Son of famous artist Ed Moses from Los Angeles Cedd Moses knows a thing or two about the hospitality business. He has launched, restored and maintained 23 business establishments in 3 states, many of which reside in Los Angeles. Cole’s French Dip, The Varnish, Seven Grand, The Golden Gopher, and the latest Homebound Brew Haus are some of the establishments. For your information, Homebound Brew Haus is a Los Angeles Union Station-based brewery.
Moses spent his growing-up years in Hollywood of the 1980’s with punk rock music. It was the so-called post-disco era. So, Moses was familiar with the LA nightlife scene. In his book ‘Pouring With Heart: The Essential Magic Behind The Bartenders We Love’, Moses discusses his cover photo on Forbes and becoming a Wall Street expert who managed money when aged 30 years. He led a miserable lifestyle at the time.
In the latest book, Moses reveals that he felt similar to an outsider up to the time he found the bar operation. Nothing has made Moses more satisfied than working with his fellow bar team while cultivating the careers of people who have felt that they were treated as outsiders elsewhere. There are wonderful people around Moses daily, something which he feels grateful for.
The book is for any person who wishes to start a bar business operation and pays tribute to the work of those bartenders who made the profession appear noble. Those people include Dale DeGroff, a legendary bartender who penned the foreword for the book, and one of its ambassadors Eric Alperin. The book discusses service, passion and leadership as well as addresses the pitfalls such as the health risks of the bartender profession, including sleep deficiency and substance use disorder. It also works as a love letter to this part of the hospitality industry from Moses.
In this book, Moses describes working in the business as an intoxicating experience and warns that excessive fun is potentially hazardous to our health. The principal theme of the book is the notion of being helpful to the customer. It concerns the ideology and belief system of Moses that do not confuse the action of preparing a drink for the skill of serving a drink.
Moses spent his childhood in a 1960’s Los Angeles household, which entertained a smooth movement of bohemians and artists, including Ed Ruscha, Jack Nicholson, Frank Gehry and Dennis Hopper. Nevertheless, Moses associates his strong interest in hospitality with his devout Buddhist mother Avilda Moses.
Moses told LA Weekly that Avilda is the source of his values and that his father Ed is the source of his creative side. He described Ed Moses as an eccentric and crazy artist who spent much time with the types of people that were into the counterculture. Moses also told LA Weekly that his grandmother treated all days as cocktail party days. She used to consume Bloody Mary as a morning cocktail, mint juleps as an afternoon cocktail as well as a combination of ranch water and bourbon from that time. Moses used to spend the summer months in Virginia with his grandmother, who he says had a big impact on him. As for Moses, it was his first taste of hospitality.
Ed Moses was a cannabis user and different from his son in the case of his lifestyle. Moses described the old man as a social person who used to go out more than himself. As for Moses, the industry has many introverted and reserved individuals, but the business aids in making them less shy and friendlier and more talkative. Moses reckons that connecting and communicating with people offer you confidence.
A soft-spoken man, Moses prefers to do influential or important things without getting noticed. The motivational writings of Simon Sinek as well as the positive effect of and the requirement for fine leadership inspired Moses. The proceeds from the latest book of Moses will add to the so-called ‘For Each Other Fund’. It is a hedge fund set up as a safeguard against potential adversity for the bar staffers associated with his book.
Moses started his first bar known as The Liquid Kitty 25 years ago. He describes his time in business as a personal journey. Moses and his team are on a path to create 2,030 hospitality careers over the next 9 years. He measures success with the number of careers he builds for his hospitality holdings. He will open 9 more bars in 2022 and said that his bartenders could have an impact on the lives of his customers. He feels that every bartender can do great things.
His book does not talk about the negative things or positive things about the sauce, how much people should or should not drink, and whether people should consume alcohol or not. It discusses other things, including an anthropology-related reason for alcohol consumption.
Moses discusses his life-threatening attempts to resurrect the so-called Golden Gopher bar, which was called the Golden Sun Saloon over 100 years ago. Moses started to get death threats as he and his team took over that bar space as well as endured many break-ins.
According to Moses, the book talks about the adversity that resulted in a great culture in the bar too. He told LA Weekly that a different hospitality outlet plans on converting the Hotel Lindy space into a new boutique hotel.
It took Moses decades of experimentation to figure the business out, and he is eager to reveal the magic that he has discovered with readers.