Alex Belew, Chef/Owner Dallas & Jane

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City! Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We've got some exciting stuff happening for you today. Wonderful show. Chef Alex Ballou, who is the chef owner at Dallas and Jane in Murfreesboro, will be joining us. I'm so excited about talking to this guy. He's just a passionate leader. He's a coach. He's one of those people who's incredibly motivational and inspirational and I'm just excited to have him here today. So let's jump in and sit down, sit back, relax, enjoy my conversation. We are here right now with Alex Ballou and Alex, you are the chef and owner of Dallas and Jane in Murfreesboro. Yes sir, that is correct. Thank you so much for joining us today on Nashville Restaurant Radio. My pleasure. So man, I feel like there's so much to talk about. Just to start off, I think it's hilarious because before we got on this call, we use a app and sitting here listening to kind of the background in your house and it sounds chaotic, almost like my house because I have two boys and you have children. It was just like children running around, wife, dad, the whole thing.

01:39How's that been going? It's absolute mayhem right now. I mean, I think being a chef and owner of a restaurant that's fairly new, I mean we're two years old, I'm not necessarily home a lot. So now that I'm spending just this, I've spent two years worth of time with my family in three weeks and it's been, it's been eye-opening, you know. It's been crazy. So initially I wanted to do a podcast where we could, people in the industry could listen to other chefs, other people and kind of gain solace and go, I'm not alone. Other people out there in this industry that are hurting and like just to know like, hey, everything's going to be okay. Little did I know we'd be talking to everybody out there who's sequestered with their children, letting them know that it's okay. This is what we do. You're not the only one thinking about, I mean, you know, I really have found solace in hiding in the bathroom for 45 minutes. The wildest thing. I don't know why, I don't know why I'm doing that. Well, I think it's a great segue into you as a chef owner of a business. Give me like a 90-second who you are, how long the restaurant's been there, why'd you name it Dallas and Jane, kind of what your cuisine, just give me the, give me the everything about you real quick. So I was born in Virginia. We moved to a little town called Rover when I was six weeks old, lived there, moved to Murfreesboro when I was four, did the normal kid stuff, started working in restaurants when I was 14. I went to culinary school in 2006, graduated with honors in 08. Spent, immediately hated working in restaurants because I was just burnt out. I was a musician as well trying to make it in the music industry.

03:25Was doing a little catering on the side just to try to pay off student loans and debt. I wound up being a high school culinary teacher in 2012, did that for three years while I was there. I was working at restaurants, worked at, I've worked at Husk, Dale Alexander, Stoney River, Five Senses, Table 3 for a little bit and then I've starved at some great restaurants just to gain some experience. I've done Spoon and Stable in Minneapolis, Gavin Cason. I was in Boston and Blackberry Farm and you know I've kind of bounced around to these places to try to absorb as much information as possible. Opening a restaurant was always the goal but I never wanted to get a lot of investors involved and the funding was weird. So after some time I had the money saved up and the landlord that had this specific space wanted me in it so he offered me 10 months free rent. I built the restaurant for $90,000. I already had all the equipment, moved it in and I named the restaurant Dallas and Jane after my grandparents that were a very influential part in my life. So that's kind of the nutshell. Fantastic as you were telling me that because I feel like I've known you, I've seen you, I know it's like every time I've seen a video of you or talked to you it feels very familiar and when you said I was a teacher it brought me back because I used to be a judge and I used to judge in the pro start competitions and I used to judge chicken fabrication and I remember you and your team. That's crazy. You did you've competed in that competition I assume? Yeah we won actually we won. Your team was so passionate and you guys are the best dressed team of everybody but I remember you as a coach and I remember the whole time going that guy's

05:25passionate. That guy gets it. He's in there. He cares. He genuinely cares about what's going on and you as a coach have stuck in my head until you just now said that I went that's how I know him. That's it right there. That's wild. Yeah the crazy thing about pro start was that we found out about the competition three weeks before the competition so we didn't even know it was a thing and somebody asked us to participate and we had three weeks to come up with our menu do all the costing and then I had to teach my students how to cook over a butane burner three courses in 60 minutes while doing all these knife cut precision knife cuts and fabricating a chicken. It was pretty intense. What about working with high school students like appealed to you what part of being a culinary teacher because it takes a special kind and you said your patience with your children was run thin but I mean it takes a special kind to get in there and do that. What's your motivation behind doing that? I think as a chef we're already teachers. I mean it's what we do. We are every day we are learning something and every day we are teaching our our staff and our team something. I mean it's either a new dish or how to cook something with a little bit more finesse. How to make sure your food costs aren't running rampant. I mean there's always an element of teaching in this job and for me I was actually a worship pastor at a church for eight years and I did the the ministry of the teenage group and you've got a lot of leverage when you hang out with kids and when you hang out with kids that they spend more time with you than their parents and I feel like there was some guidance there that was missing at home or just all around absent from their lives and to be honest with you the teaching aspect with the kids was the most fun part about being a high school teacher. The least favorite part about it was the administration, the the data collecting from the state level, the testing. It was just it was not for me. I

07:27did it for three years and that was about as much as I could stand. Well I totally I understand that. I mean for people like you and for me I mean I think all that those other like the admin type stuff of the job is probably the hardest part for us. Doing stuff like this where we can just talk is probably your wheelhouse as well as just getting in there and cooking, letting your innovation flow. It's kind of where I imagine you really excel. So if we're getting into culinary school, where'd you go to culinary school? I went to the Art Institute. Art Institute right here. And I went down to Juilliardy. It was I think they're closed now. I think they went bankrupt. Oh I'm pretty sure the Art Institute's closed. I could be wrong on that. I have not checked into that but I know Le Cordon Bleu is gone. I think the Art Institute may be gone but I was there in 06, 07, 08 and then postponed my graduation till 09 because the class size wasn't big enough. So tell me the because there's there's a theory right?

08:32I mean there's a couple different types of chefs and then there's the classically trained chef that goes to culinary school and comes out. If I was out there and I was contemplating going to culinary school, what are some pros and cons? What did you, what's the thing that you learned that you apply the most in your daily life? Man that's tough. I don't know. Culinary school you know I've got a different opinion than a lot of other chefs do. I mean I know somebody asked Sean Brock do you have to go to culinary school to be a chef and I think his answer I think his answer was yes. I'm not necessarily sure that that's my opinion. I think I've seen some great people start as dishwashers or as prep cooks and move up to be executive chefs and they're absolute killers. I don't know that you have to have a degree to make yourself a chef. I don't think it's an earned title. I don't necessarily think it's just given to you. A lot of the people that I went to culinary school with the day they graduated they called themselves a chef and they weren't. I mean they they had never had experience in an actual restaurant. They had a brief overview of the culinary world that was given to them in about two years but they had no practical experience. And you know when they go get their job in a restaurant they become a prep cook making 12 bucks an hour and they didn't understand but I'm a chef. I graduated culinary school. Yeah but you couldn't work under the pressure of having 13 tickets on your rail for a while. I mean you just couldn't do it. So I'm not sure. I think I graduated with about 400 people and I would bet 10 to 15 of us are still in the industry. Oh wow. People don't understand how hard it actually is. They don't understand the grind and the demands, the sacrifices that you make to actually do this job and do it well. So I fall into the camp of I believe you know almost like as in Ratatouille like anybody can cook. Yep. I think that it it is a hundred percent school of hard

10:33knocks. I think there is absolute benefits to going to culinary school but I've worked with tons of chefs who I would I respect the heck out of that I would definitely call a chef that did not go to culinary school for sure. You mentioned the grind, the toughness, there's the things that you have to learn. What are some of those things? I think school gives you like I said a brief overview but there are and I've been working in restaurants since I was 14 that in no way prepared me for opening my own restaurant. Just the amount of processes that you go through that you have no understanding of and just dealing with insurance and codes and licenses and taxes and all of these things that you've never had to deal with before they are completely overwhelming marketing things that you just you know you kind of think I'm going to open a restaurant and it's just going to be that easy and people are going to come and they're going to love it and it's it's going to be great and I would say 98 percent of the time that's not the way it goes. Unless you are a famous celebrity chef or people know who you are because you've worked at a high profile restaurant the likelihood of you being a knockout grand slam success the first year I would say is pretty pretty small. So really you know I didn't think finding staff would be as hard as it is and that's been that that was a huge struggle for us in the beginning. I mean it pushed us opening by six weeks because we just said finding a what finding staff a team staff. Yeah I got you finding just just getting applicants to walk in the door after they apply was you know I would say 65 to 70 percent of the people that applied when we first opened did not show up for their interviews. It's just bonkers. Wow I have a feeling a lot of that's gonna change. I would think the labor market is gonna is about to become an employers market instead of an employees market. That's gonna be amazing for this industry and for the consumer I think the consumer I

12:34think is gonna start seeing better service and people I think people are gonna start having a little perspective. I agree with you I think this time has been very eye-opening for a lot of people. I've actually heard my servers say they miss serving tables and I can't tell you how many times I've heard can I be cut can just go home oh my god this table is annoying me blah blah now they would give anything to be taking care of guests. I saw a meme the other day that said no matter how long this thing lasts ever be out of work eating ramen noodles every night the first shift back somebody's gonna be like it's dead can I be cut yeah I mean it's gonna happen so it's it's challenging running a restaurant and I'm gonna I want to pivot into a video so forget pandemic all this crazy stuff you open a restaurant 2018 and your restaurants beautiful I actually went into your restaurant early before you opened as a district sales manager for US Foods just kind of met you and checked out your place beautiful the food you're doing I think is just it's it's beautiful as well I mean what you're doing is just it's artistry and I love it but as much of it is artistry you said 98% of the time that's that's cool and all but that doesn't necessarily cut it and in Murfreesboro is an interesting market but you're you put a video out on Facebook a couple months ago and you basically said hey this is hard we need your help time but tell me about that video you know from August of last year until January of this year our sales for some reason and I don't know why just they just tanked and they dropped about 40% out of nowhere no for no reason I mean we are the number one you know as much as you

14:39can take Yelp we are the number one rated rated restaurant on Yelp in Rutherford County we won best restaurant in Rutherford County by the local awards we got nominated eater called us the number one restaurant in Murfreesboro we've got great reviews five stars on Rezzi all across the board and it just just vanished sales just gone flatline we would be it'd be 645 on a Thursday night and there'd be no tables in the restaurant I mean we went from doing $80,000 a month in sales to 35 Wow 40 we would have nights where we were doing 700 $800 in sales and I was throwing every idea I could at the wall to make something happen that we we have happy hour every night we have free house-made snacks at the bar we do we were doing a date night special two nights a week where you got any two entrees and two glasses of wine for $50 I mean that's super cheap we were doing kids meals we were doing we tried to we tried to change our menu to make it a little bit more accessible we changed the wording of things we added a pizza we we did all these things and our social media following is great we have about 15,000 people that follow us on Facebook I think we have like eight nine thousand likes and eight thousand followers our Instagram gets pretty good traction but none of that social media traction actually turned into people in the seats and the perfect and the perception was that we were doing great that we were killing it and people thought we were killing it but we weren't I mean we were we were drowning I we had to refinance our house I had to sell my car I mean we've done all that we could to make it work and the question I asked myself was how long do you work a hundred hours a week without paying yourself to make something work and I just couldn't do

16:46it anymore and you know we went we went through Christmas and sales were down and we opened we opened back after a little four-day break with our winter menu in January and I posted the picture of the winter menu and it went he got like 150 shares and a bunch of likes a bunch of comments and everybody was like oh my god it looks so great can't wait to try it so the Tuesday we opened we had 18 people come eat here Wow and then the Wednesday we opened we had 16 people come eat here and then Thursday we opened and we had 17 people eat here and after 645 there wasn't a guest in the building and I was sitting at one of our tables looking in this empty dining room servers have been cut kitchen staff have been cut and about five minutes later my CPA emailed me five emails back to back to back to back to back sales and use tax for December is due liquor by the drink tax is due business tax is due and then payroll tax is due and then payroll was coming out tomorrow and I added it all up and it was about $27,000 and we had $32,000 in the bank and I just broke I broke I didn't know what to do and I had seen all this hard work and I you know my dream and my family and my staff you know I've got 20 people that work here that I'm worried about how are they gonna make their money how are they gonna get paid they've got kids they've got families and I just kind of snapped and I decided to post the video where I was very honest about what we were going through and our hardships and I said basically unless something drastic changes we're gonna have to close by the end of February because we don't have the funds to keep going so I mean you put that video out there and that's that's just I mean I don't know if you can get more of a stark reality you know I mean I think people hear about restaurants opening too much fanfare and they're all excited and they like to like pictures like you said but just what you just mentioned was so raw and real and I don't think people recognize like how much just them coming out to

18:53eat dinner just a date night how much that means to the local independent restaurateur spending time eating from eating food from you that comes from local farms and like I said is unbelievable is better for you but then you drive by like a Longhorn steakhouse and it's packed killing it and I mean that that's a they're on a two-hour wait on a Wednesday at 645 and you're like my food is amazing I'm like two minutes down the street come on yeah and I you know we've heard the location argument before and I get that I didn't think it would matter as much as it has because of the type of food that we were offering but apparently it did and but I posted that video to our Facebook page not expecting I was just trying to reach our followers the people that support us and follow us I was just trying to let them know because I would I dare say a hundred percent of the time restaurants close they do not let you know they're closing they just shut their doors I mean your employees show up for work and the door has a padlock on it because there's a number of things that go wrong when you tell people that you're closing staff start stealing they start quitting because they know that the end is near so they start trying to protect themselves which is completely normal but restaurants by and large they don't let people know when they're closing they just shut their doors and I we have relationships with the people that eat here and I didn't want to just shut the doors on them I wanted I wanted to let them know this is what might be happening and what happened after that was just insane I mean that that video reached 76,000 people it went it went crazy it was shared over a thousand times it was written about in the local paper it was it was being shared by

20:56people in Las Vegas there was a gym in North Carolina that shared it and for business I think I spoke for most all small business owners and there was definitely some hate I got some people that were calling me whining and you know saying I was pandering to Facebook and that I was you know blah blah whatever they were saying it's fine you know I this is my my dream my business and I'm gonna go down swinging for it it's what I believe in so I'm gonna go down fighting and that's exactly what I did I could not have been prepared for what happened that weekend we had 35 reservations for that entire weekend and that's the number of guests we had booked for Friday and Saturday Friday night we did a hundred and sixty five people I mean we were running and we're a 50-seat restaurant so that's three solid turns here and we ran out of food and the next day prep was insane because we pretty much had to prep the entire menu it was wild that's that's that's amazing what a what a way for the community to kind of just show up and what did that do how did that make you feel inside because when you pour your heart out like that and you're that vulnerable when you just when you put out there what you're feeling what's on your heart and you know the very real reality is you go into that weekend and 35 people show up and you got to just go okay I guess they didn't listen but when it gets that many shares and that many people watch it and then you have that kind of a response what does that do for you what does that do when you go home do you just like break down I mean I was just in awe of what happened I could not I just could not believe what I was seeing I mean I was standing in the dining room taking pictures of the dining room there were so everybody there were so many people in here I mean was standing room only people were outside waiting to get in it was a it was a surreal experience that those are the

22:57moments that you that you love it it wasn't about the sales of the night it was about there were there were 55 people in here eating at the same time nobody was on their phones there was laughter and it was it was just a great moment it was great it was everything you dreamed when you thought about opening your own restaurant and doing this like all these people creating experiences together in a platform that you you created and it was almost it had to feel like there it is that's the feeling that you just constantly chasing right I went back into the kitchen I was like this is what I want to feel every single night this is awesome I mean the kitchen was humming servers were happy because they were you know I mean they were generating income everybody was everybody was just moving quickly and working together and it was it was an unreal experience and that lasted for about six and a half seven weeks at that momentum and then we went into what I assume is March yep and the longest month of aka the longest month anybody will ever remember March was the long March was the worst decade of my life which is which my birthday is March 8th so it's my birthday month so I'm like hey if we're gonna celebrate my birthday is a good month to do it but at the same point no so you go through that impassioned plea on Facebook you have such an amazing response you're thinking here we go like if my dream is being realized this is amazing oh yeah well now there's a pandemic yep tell me about your story what happened here what are you currently doing well we we saw I mean I kind of saw it coming and so three three or four days before we were mandated to shut down I decided to close our reservations were dropping like flies I mean we went from having 40 50 people booked on Tuesday to by that Monday we had like eight people left and then Wednesday Thursdays Fridays reservations were just they were just

25:00done I mean we had a private party cancel everybody saw what was coming and they just knew they weren't gonna eat out anymore so we I spent a few days trying to figure out what we were going to do and we're still kind of trying to figure that out because one thing that we did we did a family meal subscription basically you order for $150 you get three meals that each feed four people and you got a salad and four taken baked cookies it was basically 12 bucks a person per meal the first week we did that we had 87 families sign up it was great second week 45 families this week my guys are in the back right now packing everything up we only had 18 families and so that's kind of gone down a lot we are doing curbside this week I'm gonna see how that goes and we've started I would say a month ago we started doing a Facebook live cooking series called cooking and cocktails with Corona and 30 to 45 minute Facebook live cooking class and we've done about 25 episodes probably we've had Manit Shohan on as a guest Tracy Acha was on Shane Nasby was on a friend of mine from Boston named Megan Thompson will be on tomorrow on Instagram we're gonna do like a split-screen Instagram cooking class and she's gonna show everybody how to make a butterscotch budino and that's been kind of cool Mountain Valley actually wound up sponsoring us so I mean we've turned that into a something fun it's giving people a break from the monotony and we've actually taken in some donations through Venmo for people to help support the class and our ingredients that's amazing so what a fun fun thing to do what a great way to make lemonade yeah and a way to share some of your talents again I feel like this going back to being a coach being a teacher being somebody who wants to just

27:04share in this community is something that I feel like just keeps coming back to you like it's just part of your DNA yeah I mean I don't know I want to do as much as I can to support the community that I'm in I want to take care of my staff I've prayed for my business for ten years and the only thing I've ever prayed for is the team of people that I get to work with and I want the people that work here to feel like they get to go to work not that they have to go to work and that kind of spirit when we're all here it makes a better team environment and then I'm able to focus on things outside of the restaurant like providing meals to the homeless or the hospitals or doing community events and you know continuing education and I don't know I'm trying to remain incredibly positive right now and hopeful and bring some laughter to people right now because a lot of people are scared yeah and you know I think it's so it's it's okay to be scared you know I think that there's a there's a side of this that's very scary I think living in fear is not healthy but it's okay to be scared if you're out there listening like this is uncertain times but we're gonna pull through it you can see from a guy like Alex here who's just every day pivoting trying to make the best out of this thing and I love it having leaders like you in this community it's just it's really what makes the fabric of the hospitality community is people like you so thanks for everything that you are doing absolutely that's I mean I'm trying to have fun I mean there are people that are very scared to lose their restaurants their their retail stores and there are people that think I'm just one person what can I do but if you do one thing that affects one person you still did something that's great I offered a free cooking class to kids the first day they were out of school because there was a lot of kids on free and reduced lunches that were worried

29:06about how they're gonna eat and I said if you're you know if you've got a kid that's on a free and reduced lunch I'm gonna teach them a cooking class they'll get to take home the product and I didn't know who was gonna show up one kid showed up and but he got to take home three pounds of paella and hopefully hopefully his family with it and hopefully you learn something but you know you can't be scared to do something just because you're afraid of the number of people that you'll affect if it if you help one person you still did something great you know this podcast maybe ten thousand people listen to it maybe ten people listen to it but if one person listens to this and takes out of this and goes I'm not alone I'm okay I'm gonna it gets motivated in some way then I feel like I'm a success and I love that so what's what's next for you what do you what do you see over the next six months what do you think is gonna happen where do you see yourself what's going on that's hardly it's hard to guess all this stuff changes on a daily basis heck an hourly basis I'm hoping that we are able to reopen as a restaurant by the end of May or June because I don't know how many I don't know how many restaurants can handle functioning at this capacity for another three or four months safety as well I mean you know people we want our staff to be safe if it gets to a point to where it's just not safe to go out then I think that also forces your hand another way right yeah I mean I don't you know if we're told to do one thing if this thing gets out of control then you know what we'll cease to operate if that's to the best of our staff's health and safety then that's what we'll do we're just taking it one day at a time and we've switched to contactless curbside delivery people are gonna come up we're gonna put their food in a bag on the hood of their car I mean we're gonna we're not touching you know we're trying to be as as cautious as possible if we you know I think a lot of the

31:06thought with with restaurant owners is that when we're able to reopen it will probably have some limits and restrictions on it you know half capacity of your dining room table six feet apart none of us really know right now but for us that I'm working with two of my friends Monte Silva and Chris Thomas and we've got some things that we're working on that I'm not at liberty to discuss at the moment oh sounds interesting you just have to stay tuned and keep watching the social medias but we've got we've been working on some stuff for about two months and obviously the corona virus has put a little hold on that slow down some things but we're still moving ahead and running along with that and just working working the best we can all right well thank you so much I've got I've got some rapid-fire questions okay and then I will get you let you off the hot seat here these are just a bunch of random questions that I've got like eight of them that I think people out there might want to know okay what type of shoes do you wear in the kitchen I actually wear red-wing boots I have I have incredibly terrible feet I have like next to no arch and my foot doctor all of a sudden I can't think of what that podiatrist podiatrist yes he told me that I needed to wear boots because they had very thick soles and they were more protective of my feet so I actually wear red-wing boots nice I noticed one of your videos that you had like boots on and I was thinking if you're on your feet all day long and you're a chef you must know something I don't so I want to know what what kind of kicks you were wearing what's the most essential piece of equipment that you use on a regular basis in your kitchen besides your knife my blender my wearing pro blender who's your favorite purveyor in why I have a favorite person that I deal with

33:07that works at a specific purveyor shout out I actually have two I think does it have to be food or can it be drinks as well whatever you want just somebody out there who's a rock star who's helping you out who you would consider to be a partner I want to give him some love Ashley Hester is my Lipman rep and that girl goes above and beyond and does not stop caring about me and this place and she will go to the end of the earth to make sure that we either get our product or we hear about something new that they're offering or bringing up glassware on a Saturday I mean she's she's all over it she's a killer between her I love to hear that Matt Pelt who worked for inland he got furloughed during this thing but he's also one of those guy I can text him at 1030 at night and be like hey oh crap I need scouts from Morrow he's like I'll get it done I love that Matt help yep with inland seafood yep all right I love it what's your favorite band need to breathe need to breathe need to breathe your favorite movie of all time oh my god home alone wow very nice very nice or the Santa Claus this it's a you're a Christmas guy I'm a Christmas guy and also like I grew up watching Home Improvement so Tim Allen to me was like the quintessential father figure when I was growing up as a middle school in the toolman Taylor I love it what's your best book when the question asked people is the best book the most essential book for your profession so if I was a chef growing up and I wanted to be what's the book I got to read for me it's setting the table by Danny Meyer that's overwhelming hospitality insight is that book if it's about cooking the flavor Bible is a fantastic resource to learn how to pair flavors and what what foods go together what spices go with what fruits and I think the flavor Bible is a it's the perfect book for anybody that

35:11wants to build a dish because you know in your mind you've got to have you need textures you need salt fat heat acid you need all these things but sometimes the world of food is so large you can't know everything and so when you have a book that you know okay I'm going into fall and winter I want to do something with parsnips but I have no clue what I want to do with parsnips you open the flavor Bible and it unloads all of these things that parsnips go well with and so then from there you can start to build out your dish I want to have something so vanilla goes well with parsnips and you know I want to and blueberries and so maybe I'm gonna do a blueberry mostarda with a parsnip puree and maybe I'll put some vanilla bean in my parsnip puree and then I'll do that over a veal chop or you know a pork loin or something like that so you just I think that book is very very critical that is exactly the reason why I asked that question for that type of an answer let me ask you another question if you create that parsnip dish and you add vanilla and you kind of create it how do you know if it tastes good do you just taste it yourself and rely solely on your taste buds or who do you have taste stuff do you just put dishes out there and then hope to get positive feedback how do you know I think I have a I think I have a pretty good palette for tastings things but food is also very subjective and very personal anytime we make a new dish the entire staff taste it I want everybody to grab a spoon and tell me what you think and there's really no feelings hurt if it's bad if it's if it's okay but not good enough it doesn't bother me at all to say it needs some work and we need to tweak a little bit more I think a lot of times when you're younger you make a dish you put something up and it gets critical feedback and you're crushed and you're like oh man I'm just not good enough I should just give up but you can't take it personally it's not a personal critique it's what's best for the restaurant what's best for that dish sometimes I think as younger cooks we

37:14over complicate things and the older you get the smarter you get the more you understand that less is more and sometimes you don't need to put a lot of things on a dish to make it great all right what's your favorite thing to cook at home you're asking me if I cook at home what so what yes so do you cook at rarely I mean now I've been a little bit more forced to but my wife and I we actually we actually meal prep on Sundays so we were pretty simplistic we eat like the same six things every week we steamed broccoli asparagus sweet potatoes jasmine rice ground turkey and salmon that's pretty much it all right I got one more question what's the coolest app that you have on your phone that most people typically that you kind of feel like is your app that you use the most I'm gonna look at my phone to tell you I was like turning people on to like really cool stuff somebody the other day told me because we have woods in our backyard and I have birds all the time and somebody said I just like to sit outside and I turn the app on and I listen to the birds and it tells me what sounds the birds are what kind of birds are out there at nighttime and I went I need that app right now because that would be so cool like oh there's a blue ball there's an Oreo out there or whatever it might be there's a bird that's currently going to town at about 4 o'clock in the morning right next to my window that I'd like to just use an app to throw my phone at it it's so annoying man I don't actually have a lot of really cool apps I don't my phone is very utilitarian since this crisis has gone down I'll tell you a Venmo has been the app that I can't live without we've had a lot of a lot of sales going through that app I don't really play games so all right I've gotten some videos of my kids on boomerang that's about as far as it goes well sounds good well thank you so much for taking the time that you've taken today is there anything you want to say out there to the general restaurant people guests anybody out there for restaurateurs servers cooks y'all just try to hang on it's the next

39:18two weeks are supposed to be pretty pretty wild and crazy but I do believe that this industry will bounce back it may look different but I would say take this time to figure out what you want to do and who you want to be and what the kind of place you want to work for and if you feel like you've not been challenged enough go find somewhere that's going to challenge you life is too short to work somewhere that you don't want to be and so go find where that is and for the general public I think we've understood how important restaurants are and I don't know who said this I think Gavin case and reposted it but if the kitchen is the heart of the house what does that mean restaurants are to the community I think people are starting to figure out how important restaurants are and it's not just about eating to live we're trying to create experiences and moments and our goal is that when you leave you're in a better headspace than when you showed up and we miss taking care of people we miss seeing people we miss community and I think people are starting to realize how important restaurants are it was not about just going in there and grabbing a quick bite and leaving we miss interacting we miss relationships and it's it's so much more than just a meal I love that you said that because it's been the recurring theme that I've been getting from every chef that I speak with it's not my margins need to dis I my profit isn't this it's not really a financial pain that people are feeling although I mean that's a reality but that's not what people are talking about the talking about just the essential need of restaurants and community in people together sharing food and drink like it's a pretty special to hear so thank you so much for being on the show I wish nothing but the best of luck and success and I would love to do a follow-up with you you know kind of once the smoke clears and we have a clear idea of what's going on love to share whatever your whatever whatever this deal is you've got with Monty and Chris

41:21is it Chris Chris yes Chris Thomas the founder of made south oh yeah very nice okay so whatever whatever that might be I love to talk about it so have a good one man yeah dude so thank you so much that was great Alex blue what a wonderful time talking to that guy thank you chef for doing that well I want to send out another special thanks to my father John still who has taken on the role of producer for this show and has done a lot of the post-production for me in editing so you probably can tell the show flows better and it sounds a lot better a lot of that is in part to the work he's doing so thanks dad I really appreciate you so thanks for joining us again on Nashville restaurant radio again my name is Brandon still and I look forward to seeing you guys back again real soon love you guys bye