Ana, Josh, and Maria from Tantisimo and Mala Vida

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. And welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. We have some amazing people on the show today. We're talking with Josh, Anna, and Maria from Tantissimo in Malavita. And these are the folks behind El León Dorado. Back in the day, they did the Taco Bell discontinued item pop-ups during the pandemic and we talk all about those here today in this episode. I want to say introducing you to Malavita because these people are absolutely amazing and if you don't know about them, and I knew of them, I did not know them personally.

01:04So this was really fun for me to get to learn them. And I was really excited to put this episode out because the first half that we're like getting to know each other and the second half we like just like dive in and we find common ground and we have so much fun. This was a really great episode. So we did this episode like a week and a half ago and I was really excited to put this episode out this past Friday because that's when it was going to come out going into the 420 weekend. There was a lot going on there. I did not do that. And I'm going to tell the story as to why I did not do that. And I've hesitated. I've thought about this. I've laid in bed over the past two nights and I've thought do I tell this story today online on the show and I think I'm going to tell the story because my week this past week was probably one of the worst weeks I've ever had in my life. We went into Saturday night last week and we watched Saturday Night Live with Ryan Gosling and it was funny and it was great and I went to bed around 11 o'clock and I woke up at 3 0 5 because I had a cough and my wife said hey go sleep in the guest bedroom you're waking me up.

02:21So I said no problem. I grabbed my phone. I walk into the guest bedroom. I sit down and look at my phone and I have 17 missed text messages 3 0 5 in the morning. I have family that lives in California and I have some cousins. My first cousins are my mom's brother's kids and one of them is Blake. He's the oldest and then the second is Trent and there's two daughters as well. I get a message and it's from Trent and he says hey my brother Blake who is a pilot his plane went down and we don't know what's going on. It's in the San Bernardino Mountains. We know where the plane went down. We have to go find it. It's in a very remote area. So I it was very challenging for me because Blake is one of the most special people in the world and so I immediately book a flight to California at 3 30 in the morning.

03:22I walk in tell my wife we start praying. We're scared and so I land in L.A. at 10 30 that morning Sunday morning. I'm in L.A.X. and on the drive from L.A.X. to my uncle's house where kind of everybody was we're trying to figure out what's going on. They've located the plane. There's a search going on at 7 a.m. I get the news on the way home that he is indeed passed away and this was Sunday morning last week and I was heartbroken. I still am. This is this is hard to talk about right now as I'm sharing this with you guys. So Sunday was a very sad day for me in California with all of the family but I would not have wanted to be anywhere else. I needed to be there and to be with them and he was 35. So that's a really tough one. He was engaged and we just spent the whole day hugging and crying on Sunday.

04:27So then Monday comes around and that was another day. It was a tough day. Everybody there. I come home. I flew home on Wednesday morning. I spent the afternoon with my family hugged my kids very tightly and then Thursday I get in a car and I drove to Florida. We had a leadership retreat with our company and we were taking everybody down to Florida to do a couple days at the beach and we did a fishing trip on Friday. And it was amazing. We caught like a hundred fish. I caught a hundred and fifty pound shark. It was out of control 30 minutes to reel the thing in and we obviously let it go wasn't you know we're not trying to catch sharks to kill them or anything. I didn't. The thing I just I've got something big and it ended up being a shark. It was pretty cool. So I got pictures that you can go to my Instagram if you don't see pictures of that I'll put them up there. I get a phone call from my wife and she says she's hysterical crying and our cat the beloved Mr. Business is our cat's name and he got hit by a car.

05:37So our cat got hit by a car on Friday night and so I just left. I got back to the Airbnb Friday night and I got in a car at 345 in the morning and I drove back to Nashville on Saturday just to be with the family and here we are Sunday. I did not get an episode out on Friday. This episode did not go out Friday and for everybody who is in my life and I talk to regularly that knows of this about me I don't need I'm not telling you this story because I need sympathy or I need you to tell me how terrible it is. I know it's a really shitty thing. This has been a bad week. I tell you these things because if there is somebody in your life or anybody in your life go hug them. This is this is a this world you have no idea one day to the next whether or not you're going to be on it and if you have somebody that you love or if there's something petty between you and somebody else call that person tell him you're sorry tell him you love him tell the person next to you that you love him because you might not get that chance again and if you have pets hug him tight because you don't know that either that's one of those things that was um we're still pretty broken up over this and I appreciate you guys listening.

07:08This has been a really tough one for me to even tell this story and I only tell you this story so that you can understand kind of what my life was like for the past week and then you can understand that life is short and you need to put aside petty BS and more hugs more more love to people and yeah that's what I got today that that that's all I can muster up and we've got a big week coming up we're going to interview Gloria Johnson on Tuesday and I'm really excited about that conversation with her I have several more episodes that are ready to come out we're gonna start putting these things out there and I just thank you guys for listening today I don't want to start this episode off on a downer but it had I'm sorry it had to be done this episode is so much fun and it was almost like a pre time for me because I was just completely happy and yeah all right I'm just gonna end this up and we're gonna jump in right now with Anna Josh and Maria from 10TCMO.

08:26Super excited today to welcome in Anna Aguilar and Josh Cook and they are owner partners couple they're together they are at Malavida and Tantissimo. Did I say that right? Malavida. What did I say? Malavida. Malavida. Okay we're also joined with Maria Escomilla. Did I say that right? Escomilla. Escomilla. She as well as a partner in all of this but not you are a couple. We're not a throuple. Disclaimer. Disclaimer. Okay well welcome to National Restaurant Radio. Thank you for having us. Yeah thank you for having us. We're excited. So if you don't know what Tantissimo is or Malavida and you're wondering who these folks are they ran El León Dorado through the pandemic and you guys have been a couple I think since like right before the pandemic is that how that worked out? Right before. Yeah. Let's start off with a good love story. How did you guys meet?

09:43Take it away corazón. Yeah we met at Husk. I was a sous chef at the time. Okay. And she was a server. Oh the sous chef server hookup. Classic love story. That's how it is. Well we met when you were a prep cook and I was a server assistant so. Oh so you both got like together then got promotions? No no we worked through the front and the back of the house and then eventually just caved to each other. Who made the first move? I guess I was being flirtatious but. I made the first like action move. Oh I'm not talking about like like like asked you out. Did you guys like go have drinks after work or like how did that thing work out? I think someone told me to come where you're at. The look in your face is amazing. She's like I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I just remember we were at the box after a shift with like a lot of other people and then I was finally single so I like stuck around longer than I normally would have and then we were the last people there and like Raven was there that day and by the time she left it was like really obvious like oh these two are staying behind and she's like we'll leave you alone. Yeah and then we hung out. I was thinking that time at crying wolf.

11:12Yeah that I don't know what came first. I don't know what came first. That's why we do this. We do this so that you can have this somewhere on record for your future. You'll know when you ever have children like 20 years down the road. The story will keep changing. Yeah I think I made the first. No I don't think I did. Okay so you got and when was this? Well it was like okay Josh actually had a music city pop-up before any of this. Before I was involved in really food and any other way but being a server and I just like attended his pop-up because I knew that there was something flirty going on. So you were a fangirl. I was a fangirl for the day yeah and he actually had like a there was like some sort of giveaway of like a really fancy date and I bought like eight tickets. That was like my declaration of love. Like I made sure to bring a lot of people to his pop-up and then he made sure that I won that raffle. We never went on the date. Like what there was like a limousine a show like all sorts of stuff involved and we are you telling me you had a rigged raffle? Yeah yeah but we never cashed it in. By the time we were actually going out he was too embarrassed to like actually ask me on the formal date.

12:26So he owes you that date. Is that still is that still available? Why not? No I asked like six months later because I was going to use it with someone else and they said it was still available but then. I think we need to make this date happen. If you're listening to this and you have a limo company or if you have a restaurant chances are you do. Let's set them up. Let's make that date happen. I think we should make that date happen. Yeah let's do it. We deserve it. Yes if you and we'll you can come back and tell us how it went wherever we went. So this was 2019-ish late 2019 mid 2018. Yeah late by the time we became really a couple like that we couldn't deny anymore it was uh November of 2019. That was the real start. Oh so love is blossoming. You're going into the holiday season. Everything's going great. How do you guys know Maria? I worked with Maria at Salsa Puerto Rican restaurant. Oh that the one over there by like coming station like that little. Yeah we love that place. That place was cool. It's it was amazing. It was our second home for a while. Yeah. Were you one of the owners there? What would you do there? No um I actually started fresh off my 18th birthday for attending there. Did you guys have a good mafongo? Oh my god yeah. I miss that a lot. It's something uh we want to we want to bring back at some point. Yeah I still keep in touch with the owners and I actually spent Christmas with them this last year here in Puerto Rico or they're in Puerto Rico and we have the recipe. You went to Puerto Rico? I went to Puerto Rico. Where were the what part of Puerto Rico? They're in San Juan and they actually operate a restaurant there as well called Waikiki. So I still keep in touch with them yeah and we have all the recipes. We've got their blessing and may just be a little. Yeah a few of the a few of the things we really miss might come back. You gotta do like a Puerto Rican pop-up. That would be awesome. Maybe. I love it.

14:18Okay so you guys you guys you guys know each other a long time. Yeah super long time. We're best friends. When did you guys decide you wanted to get in business together? Uh I guess when the Henry James thing happened she needed like a real chef to take over the kitchen. Because I was doing like street food and family recipes but uh what Andy had in mind for Henry James was like elevated small plates and I was like I've got your guy we got Josh Mrs. Cooking he's got to get back in the kitchen and I need to grow and so yeah we went to Lalu and had a chat Lalu and had a chat and then he came on board last year officially as a partner. Nice. And then Maria came on board shortly after because uh we were we were we were looking to buy that building. What building are you talking about? It's actually Roy's Tavern. Roy's okay. Yeah so we were knowing that we wanted to like make something official and expand and Maria came and like helped me bartend and turn that uh place around for a short period of time while we were figuring out what was going to happen there. We ended up taking over the management for the whole thing for a very short period of time but it was it was a fun little trial period to try Latin American cocktails and salsa nights and all of that and she came and helped make all that possible. Yeah and you know our roots were bartending that's how we met back in salsa. Yeah so it was nice to rejoice and really enjoy the process of creating new things together. What part of town do you guys live in? North uh North Nashville it's like 22nd Buchanan.

16:00So in March 3rd 2020 there's a big tornado that comes through. Were you guys affected by this? I wasn't living with her yet uh I was living on the east side but either way I mean yeah but she got her like two houses down it was completely destroyed. Destroyed and that may have expedited like us moving in together and then eventually like us having the business everything like was definitely like thrust upon us by the tornado and then the pandemic um. So tornado happens holy shit all this stuff goes down your two houses down you guys maybe hey we should probably think about living together I was really scared that night whatever be cool if you were here and then two weeks later pandemic hits. Were you guys working at the moment that like on March 17th like St. Patrick's Day 2020 what were you guys doing? I was at Husk. Yeah we were still at Husk. I was executive sue at that time. And then it closes. Yeah. And uh who was the chef then?

17:02Uh chef Katie Koss. Oh yeah okay and Josh was executive sous chef at the time. Nice. Yeah it hit and then we closed and then we got it. You and Julio um planned the pop-up that we did at Chopper? Yeah. So uh. That was kind of the start of him in that relationship at Chopper. That's cool. Yeah so you guys were planning that pop-up and I actually the probably the whole reason I got into this was because I helped run the register for one of Julio's pop-ups at like Biscuit Jam, Nashville Jam Co. or something like that. Yeah. And um they weren't. I worked it. You worked it. But it was his pop-up and I worked the register and no one made dessert there were like five really talented chefs there and zero of them made dessert and I was like I could have made something and sold it because people were like desperate to go out and spend money and do something. Oh my god yeah. Yeah so I uh told him like hey next time I'll like I'll make something if none of you guys want or know how to make dessert somehow. And that that was a little bit of the start of it for me that piqued my interest because the opportunity was right in front of me.

18:16Now I remember you specifically telling me when you would bake my birthday cakes I will never do this for money. Yeah and I was dead serious. Dead serious. If it weren't for the pandemic I never would have done it and maybe Josh too has helped change my mind about a lot of things. Working at Husk helped too because I didn't I was 16 when I started baking wedding cakes then I thought I was going to do it for a living and I was not surrounded by anyone who appreciated food so I was just like no one cares I'll never do this again. And then working at Husk teaches you like people care a lot about really small details and I'm the same way so I loved that. Yeah I was uh before Husk I was working at like uh like restaurants on Broadway and there's there's like no passionate people there and I was starting to lose my interest. It's a machine man I mean you're just churning it out. Where were you? A place uh I don't know I don't think it's even there anymore but it was right on Broadway it was called crazy town. Okay I don't know if it is I don't ever go downtown so I can't say if it is or isn't. I don't think it is. I haven't been in a while.

19:22I don't know if I just renamed it something. I stay out of there. Hell yeah I don't I don't I don't do that I don't not that's not a place I go I mean if I can avoid it I do I mean if there's like a hockey game or something then I'm down but uh okay so El Leon Dorado happens you guys say hey look let's do our own food truck right? Yeah. Are you involved at this point Maria? I would pop in every now and then when they were doing Taco Bell pop-ups and all that good stuff. She would rescue us. Yeah. So were you guys the ones that were doing the um Taco Bell like the the talk that when they got rid of Taco Bell stuff yeah and you were the ones doing like the Mexican pizzas and Crunchwrap Supremes and all that stuff? We did it the first time at uh wasn't it Bar Sovereign? Bar Sovereign yeah and it ended up being a little bit of a shit show because that kitchen uh at the time it was the kitchen at the time was kind of didn't really we didn't realize how many people were gonna show up and we once people started showing up it was like we realized the kitchen was really not fit for how many people were about to cook for. Well that's the most badass idea like I ever heard and that's how that's how I got to know Edgar Victoria honestly because I went to one of his pop-ups I love you Edgar I'm so sorry to say this out loud I went to one of his pop-ups I thought it was your pop-up nice I thought because I thought I mean I know that's that's probably just terrible so many ways other people it's okay if it's Edgar well because and but like I went it was like the southern or something and I went to the southern to see Edgar and I think I had known who Edgar was at La Breja and I was it was one of the best damn meals where I had my life so the best things I've ever done was going to that because he's just a genius but I wanted to go eat the Taco Bell the the stuff that discontinued Taco Bell where'd that idea come from uh like doom scrolling on internet just I like I see trends a lot when I'm like going through social media I just saw like meme after meme tweet after tweet

21:25people getting upset they cancelled the um when the whole pandemic happened they stopped the Mexican pizza and all the stuff it was bring the double decker taco yeah so I did not grow up eating Taco Bell and I um I'm Mexican so I just was like what the hell kind of when he said that but I like ride with I ride or die for him and his wild ideas and here we are but yeah so he was very serious about this Taco Bell idea and so I was like okay I guess we could do that and sure enough people like lost their minds about it but I actually did have the caramel apple empanada when I was young and that particular item like stuck with me so I ended up making like hundreds of them for this pop-up and that was really really cool yeah we were working out of a tiny fraud like electric fryer we we blew the the circuit probably 15 times that day because we oh man the way we had to do it was like we prepped all the meat and like hot held it in steam wells but we we had every plug filled we were even using electric griddles for tortillas and stuff and like we just couldn't keep up it was so wild it was so many people showed up it was just interesting learning curve I think I have a little bit of PTSD from that are you guys doing anything like that now I've recently started to hint during our meetings that we need to do something like that and we do have the one year anniversary of the food truck coming up so we were thinking of doing the mexican pizza for that but people are voting for taquitos instead so we might have to taquitos yeah we've had we have like a couple of polls going on our instagram right now to choose the special for the one year and I saw a bracket on your website is that what you're doing like you're doing a bracket on common ninja I tried and I couldn't figure out how to make it let you vote so I ended up just making the polls on instagram and that's where we're at right now and I haven't taken it off the website yet they emailed me today to be like the bracket is live I'm like I know but you can't vote on it so I

23:30have that common ninja app too and I've done a bracket before we did the best mexican restaurant middle Tennessee it was like 64 restaurants we broke it down and it went yeah it was a lot of fun it's a lot of work yeah because you have to promote it and then each round everybody has to vote again and they got to go in and put all their stuff in it's a whole it's a whole thing but so that's cool I like that idea I love that idea yeah we did it I'm coming when it happens yeah we did it twice the second time we did it at uh half horn and that was really successful less stressful because we had the whole their whole kitchen staff was on board and they opened it like it was just a regular night we had live music yeah and we were able to just be it was a full on like a real kitchen yeah so the second time we did it we actually were able to enjoy ourselves were people in or did you like do the takeout so I did alebrije one time from half horn too and I did he had just bring it out to my car I couldn't go inside like when was this like how far along in we did both it was that one was probably um I don't know it was a few months later but we were open inside because all of our pop-ups at the beginning we were hyper focused on it was almost like a little market we had a lot of other local artists and vendors come to our pop-ups um so it was really important for us to be able to have people actually come through and support those those other vendors now I understand taco bell somehow managed to get a hold of you all oh yeah pop-ups did they really yeah they did my goal were they like cease and desist no that was my goal was trying to get a cease and desist but they actually were just supportive wildly supportive they said hell of a goal by the way to be a liability I'm not gonna lie that's my guy over here I could tell him like yeah I wanted to let's push those frame it frame the cease and desist from taco bell no they like sent him a sweater and a bunch of like they sent us a bunch of food that we used for family meal for the second one yeah shelf shelf stable they sent a ton of baja blast so we still have some syrup that we sometimes use for pop-ups we did

25:33like a shaved ice with it once we did a bunch of cocktails at bar saab and half horn um with that and yeah that was just really cool to see them fully come on board for the volcano sauce recipe that I just continued yeah you got the volcano sauce recipe yeah yeah can I say that John Stevenson over at Hathorne yeah has to be one of the greatest talent scouts and just the most amazing shout out to John Stevenson because he's great you got to think uh uh Saint Vito's focaccia michael hanna was there yeah and then bagel shop uh what is her name I can't think of her name right now but her and her husband on bagel shop yeah it was there forever as like his sue or working with him uh I don't think of her name I'm so sorry and then um you had alebri hey you had all you had you guys like yeah he was bringing in throughout the whole pandemic and just offering his kitchen up totally yeah just good people man it was smart on his his part too some people didn't that we went to and like offered stuff like that too they didn't understand like they they were like oh what's in it for us and then you know they wanted to take like 60 of our food sales and they didn't yeah and they were I was like I don't think you understand like this is something to help us both you don't you know we can both win in this so it's really nice that he was super supportive and he understood the benefit of having people there like that to come to his place to see where hathorne is because I mean it was at the time hathorne was new it wasn't like an old restaurant you didn't know where it was next to the clementine like what is this chef evan um I can't remember his last name yeah how to pronounce his last name is always hard for me but um he was really plugged in with the community I think he did like the farmers markets with edgar for a super long time and he came and um made that possible for us like he was very generous and uh helped coordinate everything with john as well he was a super cool guy part of the reason that happened yeah I'm looking at Maria my co-host over

27:42here she's she's in the co-host chair today I know I'm like what do you got throw something else in here no for sure can we go ahead go ahead uh can we tell you what we're cooking now on the food truck you let's let's almost okay that's a good teaser I'm hungry right there um so you do the L leon dorado and then when did that end and you move to tantissimo is it tantissimo oh yeah I guess it's when I see more uh tantissimo let's say tantissimo so many times that people can't forget it it kind of I guess when I got a job no it kind of fizzled out before that right it um so we were doing it the whole concept behind that was just al pastor tacos and that was really like we made one thing really perfectly it was josh's passion project for a while and then it did become hard to sustain his job plus the prep for al pastor because it's the most like laborious and you're talking construction construction management so luckily I wasn't doing I wasn't physically building the houses but like mentally do you have a lot of history and leadership and construction no but uh I'm naturally handy handy naturally a good leader but the only thing that I challenged me there was uh I had to do a lot more computer work than I've ever done in my life phone calls and I feel bad forever thinking that people who do computer work it's not a hard job because it's exhausting he's left us with all of it now and now we're back to not doing computer work so congratulations I have to do a lot of computer work and people work and all of the things and it's yeah I'm not my favorite every part of it can be really challenging he I don't have to do almost any of the prep anymore I still do all the pastry

29:43but josh took over like everything I used to get in the weeds with and I do miss it sometimes when I'm drowning in emails and computer work but the pop-up yeah it did eventually sort of fizzle out we also kind of hit a point where like to answer your question about um hard times we kind of hit a point where we were like we should probably take a break from working together um oh what happened I I think that like three years in or four years in we finally realized that we were kind of having like one super long panic slash anxiety attack like that entire time that we were building the business so we wouldn't necessarily communicate in the best way and I didn't know him that well so I didn't really know like I just thought like we just don't work well together but now it's easier to like see like who's going through what um I mean it's still hard sometimes but at that time it was like you already have a job I can focus on tantísimo and let's like let el león dorado go for a while and so that was good I think we didn't work together for like maybe something like six months yeah I think it was good I need you to probably mature a little bit did you maybe learn how to appreciate all that extra work a little more too yeah I guess just like coming from like the maturation over yeah just coming from a tough kitchen it's I guess I need to learn how to just need to learn how to communicate better and softer and be more understanding softer yeah were you a yeller I wasn't no I wasn't you don't look like you don't seem like a yeller I did yell sometimes but I was I was never malicious you know what I've learned you hear all the time chefs are really um neurotic or a little alternative and personality types right I've come I don't know what you're talking you said it I didn't say I don't know what you're talking about I said alternative um

31:45did you say crazy you know perhaps but I mean you need a little bit of that for the creativeness that goes yeah the creativity they're just creating your work the creativity that goes into what they're doing every single day I mean but I guess it just used to people just saying yes chef and shutting up yeah I wouldn't say he you saw his face when he said that he was really proud of himself just to hear it oh yeah yeah I don't have I okay this is a weird thing still to this day because I when I started working at husk I love how much people care about food but I did think it was a little strange how much people cared about hierarchy I guess a little bit or even the separation between front of house and back of house and like how people should be addressed I thought it was like a little uncalled for a little strange people's egos sometimes just like can't like that doesn't work on me so I've but now I've been on both sides of it so I get I get the respect I get the systems I get it all but sometimes it's pure ego and I don't do well with that are you getting some of that unhinged behavior as well now that you're in the kitchen yeah I've had I've seen how it's possible for sure it's hot back there yeah servers a lot of time have no freaking clue what's happening and they just the random things and how they course stuff and you're like yeah the fuck are you doing there can be a lot of that and then back there there's a camaraderie because you're all kind of like Samantha rang that in again like oh you kind of learn who the people are it's a whole thing right and well it's really easy to to like ride that division but the reality is like everyone's usually working pretty hard I guess I have worked with other people in the front of house who aren't working as hard as they could be but I was not that person so none of this ever happens any of my restaurants by the way nothing like this I'm not referencing anything in any personal I'm just this is all stare I watch the bear so I

33:46understand everything that's very important what did you think of the bear did you watch the bear yeah yeah did you watch it Maria it's on my list you haven't watched it I've heard about five references in the last month about the bear and I am not up to date yet season three is about to come out every week I tell her she has to watch it what are you doing and I'll bench you know it's that day job thing day job so when we make it hopefully this is all I'm gonna have a little bit more free time what's your day job I'm in lending lending lending money lending money I'm a commercial lender for or a no I actually work specifically with attorneys so really yeah very specific client base very specific product here in a local regional bank so that sounds very just like being in a kitchen exactly very exciting numbers computer yes yelling at people so I'll ask you guys what did you think of the bear me and Caroline have this big argument because I loved it she hated it oh really yes I liked it a lot um it's definitely pretty realistic I've never worked in like a three Michelin so I can't totally understand it but I worked in pretty tough like fine dining kitchen so I understand it um it's pretty accurate and it definitely puts emphasis on mental health because some of the stuff that he goes he's going through mentally I can really relate to um so I liked it a lot definitely I like how it how it kind of takes a step back and kind of goes to like a simpler food because I've kind of done that right now um so yeah it was just really cool to see like you know his uh character develop and how he's like going through all these issues in his head and he's kind of working through it and he saw this breakdowns it's like kind of very relatable and I thought that was really interesting like and how do you have a relationship in the middle of all that yeah in season two like he's now met this

35:51woman but it's like which one do I care about more yeah and it's almost like the restaurant has to be because that's the thing I don't think that people understand and being in a relationship together in in a restaurant like the demands of a restaurant is very similar to like a child 100% yeah it doesn't go away it's not like oh it's just we're just gonna close this week so we can take time off if you're the operators and the owners yeah you're in there all the time you're working all the time and it's are you guys seven days a week you guys do a couple days off yet no we were at Henry James but the food truck is five right now we'll see so at least you're getting a couple days off that's the main thing we did seven days a week at Henry James and it was excruciating because we also did it without systems in place and staff and everything was wrong when at the beginning but yeah I don't have kids but I very much feel like everything people have ever told me about having kids is exactly how starting a business feels yeah and you'll you're in the middle of that right now uh what did you think of the bear I thought it was really good um I thought that there was definitely humor I did think it's always weird to see stuff like that like called a comedy but like the seven fishes episode for example was like so intense however I did have some like absolute chuckles in there oh it was brilliant but it was rough yeah I watched that episode um I think my wife I think she fell asleep during it which I don't even know how maybe she wasn't there I don't want to open I got done with that episode and I felt like I drank a gallon of coffee like I was sweating I was triggered I was like holy cow what just happened I haven't met one person I was like I was all right you know yeah it triggered me we're not giving away too many spoilers I know I'm like hmm okay that's episode six in season two okay I can get to that you know and episode seven was forks yeah Richie and the forks which was

37:56loved that favorite episode of the whole thing I think it was supposed to be EMP right uh yes it was supposed well the whole that whole episode was based around uh unreasonable hospitality okay yeah I mean that whole thing was him going and getting the all I don't want to spoil anything from Maria over here who's Maria you're right she's behind the time she did it to herself well the book are you what are you did unreasonable hospitality you guys read it because of me it was actually that's not true at all well so it was a like it was a book club book at the bank oh yeah and everybody I love that by the way yeah so fantastic so it was like that's where we that's where we got started and I'm like okay obviously it's relevant over here for me to read it as well and that's how you came to know of it Anna and then well maybe not no did you come to know I actually how did you come to know I might have come to know of it through you or through just like a rest another restaurateur but it definitely wasn't through Maria okay but I think it might have actually we did a book podcast yeah we did a book club here a month long thing we talked about reason then I had will get there on the show okay wrote the book oh my gosh I missed that episode I actually didn't know that you had read it but I love that yeah yeah exactly so it was I think it was all around the same time because um yeah it was it was quite a read I'll say technically I didn't read it I did the audiobook I hate reading me too I don't know what it is computer I feel like when I start reading a book I just fall asleep I get like really high and I can't remember anything so it feels like the four foot graphics next to the the place where I read has nothing to do with that I promise yeah I just I'll like read a sentence and I'm like what did I just read so when I'm listening I can like remember every detail but when I'm reading I can't I can't remember anything was that the thing was the last week where you were quoting a couple things from there too yeah oh yeah so I was asking Josh to read it for a few weeks and it was actually like adorable because as soon as he did start listening to the podcast it's like every time I get in his car it's playing and then he has

40:00or the book um the book yeah the podcast like the book okay yeah no I'm just making things up I was like man it's a fan I like it yeah of course but um he'll he'll bring things up from the book regularly now like are you sure you don't need to read it again because the unreasonable hospitality is like not in line with what you're saying right now he'll just like hit me with those I use I I reference the book and I did a class on it at my restaurant at mirror bowl and then at the end of it I had everybody come in and watch episode seven of season two which is forks I know that because it's the episode right after feast of the fishes um and we all watched it together and then we talked about it did the whole thing but for me the idea of perfection in the book where he talks about and this is so big and I don't know if I've said this before I may have a problem sure I have nobody's gonna notice like the tiny little things that you do like at mirror bowl with this big house but I have them like clean the the front driveway kind of like right in front of the restaurant any leaves nobody would notice it if there was stuff in the parking lot but I have a blower and they go out there with the blower every single shift and they clean it out and then every like the little mats when you walk in have to be facing a certain way and I like vacuum stripes on them and all the little things and it's like dude nobody cares about this stuff and it's like not one of those individual things will somebody walk in and go excuse me there are leaves in your parking lot like nobody's gonna say that right but three of us might yeah no but but people feel perfection totally when you get out of your car and you go oh there's leaves everywhere but right here and you walk in and you see the stripes you see the stuff you go oh they're on it like there's a moment Disney quote it's where just every yeah they just they feel perfection that's one of the things he talked about the little forks and all the stuff is but what Walt Disney's are very similar that's what they were talking about unreasonable hospitality where he wanted the animatronic birds to look like they're breathing

42:01yes that's where that's where they feel it that's exactly feel the perfection yes and also I think on top of all of that it sets like precedent for everything else like if you're doing things like cutting tape and making sure everything looks perfect even though no one cares and it doesn't really affect the quality of food directly I think it does indirectly because like if you're doing if you're cutting tape perfectly then you know you're gonna grill us you're gonna take more time to maybe like grill a steak perfectly or set up your mise en place or keep your station cleaner it just sets like an attitude and a mentality if you're doing those small things that don't matter and the things that do you're doing even better a hundred percent what are you doing over there just moving my body just moving her microphone in the body all right here's what we're gonna do we're gonna take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors and then we're gonna come back and learn all about what you're doing now how does that sound awesome sounds good all right Callie sober the totally legal thc infused mocktail callie sober was created to provide a better alternative to alcohol no dependence no ulcers no liver damage and no night you want to forget or mornings asking what happened they only use non-synthetic all-natural delta 9 thc derived from the hemp plant it is the real deal the same buzz the same chill you'd expect from thc best of all callie sober is federally legal because it is made with hemp derived thc which is a legal substance under the 2018 farm bill if you're a restaurant you can pick this up through litman brothers they offer three different flavors poloma spritz ranch water and berry ginger fizz all with less than three percent thc by volume with five milligrams of thc per serving please enjoy responsibly charpies bakery is a locally owned and family

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46:08new ingredients and keep their kitchens consistently stocked with fresh supplies it's all about empowering culinary creativity while streamlining operations check them out at what chefs want.com or give them a call at 800-600-8510 back all right so we've been talking about your past we've got all the history we know you guys are in love we know that running a business together is a challenge we've learned that you have this new spot you have a new truck and it's not necessarily easy to find it's not like it's on the west end tell me about tantissimo is i say that right yeah gosh i keep feeling like i'm that's like it's tantissimo tantissimo you gotta sound out that and get out say all right help me out tantissimo tantissimo the malavita tantissimo what do you mean what is the best variation you've heard somebody say uh i i guess i don't i would probably just black out if someone botched it too badly but you know i think it's not so much the pronunciation sometimes but it's how they translate it to me i mean i i think you've heard some crazy ones yeah yeah there was something i can't remember idiots all the time miss pranaza it's okay we understand someone said something about like it's an italian word and it should be spelled with two s's i was like no no it's both it's like it was like tanto like we've had people try to yeah try to oh yeah i thought it was tanto tanto that oh that that means like dumb or something i was like no no no that's tanto which is dumb and you can absolutely i don't know how to like explain the irony of what you just said to you what does tantissimo mean tantissimo means so much so like i said we

48:09started as i started as um just pastries um and i might have said this off the air but i was doing tantito pastelito so i kind of eat the pastito tantito pastelito means a little bit of cake so cake is like one of my favorite things in the world when it's made well which is very very hard to find um and that's all i was doing during the beginning of the business for myself it was just cakes every single week and um was it a pastry business yeah well i was really just doing cake for maize de la vida once a week for their farmers markets oh nice and um then when i started doing my own pop-ups and i needed to do like a bigger menu and i knew it wanted i wanted it to grow at that point i was fully committed into working in this business full time and growing it i knew that i eventually wanted to do like greeting cards and just build this like spanglish brand that encompassed farm to table latin american all sorts of stuff all sorts of goodies so that's why like tantissimo is like a big all-encompassing word yeah when you say spanglish what what do you what do you mean by that what's what is it you're trying to build or show through a spanglish brand um it's a great question thanks for asking it yeah i mean i can't say this business is not me finding myself a little bit is food in general i think helps connect you to the world and to yourself so moving here from california 12 years ago was a super huge culture shock and finding food um is something i kind of gave up on for a long time um as far as finding like food that made me feel like home or food that i thought was like that's really good mexican food um at the time when i moved here it was hard enough to find that i eventually just like stopped looking and couldn't even really get uh fresh like cheeses it was it's so much better now but at the time it was like every last thing i wanted to make i was like let me just learn to make

50:10casseroles and that's kind of what i did i gave up on all that and then when the pandemic came around and i saw what julio was doing and i had josh's support then i started making things that i missed from home and so yeah i guess i am like there was a lot of that yeah i mean in the in the hispanic world of uh alabrije and and julio making food like they remembered it because it just wasn't available and you too yeah totally doing this as well um they yeah they were doing it first they had the cooking background that i didn't have because my background is only in pastry until this um but i have some really kick-ass family recipes that they don't have so there you go that's kind of what i built the savory side on and then of course josh has been a huge part of what it's turned into but i consider myself a spanglish creature so i like the food to reflect that too so sometimes um we'll have items that are very traditional but they sometimes have a spin or they'll have local ingredients that aren't available in mexico but the dish is still really authentic yeah so malavida did i say that right yeah um i speak very terrible spanish it's okay i'm i'm okay at it i'm practicing every day with uh our new hire which is great you're doing good you have a new hire that speaks only spanish yeah he's actually it's funny he's learning english he but his english pronunciation is like really good already because they're teaching each other yeah yeah this is amazing because i told him to like if i'm not saying it grammatically correct it's okay to correct me don't feel like you can he's like what does that mean grammatically why does it grammatically why are you using these words uh the google translate app works really well or so you think you probably think so i'm

52:12either really dumb or just lots of jokes about you yeah so malavida yeah malavida it really started with ana she was doing tacos under just under a tent and a flat top grill um at mickey's for a while and it was catching on and then when i came into the picture we decided to get a little more serious and actually put a food trailer back there but do more of instead of just tacos do more of like the bar food's greatest hits type of deal so we got like a chicken sandwich which is super popular people love it most people say it's the best in town and then everyone else is wrong yeah everyone then everyone else says it's the best they ever had the best they've ever had i like that so and then the burger uh i've always been a sucker for big max like i don't really like mcdonald's menu that much but i love their big max so i was like all right we're gonna do a big mac style burger the big mick yeah the big mickey and then the old big mick the with the middle bun and everything the special sauce lettuce pickles i think it's a song but i don't remember it but uh i don't know it either my step mom yeah it was a jingle uh then we got then we got the nachos which i believe is the best nachos in town better than bastion even though the best i was gonna say you're gonna go better than bastion we love them too but i mean it's they're not bastion nachos are kind of iconic though yeah yeah it's because no one knows about us yeah bastion nachos are delicious they're not the same style whatsoever yeah i think those are fighting words i don't like it i i think we have a nacho throwdown we should i think we need to have a nacho throat i think you guys should come like park right outside of bastion and we should invite everybody up for a block party we can do a nacho throwdown i think we we may have had a throwdown of sorts but you know mainly when we

54:13have a pop-up across the street um we've popped up a jackal up here recently for nashville sc games nice um and so it's always fun to just say hello to them from across the way haven't done any nachos anywhere around town yet but i think you guys should get a bullhorn and just stand there and be like you like their nachos come try ours i'll tell you then you and josh hobbiger can like arm wrestle in the middle of the street it'll be amazing yeah oh my god that game they have inside the bar though we would lose every time the little string game yeah i bet they're really good at it now we are so not but it's fun still um yeah i would happily eat their nachos any day i'll tell you what sets our nachos apart and our just in general our food at the food truck is we use lard in our fryer um because we don't like how seed oils make us feel so the chips are like hyper crispy and uh just like a whole extra layer of flavor yeah they don't have that like like seed oil taste to it they have like just you know lard is delicious so it just adds another layer of flavor to josh also makes his own chorizo with um bear creek farm pork that goes on there um same thing with the burger by the way that's bear creek ground beef so kind of yeah unreasonable level of meat for a dive bar trailer yeah why not but it's got to be good though i mean that's yeah that's the recipe for for success i think one time we were we sold so many burgers that we ran out of meat and i think i decided to i used like another beef i could get quicker and it wasn't it was still a local farm but just the fat content wasn't the same so the burger it literally tasted way different and the only thing that changed on it was the beef every detail matters yeah they do matter we use sharpies local buns that's amazing so good we love sharpies sharpies are good people um yeah who do you guys use we're sitting in the studio

56:19here i'll take a second any of these sponsors up behind me that you guys uh currently are using oh yeah and why do you use them uh creation gardens great because it's called what chefs want yeah what chefs want they're synonymous like it's like wcw equals cg yeah there you go oh cool like the same thing it's like algebra well creation gardens is the produce so it's okay if you have a creation gardens tattoo do you have one no i'm like holy shit i want to see it if you do that would be so amazing don't give them any more ideas this is why we can't change our brand names anymore i hope someone's getting the tattoos than that is there a leon dorado tattoo no but it was uh drawn by his tattoo artist the logo was yeah yeah derrick brimsey local guy hidden hidden door tattoo hidden door tattoo yeah i want to get a tattoo i have i have not one tattoo don't do it oh we're about to finalize a logo finally maybe that's going to be my next tattoo but i do have one and it was that 18 year old regret of a number eight but it was i mean they call it an infinity sign now but it's well it's on its side it's not done well it was not done well spring break panama city where is it it's um in my rib cage nice yeah bad place why number eight i don't know it's my lucky number so i'm like that's really cool for me i'm like that's awesome maybe that's a better story than when i say like i really don't have a reason for it besides it was a good spring break in panama city it is great it is great oh my god like how do you argue with that you know what is great i can tie it into food somehow eight it is great put a six on the other side 86 86 me if i ever do that please god i like it when we're out of shit so much that i tattooed it on my body god that's amazing okay sorry i i'm dying i want to get a tattoo so bad i would like i want like a whole sleeve cool that like goes like over my shoulder like i i want

58:21like a whole thing but i have no clue like where to start i want it to like tell a story i want to take a shower like what is that like well back when i was 10 this bear you know i don't want to have like this whole story like i you know like shane nasby you guys know shane nasby from cletus burger and he was at the honey fire for he was a founder of honey fire barbecue good dude um but he has he has like both arms or sleeves and i was and i was like dude tell me about your your tattoo he's like well this my left arm represents all of the like the struggle and all of the hard times in my life and there's a you know like a death and there's this and all the all this stuff he was in the right side reminds me of all the wonder like his family and like so he's like the duality of life like the hard times and the good times so that i don't forget the hard time because that's what makes you stronger and then the good things like remind me and i was like that's what i'm talking like you have like the story that goes with your tats it's not like i was drawn to panama city and got an aid in my rib i feel attacked but you know that's exactly why you want to put some thought into what you're gonna put on your body that's why i got a chili pepper behind my ear because i like chili peppers yeah it's thoughtful i here here's you want to know something funny the only thing i can come up with that i'd want to get is an eight because it's my lucky number i want to get an eight somewhere i don't know how to do it i think maybe i just get one on my rib cage there you go i'll be like i was inspired one day by this woman named maria in our studio with the eight tattoo god that's just embarrassing i see no problems with this plan i i thought it would be pretty awesome i will say that adding a six has probably been the best idea i've heard so 86 that may be what we run with you work in restaurant you got a restaurant your partner in a restaurant is what you do there's nothing else i'm more passionate about so say you're 86ing all your bad past decisions i use number 86 sticks with me too

01:00:25it's like been in a lot of my codes for whatever reason i am in the bad habit of 86ing things even in my day-to-day life of 86 people all of my regrets 86 all of it i'm 86ing all bad things yep yeah and i'm moving forward in life indeed they'll make me 86 you okay see how we get sponsors did you say what we like about what chefs want oh yeah thank you for keeping us on track here i derailed them they're amazing most of the things are high quality it's very convenient um they split every case yeah they'll deliver every day yeah they'll uh they're you could text them at like two in the morning which i do all the time and they'll respond 24 hour customer service yeah 30 seconds i mean like it's not like you get a text an hour later it's like quickly yeah yeah they've they've been uh really great really reliable from the beginning and then we use we don't currently use super source because we don't currently have a dish machine but we did use them uh for a huge part of last year and jason ellis was like a absolute lifesaver i brought him in to help me design the henry james kitchen dish area it was like a home kitchen when when uh i took it over and um he came in there with like a metal fabricator and a kitchen designer that i had and myself and we all just had to figure out like how to make it physically fit and he was down for the challenge and they were great yeah he totally made it happen how'd you hear about super source um there's a podcast called nashville restaurant radio uh that's amazing just keep the industry true story going i you know i don't get like a lot of feedback about like people don't call me and we're like hey man i just signed up for this account because of you kind of a thing but it is always nice to hear that when because like i truly

01:02:27like the people that sponsor the show like i believe and they're like my friends and people like that i like lean into and like i love and so anytime that this is able to help and they're able to get in front of somebody and they can help you because he is legitimately like an amazing guy absolutely and he's like the opposite of the the gigantic brands uh you might know out there and we definitely wouldn't have found him without you and i'm like i can't wait to have a restaurant for him to step back into definitely gives a partnership with us a level of unreasonable service totally it is that that's the thing he i just love it so anybody five days a week i assume you're closed what mondays and tuesdays yeah mondays and tuesdays are closed yeah wednesday through sunday what are the times if i wanted to go eat 6 p.m to 2 a.m and we take orders all the way till 2 a.m and are you there are you there every night till 2 a.m uh not every night because maria helps out here and there but sometimes i do i you cook the food i sure do um so you know not to compete with josh over there but hey maybe maybe my burger rivals his every now and then we'll see does it does it rival the bad luck burger club uh yes oh another duel well let me rephrase i think we need bad luck burger club and you guys need to set up over there like in the audrey and june parking lot we need to have a burger battle with brian lee weaver at redheaded stranger for the green chili burger they're all three y'all just enjoy land if we're gonna be a enjoy yeah bring joyland in there too and then have like a little burger burger brawl here's the deal for 30 bucks you get in you get to eat all of them and then you have to vote but how do you like we have to make smaller ones because you know the first bite is gonna taste better than the 50th bite no matter what i do have to say um our burgers a little different

01:04:28the whole point of it wasn't just i like big max was also because i was like am i going to be the 15th person that does smash burgers so i was like which they're all great i just say i had to stand out in some way so my my way to stand out was to make it with the middle bun and make it a little double decker style and the bear creek beef yeah the bear creek beef pretty unheard of for street food yeah uh who know joyland uses bear creek yeah i see i think brian does too over at uh stranger yeah i think he does too and i i'm gonna i think like burger club does i think they're all like i think they all use the bear creek because it's the best and that's how you know it's the best because the best people making the burgers are doing it but no yeah we're we're at the food truck uh so if it's not josh or myself anna pops up in there too and we still we've got a growing team absolutely um so yeah swing by where's mickey's two a micky's tavern it's the gem of the east side uh it's pretty much right where trinity and gallatin meet um beside the fox and tiger bar it's all in that little complex so i like to tell people if they've never been over there they can make a night of it and yeah you know yeah if you're not really into dive bars then there's like two cocktail lounges right there and then bowery vault bowery vault yeah they have like live music every week there too that's i didn't i just love the drove until 2 a.m like taking orders up until 2 a.m yeah and you can order online up until 2 a.m too we're on uber eats really yeah we accept orders till 2 a.m spell spell malavida like m-a-l-a means bad and then vida v-i-d-a life so it's a it comes from an expression in mexico uh me gusta la mala vida i kind of told josh about it early on when i would see him at the box every night after work just like

01:06:34and just over committing and being like a you know classic chef things working really really hard and not as like you like the bad life you just it's kind of like rock and roll a little bit in mexico yeah um like just work hard play hard type of vibe burning the candle of both ends is that that saying yeah i did that for years and i still i i do it today i'm not gonna lie i still do it but the only difference is now when i get sick i stop that's good that's good well it's not good because i look forward to getting sick oh no it's the only time i allow myself to take a break like the first time i got covid i was like fuck yeah i get to be alone just laying in bed yeah i was like i went to my bonus room and like closed the door and i'm like i'll see you guys in a week like just send food up they said on the first stair kind of a thing but it was amazing you gotta have like a sunday or morning at least or something else so i got kids oh family restaurants all the things it's it's it's there's no are they not working age yet or they're eight and ten oh man now the ten-year-old does come to the restaurant help diapers oh yeah no and the ten-year-old will walk in and he will actually like do work like he's been at chagos with me okay and he comes in and he like like all right dude your bus and table she's like what do you mean so we'll go grab like one table i'll take him back to dishland show him like all right forks here this what we got going on and he'll drop it off he'll be like i got it and i won't see him again for like the next hour now see him but like he won't he doesn't just like walk next to me like what should i do like he's just intuitive and just starts walking around and then if we're eating dinner there and like a table gets up he's like hey can i give us that table he can see my level of like why is that table not getting bus yeah you can't unsee it once you've seen it and he like that's his thing he just like he's like oh i'm

01:08:35gonna do it dad i'm gonna do it you're 10 i love that my wife's like do not let him get into this job do not let him do this i'm like what's wrong with this yeah would you let your kids get into restaurant business absolutely yeah 100 um you know i think i i would think about it not gonna lie i would ask them nicely you say that now but as soon as we're sure they're gonna be working for sure but i just hope they don't pick it up because i want them to have a little bit more of a peaceful not the malavida life for the exactly i want to be there when i win avida so you want them to be the openers is what i'm hearing exactly not the closers i would ask them nicely not to do as much drugs and alcohol as i did i don't know if you can avoid that though how do you how old are you 33 okay so you you were around like when like everybody just made cash right i mean like now everybody gets paid in a check yeah like in restaurants yeah like a house they don't give you cash at the end of the night no but 13 years ago they did yeah like 13 years ago they would give you like 20 years old like you go to work and you wait tables you leave with like 150 bucks cash and you're like let's go like every bar you wanted a bag of weed i'm rich i'm rich today and i'll pick up tomorrow morning i don't give a shit let's go it's true and i'll make my extra 40 bucks tomorrow morning then i'll work a double then i'll pick that up the night you could do that that's different it was a lot easier to party back then am i and you know i remember i'd you know leave work at 18 with a wad full of cash and it was over by the end of the night like those the beer was good the cocktails were better yeah i didn't start serving until i was like 24 or 25 which was a mistake but to start serving or to start late to start late yeah i should have done it sooner got it out of my system you know i was actually

01:10:37my first jobs were front of house i was banquet serving at a hillwood country club when was this was that under perry seal yeah yeah it was he's a native oh wow yeah okay perry was cool it was it was tough sometimes perry and mark and yeah all the guys you probably saw me in that kitchen a lot then yeah and then and if you remember me but i was in there a lot the only guy that did you not hear about the drugs i mean it was probably not there yeah that country club was fun to work at because i had it i've always had a crazy work ethic like almost like probably unhealthy uh we would do set up the banquets and i would try to set up as fast as i could i would try to carry as many as many plates high as i could go i think the most i could do was like 24 at a time with the that's impressive yeah did you ever do like the game dinner with them and stuff uh yeah but i was always just setting up and breaking down and eating you know eating the food what were you doing there i was selling produce oh i mean the produce guy that was the produce guy that's what i did i mean i would you my my my favorite move that perry would do all right so perry is old school yeah i think he's at brentwood country club now i don't know but his wife he's an amazing guy yeah great guy from boston and every time he'd go step into my office and he'd walk into the walk-in cooler nice and he would i'm wearing like you know dress shoes and slacks and like a dress shirt and i walk into the cooler and not one time i learned this lesson early because i knew what he was doing not one time that i'd ever say i was cold i think that i think that's what separated me from everybody i think that's why he liked me because he would keep me in there for 45 minutes i'm like yeah man i think so too i wouldn't flinch yeah freezing my ass off cold as shit and i think that's how he tested people if you're like hey it's cold and

01:12:38you're like i don't care i'm a chef this is what i do i mean that and he would walk you in the walk-in as like a rite of passage nice and you do a little 130 minute thing and you don't flinch he's like ah it's not gonna work on this guy you don't have to do anymore nice there's a whole thing there's a lot to unpack there like how did that become a thing that's an initiation right there that's initiation it really is it's what's one of those things like well because you get he kind of knows if you work in a restaurant you go in the walk-in a lot i mean if you're a special server you i used to go totally crying in the walk-in or whatever but i could walk in the walk-in you'd hit your ball you go i go hit a hit a dugout in the walk-in heartbeat but also you're hot like you got hot and you go stand on the walk-in just to cool off to stand in the freezer you're in the walk-in all the time it's a safe space for sure it is so like i think that was like his like it's a safe space i'm gonna bring you in here and see if you can handle if you couldn't handle it he's like you're not you're not one of us i remember one time he has like a sixth sense about him or something one time i was hungry and i went and stole like an apple and he like right when i walked out he said what do you got in your pocket i was like well you know you can hide a whole apple in your pocket but i don't know is that an apple in your pocket or uh i just didn't know how we like i would like just walked out the door and he was like it's fine we need to ask i was like yes chef he was acquainted with his walk-in but yeah speaking of country i think actually it was there's like a sensor on the apple tray i think i worked at five different country clubs and got fired from the mall so oh man all right so hillwood hillwood richland richland which is in brentwood right yeah it's in brentwood right off grainy white wood richland uh did you any henderson villes did you do any of those in murphysboro stones river yeah stones river okay there's one there's at least oh bell mead i got fired oh yeah were you was that when uh grant was there or was that because the chef's been there forever the i don't know if you still there uh bell me one i was in high school so that was early on uh that would have been like 2007 or

01:14:41something bell mead's a okay bell mead country club can we talk about this place for a second it's the most interesting club and the chef there i forget his name but he was like very intense and his wife worked there too yeah and but you could you like you walk you park in the back gate and you like walk in and there's like a whole receiving area downstairs yeah and if you got then you had like walk up these little stairs into the kitchen where chef had his office centrally located right in the middle of the kitchen with glass all around him so you could sit there and watch the whole kitchen yeah like an air traffic controller and it was like you were never not in a place where like the eye of saran was staring at you it was like the whole thing does it work yeah i mean the dude yeah he was very intimidating i mean he was one of the i i was on a first name basis with like every chef in the entire city dean pugel over at richland hey good to see you man this guy i was like yes chef yes chef be my pleasure yes sir i'm on it like and it was they've got like the technology now for uh cameras to like monitor productivity or whatever and i i saw that online and i i'm sure it's super controversial but i sent it to josh immediately and was like neither one of us would ever have to worry about this because we're so like the work ethic is so high yeah that'd never stop you're like dude yeah it's probably like i would love this i'd get so much credit it'd be bad for them the employer because they would they would have to hide that from us because then you'd be like well i'm doing the job of three people so you gotta pay me more do you know that i found out like you said nashville sd do you guys go to sd games yes football football we went to the first one ever at the new stadium nice yeah well i go to all the games i like i love it's just there the other night did you go the other night did you see the godoy goal last oh my god sorry they played the columbus crew and uh anabel godoy there is a schaffelberg had this pass and he

01:16:42windmill kicked right in for like upside down kickball scored a goal it was the most amazing goal i've ever seen in my life it was really cool to see so cool to be there for that um i was going somewhere with this and i completely spaced when i was like oh that goal today where was i going the cameras and the productivity so they wear a vest like they were like a bra almost if you see the players take their jersey off or their kid off you'll see they have like this like it's like a sports bra that they wear did you know that in there there's like a technology that tracks all their vitals so i can apple watch essentially right so they have these things so imagine this you're on the field and they can track your fatigue your heart rate all of your vitals so they know when you're getting tired they know they know your average miles per how fast you're moving who the faster players are i'm like there's no subjectivity in that like there's a dude in a press box somewhere going uh schaffelberg's tired yeah he's right he's ran 17 miles everybody else is at like 10 he's gone way over we gotta pull him out like they'll know your distance of how far you've ran and what you've done and how tired you are and all that stuff i mean i feel seen that's yeah there with whenever you know my apple watch tells me to get up yeah my apple watch knows more about me than i do sometimes and it's good it takes a long time to put the pieces together of what the data means but eventually i'm like oh like i recently found out i'm like still an emic and i'm like well that explains my like low vo2 max because i looked at that and was like what the hell i'm super active but yeah i love having information like you're saying that's rough because now it's going to be like a comparison you know 24 7 well you you can't already do that though you can't just like well yeah that's true but they've got data so you know now it's you're running now you can focus on problem solving rather than arguing about what's true and what's not i like it i like what you just now said she's like let's find some fucking solutions and let's like if someone recorded arguments and like i i'm cool with that like i think like i would love to know if i'm dead wrong because then next time you

01:18:45guys have a fight just come down here all you gotta do is just push that little green record button and you just go and then you can go home then the next day listen to it like see yeah i'll need like three days to recover from like the tail between the internet and let the oh no no let the internet decide doing polls who was right in this one josh is way more if you like josh vote for the cheesy gordita crunch i'll see this is a whole new podcast idea that's funny wait you guys are fighting sweet come over let's go like a reality show only for like chefs that are couples both of them oh i like that too yeah no we're walking to the game because i park like at the wedge pizza and pub when i go to the games we walk and it's like a mile to get to the game and uh the guy we're with the other day i said you don't have an apple watch and he goes no no man i said oh man he goes do you like yours and i go i'm obsessed with my app and i would weigh 400 pounds if i didn't have an apple watch because i love data like i love i have a screen in here so i can sit here and look at data i need it bigger than just on my computer it's a whole thing but like to constantly know how far you've walked today and how all the exercise everything like in my competitive nature i'm like let's go well that's true i mean mine's like been malfunctioning lately so that means if it's not tracking appropriately then i don't need to work out as hard at the gym i recently started walking see that's what i'm saying like that's not true yeah if you don't get credit for it it's kind of bullshit like no mine's broken right now and i'm going on daily walks and every day i'm like i'm not getting any points it's not even like if you go for a walk without your watch does it did you really didn't really go for a walk no i gave up on mine i don't have one i have one i brought it to thailand and something happened where it reset and then i just been too lazy to like recalibrate it or whatever i needed i don't

01:20:49know when did you go to thailand we'll figure it out uh last last was it was right before you jumped into the business yeah i went there it was last like it was vietnam and then thailand for a couple did you guys go together or you just went like i'm like yeah he went on his i need to go before joining the business construction management pays a good bit more than being a chef so i saved some money up and i was like i want to i've been always wanted to go to southeast asia and so i went to vietnam walked about 15 miles a day for like a week week and a half and then went to thailand for like four days and then came home i bought i bought a one-way ticket which is not smart because my ticket back was three thousand dollars so well you know maybe planning but my thing was i get anxiety whenever there's like a deadline for something i was like if i don't have like a real deadline i'll enjoy myself better that's what i thought in my head but it ended up stressing me out more at the end because i have to price that story of his life yeah yeah i i don't know what i not that you i didn't ask this question but made me immediately think like i wonder for my i want to know how long i'm going to be there because then i can if i'm there seven days and i go okay i got seven days i got to buy these 14 things and then i can plan it out kind of jam pack and itinerary these two days i'm going to do nothing but sit around or i'm going to explore but these days i want to hit these things and then you just then you then then then i have i kind of like a schedule i guess i am that way i like to plan time off because then i can actually enjoy it and and we've gotten acquainted traveling because i don't like having time off if i'm in a new place i want to be doing something every second of the day which can be really exhausting and well only because the first time we traveled together i literally told her i was like i'm only going if if if i'm just going like i just i don't even care if you're there but it's good if you're there because like i won't get kidnapped maybe but like we don't really even

01:22:52have to interact the whole time we're there i'll go to dinner with you one time and that's what i said and then we went and she had like a full itinerary itinerary for all three days we like went parasailing and all these other things i couldn't afford i was like oh my god you're gonna pay for this but in retrospect it was fun where were you that you did this we went to seaside that time seaside and florida okay yeah yeah right down we did glamping handle there yeah we glamped yes how was the glamping it was pretty i loved walking out of the tent and seeing a deer in the morning that was right we did she did you know make me agree to separate tents so yeah that's all i had to myself no that was good i mean i thought that was a win the fact that i was in a tent at all at that point that moment where i saw the deer was my only like moment to myself but we'll do it again and was it just like a zipper on a tent that you got or was it like a nice like no it was a nice air conditioner well no no no it was like one of those nice dome tents yeah yeah uh no it wasn't a dome but they had yeah there was an actual bed like a nice bed air conditioner okay so yeah okay it's glad okay it was glad it was glamping i'm like are you like in a zipper the thing up and crawling and lay like and i mean we had i don't want to say we had but that's why solid camping it was still real camping because it was you know like the it was a state park oh i'm so i'm so bougie i'm like what kind of thread counter these fucking sheets i like i i am i am the opposite of you because we had in our backyard we camp out with like my boys yeah and like every time that we i have a tent i bring like an air mattress out there because yeah i can run a stenching cord however every time like two o'clock in the morning like what are we doing yeah why are we outside like there's a where why don't we inside well if you're that close to home of course you're gonna think you're gonna get out into the mountain where you can like really just be in it josh is during the beginning of the pandemic we did a part of the appalachian trail and then we drove to colorado and did a lot of that so with her i've done some fancy things and with him i've done some very mountainous things and yeah i'm somewhere in the

01:24:58middle i guess i like like backpacking is cool because once you like hike seven miles in like you can't you can't be like oh i'm over this yeah you're in it yeah you're there and then we got stormed on too so we're really in it you don't have any choice to be there you just have to decide to enjoy it all right you've changed my mind there you go something about that does sound really appealing like just being like off the grid for a little bit and like all right we're here yeah you can't do i'm gonna dive in i can see that the stars alone are worth it yeah and it's when you're in situations like that there's only like two or three things that you really have to worry about is like feeding yourself drinking water and making sure you have shelter and then but like when you're at home even if like you're your day off at home you're like laundry the the dogs need this rest at home oh i gotta get groceries but i can't if you're in the middle of the appalachian wilderness you know 15 miles from any type of city is like you just have to worry about eating and our dog loved it yeah bears bears bears and eating yeah yeah i think i brushed my teeth too close to the eating or getting eaten and got in trouble yeah just make sure the bear doesn't eat you yeah my sister did the entire appalachian trail started in Dalton georgia and finished in maine yeah did the whole thing took six months my husband katahdin katidan yeah that's the mountain i can't tell you yeah when did she do that oh man had to be like six years ago six or seven years ago that's the goal of mine for sure she did the whole thing her and her boyfriend at the time they got back and then they got engaged well that's good to see if they could do it and so she did the whole thing six months but they they kind of took their time and they went they went like all the way up and they flew to maine and then they because it was going to get too cold so i think they did that the summit they summoned them out then came back down and met came like started going south instead of going south to north they went skipped and came back down south yeah started in Dalton georgia so they did like a flip-flop once the the weather

01:27:01yes yeah they just they got like halfway up and then went to the top and then started coming back yeah i think that a lot of people do that style yeah it's a whole thing yeah we've got way off topic yeah this is what i like to do sometimes though thank you guys for just like just again like so tell me about now i feel like oh we could just do this for hours see well i did that trip gave us uh the best dang beef jerky that we've ever had i keep wanting to bring that back as like a late night snack for one of the locations we basically made beef jerky ourselves with bear creek farm flank steak yeah i think it was skirt actually the one that was my favorite was skirt yeah and uh we just mixed it with our rice it was like really incredible camping meal every experience gives us some kind of food journey unexpected or ends up somewhere on the menu well guys we're an hour and 15 minutes of talking not to mention all of the fun things that happen in the middle yeah commercials and stuff so we do the final thing do you have any which is i would ask one more question but we're just going to do the final thought we're going to wrap it up so you get to say whatever you want to about your restaurants about whatever you want it's an election year you can talk politics this is your time talk religion you can tell a joke you can say whatever you want you've heard the show the gordon food service final thought we are going to start with uh the co-host chair over here maria and you get to say whatever you want to say to the people who are listening well what do i have to say to the people that are listening um like your kicks thank you you know gotta add a little color every now and then but i would say you know we are three gnarly people on this journey to really just show nashville the nashville food scene that latin american cuisine can be done right and can be done in a farm to table concept in the most elevated way likewise with our farm to table picnic um our picnic table selects that mickey's tabern

01:29:07you know we're really just showcasing some really really dope ass foods so check us out that's what i have i like it we're gonna go straight across the table to you anna yeah um okay so we are coming up on the one year anniversary of the food truck which is like it's just cool because this past year man i know we could do a whole podcast just on how many unforeseen challenges there have been before getting the food truck and since and it's been like a really great learning experience we can do that by the way yeah and this is someone who like i i'm not new to the industry i am surrounded by chefs and other people who've owned food trucks and there are still unforeseen challenges so it is uh it's quite an achievement to make it to a year and um the anniversary is on 420 so come to mickey's on that day if not sooner and then we do a cinco de mickey's annually so even before we had the food truck tantissimo was there doing cinco de mickey's that's actually the first pop-up we ever did at mickey's and why we chose mickey's was because we were surrounded by industry folks on a crazy day and everybody was like yeah really respectful of our we were set up like on the deck in the hallway and if you ever been to mickey's the deck isn't very big and you could tell there's a lot of industry people there because every person that went behind us like behind yeah like you had to walk through the kitchen because it was raining in the grocery store like behind the herd yeah what is this this is uh what is this some guy in a denim jacket so i um yeah i have to say those two things to please come out for those days um and then just my personal thought is to uh continue to support local i think we're further away from how big that was during the pandemic um but it's really important we recently met a politician who

01:31:14like made a point to mention that he loves to support minority owned businesses so he takes it even a step further we are both but any local business that you love minority owned female owned oh yeah local we hit all three there's the national native and the mexicana and the colombiana right here but yeah whatever local business you love um it means a lot for them to have your support yeah did that bore you josh no josh just fell asleep he just we just had to like shake him to wake him up to do this i had a long week uh um yeah final thought final thought um well we're hiring if you we're hiring uh we do badass food um you only have to work four days a week um i'm pretty nice he's worked on himself yeah i've worked to myself a lot uh uh yeah i guess my final thought is yeah support local keep your ears and eyes out for what we're doing next we have some big plans um i don't know y'all have anything else i think you said it all man i think you said it all did i mention we're hiring well i don't typically do final thoughts but i am going to do a final thought today and my final thought today is i did not know what to expect having you guys in here because i did not i've never i don't know you i haven't spent time with you in your restaurant or outside of your restaurant and i have had so much fun just talking with you guys learning who you are and kind of just being playful and learning about all the other things and thank you guys for being vulnerable and talking about your relationship and the fact that it was very hard and some of the

01:33:19struggles that you've had new struggles will happen i promise and i think part of that is learning how to do it but this town is being inundated right now with restaurants that are from other places people have recognized nashville is a major place and they've come in and they just want that they want to be we're in nashville nashville's the spot it's visibility for them and this is your life this is a young couple in nashville who this is the dream we're going to open our own restaurant it's a food truck and we're going to do it really really well and where that takes us i don't know but we're going to put our heart and soul into this thing and we're going to make really good food and we're going to make people happy and it's just going to be what we do and i it's just i love that so much and i implore everybody out there to go check you guys out yeah i'm definitely going to be coming by and not tonight because you guys i'm like maybe no not tonight if it's your first time right now if it's your first time get the chicken sandwich get the chicken sandwich it's the best chicken sandwich in the world yeah i'm gonna have to make several trips yeah just bring some friends and then just ask us we'll cut the chicken sandwich in half you can share it well i will definitely by the time this airs i will definitely have gone by there and i will put pictures of these items on the post when we talk about it you guys are amazing thank you for coming in today on late in the afternoon on a monday i don't do i'm like an eight or nine o'clock in the morning guy when i'm fresh and ready to go and yeah monday's are my hell days at the end of a monday to do this i'm like wow that was awesome thank you for letting us share you should partner for having us on for your anniversary night you should partner with these guys cali sober because they're a thc brand of 420 is like the international you should have them sponsor your event like hey we're gonna do our one year anniversary and everybody's drinking cali sober because it's 420 you should have a thc

01:35:21component to your evening we should that's such a good name too that's all you know what cali sober means yeah of course i'm from california what does it mean oh don't don't don't be that guy cali sober means you you smoke weed but you don't drink yeah yeah so that's what that's all that there's no alcohol in here but there is five milligrams of thc and there's some cbd as well so it's um it's a whole thing it's delicious good stuff um yeah i i think that that that's how we're gonna end it today on that that note got all the sponsor stuff in there that's beautiful thanks for having us it's my pleasure guys best of luck to you we'll see you soon i wanted to say big thank you to everybody who made it out in the studio and for those who are listening um yeah there it is there's the episode with uh tantissimo and mala vida and we had a lot of fun there i hope that you guys enjoyed that i uh i appreciate you listening and uh i will see you guys this weekend the 28th we're gonna be at 114 second avenue for the tennessee tasting with uh the giving kitchen so i'd love to have you guys there if you can make it please buy your tickets at giving kitchen.org you're helping restaurant workers which is what we need to do we need more of that we need more help in this industry to help people coming up next month is going to be mental health awareness month and should i maybe uh right in the middle of that one we've already got a couple episodes uh ready to go and i think you're gonna love them so we will uh we'll talk to you soon hope that you guys are being safe out there i love you guys bye