To Dine For with Kate Sullivan

(Irish inspired music) KATE SULLIVAN: The Emerald Isle with its raw and rugged vistas and striking countryside-- is the setting for the latest episode of To Dine For .

Come with us as we travel to the middle of Dublin, Ireland down an unsuspecting side street to a culinary gem of a restaurant.

Join us as we drink, dine, and dive into Dublin's dining scene.

We're meeting a visionary entrepreneur with a dream so big it'll make your head spin.

BOBBY HEALY: Welcome to Dublin.

KATE: Today, Bobby Healy is taking me to his favorite restaurant to eat what he loves and find out why he loves it.

This is delicious.

BOBBY: And what makes it work?

The salt.

KATE: Then, we're hearing the full story of a serial entrepreneur who had an idea whose time had come.

BOBBY: Not a single person, I think, on the planet would've agreed with me at that stage, which was very attractive for me.

KATE: To deliver goods by drone in less than five minutes, Bobby shares the obstacles, the headaches, and the rewards of dreaming up an idea and chasing it down.

BOBBY: You don't do it for the reward, you do it for the chase of the reward.

KATE: All the while, showing me a slice of Dublin I've never seen and hearing some serious food for thought.

BOBBY: It's not a career, it's your life.

KATE: What's better in life than a bottle of wine, great food, and an amazing conversation?

My name is Kate Sullivan, and I am the host of To Dine For .

I'm a journalist, a foodie, and traveler with an appetite for the stories of people who are hungry for more: dreamers, visionaries, artists: those who hustle hard in the direction they love.

I travel with them to their favorite restaurant to hear how they did it.

This show is a toast to them and their American Dream.

To Dine For with Kate Sullivan is made possible by... (Music and chatter) MAN: During the weekends, we do like a grill.

(Clatter of chess board) MAN #2: You know you have bragging rights in the hood.

I'm like, "My guy won the game."

(Clatter of chess piece and men yelling and cheering) FEMALE ANNOUNCER: At American National, we honor the "do"-ers and the dreamers: The people who gets things done and keep the world moving.

Our local agents are honored to serve your community, because it's their community, too.

American National.

KATE: Hello everyone.

Today I am in Dublin, Ireland in the heart of the city center.

I'm on my way into a fantastic Spanish tapas restaurant called La Gordita, and I am meeting a visionary Irish entrepreneur who is truly changing the business landscape.

I can't wait for you to meet Bobby Healy.

Bobby!

(Irish music) BOBBY: Kate.

KATE: How are ya?

BOBBY: Great to meet you, finally.

KATE: It is wonderful to meet you.

BOBBY: Welcome to Dublin.

KATE: Thank you.

BOBBY: Yeah.

KATE: Dublin, Ireland is a city of storytellers, home to a history lesson around every corner: from the 13th century Dublin Castle to St. Patrick's Cathedral founded in 1191.

Not far from the city's main park, St. Stephen's Green, is the area where restaurants and pubs abound.

BOBBY: It's really right deep in the old part of the inner city.

KATE: Bobby Healy is a native Dubliner and we are walking the city center neighborhood where his favorite restaurant is located.

And you have chosen the smallest restaurant in Dublin?

(laughs) BOBBY: I did, yeah.

Well, I'm small... KATE: (laughs) Cozy.

BOBBY: ...so it makes me looks big.

(laughs) KATE: This is La Gordita, a 28-seat gastronomic paradise where small plates of delectable Spanish tapas are served with a laughter and warmth of distinctly Irish hospitality.

VANESSA MURPHY: We're kind of known for good times, so people come with expectations of having a laugh.

KATE: The restaurant is the brainchild of Vanessa Murphy, a native Dubliner, and Anna Cabrera from Barcelona, Spain, a couple whose love for Spanish cuisine created not one, but two, premier Dublin dining destinations.

ANNA CABRERA: So, La Gordita basically means "a little fat one."

It's a term of endearment in Spain like everybody as family members, we all call each other gorda, gordita.

VANESSA: When I first met Anna and went to visit her family over in Barcelona, they kept calling me gordi, gorda, gordita, and I was like, "Am I'm fat?

(laugher) Do I have to worry?"

And she's like, "No.

That means they love you."

KATE: And while the name is a bit of a joke, the food is seriously delicious.

La Gordita is an offshoot of their original restaurant, Las Tapas de Lola.

VANESSA: Lola would be what we'd call more 'barrio' tapas, more neighborhood tapas, very traditional, and I suppose we opened here on our 10-year anniversary actually of Lola's and we were 10 years older, so we were kind of a little bit more mature in our palates.

KATE: Imported ingredients sourced from Spain are paired with the bounty of the Irish countryside.

The plates are small, sharable and crave-able.

VANESSA: We're independently run.

You know, we're a family run, as we call it, mama's and mama's business.

So, you know, we like to keep things intimate because it's much more, you can create a much better atmosphere for the customers when they come in.

KATE: Today, we're eating caviar from Granada, Spain, organic and sustainable, served with potato chips and crme frache.

Then, we're having small plates of cured smoked pork belly and bluefin tuna on brioche toast.

Then, a tapas classic, anchoas de Santoa, salted and hand-cured anchovies served with Valden blue cheese butter, a blend of cheese from Len, Spain, and Irish Kerrygold butter.

Finally, the main event, the chuletn, thirty-day aged Irish rib-eye on the bone from McLaughlin's Butcher roasted with Irish potatoes.

VANESSA: Went out and we invested in very fancy steak knives and we realized you can really use a butter knife with it.

It's just the most superb piece of meat.

ANNA CABRERA: I always said we open a restaurant to make people happy and the only way we know how to do that is through their mouth.

So, we give them food, food goes to the stomach, signal to the brain, happiness.

KATE: It is here at this warm and inventive restaurant where I sit down with Bobby Healy, a visionary businessman and creator to share his journey.

Thank you for bringing me to La Gordita.

I'm so excited about this meal.

BOBBY: I'm excited for you to experience it.

It's an amazing place.

KATE: Why did you choose it, if you could have chosen so many different restaurants?

What do you love about this place?

BOBBY: I've traveled a lot with my work for a hundred years.

I feel like I've traveled every city in the world.

And one of my favorites is Madrid and Barcelona, second.

This place has very rarely managed to create the authentic Spain in Dublin.

It's very hard to make something authentic when you move it and this place has reproduced it.

I'm here all the time.

I love the place, and it's also tiny, it suits me, The ambience... KATE: It's so tiny.

BOBBY: ...gets loud and bustle-y.

You're going to see the food is just next level, but it's authentic too and true to where it came from.

It's a very good hybrid Irish-Spain... KATE: Yes.

BOBBY: ...And it's a great introduction for people when they come to Dublin.

You know, everyone comes looking for great food, but they walk out of the place, you know, after having had a bit of a party.

KATE: It's almost like you get authentic Spanish tapas with Irish hospitality combined... BOBBY: Yeah.

KATE: ...in one night?

BOBBY: Unusual.

I feel like, I can't think anywhere else you'd find it.

KATE: What do we have here?

ANNA: So, we have caviar from Granada, so organic caviar, sustainable and some crme frache.

KATE: Fantastic.

So, caviar first, then the crme frache?

ANNA: Correct.

KATE: Excellent.

ANNA: A little bit on top.

KATE: Wonderful.

I want to do it correctly.

BOBBY: I'm glad she explained it.

(both laugh) I just dig in usually.

(Kate laughs) Yeah, I'm converted.

KATE: Mm, isn't that a lovely bite?

BOBBY: It's on the menu every time.

KATE: Yes.

BOBBY: I've had most things from the menu here, but I've not had the caviar before.

KATE: First of all, I'm a salt girl.

I love a salty bite.

BOBBY: Salt is your friend.

KATE: Yes.

That is a salty, salty, cream bite.

Delicious.

Well, Bobby, I'm so curious to hear your journey.

Take me back to where you grew up.

Kilmacud?

BOBBY: Kilmacud.

KATE: Yes.

Tell me about how you grew up and where you grew up.

BOBBY: The metropolis that is Kilmacud, my father was a professional footballer.

KATE: Was he?

BOBBY: Yeah.

I didn't want to be professional footballer, not because I didn't want to be a professional footballer, because I couldn't be a professional footballer.

KATE: You were not athletic?

BOBBY: No, I was a good footballer, but I wasn't (uses hand) KATE: Top tier.

BOBBY: It's very rare, very rare air up there.

KATE: When you have a father as professional footballer, that's a level of discipline, that's next level.

BOBBY: Yeah.

KATE: What did you learn from him in watching his discipline and rigor?

BOBBY: Values, a hundred percent.

I certainly didn't get my love of technology from my dad, but I got my values from him.

He was a simple man.

He was a hard worker, but he was a family man.

All he really cared about in life were simple life, no hassle, work hard, treat people well and he loved his children and his wife very much, but he didn't need much.

And I'm certainly the opposite of that, as in I've been going hell for leather, building businesses, building dreams for my whole life, but I was doing right by people and so that was his influence on me growing up... KATE: That's huge.

It's enormous.

BOBBY: It is.

And you know, its kinda that stuff you do as a parent.

And he did it very well.

KATE: Bobby's idyllic childhood in Kilmacud was punctuated by his love of science and engineering.

Bobby was always taking things apart as a kid, including the refrigerator.

At the age of 17, he started to create video games for international audiences, eventually working for Nintendo.

BOBBY: I taught myself programming and I got a gig working in a small company in the south of Ireland writing video games, which was the dream.

I was getting paid to do what I would've done happily for free.

And then, that company were building through contract for Nintendo and Nintendo had bought the licenses for a couple of big movies, Michael Jackson's "Moonwalker," "The Running Man," Arnold Schwarzenegger, and we were writing the game.

So, I wrote the games for those movies.

KATE: And how old were you at the time?

BOBBY: I was 17.

KATE: You were 17?

BOBBY: We all were.

It was all a bunch of spotty young boys.

KATE: Was that intentional that they wanted a youthful mind to create the game based on... BOBBY: We were the only ones that were doing that.

There was no, proper adults had proper jobs.

This was a new field where computers were really very, very new, and particularly, you know, game consoles were very popular, but the people that built them and wrote the code for them were very rare.

KATE: He didn't just write the code for the games, he had to understand the process of marketing and specifically marketing to an American audience.

He was learning the basics of business and he wasn't even 20.

BOBBY: Back then, the average age of someone that played a video game in Europe was you know, 17 or 18 years old and in the U.S. it was 40-plus years old.

So, totally different demographic... KATE: Yes.

BOBBY: ...totally different taste.

And so, the reason I was there was not because you had to be in America to write the code, but you had to be in America to understand the consumer.

KATE: So, what had to be different from a video game for a 17-year-old in Ireland versus a video game for a 40-year-old in America?

BOBBY: Games that appeal to young people are very much amygdala-driven and very intense and almost grab the focus and bring you deep into a hole.

Games for older people, for adults are more about the mind and experiences, and also, just the American culture is different than the European culture as well.

Even though we speak the same language, culture is very different and tastes are very different.

ANNA: So, I will recommend we have the next dishes.

KATE: Yes.

ANNA: I would recommend to start with the tuna tostada, then move to the anchovies, anchovies from Cantabria... Now, we recommend to eat it all with your hands... KATE: Okay.

ANNA: ...So, you can roll this in the pico and then tch-tch.

KATE: Fantastic.

Thank you.

Looks beautiful.

BOBBY: This one I've had before.

This one no and this one no.

KATE: Oh, good.

BOBBY: This one is fantastic.

KATE: So, this is like an adventure for you as well?

BOBBY: Yeah.

KATE: That's great.

BOBBY: Bon apptit.

KATE: Yes.

Mm.

BOBBY: Good.

KATE: That's delicious.

You are a serial entrepreneur.

BOBBY: I hate the word.

KATE: Why do you hate it?

BOBBY: Oh, it's such a clich.

KATE: Well, when you've done things... BOBBY: Everyone is.

KATE: I know but... BOBBY: You are, I am, we all just work.

We do our thing, we enjoy it.

KATE: I think a serial entrepreneur has some admiration to it because it means you've tried things and failed and you've tried multiple things and done well.

And Bobby has done well, including his latest venture, a drone delivery business named after the biblical word, "Manna" or bread from heaven.

Like, so many great concepts, Bobby's idea was sparked from a real-world problem.

BOBBY: I live in a suburb of Dublin, and it's next to impossible to get food delivered there, or anything delivered there for that matter.

At weekends, particularly if it's raining, you'd be waiting an hour to get your French fries or chips, as we call them.

So, I said, "Okay, I know a bit about drones and I have a personal problem getting my chips delivered, so I'm going to build a robot that flies to my local chipper and get the chips."

And that's what I did.

So, it was a... KATE: So, wait a minute.

This was really solving a personal problem for you.

BOBBY: Oh, a hundred percent.

There was a bag of chips app, it was called and you hit a button on my phone and a drone would fly a bag of chips to my house and it was obviously, not going to be a commercial venture.

At that point, it was a fun learning project.

And I went to my local chipper, Libero's chipper in Ballinteer down the road from my house, and I chatted with them about it and I said, "Well, can we do this?"

And she said, "Yeah, let's do it."

KATE: From there, Manna was created.

In 2019, Bobby launched Manna in the suburbs of Ireland, first in Moneygall and then Oranmore.

Manna is currently expanding internationally to other European markets as well as America, including Dallas, Texas.

BOBBY: There's 18 billion deliveries in Europe every year that are done on the road and they're expensive to do, they're inefficient, food's cold, everything doesn't work well.

So, you've got this you know trillion dollar-plus industry of moving goods around and no way to solve it without humans and without using the roads and cars, and you know, terrible for the environment, terrible for safety.

Just not a clever way to move things around, yet, it's the way we've been doing it since the motor car was invented, right?

I mean, this is how the big companies move products around: guys in trucks, guys in vans, guys in cars, guys in motorbikes, whatever.

KATE: I love this.

First of all, you're sitting on your couch, you're thinking to yourself how can I get these French fries delivered to my house lickety-split.

BOBBY: Yeah.

KATE: You have the idea and then, you sit there and you dream and you think to yourself, what would this mean for Ireland, for Europe, for the world, if we could do this for everyone, not just me, but everyone?

And that's an audacious dream.

This is a big vision.

What do you do next to make it happen?

BOBBY: I spend nearly a year studying the space, studying the technology side of things, the manufacturing side of things, the safety, the regulatory side of things 'cause we're a licensed airline now, we've a license to fly autonomous aircraft.

It takes a lot of time and a lot of money to build this.

And you say, right, who would finance this?

Because it's not going to be profitable for a decade.

Right?

It's going to take a decade to build a real business here.

Not a single person, I think, on the planet would've agreed with me at that stage, which was very attractive for me.

VANESSA: And chuletn is really traditional over in Spain, but it's also very traditional here.

So, it's rib-eye on the bone.

It's 30-day aged.

But the difference really with how the Spanish cook it, they love it medium rare, but they love salt 'cause I know you've mentioned salt.

So, they love salt on their meat.

KATE: Thank you.

Thank you, Vanessa.

Wow.

So, this is your favorite dish here?

BOBBY: It is, yeah.

And, and as she very well noted, the Spanish will throw a fist-load of salt onto everything before they serve it and that's nice.

KATE: I love how you know the Irish are known for meat and potatoes.

You take me to a Spanish restaurant and what are we eating?

BOBBY: Meat and potatoes.

KATE: Meat and potatoes.

(laughs) BOBBY: Exactly.

Yes.

KATE: We have to get our meat and potatoes in.

BOBBY: Of course, yes.

KATE: So, tell me, how practically does Manna work?

BOBBY: Well, you open our app... KATE: Okay.

BOBBY: ...and you get a list of restaurants and things, we have a bookstore, we have a hardware store.

You can get a defibrillator, if you need one of those.

We might need one after this steak, actually.

KATE: So really, it's not just food and groceries?

BOBBY: Oh, no.

It's everything.

KATE: It is really anything you need delivered?

BOBBY: Yeah.

We've delivered engagement rings, we've delivered phones, we've delivered defibrillators.

KATE: And what is the time?

How quickly can you deliver?

BOBBY: Our average flight time in Dublin is two minutes-forty seconds outbound flight and maximum flight is about four minutes.

KATE: Bobby, how is this possible?

So, I'm in the suburbs... BOBBY: Physics.

KATE: Physics, okay.

So, I'm in the suburbs of Dublin.

BOBBY: Mm-hmm.

KATE: I'm a mom and I need diapers... BOBBY: Yeah.

KATE: ...and I get on the app and I order diapers.

And you're saying I can get them in three minutes or so?

BOBBY: The flight's three minutes, but the load time might be four or five minutes.

One of our bases here in Dublin, it's in a place called Blanchardstown Shopping Centre.

KATE: Okay.

BOBBY: There's 280 stores there, so you can order, in our app, anything from any of those stores and our aircraft are right there on the roof of the shopping mall and around in the car park.

And those 12 aircraft will each do about 80 to 90 flights a day each.

KATE: Wow.

This is delicious.

BOBBY: Isn't it?

KATE: Oh.

BOBBY: And what makes it work?

The salt.

KATE: Oh, the salt.

Yes.

BOBBY: Yeah, I know.

Dry-aged for 30 days, and now I read a report that meat is not bad for you anymore.

Apparently, meat was getting a bad rap for a while, but now it's good for you.

KATE: Everything in moderation.

BOBBY: Let me go for the potatoes, that's really the test.

KATE: How many drones are currently stationed at any one point?

BOBBY: So, a whole of Dublin, which is 1.1 million people, about 420,000 households is operated with a 100 aircraft.

And so, they're busy aircraft.

They do it, but they work hard and because every flight's so short and so quick, they're very productive.

The equivalent road journey one way is about twenty minutes.

Our average flight is two minutes-forty for us, twenty minutes in a car.

KATE: Okay.

BOBBY: When it arrives, it hovers about 60 feet, it opens the Bombay doors and drops the product down from 60 feet on a tether, a very fine biodegradable tether, you don't even see it.

And it takes 4.5 seconds to get from the aircraft at 60 feet onto the ground.

And that sounds a bit violent.

It isn't.

We deliver fresh eggs.

KATE: I was going to say eggs.

BOBBY: No problem.

But the big test is 22 percent of our deliveries are coffee.

KATE: Really?

BOBBY: Cappuccinos, lattes.

KATE: I'm out of coffee, I need it quick.

BOBBY: And we deliver it with still the little design in the milk, the coffee art's still intact, don't spill a drop.

KATE: You can deliver a cup of cappuccino... BOBBY: Yep.

KATE: ...and that beautiful heart that the barista has worked so hard is still intact when it's delivered to the person?

BOBBY: It's perfect.

Yeah.

KATE: For me, when I hear it, it sounds like a fantastic idea, it sounds like a big dream, but then your mind immediately goes to all the issues and problems that... BOBBY: Yeah.

KATE: ...you foresee and so it seems daunting.

BOBBY: Because I don't have a fear of failure.

Failure is absolutely fine, but I don't want to waste a decade of my life digging a hole that I can't get out of.

And when you start a business, most businesses, you're saying to yourself, this is what I'm choosing for the next decade.

KATE: Right.

BOBBY: You don't do it for the reward, you do it for the chase of the reward, the success or fail of it.

KATE: And when you say that, do you mean that of entrepreneurship in general?

BOBBY: Yeah.

KATE: Yeah.

It's not actually having the company, it's building the company.

It's on your way to getting, creating something.

BOBBY: Fulfilling part of it that makes your life worthwhile, all the sacrifice where you don't see your family or your friends, all that stuff.

You're not doing it for the money.

If you are, you're not going to die happy.

You want to look back and say, "This was fun.

I enjoyed it."

It's not a career.

It's your life.

And don't waste a decade doing the wrong thing.

KATE: Oh, I love that.

I've never heard someone say that.

It's not a career, it's your life.

And it's so true.

BOBBY: Yeah.

KATE: We always say, what are you going to do for your career?

As if career is something separate from your life, but if you really love it, it's all entwined.

BOBBY: I mean, in the end, humans weren't built to have careers.

They were built to live lives.

KATE: After a dynamite meal at La Gordita, Bobby and I decide to do what the locals do, take in a pint at one of Dublin's 700 pubs.

There's hardly a Dublin street that doesn't have a good Irish pub on the corner.

Many have a history and story as fascinating as the characters who work and imbibe there.

BOBBY: At night, you're just going to see this whole street absolutely full of young people walking across from one pub to the next.

KATE: As we walk the streets of city center, Dublin and dodge the raindrops, Bobby shares his favorite pub, Devitt's, that's been around for ages.

Pub culture is central to Irish culture and the camaraderie, community and connection it creates.

I'm going to have a pint, and that does not mean a pint of beer, that means a pint of Guinness.

BOBBY: Yeah.

A pint is Guinness.

There's no...Like the "of Guinness" is just wasted breath.

KATE: I will not waste my breath.

BOBBY: Yeah.

KATE: I'm having what you're having.

BOBBY: You just roar at the bar and say pint.

KATE: Pint?

BOBBY: Two pints, whatever.

KATE: Okay.

I think what's lost on people, it's not just about going to a pub in Ireland, it is about the camaraderie, it's about having fun, it's about laughing.

And it's essential and integral to being Irish.

BOBBY: The fabric of society.

KATE: What is the future of Manna ?

What is your vision for Manna moving forward?

Because here you are, you've got this you know, business that is launching, that is sprouting, that is doing well, where do you take it from here?

BOBBY: We want to be the only way people get goods delivered to their homes everywhere on the suburban planet.

Simple as that.

Everything from their groceries to pints of Guinness to hamburgers and fries, everything.

And our vision is to completely change the way e-commerce happens in local communities, that everything comes by the air, and that's very feasible.

We don't see a need for restaurants to go out of business, small, local vendors, suppliers, whatever it is to go out of business and we think it's completely viable for us to have our aircraft in every single suburb on the planet.

There's 92 million homes in the United States that are detached single-family homes that could benefit greatly from being able to get goods delivered quickly.

And that's the way... No, no, no, completely wrong.

I'm going to show you how to do it right.

You get your face right into the Guinness.

If it's not touching your nose, you're not drinking it properly.

Watch me.

KATE: (laughs) I feel; I think this is a trap.

This is a trap.

BOBBY: Teaching these English guys here how to drink as well.

See that?

KATE: Okay.

I did it wrong.

BOBBY: It's terrible.

It's a travesty.

KATE: I have a long way to go.

BOBBY: It's a travesty.

KATE: It's a travesty.

BOBBY: It's a travesty.

KATE: What a meal with Bobby Healy in the heart of Dublin at a Spanish tapas restaurant with the most tender Irish beef I've ever had.

This fun and inventive restaurant reflects Bobby's own mission to chase the fun in life as well as the creative process.

He is more drawn to the process than the outcome.

We should all take note on that one.

He wants to make drone delivery available everywhere for everyone.

No easy feat, but that's the visionary in him to see something others can't and to have fun doing it along the way.

Cheers, Bobby, to you and your Irish ingenuity.

KATE: If you would like to know more about the guests, the restaurants, and the inspiring stories of success, please visit ToDineForTV.com or follow us on Facebook and Instagram @ToDineForTV.

We also have a podcast.

To Dine For , The Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To Dine For with Kate Sullivan is made possible by... (Music and chatter) MAN: During the weekends, we do like a grill.

(Clatter of chess board) MAN #2: You know you have bragging rights in the hood.

I'm like, "My guy won the game."

(Clatter of chess piece and men yelling and cheering) FEMALE ANNOUNCER: At American National, we honor the "do"-ers and the dreamers: The people who gets things done and keep the world moving.

Our local agents are honored to serve your community, because it's their community, too.

American National.