It’s been almost 20 years since Death & Co first opened the doors to its New York City bar. For this episode, we talk with partners Dave Kaplan and Alex Day about the bar’s early years, how they’ve managed to succeed for two decades, and the journey that’s led them to open additional ventures in Denver, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and their newest location in Seattle.
Death & Co created a sensation in the cocktail world when it first opened its doors on New Years Eve 2006. As the original New York City location prepares for its 20th anniversary, we talk with partners Dave Kaplan and Alex Day about the bar’s early years, how they’ve navigated two decades of operations, and how Death & Co has expanded to multiple cities including its newest location in Seattle, which opened last month.
Radio Imbibe is the audio home of Imbibe magazine. In each episode, we dive into liquid culture, exploring the people, places, and flavors of the drinkscape through conversations about cocktails, coffee, beer, spirits, and wine. Keep up with us at imbibemagazine.com, and on Instagram, Threads, and Facebook, and if you're not already a subscriber, we'd love to have you join us—click here to subscribe.
Paul Clarke
Hey everybody, welcome back to Radio Imbibe from Imbibe Magazine. I'm Paul Clarke, Imbibe's Editor-in-Chief.
And earlier this year, when we were considering all of the different ways we wanted to observe and celebrate Imbibe's 20th anniversary, we started looking pretty closely at some of the people and places we've covered and gotten to know pretty well over the past two decades. Much like independent magazines, bars frequently function in a world that is at times extremely tough to navigate. Profit margins are typically low, expenses can be high, and there can be an incessant series of obstacles and challenges that always pose a threat to their longevity. So for our current issue, for September-October, we turned our attention to a number of bars across the country that have successfully managed to weather the various storms and to stay open for about as long as Imbibe has been around, or even longer. We've got that feature for you in this current issue, please take a look if you haven't already, and we've got a few excerpts for you online at imbibemagazine.com.
One of the bars mentioned in that article made its grand debut in New York City just a few months after Imbibe's first issue came out. Conceptualized by Dave Kaplan, a newcomer to the cocktail world, Death & Co made a big splash pretty much from opening night. Their starting lineup of bartenders was a who's who list of New York City talent. In the months and years ahead, the bar's reputation grew internationally, via original cocktails like the Oaxaca Old Fashioned and the Naked and Famous, and through a series of books and additional bars in the Death & Co lineup, now open in Denver, Los Angeles, Washington, D. C., and the newest entry, a Seattle location that opened just last month. So how do you not only successfully keep a bar open for 20 years, but also grow and evolve along the way? To answer that question we're chatting today with Dave Kaplan and Alex Day, partners behind Death & Co and longtime friends of the team at Imbibe.
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Paul Clarke
Gentlemen, welcome to Radio Imbibe.
Dave Kaplan
Hey, happy to be here! Thanks so much for having us!
Alex Day
Hey Paul, so great to see you!
Paul Clarke
And you know, this is a magical moment to have both of you on, and I've been looking forward to this for quite some time. It's always splendid to run into you here and there over the years, and now just recently you've gone and opened a bar literally within walking distance of my house, so hopefully this won't be as rare of an occasion anymore. And we're going to get into that here in little bit. But before we do, I'm hoping we can take a little bit of a time travel adventure together. And here's why. All of this past year we at Imbibe have been celebrating our 20th anniversary, and we've been doing lots of things here and there in the magazine and online and on the podcast and so on. And one of the things that we wanted to do and that we put together for the current issue that's out now is to celebrate our relative longevity with bars of a similar vintage. We've got that feature in our current issue, September, October issue, and Death & Co. was included in that from a piece that Robert Simonson contributed. And that's where this time travel aspect comes into play. So Dave, I'd like to start with you. Take us back to that winter night in 2006, New Year's Eve, the final night of the year. What were you doing on New Year's Eve 2006? Can you recall? Where were you?
Dave Kaplan
I can recall. I can recall very well. I was, I ended up spending New Year's Eve in the exact same location for the next 12, 13 years. In fact, I think I was, I was at Death & Co., a tiny little bar that was not yet open really to the public. On 6th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A, we were there with just a few friends. And it was, it was kind of this, this quiet or last internal celebration before we opened up to the public. And, uh, before we opened up to the public on January 2nd, January 3rd, I remember it incredibly well. We had Phil Ward behind the bar. We had John Deragon, and I think Don Lee, and a few other handful of, of, of notable characters that kind of came through that evening. A lot of the early Egullet crew, that helped kind of spread the word about this, this little idea that became a bar that I don't know, who knows what it is now, 20 years later. But yeah, we, we've tried to recreate that celebration every New Year's now. And this New Year's in fact is our 20th anniversary. So I was just on a call this morning talking with our team about what are we going to do and how are we going to celebrate it. And I'm inspired, Paul, by, by you and Imbibe that you're celebrating all year. We're planning on celebrating for five weeks. So between Christmas and New Year's, we'll start our celebration and we'll run it all through January. Uh, yeah, we're, we're really looking forward to it.
Paul Clarke
I think having a 20 year lifespan in publishing is, it just doesn't exist anymore, especially in the food and beverage space, and especially from an independent magazine, you know, where there are only eight of us in the whole company. So, we have been ringing the bell all year long. And I wasn't there in the early days. It took me a while to get to New York and to finally have an opportunity to visit. But I well aware of Death & Co.'s debut all the way out here in Seattle. It was a big, big deal at the time. You know, you mentioned the E Gullet crew being in there at the time. And this is where kids back in the day, E Gullet, this is where all the cocktail nerds hung out. When you look back on that opening, what was your team like? You mentioned Phil Ward and some of the folks. And what was the energy like? And how did it resonate? Not just that opening night, but that first few months, that first year with your guests and with the New York industry at the time?
Dave Kaplan
It was just this sort of energy of possibility. And, and I think of collective blissful ignorance, certainly for me. And I think from, from all of us on the team, but there was a lot of trust in each other within that. What we didn't know, we trusted someone else to know. And, and we really set about figuring things out together on, on a nightly basis. You know, we very early on, or from day one, we had Joaquin Simo in there. We had Jessica Gonzalez who was working the floor and she was kind of the lead on, on our kind of front of house team. We had some, some really phenomenally talented individuals in there, but it was just had this energy of, of sort of looking, looking down or looking just ahead of us at the task at hand because there was so much unknown. I mean, I had absolutely, to be frank, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. And so everyone on the team, we were all kind of helping to figure out the next problem and the next problem and the next problem. And fortunately for us, so much of that excitement and passion was on the product that we were putting out every night. And people were, we're just fortuitously, they were lining up to, to get in, to come in and experience it. And so unknowingly, we had really captured something, I think quite magical that's, that's taken, that took me many years to understand. And that we're still kind of playing with, and as you know, we're, we continue to open up Death & Co's and, and play with what the idea of a Death & Co is in the 20 years since. We're now on our fifth U. S. Death & Co location, just trying to kind of play with the magic and the promise that that is this bar and, and what a team of passionate, unique individuals can, can do when they kind of come together. To figure out unique problems or unique challenges or push each other creatively to, to put more interesting and dynamic drinks out there and whatever that means. And in the early days that did not mean more complicated and still it doesn't mean more complicated, I suppose, but it definitely did not feel like a business back then. I think that's one of the things that changed for sure is, is we, we understand numbers. We understand the balance. I think the really beautiful, creative tension that turning your passion into a business is, but in the early days, it was really kind of a clubhouse of misfits, just trying to figure out how to get through the night service and make everyone's experience, um, exceptional to the best of our abilities.
Paul Clarke
Right. Right. And actually you touched on something I want to follow up on. And that is, you know, we could have similar conversation with many bar owners from all across the country who would open a place in 2006 or thereabouts, but many, many, many of those conversations would eventually culminate with, but then we closed five years later, or they sold the building or everything was fine until the pandemic hit. Here we are almost 20 years later and the original bar, the original concept is still there. Did you think this was going to be a 20-year operation? Did you think this could be a 20-year operation when you first opened?
Dave Kaplan
I could barely see far enough to tie my own shoes. No, I had no idea. You know, when, when we opened, my lofty ambition was to create a great neighborhood bar, you know, full, full stop. And what that meant to me was a place that you really felt comfortable and that time just slipped away. You would sink into the booths and you would have great conversations and connect with friends and loved ones or go on first dates or whatever it was. But it was great food, great wine. In the early days, we had great sake because I love sake. Didn't really hit. People didn't understand. You know, it was really like we, we, we want our love and passion of the product to support our love and passion for bringing people together and human connection. It was not to, to open up many of them or to write books or, you know, and in fact, I remember in one of the early days we hosted when Manhattan Cocktail Classic was still going on, we hosted something at Death & Co. And one of the attendees said, when are you writing a book? And I said, as soon as we can figure out how to run a bar. Like we just, like we had no idea what we were doing. But I think the potential difference or the reason why we've been able to kind of stay around, one is, is we continue to attract phenomenal individuals. And, you know, Alex, obviously my business partner is such a huge reason or a great shining example of that. Alex didn't open the door with me on day one, a bartender there shortly thereafter and soon after he became a bartender, we joined forces and realized that are working together so much greater than us kind of going at this individually. And our love for constantly trying to understand and improve on things just generally. is, is really the driving forces to our continued pursuit of what Death & Co or exploration of what Death & Co is and how it, how it can be improved even if it's within the same four walls that we continue to renovate, update and have look exactly how it looked before. I think we're on complete overhaul and update number four.
Paul Clarke
And Alex, I want to throw it over to you because, you know, as Dave said, you, you weren't there at the very beginning, but you came in pretty soon thereafter. What was it like stepping into that team, that energy, that environment at the time? And how did you see those kinds of early months, those early years of development at Death & Co?
Alex Day
Well, you made a little joke about the Egullet crowd a minute ago. And I was one of those Egullet people. I was trolling around the boards. I wasn't there on the first night, but I was paying attention to them. And, you know, I was working in other bars at the time, but that ambition that Dave mentioned of a great neighborhood bar was one of the attraction points for me. Yes, it was starting to get, I think it was starting to get attention just as it opened. Um, and all these people who had worked at these other bars were there. And so that attracted me to go and check it out. And, you know, I really fell in love with what I think has become kind of the core DNA of Death and Co since, which first and foremost is the guest experience. Like I sat down on bar position one, which, you know, if you walk into Death & Co If you've ever been there, you take a right as you walk in the door. And it's that first bar seat over on the right. And it is the best bar seat in the world that you can see everything behind the bar. You can see the whole room. It's incredible. And Joaquin was working and he was just incredible. The drinks were so good, but it was like, he was just cool. And he was fun to talk to. And he, he nurtured the experience, um, and was excited about it, excited about sharing ingredients or recipes with me. And it just felt really cool. And it didn't feel exclusionary. It felt luxurious, but accessible in a way. And, and that was really exciting. And I left that night and left that experience wanting to work there and eventually, you know, weaseled my way in. And, and what I discovered as I got involved in the team there and working with Phil and Brian and Joaquin and Katie Stipe and, uh, Cabal Tomlinson and, and all these other people in the early days. And there was also a rotating cast of people who were there for like a little bit of time. Like Don Lee worked a couple of shifts, you know, like it was just a wild amount of people in there. But, but, but what was being kind of created at the beginning was kind of beguiling, but, and only recently have we, Dave and I have reflected a lot because this is the 20th year anniversary about those early times. And some of the conclusions we've, we've come to is like, wow, that was, yeah. Like Phil Ward was creating a lot of incredible stuff right at the beginning. The Oaxaca old fashioned, of course is one of his most famous, but so many other ones that are kind of iconic within our company, like the silver monk or the Frisa Brava or the joy division. These like incredible cocktails and Phil was given the conditions by Dave, by Ravi, by this situation that Death & Co. was becoming to create. And then he, because he's Phil, wanted others to create too, because he wanted dialogue with people and wanted to explore and wasn't like gatekeeping anything. So that became the culture of it. So it was about this like really cool guest experience that was very human, but also this environment that allowed creatives to express themselves and gave them the conditions, the resources to do so. And that's like a pretty analytical like description of it right now. It was like, that's kind of like how I view it. And I was like, okay, that is 20 years down the line. That is like ultimately our responsibility of, of stewardship of this thing that Death & Co. has become of, of assuring that those conditions are still there to create a really amazing guest experience. And to allow creativity to continue to thrive.
Paul Clarke
You know, one of the conversations I had with the same issue was with Daniel Shoemaker, the owner of Teardrop Lounge in Portland, Oregon.
Alex Day
Oh, I love Daniel.
Paul Clarke
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, in that conversation, Daniel said something along the lines of, don't ask me what I've done right to keep the bar open for this long. What you need to do is to talk to someone who's had to close a bar. They can tell you exactly what went wrong. When you look at 20 years of Death & Co., you know, I'd hesitate to ask you, what have you done right? You've identified some things, but what have you managed to avoid doing wrong?
Alex Day
We've done almost everything.
Paul Clarke
Yeah. You've stepped in every problem at some point. You just didn't get stuck in it necessarily.
Dave Kaplan
Yeah, that sounds pretty accurate. You know, I think one of the many things that's so great about Death & Co. East Village is that it is a relatively small business and understandable business to wrap your arms around. You know, we're, we're open for a relatively small amount of hours every day, it's one shift coming in, opening and closing the bar. It is, you know, it's in New York. So there's people there that are coming in and we're lucky enough that people are interested, like I said, to come in every day. And so it gave us the opportunity to make a ton of mistakes behind the scenes that ultimately weren't that noticeable to the folks coming in. All the early business mistakes that you could possibly make in terms of not having HR and probably letting, or definitely letting things just go unnoticed or unchecked. the, the culture of drinking on, on your shift or during your shift was just totally normal, you know, all these things that we look at and we're like, man, I would never run a business like that now. The thing that we did have right most of the time and not all the time is we had really good people in there. And I say not all the time. There's some people were like, okay, you're making the staff cry. You can't work here anymore. Like most of the team had really good intentions. Almost almost everyone was there because they really, really, really, they, they really gave a shit. They really cared. They really wanted to do something that they were proud of. they wanted to make the people around them left, right and center proud of what they were putting across the bar as well. So there was this sort of band of brothers mentality that was very, very effective for a very long time. We also had some just accidental phenomenal, positive pieces of the puzzle that as a, as a first time business owner, you rarely have, we had ridiculously cheap rent, really, really cheap rent. And, you know, that wasn't intentional. It was just a space that someone was trying to offload. They finally convinced us that we should take it. You know, we took it, we struck a good deal with them on a key money deal. And, and we built the place with duct tape glue and a couple of guys and no permits and no anything. It was just, it was, it was all that kind of wild west stuff, which of course is part of the reason why we've had to rebuild it. At least the first time that was part of the reason. And then you just realized that you kind of just have to rebuild the bar every few years. But yeah, no, we, we ended up doing a lot of the stuff wrong, almost everything wrong as Alex said, but it was small enough and New York is busy enough. And the few things that we got right were important enough that people kept coming in the door while we figured out how to turn it into a business, what a POS system is and how to get one. Like, you know, literally all the, all the crazy crawl before you walk and then walk before you run mistakes that we probably could have made. We, we definitely made it at Death & Co right now.
Paul Clarke
And I want to talk to you, not just because you're celebrating or preparing to celebrate your 20th anniversary, which, you know, keeping a bar open and running and operational for 20 years. That is an accomplishment in itself. So congratulations there. But also you have managed to grow over, over two decades. You've managed to expand. Now you have Death & Co outposts in Los Angeles, Denver, Washington, DC, and now Seattle, as well as the original East Village location. So you've taken your original concept and looked at taking it further afield. How have you determined what kinds of aspects to keep from the original and what kind of openness and flexibility you need to have in order to make a new venture something totally its own as well? How do you balance that?
Alex Day
Well, I think it comes down to how we view Death & Co. You know, when we opened the second location of Death & Co. in 2018 in Denver, we were forced to re-examine and really look We were able to really examine and really look inward on what was Death & Co. What is Death & Co.? And, you know, we were opening in a very large space that had a lot of windows. Two very different things in the East Village, right? And so you could look at that and say, well, that can't be Death & Co. Because it's not a tiny little intimate room. It's not a tiny little intimate room. Yeah. But we pushed back and really tried to test this theory that Death & Co. was something more than the four walls of its one space.
And so we were able to do that and say, well, we were able to do that and say, well, okay, what would that mean in Los Angeles? Could a Death & Co. there in a different format also reflect its community in the city it lives in? And so what we've done with each iteration of Death & Co. is not only to test that theory and play it out, but to bring it to life in unique ways. So yeah, there are threads of continuity that make a Death & Co. Aesthetically, there are a couple of things that we'd like to put in there. And sometimes that most guests don't even know them, but they're kind of for us or they're, you know, that thing that you can discover if you really, really are paying attention. we've always evolved the design of the space to kind of change and evolve with the times. We have consistently had the menu books physically look the same, but everything inside them is unique to the space. So there is no carryover, typically.
So it's been really important. But what that comes down to is, again, back to that human reality of Death & Co. Like, Death & Co. didn't create all these cocktails. And yeah, Death & Co. is the name on the door, but it's the people that are working there every single day, and the relationships they create, the regulars they nurture, the creations that they come up with that really be. Really make it happen. And we have kept that squarely in sight with each one of the openings so that we try the best that we can to make sure that comes to life anytime a new Death & Co. opens. And then, of course, like the ongoing and the very, very hard work of assuring that that is the reality as it exists.
Paul Clarke
I would imagine that as you continue to grow, as you've added on Washington, D. C. and L.A. and Seattle, that there are folks who are, you know, they're coming in looking for that distinctive Death & Co. kind of experience, but they're also might be looking for something that will remind them or be that touch back to their visit to the East Village or back to other Death & Co. There’s very little carryover in terms of cocktails, but there's some, isn't there? I mean, you know, like I'm looking at the Seattle menu. You have a Naked & Famous. You have certain kinds of things that will kind of call back to other bars. How much do you do that, and how much do you keep the floor open so that each local team can exercise their creative flexibility?
Alex Day
Yeah, and what you just highlighted there is a brand new change for us.
Paul Clarke
Oh, wow.
Alex Day
The Seattle menu is launching kind of quietly a new format, new approach, which still very much embraces for most of the menu, something very seasonal and local from what is being offered the guests and also an opportunity to celebrate and highlight some of our history that we think is worthy of a And in particular, you just highlighted the naked and famous one of Joaquin's drinks. And we, you know, as the world around us and the realities of hospitality and specifically within liquor has changed a lot in the last many years, the opportunity to make drinks as they were created is harder and harder. In often cases, that comes down to cost of goods or even availability or shifts in product style or quality. And we wanted to explore and present to our guests an authentic version of the cocktail as Joaquin created it. And so that cocktail is using Chichicapa versus maybe what we would need to use in a more affordable capacity elsewhere. So we think that's a really exciting thing. Yes, it comes with a price tag to it, but it is there as an option for our guests. And so to kind of more pointedly answer, we want to assure that the menus of Death & Co. retain that sense of local connection and also are now we're experimenting with what some continuity across all of them can be and what the purpose of that is. And tied up in that is, you know, reflection, legacy and celebration of kind of our larger Death & Co. ecosystem.
Dave Kaplan
I also think, you know, a really important Death & Co. at this point is our absolutely massive canon of original cocktails. And so that part of the menu that showcases some of that canon and has continuity between the doors is very new. To your question, Paul, we didn't used to have that every single door was 99% completely unique versus the other door. And that still is the focus of the menu now, just with, you know, the different format that we have. We have the kind of additional elements in there. And I think that's been one of our keys to success because everything that the team puts across the bar and now going forward, most of the stuff that the team puts across the bar will be something they made, their peers made. It is unique to Seattle and it represents the Seattle team from that menu. One of the things that we've heard time and time again over the past years is why so many folks love working for us. And one of the differentiators is, again, that canon. So to be able to celebrate it and showcase it in menus gives our people seemingly is what we've heard and what we're excited about. It gives everyone across from each door to the next a sense of pride and community amongst the Death & Co. folks, you know, to celebrate it and our history while showcasing how unique and individually talented each door is. It's kind of the tightrope walk that we're trying to dance across.
Paul Clarke
And, Alex, you talked about the guest experience a few minutes ago, and I want to come back to the current issue of Imbibe for a moment because something else we did in that I sat down for a long conversation with Ben Dougherty, owner of Zig zag Cafe here in Seattle. Which has been around for over 20 years as well. And as part of that conversation, we talked a lot about bar regulars and their importance to a bar and to its identity and its long term financial stability. Death & Co, you know, you guys in some ways, in some ways, you’re destination bars, you're great for date nights, your special nights out, you know, friends I have here in Seattle who know nothing about cocktails except that I talk about them too much. They are aware of Death & Co. They know it's a big deal that the Death & Co is opening in Seattle. When you look at your experience for guests coming in, yes, you want to give these, you know, kind of first timers or occasional folks a great experience, but how do you keep guests coming back? How do you make sure that you're taking care of and cultivating guests that will be like maybe your weekly or more than weekly regulars?
Alex Day
The short answer to how to do that is to assure that cocktails aren't the only reason that people are coming. That they are coming for a lot of different reasons to a bar. We are a bar after all. And yes, in especially when we're brand new, there is a lovely honeymoon period where people are exploring. They want to check it out. That is one of the most exciting and terrifying moments of opening a bar because we are introducing ourselves and we need to make a great impression. And part of making a great impression, I think, is living up to the things that aren't And that is everything around the hospitality experience. How we greet people, how their experience is if they have to wait for a table or wait for bar seats, how we bring them back, how we welcome them as they sit down, how we give them a start to finish experience, which really harkens back to that original moment of reflection I had. I shared with you about my first time at death and co early on was it was an experience from start to finish from, from the front door to sitting down to that first glass of water on through the cocktails. Cocktails I had. There was an arc to it. And when we lean into that and we as professionals and our team leans into that and really enjoys and takes satisfaction in that, that's when we really start building bonds and connecting with people. And through that connection, we start building trust. And with trust comes repeat engagement with which comes with deeper connection. And that's where regulars form. And also with a level of respect to what the two way street of a guest and bartender or server dynamic is, is so powerful over our entire career, our regulars, the people who are on the other side of the bar have arguably had just as much influence on our creativity, our experience, our brand as anyone else. I mean, those early days of Death and Co as one little example of looking, reaching way back, like everyone used to come to us. And yes, it was a good, right time, right place situation where there weren't that many aspirational cocktail bars. We were one of them. And so people would come gravitate to us. The industry would come. We were in New York. There was a lot of press there, a lot of interesting things happening in the culinary world. And so we became a meeting place for a lot of really interesting people. And they would share their ideas with us across the bar. And like Avery and Janet Glasser, who own Bittermens, they were our regulars. They formulated some of those bitters by giving us tests of them. Eric Seed with Haus Alpenz. We did collaborations with him. Chefs who we iterated ideas and they helped inform and work our cocktails. So these relationships are more than just the transaction of a guest coming in and purchasing a cocktail. We try to like share that with our teams just like how valuable these relationships can be for everyone involved.
Dave Kaplan
I think the other thing that we've tried to do very intentionally as Alex and I have tried to do or we've tried to do as a brand, as a group, is find ways show up in people's lives in addition to just those four walls. That started really early on with our Instagram, with social. How can we have that fall in line with our style and sense of hospitality in terms of not just having it be here are our specials. Here's why you should come in. But like, here's information. Here's us sharing what we love to do and hopefully having the same tonality that you would when you're coming in and engaging with our team. And that became a very large social community. The books, obviously, have been huge for us. You can take Death & Co. into your home. So I've talked to so many people at this point 20 years in that have said, "Oh, Death & Co., I love Death & Co." "Oh, great. What Death & Co. location have you been to?" "Oh, I haven't been to any, but I have the book and I follow you guys on social." The idea that we can create these community members often allows them to feel like a regular the moment they walk through the door, whether they visit us once or whether they visit us four or five times. They already feel like we're a part of their lives. And I think that's been a really fun, multi-dimensional space to play in, in addition to our brick and mortar building. Uh, experience that, again, so much comes down to that, that human element, uh, as Alex was saying.
Paul Clarke
I want to come back to Seattle now because the bar has been open for a little over a month now. I stopped by last week for a cocktail and just had a little bit and, you know, Seattle has been a challenging city for many restaurant and bar owners for a variety of reasons. It's a tough time to be running a bar here right now. Uh, why did you decide to go ahead with this venture in this city knowing these challenges were here and what could you see contributing to Seattle's cocktail culture and what was already in existence here?
Dave Kaplan
You know, it was, uh, largely selfish in, in that I love, you know, we, we have this nine question viability study or viability questionnaire that, that we, that we turn to because Alex and I, like many entrepreneurs can be really excited and just get, uh, you know, kind of over our skis with an idea and it's, it's a way to kind of slow us down and, ensure that we're checking the boxes and we're not just doing something cause we want to. And so I always looked to Seattle as one of the great American cities, the city that we find really interesting. Then my wife and I, and our daughter, we, we personally moved here five years ago. Now that sped up our love of the city even more and our want to open something here. Um, and all along, uh, we, we kind of turned to that, that page and made sure that this actually did check all the boxes that we, we did think that, um, one, we were really inspired by all of the F and B, and food culture out here, the hospitality culture out here. we felt like we had something that we could contribute, uh, in conversation with everyone else and, and what we do is slightly different, um, and, and compliments so much of what's going on here. And we felt like there was, uh, enough business here. We hoped there was enough business here to, to make this, uh, also an actual business. We do our best to not have any vanity projects just because I live here. We didn't want this to be a kind of vanity project. And so we've been overwhelmed at the positive reception that we've had here, but yeah, I think it, you know, why we chose here is it really comes back to it. Just all of these things just felt right. Like the F and B community here, the hospitality community here is, is so genuine and warm and passionate. know, there are so many wonderful makers from coffee to spirits, to wine, the culinary here, uh, from, from the seafood to, to all the amazing, uh, farming communities that are adjacent. And then the neighborhood itself that we absolutely fell in love with Pioneer Square feels, like this just hiding in plain sight gem that doesn't get the flowers that it deserves, or at least not right now. Obviously it has had an amazing and storied history, but to be able to participate in that felt like, again, just felt, felt lucky. Felt like right time, right place. These great developers, uh, really lovely people reached out to us and said, hey, we, we have this building. You might be interested in it. We love our landlords. We love the co-tenancy there. So all of this really just felt right in spite of the headlines or the realities that it is absolutely a tough time in general to be in this It's a tough city be in this business, you know? So we embarked on it knowing that this was going to be, or believing that this was going to be a hard earned business if we were or are to do it. And, um, yeah, we've been lucky to attract great people through the opening and great guests through the opening. It's been a really, really wonderful first six weeks of Death and Co Seattle here.
Paul Clarke
I know this question might be a little premature considering you just opened a bar, but where, where does Death and Co go from here? How do you enter your third decade and kind of keep this energy rolling along?
Dave Kaplan
We come back to this idea that one, Alex and I are, are always just want to be building. We want to be refining. We want to be improving. I love this Walt Disney quote where he talks about, the movies compared to the parks. And he says, you know, the movies, once you're done, you're done. You put it in the can and you know, you can't fix anything. The parks, you can constantly plus constantly improve and constantly evolve. The park in 20 years is going to be different from the park today. That's true of our doors and we get to continue to do more. So it's a little bit of a blend of the movie where we built Death and Co Seattle. It is what Death and Co Seattle is. We'll continue, we'll get to continuously evolve it through the years, but the one, that's really the one shot we had at Death and Co Seattle. And so to get to do it again and see what Death and Co Chicago is and looks like and how it relates to the incredible community in town or city that is Chicago or. Detroit or Miami or any of these other great cities. They are so absolutely different. So unique. in their own way. And so to try to, uh, capture the beauty and the pursuit that we see in, in Death and Co and what that, and what this brand is and make it applicable to the city and, and have it be special and unique to the city and attract the local talent. That to me is kind of the forever pursuit. That's what it looks like over the next few years. Anyway, we've been doing 5, 10 years continuing to do our best to walk the tightrope of, um, growth and authenticity and excitement and passion and having that passion be seen and felt and translated to the guests that come in. As long as it resonates and as long as people show up at our doors, Alex and I have every intention of continuing to do this, this crazy pursuit.
Alex Day
I could just add a reflection on opening Seattle and one moment that I had, they mentioned, you know, the, the talent and the, the team we attract lucky enough to work with one of our employees, very young guy, you know, hadn't a ton, not a ton of experience, but very, very passionate. And, uh, I was talking with him, he asked for like, you know, Hey, can I meet with you for like 20 minutes or so? And, uh, we, we chatted and he's like, you know, I just, I'm just so appreciative that you, you guys all, you as a team, as a company care so much about this and, you know, pre-opening have given us all these tools and these training systems. And, and I say that not to brag about it because it really, you know, at this stage, 20 years in, we better have training systems. We better have an approach and we're very proud of it, but it just felt so incredible that the response to, to bringing this business to life was impacting somebody on such a human level. And he was so appreciative of what it would do for his career and how he's able to express his passions and his expectations. So, you know, I left that being immensely proud and also feeling the weight of expectation and what we as leaders need to live up to for our teams as we look towards the future. So it's not, just opening another Death and Co and another Death and Co it's how does the whole thing underneath what you can actually see, how does it grow and reinforce and get better so that we can be a better and better employees, employers, um, that we can nurture our teams. We can give them environments who in which they can excel both creatively and professionally.
Dave Kaplan
Just one on the, on the same note, this pursuit in so many ways for me, I think for anyone that sticks with it this long, you need to find some selfish motivation in it. My selfish motivation, I absolutely love seeing what happens at our doors. I love the stories, the fact that we are frequently able to, to make good on, on this, our mission and purpose of bringing people together of human connection. And really, as Alex was saying, it's, it's amazing to, to build these teams and, and to have it mean so much to them. Selfishly, it's, it's also, I get energized by the people that I work with and I have loved working with Alex and Matt Bellinger. And Tyson Bueller and, and Willie Rosenthal and, and Wes Hamill, all of our amazing team, you know, I get to pick up the phone and solve complex problems with these folks and spend a huge amount of time with people that I deeply love and care about. And we get to bring things to life that people seem to enjoy. And I think we can pretend that there's a large altruistic veneer to it because it is about serving other people, but man, is it fun. It's hard as hell at times, but you know, at the best of times, it's crazy. I mean, I can't, 20 years into this and, and occasionally being the old man now shaking my fist up at the clouds. I still can't imagine doing anything else. It's an incredible, incredible privilege.
Alex Day
Yeah. It only takes one moment. Like, you know, objectively, if you look at this industry and, and the business of opening bars and restaurants, be like, I don't know. That's, that's really tough. That's what, what's the margin in 2026? I don't know. But man, you just like, you're there that opening night and here the, you just see the lights go down. Everyone gets a little hush. Those first guests come in and like the first sip happens from a guest, the pride from the team, just the room, the energy of it. There's no replacing it. And we've, I know we've all probably learned of individual lesson or, or insight over the last five years, about five, six years about, you know, human connection, the necessity of it. But I don't know. It's, it just seems more necessary than ever that these spaces exist. And to Dave’s point, selfishly, I love making them so much and just being a part of like, contributing something to, to someone's life and being a part of it myself.
Paul Clarke
Fantastic. That's beautiful. Dave, Alex, it's always such a treat to talk to y'all. And now that you have a bar near my house, it won't be that rare of an occasion anymore. Thanks for so much for coming on the podcast. Congrats again on the upcoming 20th anniversary.
Dave Kaplan
Congrats to you guys. Imbibe has been a huge part of our lives as, as professionals, aspiring bar owners to bar owners, to every, every part of our professional journey. Imbibe has been there and that, that is, that is a cool and wonderful thing. So thank you for what you do, Paul, and everyone on the team.
Alex Day
Agreed. Great to see you, Paul. Thank you.
[music]
Paul Clarke
You can find out more about all things Death & Co. online at deathandcompany.com. We've got that link for you in this episode's notes.
And that's it for this episode. Subscribe to Radio Imbibe on your favorite podcast app to keep up with all our future episodes. We've got tons of recipes and articles for you online at our website, imbibemagazine.com. Follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Threads for all our day-to-day coverage. And if you're not already a subscriber to the print and or digital issues of Imbibe, then here's your opportunity to get on board. Just follow the link in this episode's notes and we'll be happy to help you out. I'm Paul Clarke. This is Radio Imbibe. Catch you next time.