Nick Liberato helps owners find success on Netflix’s ‘Restaurants on the Edge’
We’ve all been to them: Overpriced, mediocre restaurants that seem to get by because of their great view or waterfront location.
They’re generally known as tourist traps and diners in the know tend to avoid them. As words gets out and business falls off, their owners become desperate. That’s where Nick Liberato comes in.
On his series “Restaurants on the Edge,” currently streaming its second season on Netflix, the Philadelphia native, entrepreneur and former host of “Bar Rescue” comes in with an outsider’s perspective and helps frustrated restaurateurs make tweaks large and small to their businesses in the hopes of turning them into successes.
In Season 2, he’s doing that in places such as Slovenia, Arizona, Finland, Hawaii and St. Croix.
“I hate to call it a hack mentality,” he says, “but I think people get more comfortable because of the location they have because they feel like they’re selling real estate as opposed to just really enjoying giving an experience to a guest. You know, it’s the difference between someone calling the people that come through their door a guest or a customer. It’s a personal thing and that’s why people return to businesses.”
In each episode, Liberato, interior designer
Karin Bohn and chef Dennis Prescott go into these business and offer their culinary, business and design expertise to transform not only the eatery but the owners’ outlooks. To do this, they’ll tap into the locales and create decor and cuisine that’s copacetic with the restaurant’s surroundings. So in a place like St. Croix, for instance, they’ll use light, beach colors for the interior and make the menu heavy on local seafood, things the owners weren’t doing.
It’s what Liberato calls connecting with the locals and it’s one of his mantras.
“It’s definitely a vibe or whatever you want to call it,” explains Liberato, who also helps businesses in distress in his own concern, 618 Hospitality, “what someone feels when they walk into a place so it’s important to make sure everybody’s connecting on a certain level, from the lighting to the music to the aromatics to everything that you see in the place, the textures. And that’s what I’ve always tried to do. And by going out into the surrounding communities, you’re able to see what reflects on the environment.”
“You know, I had the best of times in the littlest nooks and crannies in cities all over the world,” he continues, “and it’s only because the people care, because it’s unique, it’s a unique experience and they’re doing something cool. They’re innovative and they have integrity. And that’s what I look for in people that I hire. That’s what I always strive for myself, to just be better, and that’s when you’re going to have a successful business.”