Meet Sandy Levine

We recently connected with Sandy Levine and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sandy, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

I was very much into sports from a young age. When I was 7, I knew every statistic of every player on the Detroit Tigers, and was lucky enough to see them win the World Series in person (the last time they won it, in 1984). A few years later, I got to witness the “Bad Boys” and Michael Jordan duke it out season after season in the NBA, and I played baseball from early childhood and into college. I think sports were hugely impactful to my work ethic and tenacity throughout my career. I was particularly struck by the Tigers, who had the best start of any baseball team in history, winning 35 out of their first 40 games and stayed in first place for the entire season, ultimately winning throughout the playoffs as well. Similarly, the 1991 Chicago Bulls plowed through the regular season and playoffs and were seemingly unstoppable. As a teenage dishwasher, I didn’t have much motivation career-wise, but took each shift with the approach of not allowing plates in the dish pit to stack up, even during the busiest rushes of the shift. When planning and opening our first bar, it being successful was the only thing in my sights and I was laser focused on doing whatever was necessary to make it both profitable and a memorable experience for our guests.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I help operate a small group of independent restaurants and bars in and around Detroit. Our establishments are known not only for their delicious and beautifully prepared, but for the warm hospitality and memorable experiences we help to facilitate. Our restaurants and bars have hosted birthdays, anniversaries, first dates, engagements, weddings, and thousands of wonderful nights with friends and family.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The best advise I ever received was “don’t wait until it’s too late”. I know “it’s never too late” is also a phrase deserving of being a cliche, but when my mentor told me this, it really lit a fire in me to stop waiting for things to come to me. The three things I’ve found to be the most important are empathy, community, and tenacity. If you can commit to those three traits, you’ll follow a worthwhile path in a career whose ups and downs will be gratifying and fulfilling.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

Feeling overwhelmed sucks… Since 2020, I’ve had very few days where I didn’t feel some element of being overwhelmed. In my experience, the best way to deal with it is to just take action. The times that I procrastinate and wallow just exacerbate things and add to the pile of things that are already causing stress and anxiety. If I can pick one thing to accomplish and get to work on it, I’ll make the mountain of to-do’s a little smaller, and more importantly I’ll get the ball rolling. An object in motion tends to stay in motion, so if I can just get working on something it’ll often spur a series of actions that will get real work done and alleviate my feeling of being overwhelmed. And in those moments I go from being overwhelmed to feeling unstoppable.

Contact Info:

• Website: freyadetroit.com – dragonflydetroit.com – chartreusekc.com – theoaklandferndale.com
• Instagram: @freyadetroit @dragonflydetroit @chartreusedetroit @theoaklandferndale