Andrew Moger, who recently sold his restaurant real estate brokerage Branded Concept Development, or BCD, to retail brokerage firm Ripco, is the first to tell you he’s not a foodie.

“I’m a terrible cook,” Moger said in an interview. “I wouldn’t call myself a food expert. I’m a restaurant expert.”

And he's certainly proven that.

Since making deliveries in seventh grade for a restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Moger said he’s worked as a busboy, dishwasher and just about every other position in the restaurant business there is, learning the ropes.

He began to recognize his best role after a chance exchange with famed New York restaurateur Shelly Fireman of Fireman Hospitality Group. At the time, Moger, now 52, was fresh out of college helping to manage Fireman's flagship Trattoria Dell’Arte restaurant across from Carnegie Hall.

“‘You don’t smile enough,’” Moger said, recalling Fireman’s words. “‘You need to smile more. You are so serious.’”

Fireman came up with a trick for Moger to do just that. He asked Moger to take the pocket square out of his suit pocket and get a banana from the restaurant kitchen to put in the pocket instead.

“I begrudgingly went to the kitchen,” Moger told CoStar News. “Every table I went to, [diners] smiled at me. My natural response was to smile back. From then on, he forced me to wear different pieces of fruit. A lot of times, the more embarrassing, the better.”

Moger, whose coat-pocket fashion at the time also included carrots and “big, long, green stems,” learned a thing or two from that chapter in his life and from the man whose namesake restaurant group also includes such brands as Brooklyn Diner, Bond 45 and Brooklyn Delicatessen.

“I didn’t necessarily love walking around with fruits,” Moger said.

He realized he might not be cut out for a front-of-the-house role. "I just realized that, for me, as much as I’d appreciate the brilliance of the trick, I definitely enjoy the behind-the-scenes work as opposed to being in the center when it comes to being in the restaurants. ... It made me ... more involved in the development side.”

After stints as president and operating chief of the Two Boots pizza chain and executive vice president of development for Crunch Fitness International, Moger in 2001 founded BCD, which first started as a project management company overseeing restaurant design and construction primarily in New York. A few years later, he added the brokerage business after realizing there was an opportunity to be a restaurant “one-stop shop” as the project management business was already doing a lot of the legwork for brokers without the commission. He sold the project management arm of BCD last year.

BCD also has a strategic investment and advisory segment that was not part of the Ripco transaction that Moger continues to oversee separately. It invests in and advises restaurants including the likes of popular casual American brasserie The Smith, Middle Eastern fast-casual chain Naya, Mighty Quinn’s BBQ and one of the largest U.S. Dunkin’ franchises. That business also advises and invests in restaurant-adjacent businesses such as SevenRooms restaurant reservations, ResQ restaurant repair and maintenance software and Tindle plant-based chicken.

“I really love working with brands and watching them expand,” not just involving real estate but also helping them with “the best plan for success,” he said. “The brokerage business is something I love, and I’m thrilled to have partners. [But] I do have tremendous passion for the investment side. ... What I really love is taking the restaurants that I love and help them grow.”

Moger said he wasn’t specifically looking to sell the brokerage business but was introduced to Ripco President Mark Kaplan and saw the appeal of the “cultural fit” and the benefits of a tie-up.

For one, Moger, who now serves as Ripco vice chairman and is based in Manhattan to help Ripco expand in the food and beverage businesses, said BCD now has access to a “full team” dedicated to market information versus BCD relying on outsourced data previously.

Ripco’s team of 100-plus brokers also will help expand BCD’s national food and beverage clients beyond the New York metropolitan area to cities such as Miami and Tampa, Florida, to meet growing demand, Moger said.

He also is helping Ripco — which was founded in 1991 and has represented different retail tenants including Target, Best Buy, T.J. Maxx parent TJX, Chase Bank and TD Bank — recruit brokers specializing in the food and beverage sector.

Ripco’s “infrastructure and technology create a meaningful advantage to our clients,” Moger said. “While we did work in a fairly large geography, it was not possible to always have boots on the ground. ... This is going to help grow the platform.”

BCD had just a team of five before the Ripco purchase, and two people including Moger joined Ripco. The other three, led by former BCD partner Alexandra Turboff, recently went to work for Ripco rival Retail by Mona.

Moger has helped broker deals for a number of New York’s popular restaurant brands. BCD’s former and existing tenant client roster includes restaurateur Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality as well as The Smith, Ani Ramen, Melt Shop, Boqueria and Dinosaur BBQ.

He helped broker the first New York locations of restaurants including La Pecora Bianca, Burger & Lobster, Veggie Grill, Five Guys and Wagamama. He’s also working to expand several brands outside of the New York tri-state area, including taking The Smith and Naya nationally.

But after over 20-plus years of calling the shots, Moger admitted letting go of control and becoming part of a larger firm still takes some getting used to.

“I found myself in the first week biting the tongue a little bit,” Moger said. “I just need to be cognizant that I may not be the one who has to call the shots.”

Meanwhile, he admits overseeing the investment and advisory business on the side can be another challenge even for a multitasker like himself.

“I work seven days a week, because it’s what I love doing,” he said. “The past couple of months are even outside of my comfort zone. It’s been a lot. It’s going to be a balancing [act].”