LAUREN GILGER: And now it’s time for the next edition of our series here on The Show about Arizonans who have started over, turned a new leaf, started a fresh chapter maybe midway through life, maybe in retirement, maybe just as they’re getting going.
It’s called Second Acts. And today, let’s meet a husband-and-wife team who took over a beloved downtown Phoenix restaurant after its founder and chef passed away of ovarian cancer.
GREGORY COHEN: I actually met her through selling wine to her when she owned a previous restaurant. And I could tell in the first 5, 10 minutes meeting her that we were going to hit it up. We got along super well, we had similar interests. She also spoke French and Italian, and just a she was just a wonderful, beautiful, most one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met in my life.
LAUREN GILGER: To Kathryn and Gregory Cohen, Farish House was a special place run by a very special woman, Lori Hassler. And they were just regulars.
KATHRYN COHEN: The restaurant was always our favorite restaurant. We would bring our kids here in high school, and our daughter, it was her favorite restaurant.
LAUREN GILGER: But, after Hassler’s passing, Gregory took her husband out for lunch.
GREGORY COHEN: I asked him how things were going with the restaurant, if he had any buyers, and he said he had he had a few, but they all wanted to gut the place and it wasn’t exactly what he was looking for.
And I, and I kind of joked with him, half-jokingly telling him, "Oh, that’s funny because Kathryn and I always dreamed of having a restaurant and if it was, it’d be like in an old house, it’d be European comfort food," which is exactly what this is.
And and he suggested, he goes, "Well, why don’t you guys buy it then?" And I kind of laughed at him, and I said I said, "No, I don’t think so, but thank you for offering. It’s flattering."
And that night I went home and she, Kathryn’s usually the very sensible, level-headed one, and I’m I react a lot on my emotions, and I’m a bit impulsive. And I told her about our conversation, and she got really quiet. The next morning she woke up and she goes, "Why don’t you why don’t you call him and see what he has to offer?"
LAUREN GILGER: At first, it seemed crazy but then, Kathryn got to thinking — She had never worked in a restaurant, she’d spent her career in HR. But, Gregory, who’s originally from France, had some experience in the industry as a beer and wine distributor.
And, she told me, she just had a feeling.
KATHRYN COHEN: I don’t know, I just — something about it just felt so right. This is a gem in downtown Phoenix, this historic house, it just was one of those things that you think about that if we passed up this opportunity, would we regret it?
So that was top of mind for me, and I couldn’t sleep. I just thought about it all night. And we just thought this might be something we can do as a family. Both of our kids are in their early 20s and it’s something we could do with them, and just something we could be proud of in our last career phase.
LAUREN GILGER: Last career phrase, right. I mean but that’s quite a jump for your last career phase, right?
So what did you think, Gregory, then when your very sensible wife said, "You know, maybe we should think about this"?
GREGORY COHEN: I was a little shocked, but I was really happy. And, and like she said, it was like the last of our career phase, but it was really something that it was like — it, exactly like Catherine said, if we didn't do it, it felt like something that we would regret if we didn't do it. I was, I was thrilled, and I was so excited for the opportunity. It's been so invigorating and just I can't go, I can't say enough of what a great experience this is, it's been so far.
And really, it's been that way in a large way, and it is scary to open a restaurant, but Lori did such a great job of setting up this restaurant and staffing it. A lot of our staff have been here since day one, they've been here for seven years, and they take ownership of the restaurant. It, it is scary to buy a, to buy a restaurant, to run a restaurant, but when you have such a great foundation already, it made the transition so much easier than a lot of people imagine.
I had so many friends and colleagues from the industry tell me, "What are you doing? You're crazy. You know better, you know how crazy restaurant is." And I had some that were very encouraging, like the folks at Far Away, but it was definitely it was one of those things where I just it felt right. It just, I just felt like I, I had to do it.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, and I wonder if from your point of view, because you'd been working with restaurants in your career for so long, had you watched restaurant owners for years and like, you know, some come and go and they fail and they make it and they struggle — had you always kind of wanted to try it yourself and be like, "I could do this better"?
GREGORY COHEN: It's always been in the back of our mind. I mean, and that's, and that's why it, it just seemed like the right thing to do.
LAUREN GILGER: So let me ask you about Lori's legacy here, right? Because did, did you change anything? I mean, have you just sort of taken it and said, "We would like this to never be different"?
KATHRYN COHEN: It was our favorite restaurant, so we thought it was perfect the way it is. We have so many customers that come in here and just thank us for stepping in, keeping it the same. We will eventually make our mark on it, you know, see where we can add an influence a little bit, but Gregory grew up with this European comfort food, so all of the food on the menu is things that he grew up with, and it just feels right.
LAUREN GILGER: Let me ask you about the day-to-day, because I mean, like you said, you were on Zoom calls all day on your computer before this, you were working on the outside of the industry in a very different capacity.
When you're, you know, in this small old house, right, every day working with the small staff trying to keep this thing going, what's the the kind of like level of stress been like?
GREGORY COHEN: It's, it's ebbed and flowed, as you can imagine. Like, it could be really stressful at times, it could not be as stressful as you think, but it's all the time exciting and fun. Like, even it it sometimes it makes me wonder about myself and wonder what kind of person I am that I enjoy so much a lot of that stress and that that chaos, but I do, and it make — I thrive in it.
And it really it's been very empowering and energizing, and it's been and I'm just so happy to be able to do it. I look forward to coming to work every day. And this is like we were saying, this is an older home, and that was something we always liked being together is entertaining people at home, and this is kind of what we do — we're entertaining people at our home.
LAUREN GILGER: I mean it’s quite a leap. Like what do you say to other people who might be thinking about this or thinking wishing they could do something incredibly different in their lives, you know, even in the kind of final career chapter of their lives and say like, "I can’t do that, that’s too much of a risk"?
KATHRYN COHEN: I’m, I’ve always been one of those people that are overthinking everything. For some reason, when it feels right, I didn’t overthink it. I think it was just that gut feeling that we need to do this.
Honestly, the plan was for me to keep my current job that I had, I was at a company for 22 years, I loved what I did, but it was a little bit forced second act. I was laid off and it was five days before we took ownership in November. So I just, you know, embraced it and figured that’s how life was supposed to happen for me, and jumped right in and I just felt like all the stars have aligned.
LAUREN GILGER: Have there been surprising moments for you in particular coming from such a different field?
KATHRYN COHEN: I, I think what’s surprising is we’ve, we’ve been working a lot of hours. We wake up in the morning, we’re talking about work, all day long there’s planning. Then we come to the restaurant at night, we’re working, we go home, we debrief, we sit around the the fire pit in our courtyard, maybe have a glass of wine and debrief with our daughter who’s working with us a lot.
So it feels like we are working so many hours, yet it doesn’t feel like we’re work at all. I think that’s the most surprising.
LAUREN GILGER: What’s your favorite dish on the menu? What’s your favorite thing to eat here?
GREGORY COHEN: That is so that’s so hard to say. I’d say the cassoulet is probably it’s up there for me. The bouillabaisse is up there for me, the raclette is I mean, there’s so many different things. It just depends on the day. It’s, it’s hard to say, really is.
KATHRYN COHEN: My favorite’s the short ribs, that’s one thing I just never really cooked at home, so I enjoy it here. And our fingerling potatoes are pretty spectacular.
LAUREN GILGER: Making me hungry. All right. Kathryn and Gregory Cohen, thank you both so much for having me, and congratulations.
KATHRYN COHEN: Thank you. Thank you for having us.
GREGORY COHEN: Thank you very much for having us.
LAUREN GILGER: That was the latest edition in our ongoing series here on The Show, Second Acts. If you know someone who’s entered their second act in an interesting way, send us an note. We are at [email protected].
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