Zalaznick

Jeff Zalaznick ’05, co-founder of Major Food Group, will visit campus Oct. 23 as this semester’s Arts and Sciences Munschauer Career Series speaker.

A psychology major, Zalaznick will discuss how he got his start, the challenges and rewards of working in the restaurant industry and how his liberal arts education helped him throughout his career. His talk at 5 p.m. in Lewis Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall, is free and open to the public.

During the last four years, Major Food Group has become an industry leader, with many of its popular New York restaurants, such as Carbone, Torrisi and ZZ’s Clam Bar awarded Michelin stars.

The company’s casual sandwich restaurant, Parm, is the winner of two stars from the New York Times and has a second location at Yankee Stadium; additional locations in Williamsburg, Park Slope, Battery Park City and the Upper West Side are set to open in 2015.

“I always had a feeling that I would do something entrepreneurial, but I did not know what exactly that was when I graduated,” said Zalaznick, who worked as an investment banker with J.P. Morgan after graduation. He said he knew it was time to switch gears “when I realized that I had no interest in reading the Wall Street Journal and a lot of interest in the world of food, restaurants and hotels.”

In 2010, Zalaznick formed Major Food Group with chefs Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi, who had just opened Torrisi Italian Specialties. They opened Parm in 2011 and renovated and reopened Torrisi Italian Specialties as a boutique tasting room.

“I knew that to do something at the highest level I needed to find what I truly loved,” Zalaznick said. “My education in psychology gave me confidence in the importance of finding my passion and knowing that I should follow my instinct. My true passion is food and beverage, and I love what I do every day.”

Recently, Major Food Group opened Dirty French in the Ludlow hotel on the Lower East Side and Lobby Bar, a 100-seat indoor/outdoor cocktail bar inside the Ludlow.

Upcoming projects include the Renzo Piano-designed restaurant underneath the High Line and Sadelle’s, a bagel-centric bakery-restaurant. Both Torrisi’s and Carbone’s restaurants have been nominated as Best New Restaurants in America by the James Beard Foundation and Carbone received three stars from the New York Times. Zalaznick has been listed in 30 Under 30 by Zagat and Forbes.

He said a psychology degree can be indispensible in his line of work.

“Understanding how people think is critical to creating concepts and critical to working with all of the crazy people who work in my business,” he said. “Being a restaurateur has a lot of moments where you feel like you are a psychiatrist, whether you studied psychology or not, so that definitely gives me an edge. It is a high-drama business.”

The Munschauer Career Series was endowed by the former director of the Cornell Career Center John Munschauer to provide funds for graduates of the College of Arts and Sciences to return to campus to benefit current students’ career education.