into like, how that manifests itself and how we communicate that to the staff and how we're growing the business. um, I think internally.
I think I would add a little bit more of that because I think that for me that's the silver lining of it all. It's like that I’ve become not only, you know, an executive chef, but I’ve become a, a business partner. And I think exploring that a little bit more and having more ownership in that I think was really a result of the book.
And I would like to kind of dive into that a little bit more.
Cardiff: Have a lot of people asked you for advice in, in a similar way that you had sought advice when you were first getting started? Have a lot of people now turned to you and said, oh, you've figured it out. What can I learn from them?
Mashama: Absolutely.
Cardiff: Too many? Is that why you're laughing?
Mashama: No, I've recently just had a conversation with the chef Kenyata Ashford out of, uh, Chattanooga, Tennessee. And, um, he's always sort of like calling me up and saying, listen, I talked to this guy, and he's like, you know, how did it happen with you and Johno?
And so I think that a lot of folks are looking at this partnership and trying to replicate it.
Johno: Yeah and I think it's really, frankly, it's flattering and, I said this earlier, it's not important, but this relationship and this partnership there's something that is a model there, you know, for building businesses that are egalitarian, and equitable and fun, so, yeah, I, I get it.
Cardiff: In the acknowledgement section there's a really interesting quote. It says, "Pro tip, never underestimate the value of a good nemesis." What does that mean?
Johno: That's you sister.
Mashama: They're your, um, I think a nemesis is a motivator.
A nemesis can be a friend, it can not be a friend. Um, but I think they're great motivators. So she's gonna kill me but um, my nemesis is a woman that used to work at Prune with me, and I jokingly call her my nemesis, but she got promoted before I did, you know, came in after me, got promoted before I did.
And I don't even think we were motivated in the same way. It had nothing to do with our relationship or what she wanted for her career or what I wanted, but I was just like, she's my nemesis. And, um, about a year after this whole thing happened, still working at the same restaurant, that's when I met Johno and all these things.
So I kind of wanted the life that she was having at the restaurant, but I also am happy that my path has gone the way it's gone too. So I think people that you consider to be your nemesis can be really motivational.
Cardiff: Great. Yeah. Johno, who's your, who's your nemesis? Who's your enemy?
Johno: I'm from Staten Island, so I have such a chip. I have a chip on my shoulder so big that I just view everyone as my nemesis. Um, yeah. And that's how I go through life.
Cardiff: Fair enough. Excellent.
Mashama: That's how I go through life.
Cardiff: Last question. Somebody tomorrow walks into The Grey. What is one dish on the menu that you're really proud of, that you feel like really represents what, what you offer to the city of Savannah and to the customers?
Mashama: That's chicken country captain for me. It's one of the dishes that we did very early on. It's a Savannah dish. We've elevated it just a little bit. It's really like a braised curry chicken dish, but we've kind of done it in a way that it's just like having a nice roasted piece of chicken, and that's probably one of my favorite things to eat anyway in life. So yeah.
Johno: I will always go with the dish that we really can't make anymore because it was reliant on a specific farmer. We used to call it lettuces and it had a broken anchovy dressing on it, and Mashama just made this delicate, like a Caesar dressing without any of the, um, egg. And the thing that makes it, what do you call it?
Mashama: Emulsified?
Johno: Emulsifies it. So it's just, so she called it a broken anchovy and it was just, to me, Mashama and Savannah on a plate.
Cardiff: Well, Mashama Bailey, Johno Morisano. Thanks so much for this chat. This was, this was a real treat, no pun intended.
Johno: Thank you, Cardiff. This was great.
Mashama: Thank you very much.
Cardiff: You’ve been listening to The Next Chapter by American Express Business Class. A special thanks to Mashama Bailey and Johno Morisano for being on the show today. And please tune in to our next episode where I’ll speak with David Epstein about his book "Range" on the advantages of being a generalist.
Until then, be sure to follow or subscribe on whatever app you may be using right now. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review. Thanks for listening.