Episode summary
The Business of Butterworths, the Hottest New Restaurant in Washington DC | Odd Lots
Odd Lots
· · 57 min · Hosts: Joe Weisenthal, Tracy Alloway · Guests: Bart Hutchins
Summary
Bart Hutchins argues that Butterworth’s is less a conventional DC restaurant than a politically coded dining room shaped by who is seen there, who can afford to be there, and how the city’s status culture works. He says the label “MAGA restaurant” emerged because early customers included people from the Trump administration, Steve Bannon, Marco Rubio, and other right-leaning regulars, but the business itself is really built around visibility and a clubhouse feel.
He also lays out the hard economics behind running a high-end restaurant after 2020: fries that sold for $9 in 2019 are now $12, but keeping the same margins would require charging about $25. Hutchins says cost inflation, labor scarcity, and the loss of experienced kitchen staff after Covid permanently changed staffing and pricing. He says cooks and dishwashers at his restaurant now make roughly $26 to $27 an hour, and that service quality increasingly depends on keeping a stable team.
The menu is driven by direct relationships with Amish and Mennonite farmers, seasonality, and what is actually available from the ground each week. He rejects burgers because a great burger can crowd out everything else on the menu, and he says the restaurant’s design, lighting, and reservation structure are as important as the food in shaping demand.
Key takeaways
- Hutchins says Butterworth’s is called a “MAGA restaurant” because its early regulars included Trump-administration figures and other conservative political customers.
- He says a fries order that cost $9 in 2019 is $12 now, and matching prior margins would imply roughly $25 fries.
- He says cooks and dishwashers now earn about $26 to $27 an hour in his restaurant, reflecting intense labor scarcity.
- Hutchins says the restaurant relies on Amish and Mennonite farmers and changes the menu with seasonality rather than forcing constant consistency.
- He says a great burger can dominate demand so completely that it crowds out the rest of the menu.
- He says post-Covid staffing losses and ingredient inflation changed restaurant operations in lasting ways, not just temporarily.
Notable quotes
“if I wanted the same sort of margins on that $9 order fries that I have on my now $12 order fries, they would actually be 25 bucks”
“now it is a Maga restaurant, because that's like an interesting way to talk about the restaurant”
“if you do it well, it's it's the only thing you become capable of selling”
“the cost of goods is just never recovered”
How the episode opens
Do your customers care about price? Oh, boy. They do.
I've been thinking about this a lot. So I was I was, you know, it's the end of the year, so I'm doing numbers and all those things you have to do when you have investors. And I was looking at the price of French fries specifically, and we've been noted for the French fries and the beef.
tallow fries and the best fries in D.C. and whatever. And I think they're on the menu right now for 12 bucks an order.
And I was looking at an old menu of mine from restaurant, you know, in 2019, and they were all the same fries. I've been making the same fries forever. They were on the menu for nine bucks an order, and I was like, wow, you know, we've really gone up.
12 bucks is kind of expensive for an order of fries. Like, is there any room for this? And I started sort of digging into the price of goods and the labor involved and realized that, like, if I wanted the same sort of margins on that $9 order fries that I have on my now $12 order fries, they would actually be 25 bucks.
Wow. So like, we've just sort of like the the cost of goods is like eviscerated sort of the margins on that. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
I'm Joe Weisenthal. And I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy, we were down in DC several weeks ago.
We were at that iaff conference and, we had a great meal and we were in town. We did indeed. So we had a good meal.
Yeah, we went to a place called Butterworth's, which is getting a lot of buzz. Yeah, it's been getting a lot of buzz for a while and sort of serves, I don't want to say farm to table because that's not really it, but like an emphasis on organic tonic, maybe like rarer cuts of meat.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- restaurant economics
- labor shortages
- food supply chain
- price inflation
- political branding in dc
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Butterworths
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
More from Odd Lots
-
How a Chicago Restaurant Has Stayed Open For Nearly Three Decades | Odd Lots -
How Airlines Actually Hedge Higher Fuel Prices | Odd Lots -
Robert Friedland on the World's Monumental Shortage of Copper | Odd Lots -
Brad Setser on the US's Unusual Japanese Yen Intervention | Odd Lots -
The Tungsten Market Is Warning of an Upcoming War | Odd Lots -
These Are the Sharps Actually Making Money on Prediction Markets | Odd Lots
Odd Lots, this episode and its artwork belong to Bloomberg. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
