Aubrey O' Laskey

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01:17Give them a call today. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. Buckle up ladies and gentlemen because today's intro I got a lot of information we are throwing out there and I've kind of teased this over the past couple of weeks as we've had a lot of episodes coming out. I've got a lot more episodes coming out. Today's episode is with Aubrey Olaski. Aubrey and her husband Tyler moved here to Nashville, Tennessee to operate their bakery called Paren. Paren is located over off Sidco Drive in Berry Hill. There's also one in downtown Franklin and I didn't know much about them. I kind of thought they were, my perception was they're just this chain that came in and there's always a line out the door and I ate there one time about a month ago and it was delicious but there's always a line so I can't get in to even eat there and then I got the opportunity to interview Aubrey and my goodness, what a lovely human being and just what an awesome story and I'm so excited to share this conversation. I actually went to the Paren in Berry Hill to meet with her and that's just a neat space. During that conversation with her we talked about, I said look in January I really want to do a NARA winter social which really it's just restaurant owners getting together to see

03:18each other, to talk and meet and do all these things. In the conversation we organically she said I haven't got time to go meet the community. I asked her what does she think about the hospitality community and so she goes well why don't we do it here? I'd love to host, I'd love to meet everybody, bring people here. So it is official, we are doing the winter social, NARA Connect winter social. It is going to be on January the 13th. It is a Tuesday, it's going to be from four to seven. It's at the Paren location in Berry Hill which is really, should be very easy. There's free parking, it costs you nothing. We're going to have Empire distributing there who's going to be sampling some different beverages for you and then we're going to have Fat Bottom Brews will be there giving away beer. We're doing samples of beer and if you're doing dry January there's going to be non-alcoholic options. Lots of people going to be there. It has been awesome. Also in this interview I disclosed something that is pretty big in my life and that is that as of December 31st I am leaving the restaurants that I'm currently in charge of and there's a lot to unpack there because that's a big big life decision to move forward and how that's going to work but you know what I'm getting so much positive feedback and so much positivity from NARA and all of these meetings that we're having and I just see how much I can help people. I can see how much sitting down with restaurant owners and helping them save money and to do all of the things has been really really special. You know I sat down with Debra Sunderland and I said I'm just I'm overwhelmed all the time. I've got too much happening and she said I want you to do something. I want you to write down keep a journal and I want you to write down when you feel tired or you feel overwhelmed. I want you to write down what you're

05:20doing. I want you to figure it out so that you understand the things that are tough for you and then when you're excited and you're energized I want you to write down the things that you're doing and then you need to look at that and we talked about it and you know that the time when I feel like the most alive is when I hit that record button and I've got somebody in the studio and I get to learn about them and we get to share and I get to see them talk about the things that they're dealing with all the time and it is so much fun. I also when I sit down with the restaurant owner and for the first time and we're talking about their operations and what they're doing and how they're doing them and is there an area in which I can help. That is also like the time that I just I could do that for 24 hours straight and I just feel like I would never get tired. It is so much fun and then conversely you know I'd find on a Friday when I would get the phone call that hey we need you to come in because you know this person didn't show up or this person's sick and I can't go to my kid's soccer game because I've got to go to the restaurant or you can't keep plans because these things keep happening and I think that that's part of the restaurant life and that is what it is but I also found that being very discouraging to me and every single day and I know a lot of you live that life every single day but trying to do all of that was just too much and I think that the idea of do the thing that brings you energy and joy every day do the thing that doesn't feel like work that feels like you're finding win-win-wins and I love working with our vendors and I love working with the restaurant owners and I love finding great solutions for people that they go man I never thought about that that's really great that's going to save me a ton of money or thank you for introducing me to these people because this is going to be something that's really really helpful and so there it is I am going to be jumping to doing NARA and the podcast

07:23full time and I said we have a bunch of episodes coming up because I've had time to record a bunch of episodes we've got a woman named Jessie Tigges coming up next week and she is a content creator she's a realtor she is doing really cool things online and I wanted to learn more about it and so we brought her in I'm talking with Matt Ramis who is the owner at Common Ground and I have such a man crush on this guy he is so awesome like I didn't know what to expect having him in studio and then going to his restaurant and just talking with him he is somebody who is so incredibly intentional and so incredibly sharp been doing it in Nashville for a long time and I just really loved that restaurant Common Ground you need to go check it out it is I didn't know anything about it as a parent when we start the interview because I'm like what's it like running a coffee shop and he's like it's not a coffee shop and I'm like oh shoot since been there definitely go check it out they have two locations one of them is in the old Chattable space off Charlotte and the other one is in the old yellow porch space over in Berry Hill and it is really really cool coming up we will also have this one I'm really excited about and recording it tomorrow there's a new restaurant coming to the Wedgwood Houston area called Bee Hops and it is by Brad and Bryson Hopkins Brad Hopkins yes the former I think he was an offensive lineman for the Tennessee Titans all pro Brad Hopkins and his son Bryson who played for the Rams we're also going to have Ollie who's their like their operations guy he's with a hospitality company they're all going to be in here talking about all the things and so we're I'm excited to have them come in studio and have that conversation we're going to have Charlie Nelson from Balmead Bourbon and Nelson's Greenbriar distillery he is the Nelson of Charles of Nelson's Greenbriar distillery him and his brother and he's going to be in studio talking about all this stuff so lots of really cool things coming up I also I know some of you

09:30have reached out because you've heard about it you've seen my wife's post on social media the day before things so I'd made this decision with the restaurants like the week of Thanksgiving and then the day before Thanksgiving my son on his bike got hit by a car yes the day before Thanksgiving got hit by a car and he broke his leg and that was scary I'm not gonna lie he's 12 years old so a 12 year old getting hit by a car breaking his leg and that whole thing it's been very challenging navigating all of that school and doctor's offices and all that stuff I know a lot of you've dealt with a lot of this type stuff but that's something that's also been going on with me so if you're out there and you're wondering or you saw that or you didn't know anything about that yes that happened as a parent that's not the phone call that you want to get sorry I hit your son with my car okay what tell me more about this and it was really a scary moment and thank you for everybody who has reached out and said dude we're so sorry this the whole thing has just been kind of crazy but I wanted to say thank you to everybody who has reached out all of the kind comments that we've gotten and you know the community has set up a meal train for us and been bringing us dinner and to everybody who's done that it has been unbelievable the level of support that we've had and I am terrible at accepting anything like that I'm like I am good I'm good thank you I can handle myself but it has been amazing to see community show up and I didn't realize that we did need it until they started doing that and it was just like wow this is amazing and it has filled my heart with so much joy and just the community has been unbelievable so uh so yeah there's everything that's been going on with me over the past few weeks we've been recording like crazy I've been meeting with restaurants like crazy uh so many good things

11:32happening out there if you are a restaurant and you want to get involved with the Nashville area restaurant alliance go to nara nashville.com uh click on that contact tab I'd love to meet with you love to talk to you um see what you've got going on see what we can help we're not selling anything we're just listening to you and what's going on with your business and chances are there's a way in which we can figure out a way to help you and we stay on we stay on and help you it's out of no cost to you there's no out-of-pocket cost for this um if we can help you make some money great we we love that and if we can't then we'd love to be in contact with you love maybe have you on the podcast but there's no commitment there's nothing to it and we would love to uh love to learn more about you go to nara nashville.com go follow us on instagram at nara nashville that's n-a-r-a nashville of course that's nashville area restaurant alliance and then uh if you're following us on nashville restaurant radio the instagram page we appreciate that we're sharing some of the same content but mostly it's new content over at nara nashville and uh yeah hey we have a tiktok page too go follow us over there why not lots of fun things happening so we're going to jump in uh right now after all of that uh with aubrey olaski she is the owner over at perrin bakery and uh you are listening to nashville restaurant radio music super excited today to welcome in our guest we are talking today with aubrey olaski and she is the owner of paren hi aubrey hello the crowd is so excited that you are here this is really great we are actually live in we're at paren what is this location called what is this area called so it's in berry hill okay so it's like berry hill paren i call it oak barrel because as you can see from the ceiling above it's an enlarged oak barrel building it really is yeah it's really cool yeah but this is actually our production kitchen so this is where our bread

13:35oven which you're looking at right now our bread oven lives it's where we laminate all the pastries where the bread is baked um so it's kind of like our big production facility i love well i thought it was really cool because i can sit here we're doing this interview upstairs and i'm looking down into the kitchen what a unique thing is that is that very intentional or was this would you build this space so that people could look into the kitchen so it had a mezzanine already and we had the thought was if someone is sitting up here they can go and see and transparently look into what our operations are and see the bake so we definitely designed it a little bit like that and we put the windows up there so people couldn't throw things you know over sure the mezzanine um but we also really wanted people to see what we do and the work that we put into the product that's so unique so many people the kitchen is just off limits in so many restaurants and here you have a bird's eye view of everything that's going on in the kitchen yeah scary at all that people can see in the kitchen it's really funny because when people were you know we're talking to interviewing people to work here we're like hey just so you know you're going to be on display yeah you're on stage yeah you're kind of on stage and there's definitely secret you know spots that they can like not be seen in the kitchen and everyone's discovered where that is but but for the most part you know it's fun and i think it's you know there's an idea of like open kitchen in restaurants you know and this is kind of just going into that with a bakery is the is the openness and i think for for those that are not in a food and beverage industry it's kind of fun for you all to see the behind the scenes now is this your husband down here that is him yes that is him and i'm watching him cut dough and he's actually actively coaching this woman right now on how to do i don't know what it is but he's like showing her how to do this thing and it's really kind of cool he's actively you can watch him actually coaching somebody down there yeah yeah he's um he's training so we don't have a lot of experienced bakers um that come into the building you know we do every once in a while but a lot of them are like hey i just want to learn yeah i'll start from the beginning and that's been him from the get-go is teaching now let's go to the origin of

15:40this whole thing and you let's let people know about paren you guys are originally from reno am i correct tyler's originally from bradenton sarasota florida okay and i'm originally from a very small town gardnerville nevada which is near southlake tahoe about 15 minutes from southlake tahoe but we met at the cia in hide park new york really yes that's where it all started okay so you met at cia how did you guys meet i was working in a kitchen i was like a team helping assist with a chef of a class and i was putting out family meal and i made buttermilk biscuits and it was tyler's second day at school i was already further along in the program when he started i handed him a big buttermilk biscuit with my homemade jam and the rest is history to be honest he was in love he was like i mean literally oh my god together three months later one was to save on our the cost of living was fast yeah we moved in together and then we were engaged i think a year later we were only 22 you know but total love at first sight that's awesome i was engaged for i think uh we got married before we were together two years we got engaged within the first year we're married before two years when you know you know we just celebrated 20 years of marriage in september congratulations that's the whole thing so how long ago was this that was in 2011 is when we met we got engaged in 2012 i don't know about timeline 2014 is when we got married 2014 so we are like 11 years in i love that you know we're 2005 amazing how long after how did paren come to be you guys both went to cia your both went to we love this and we want to do this the idea for paren so we bolted culinary arts so it's kind of funny that we own a bakery now because we did not do baking and pastry programs it's split between two but it was the biscuit that got the husband i know it's so funny that's just bakery yeah it's kind of funny so we had um you know we had the love for the industry together but i think one of the things we connected with was that we also wanted to have a family we wanted to work life balance but we

17:42wanted to be in this industry and so we connected on that tyler was working at blue hill at stone barns and in terry town and i was a teaching assistant at the cia and we got to this point we're like do we want to stay in new york tyler loves telling the story we were walking around the brooklyn fleet we always went into the city and we saw parents walking with their strollers around the city and we're like that doesn't look like the kind of parents we want to be we don't want to raise kids in a city and we also didn't didn't see ourselves in new york so we actually decided to um go visit my parents near lake tahoe and potentially work in sonoma nappa kind of live the west coast it's a little bit slower that in that side of the country yeah i mean sonoma nappa would be nice to raise kids and i and i did my externship at the girl in the fig in sonoma and so we naturally let's just go to the west um different vibe um after being in new york for five years so we went and visited my parents and we ended up on a one-hand chance my parents had some friends of friends that wanted a private chef for the night and we said oh we could do it you know they kind of elicited us to do it and to be honest we had so much fun cooking for this group and we're like oh maybe we could just be private chefs while we figure out what we're going to do it was kind of a thing you know and so we did a little quick google search in lake tahoe and there was not a lot of private chefs and so we kind of saw this gap in the market and we're like okay it's crazy we have super high student loans but why don't we just start private chefing and it blew up and i think it's because we honestly coming from new york like with a new york mindset like we answered emails very quickly and then we ended up responsive squeezing ourselves into a concierge service so basically all the luxury homes that would get rented around lake tahoe we were the chef um that people would hire for like the night or the week and that blew up it was great fantastic it was 2013 when that happened wow listening before you're married they weren't even like we weren't even thinking we were we were just visiting my parents and then it turned into you know oh we'll stay another month say another month okay well we just booked six months out you know and it just three three years later we were continuously doing that and

19:47then one client from la because we're always cooking for people that are visiting lake tahoe not locals yeah um and we ended up moving to reno nevada while we were private chefing because lake tahoe is too transient to live in um we had a couple from la that was like i don't care that you're private chef so that you don't have a team or full-blown kitchen i want you to cater my entire wedding um and we were like no absolutely not catering is so boring we don't want to be caterers we don't want to cook rice pilaf and a simple protein and a vegetable i mean at that time catering was not great it was kind of boring um and it wasn't like it wasn't an attractive way to go in the industry um so we said that's fine we'll cater your wedding but we're going to custom write your menu and then another wedding couple came along and we custom wrote their menu and then we just full-blown opened the catering company and we were known for customizing every single menu to the couple's background their heritage i mean one time i had how cool is that thai swedish wedding i know vegan thai swedish wedding and i think there was a gluten-free in there so i had i once made like thai green basil swedish meatballs for a wedding um they were great by the way um so we were that what we were known for and then throughout the way paren kind of slowly went in there is that we could not get good bread for these events and so tyler was getting frustrated and he was like i'm just gonna teach myself to make sourdough and this is before covid well before covid when everyone was blowing up so we bought you know tartine's book started making sourdough and at some point he was doing 40 loaves out of the dutch ovens a day took him all day long to bake these bread for the weddings um and that was really fun and he said you know we should open a bakery one day kind of like jokingly and i was like you're nuts like we have 40 weddings at this point a summer which were sometimes three weddings in a weekend and the thought was just so out there and we also were like well now catering is lucrative we'll never do a brick and mortar that's so silly but then one day one night i had just finished a wedding i was unloading our

21:50catering van i had hotel pans full of like juicy steak jimmy cherry grossness because we catered in the woods basically so we were not doing dishes off site and i was carrying it and it was midnight and it just slowly dripped down my chef coat from like my neck to my belly button and i thought to myself you know maybe i don't want to be a caterer for the rest of my life maybe maybe this bakery idea isn't that bad catering is actually when you're doing it like that's very hard it is it is a workout i mean tom morales who has tom cat says that that's the real when you have to go create a kitchen somewhere else where there's not running water and you have to do all these things like you have to create a kitchen and then so hard like it's it's you know what's funny is we actually we filmed a teaser for a show because someone from a network that was up and coming came to us we're like wow the fact that you guys cater super high-end weddings in the middle of fields is insane we want to come film you and so they filmed us for an entire week they we actually they allowed our sweet couple allowed a film crew to film the entire wedding and watch us and we did the whole thing right it's like a big deal it was a big deal to us it's a pretty big network at this point and they came back to us they're like you know there's not enough drama we really wanted to see more drama and we're like wait wait we cater weddings where sometimes our power goes out we don't have running water we're getting water from the trucky river and it's not dramatic enough you know um and i was like i think that was a true testament to what we were doing and like the talent that we had because we were creating these kitchens in the middle of the woods dealing with all of this and still putting out a three course 200 person very nice wedding you know so you must have incredible organization and leadership skills because i mean when you do that and to have a team of people people don't emotionally regulate super well in this industry and getting them out there that's when they're they're like oh

23:54that's when the drama starts but if you plan it really well and you execute at a high level it goes away um i think you you start to learn what you can and cannot do i mean there'd be times where we're three hours into the woods where we can't go get the arborio rice that we forgot to pack for the risotto dish that we were doing all a minute you know like there is there's there's definitely elements and you kind of roll with the punches but then you really learn to adapt and to pivot and i think that we've taken that that pivoting from the catering days up until today and that helped us really learn and grow i think in general and opening a brick and mortar now where everything is in one place you're like oh this is so easy this is easy the kitchen stays there what do you mean like they don't have to like move the kitchen it's just a different kind of hard so you opened the first paren in reno right when was that what year was that it was 2018 so right after i was like oh maybe the bakery could work i literally contacted the real estate and i was like you know we don't have money we need an less than a thousand square feet we have to have really low rent because we're only going to open four days a week because i didn't think that we could handle anything else other than that and we want to be in a kind of a up-and-coming neighborhood so they coined that area as midtown so it's 800 square feet is the is the little place that we got tyler hung the drywall he did the entire build out i mean it was literally bootstrapped mom and pop and it was wild i mean it was to the point where he was like okay well if we have a bakery we can't just sell bread we should sell pastry so he taught himself to laminate on like a tabletop laminator and make croissants yeah i went through some really bad croissants so we opened our first parent in 2018 november and we had a six-month-old too at that point i was gonna say how many because you have four children we had four so we had two at two at that point so kind of like one kid per project so like our first kid was there when we were in the height of our catering days she was in the van with us i mean in the commercial kitchens with us prepping um

25:55there's so many people listen to this right now going i identify with this story so because this is it i mean this is what entrepreneurial life is yeah it's it's so true i mean yeah it's wild so um we had our second she was six months old i mean tyler was we still had some catering you know gigs because it's always a year out booked so yeah he would cater or i would cater while he was watching the kids and then we would switch off he would do the bake in the very early morning i would take one kid to a daycare and then i would open and run the front of house of the of the bakery and then he would cook and then i would sometimes cater at night i mean it was just a hustle yeah that's what your 20s or fours that's what you do honestly yeah yeah um and so that was yeah that was the bakery and it got to the point where we did not have to take any more catering and we were like hey could we actually live off this little bakery and it was we were really fortunate because we called paren our side chick it was just like this like afterthought thing and then eventually like the bakery was line out the door every single day and we opened five days a week six six eight seven days a week i mean we couldn't even afford espresso machine when we first opened it got to the point where we did eventually afford espresso machine so that brought in a little bit more revenue and for like oh maybe we don't have to cater as much and so he stopped taking weddings for 2020 in early 2019 we're like let's just stop taking weddings and obviously you know the wedding industry crashed in 2020 well the pandemic hit yeah how did that affect you guys well something was looking out for us because we only had 10 weddings booked for 2020 and you know obviously it was like extremely hard and caterers live off of the 50 percent deposits you know so there was a lot of hard conversations we had with some couples some we gave them credit to paren like please let us do that some we actually had to end up doing smaller intimate weddings you know it was definitely it was a hard time for everyone everybody in this planet but we were also at the same time really lucky we didn't have 50 weddings that we were depending on we had the bakery so that really helped during that time tyler and i consulted for a company in sonoma a catering

27:59company in sonoma so we actually stopped taking paychecks from our own company so that we didn't have to lay off anyone from our bakery we never closed a day and we ended up at some point doing text message delivery bread orders just to make ends meet at the bakery so yeah again that like hustle pivot um really has still you know shined through on that that's incredible there's just a i mean it just i started the podcast march 13th 2020 and kind of brings me back to just all of the insanity that happened and nobody knew what to do nobody knew how to do it and you just had to pivot to stay it was like this really survival of fittest it was crazy and that's interesting to hear how you guys were able to make that happen and now you've got 2020 you're still at two kids two young kids and you're navigating two small children going into this thing with paren now you're consulting when did you open another location out there yeah it's funny too because my dad had told tyler and i when we were like should we do this thing where we cater and even though we have student loans like should we go work for somebody else should we do and he goes listen don't do two at the same time don't try to work for someone else and and work for yourself at the same time you have to risk everything to make it work and i definitely hold that true you know you have to go full send you have to completely just go for it because when you don't have an option to fail you can't you know what it's really interesting because i haven't announced this yet i'll announce it before this show comes out i guess but i'm the director of operations for greenhouse grill and mayor bowl restaurants here in town and then i do the nashville area restaurant alliance and i do four different podcasts i'm just i'm all over the place but i'm not doing any of it like super super well so i just quit my job as director of operations at the restaurants the main job the really the big one and so january 31st i'm full on

30:02doing this stuff and i'm scared to death perfect you have to be exactly what you just now said i have to full send and i i've got to do something really really well than a bunch of things in a mediocre way exactly and 100 it's funny you said that because it just resonates so much like with my heart right now for what i'm doing and it's like i gotta do that hopefully that means something because hey we're gonna take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors and first up is shared spirits if you guys don't know about this yet it's because it is brand new this is a new website and what you can do is you can buy drinks and share drinks and people can send somebody a drink to your restaurant but they cannot do it unless you are on shared spirits here's how it works shared spirits brings beverage brands and sponsors directly to you they help find promotions cocktail features events and traffic driving campaigns and you only participate in the ones that make sense for your business no contracts no commitments no risk just free marketing support and new guests walking through your doors backed by real data so you know exactly what's working so if you're a restaurant owner bar operator or general manager go to shared spirits.com and hit the join the network button it takes two minutes and opens the door to new revenue opportunities you're probably missing and it is really really cool this is a local company Justin Maestas you may know him he is the one who's got the brilliant idea and we are partnering with them here at nashville restaurant radio so go check out shared spirits today another amazing company that i love talking about and as i've been visiting with restaurant owners over the past week one of the common themes are we do marketing we post we do the stuff but i'm just not getting a ton of traction and that is where Christine Miles and Miles hospitality marketing comes into play she was the vice president of jay alexander's uh vice president marketing for jay alexander's for like 24 years and now she is on her own and she is working for local independent restaurants

32:10here's what you got to do you got to go to mileshm.com that's m-y-l-l-s-h-m.com and you you put a request in you find out what she's doing she will come sit down and talk to you for an hour and just run over some ideas tell you what she does find out what you're doing it's a free consultation so many restaurants need this i've introduced her to so many people this week and this is your time if you're wondering hey that sounds really good you need to go to mileshm.com and set up a free consultation tell her you heard about it on nashville restaurant radio and you want to be a member of the nashville area restaurant alliance if your leadership team is not on the same page and you are constantly having these long meetings and you're not getting traction this is your opportunity today i'm talking about the entrepreneurial operating system eos yes it is based around the book by gino wickman and traction we use it at our restaurants they use it at frothy monkey they use it at edley's barbecue they use it at carrington row germantown cafe park cafe lots of restaurants are using it because it helps and let me tell you today justin cook is a great facilitator justin helps business owners and their leadership teams implement the entrepreneurial operating system which is a set of simple practical tools disciplines to help you get better at three things vision traction and to be healthy vision is getting you and your leadership team 100 on the same page with who you are where you're going and how you're going to get there traction is helping your leaders become more disciplined and accountable to execute on the right things that will make your vision become reality because a lot of times you're doing a lot of stuff but not the right stuff healthy is helping your leaders become a healthy functional cohesive leadership team because unfortunately leaders don't function well as a team if you start with the leaders the rest of the organization will follow and you'll get to a point to where your entire team is crystal clear on vision everywhere

34:12you look people are executing the things that make your vision come true and it's a great healthy fun place to work if that resonates with you you can email justin right now at justin.cook at eosworldwide.com or you can call him 615-336-7133 to see if eos is a right fit for you he will come down and do an initial kind of introduction and ask you a bunch of questions it is totally free definitely call justin today it's funny you said that because it just resonates so much like with my heart right now for what i'm doing and it's like i gotta do that hopefully that means something because i think you've become addicted to taking risks and i think that for me moving to new york to go to culinary school i was like oh i'm scared that's really scary you know and then you do it and you're like wow i did it you know and that's scary or you know let's open a catering company okay we did it you know we opened a bakery oh but you know and you're scared to death and if you don't have that option and we don't have to succeed to this date i learned like well we have no other option for this to work so like we better just keep going you know um it pushes you in a different way so in 2020 when the bakery was successful and we stopped taking weddings um a location in reno became available that someone else dropped off in an upcoming retail location that was a little interesting and at that point we didn't even think we wanted to stay in reno again we were like oh this was a stopping point sure and then our small little bakery you know the community was so overwhelmingly supportive that when this larger location became available which would have given us the opportunity to have a full cafe to have an open kitchen of you know having the bakery all on site um and have a full-blown restaurant we went for it and so we opened that in 2021 um it was a huge risk for us it was the first loan that we took you know where we actually had to pay pay back because it wasn't our money and and that you didn't take on any investors we had one customer who loaned us money at a high interest rate okay so in my opinion i

36:14think that was an incredible you know wave incredible customer um to this day that's the same person and uh he what we loved most is that he believed and he was a customer from the get-go and one day in our midtown location said hey you know if you ever have an opportunity to grow like here's my phone number and then we signed the lease for that larger location and when we called him up we're like hey remember that one time when i had right after i gave you your english muffin that you come in every day for yeah we actually could use some money and we couldn't get loans from banks because we had student loans um and no everyone's like oh just get an sba sbas are very difficult to get if you don't have track record um and putting up your entire life for it so there is an element there so we opened that in 2021 and it you know was very scary of 3600 square feet you know we doubled our staff you know we had a pretty high rent to pay and it did it outperformed what we thought it would which was fantastic you know so what do you attribute to that what do you think makes paren something that is going to outperform because i live in franklin and every time i go by the franklin location there's always a line out the door and i actually rode my bike to the the ymca the other day and i was driving back through and there wasn't a line i was like holy shit i get to go to paren and eat because there's not a long line out the door what do you think the success is attributed to it's funny that you say because we're we're talking about what makes us and you know us and and it's it's really humbling to hear that too because you know you're like oh really no but we really really care about the product that we put out you know obviously we have a mill we're milling some of our whole grain for our bread that's not obvious i didn't know that we have a mill right there i'll take it i'll show you it's all around the corner um we use very great okay you know ingredients you know we don't we don't shout it from the rooftops that we use organic because some of the small farmers can't certify themselves you know can't get certified for organic but we use really great ingredients we try to you know have extreme transparency with our team and pay them well and livable wages

38:19but above all of that we really care about the way our customers feel and we're always pushing ourselves of like what else can we do to make them feel good um you know we're up here at this location and we do allow laptops here and we want people to stay a while that's the kind of environment we built here but at the franklin location we don't allow laptops and it's really really to push people to connect with one another and be a meeting place and be a place that we're not plugged into see i think that's like the next trend totally i think the next trend is completely unplugging i was at um fs tech recently in orlando and they have these big lockers that you can buy for the front of the restaurant and then there's the individual like if you go to the gym you can get a locker for an hour but inside of the lockers is a bunch of charging ports and i see these being in the front of restaurants people coming in saying put your phones in here while you eat so that you can actually connect because if you have your phone you're going to sit and look at it totally and it's like a whole unplug when you come here and look at your kids and talk to them i recently saw a thing where it's like the older generations it was smoking then it was drinking and i think our generation is going to be social media and just connection and that we're going to have to detox off of it and i you know you hear this like term the young kids say like bricking where they you know you put your phone down you don't touch it i've never heard that term yes i know i'm trying and i mean i started with like do not disturb but it's it's going to take a lot of training of the out of us and if as a restaurant we can do our little tiny piece by saying you know we actually don't allow laptops in here you have to talk to each other that's great so one of the biggest things like going back to your question like what makes paren is we really want to be known as like i just feel good when i'm there and i don't know why maybe it is the product that i'm eating or the way that i was served or the design that we put into the spaces that would be the biggest compliment because i'm like i don't know exactly what it is but there's just something that i like about being here genuine hospitality

40:23genuinely caring about your guest and that they have a great experience while they're here yeah and i think just as people you know which is relatively easy to do well i don't know why we miss this in so many spots but like if you just genuinely care that the people that come in have an amazing experience and then you focus on making that experience great like you can do a lot it's amazing how many people just kind of miss that well that's not our rules our rules are you do this and it's like well well you can't have all of it too and tyler talks about it as like a pie you know you can't you can't charge the prices that you charge if you don't have great ingredients and if your customers don't buy into what you're charging and they don't trust that what you're doing then you're you can't pay your team and if your team's not being paid or treated well like it's a full full circle so i mean we're not perfect but we are absolutely dedicated to that whole theory of full circle so like your if your team can't provide great hospitality are are they being treated with good hospitality and you know what this is the food industry there's hard days there's we're in the middle of holidays where everyone's pushing a little bit harder so i'm not saying that we haven't dialed in a perfect but we are committed to that transparency okay so i took us on a detour i'm sorry we were opening that big location in reno or in that new up and coming spot that went really well better than you thought and nashville's the only other place you guys have locations right yeah you guys live here yeah did you move what was the decision making hey we want to raise our family you have four kids now right we want to raise our family in middle tennessee so we fast forward a little bit we opened that in 2021 then we're like oh we have a 10-year lease we're going to be here a while so let's just continue opening places so the next location we opened was a restaurant called clio still there it's a little like evening rest rotisserie restaurants 36 seats we only play vinyl um little cocktails it was an opportunity

42:24for us to learn dinner service you know using resi and just that whole entire element and then in 2024 we opened a grocery and that grocery was very bakery bread forward with a lot of prepared foods and then some curated goods and that was really for our customers who just wanted to come in and grab a loaf of bread but didn't want to have to wait through the lines to open the grocery in 2024 and then at some point tyler and i looked at each other and we're like hey you know reno has been huge for us this community has supported us on our growth but we personally are craving something more and craving a city that has a little bit more you know very very bigger pool of restaurants and inspiring chefs and even just environment um we both love gardening and we lived in high desert very difficult to grow you know anything and have a garden so like our pure natural love for those things you know we weren't able to get so we kind of started to look around in other cities for us to move knowing that if we do move we don't get the luxury of moving away and not also opening another location so we'll have to like make that work and um that customer that original customer that wrote his name on the back of a receipt he had moved to franklin i had never been to tennessee neither had tyler and he was like you know i really missed the croissants and i think pren would really do well here so you should come check it out and within a week we we were so ready for that next chapter and this was 2024 and so we've got on a flight flew to downtown franklin stayed at the harpeth hotel they took the i mean which is beautiful he took us to leapers for you know what you do to everyone that comes here and you're like should i move here you know you take him to leapers you take him all through the country do you take him to the best spots he did that and and we said yeah sign us up we loved the downtown franklin we knew immediately we'd want to live in franklin or in that surrounding area we saw the hospitality in like just this southern hospitality and that was a huge pull and we said you know if we're

44:24going to do this we're going to have to go full send we're going to have to open multiple locations financially we're going to have to you know basically start all over and we're going to have to introduce the brand in an organic way just like we did in nevada but we did it in a very short amount of time so it took us six years to open all those locations in nevada we did that basically within a year and we opened our franklin location eight weeks exactly to the day that we opened our location here that we're sitting at wow that's incredible because we had to financially wow and what a great location there in franklin too i mean it's where there used to be an americana tap house i believe on a tap house and it was you know we were like if we right on the river if we want to have a location it has to have a story we don't want to be in some you know new build out we want to have a story to our the first location we kind of call franklin our flagship where we have the full restaurant first impression and it being on main street it wasn't even on the market we somehow were able to get a hold of it before it went on the market to rent and it was quite the build out like the roof was falling apart it was we got into the walls and found out they were log walls like oh can't really change that around um so it was quite the project it was definitely the hardest build that we've ever done well i think that your outdoor seating there is fantastic and it kind of wraps around the side and you're overlooking the river and i think the coolest part about that location is when you you don't know what to expect because you can't see the inside of like you walk in and it goes that that dining room goes so far back and it's like the ceilings are so low it is but it's i know it feels so incredibly european that was a big pull very love england yeah love the kotzwalds of england and the low ceilings of that dining room normally everyone would be like i want huge tall ceilings you know and like you have been here we're like at 40 50 foot ceilings in here barely it's like seven feet two inches it felt like an english tub i'm six foot six so i'm like you probably hit your head

46:27yeah i'm like you've like ducked when you walked in it's a thing it felt like an english like an english pub and that was so comforting into knowing that that dining room was not going to allow laptops it's going to be very very you know more about conversation and people it felt very cozy and so that was a very big pull for us and the patio is very cozy i sat on the patio was kind of a chilly or not that long ago maybe six weeks ago but it was like a 62 degree day but the sun was shining i sat outside and it was like this i'm wearing my sweaty gym clothes and everything around all these beautiful people around me and i was like this is what local franklin people look like by the way the tourists that are here did you guys so do you guys live here yeah full time we live in thompson station okay um we have a giant garden and we i like joke i'm like we're living our tennessee dream life we are committed we have the best fourth of july you guys definitely know how to do fourth of july here and it was literally we didn't leave our house but we saw fireworks and in northern nevada it's illegal to do that to put us up fireworks so we drive out like to my cousin's house who lives out like in lawrenceburg like south of columbia and every night we're driving back up 65 past like all that area and all we see is just all the fireworks going off in the thompson station um i want to say it's not very what is that uh very farms i'm like very far like that whole area on our way home it's like man it's really cool it's just a fun place we love we're so happy and it's so funny because we would we recently went up to upstate new york um for a friend's birthday party and we we thought maybe wouldn't wanted to move to upstate new york before we were like let's go back to the hudson valley because the hudson valley is very special yeah and and this was just last month and we're like oh my gosh tennessee's better it's better here i mean it's it's people look like grumpy still in upstate new york you know like the grumpiness and then the weather's not as great great it's cold it's really cold and snowy and we just had this moment like wow we're so happy and it's so comforting you know when you go on a trip you're like should i move here you know you kind of those that goes through your brain anywhere you go

48:30everywhere i go i think at this point i live here nowhere have i gone where i'm like i want to live somewhere else and i think that's such a fun feeling i love that well i love talking to local people and i think one of the perceptions of paren is that oh it's a chain there's a bunch of them and these are this is some you know private equity thing coming in because it's done so well and that it's like uh they're just going to put these up everywhere and it's fun to learn the story and this is what i love about doing this is you guys are a husband and wife yeah four kids we live here now we wanted to live in you know nashville or in the surrounding middle tennessee and we opened up two locations do you have plans for expanding more our third location was announced a few weeks ago so we're opening our grocery so you have done my homework in wedwood houston oh i got i have one of those where is it no i'll find it there it is i don't know where i don't have my little thing on there okay um yes so the grocery will open in summer summer houston and in wedgewood oh yes you do like the upcoming neighborhoods the same time we signed the lease for here and there but that was an up-and-coming building so it just naturally thankfully was a little bit out there on the timeline but we knew we knew we wanted to go into this grocery concept it obviously has the bakery it has the coffee it has the the small menu like we do here but the grocery with the prepared foods and all of that um is something that we really want to do and since we have it already in nevada we wanted to really bring that to nashville that's going to be really cool i'm really excited for that and that neighborhood is just it's gonna absolutely and it's bringing that hospitality back to grocery yeah to the everyday shopping experiences again like reconnecting having people that sample you know having that connection with you know a market grocery store so that's what our focus is on have you been able to connect with other

50:35restaurateurs in town how do you feel like you've been received by the restaurant community okay well we have four kids and we don't have a nanny so and we we are operators i think that's like really important like we don't like own and all these people operate around it's like obviously we have a huge a great team but tyler's obviously right there doing bread i'll be rolling croissants later and then during the festival at franklin i'll be working the front of house so we're operating we're constantly there and we're open 70 something with the dickens festival well this weekend it's like the parade and then the tree lighting i know and then the dickens next weekend it's a lot it's a lot which i love um and we're on main street so obviously have to be a part of it but we're operating so we don't get out very much and there's one night a week that there are one night a month that's called parents night out that our kids daycare has and all kids can go and so that's where we that's when we go to a restaurant and try to get in so we're going to catbird seat next friday um we've gone to so it's rulf and daughters um i think bad idea was one of the first restaurants that we came to that we've actually come back to multiple times you know zow bow i mean it what's so exciting is living in a city where there's so many restaurants to choose from and it is something that we missed for so long living in nevada um that it's just it feels like a kid in the candy store to be honest but i have not connected like really have like a meet and greet because we're all a bit you know we're all working you know we're all busy and um you know we met sean brock because he came in to the restaurant here which was really great um but we haven't really connected like i'm gonna we need like a pow wow like well that's what i do with nara the nara connect we're gonna do a winter social yes with all the restaurants and there's no there's no you just show up and meet with other restaurant owners it's just restaurant owners hanging out together would it be nerdy would anyone actually come i was thinking maybe one night in like our franklin location or maybe up here we just like chefs can come and hang out and be like cook we like have a potluck or something well i mean this is like some 45 seats

52:35what time do you guys are you guys open at night no not up here ah well we'll talk afterwards because i'm looking for the location for the winter social and if you want to do something i don't know how many people could fit up here we can fit more tables up here yeah i mean we don't need tables we just need a place to be able to stand and hang out maybe have a couple people that want to liquor companies that want to give away free alcohol yeah let's do it here i mean okay mostly because i want to meet people and as we go to this next commercial break there it is there was the organic moment where we decided to do the winter social right there at paren bakery and it is going to be on january the 13th it is going from four to seven you don't have to be there the whole time you can show up you can leave it's going to be just super chill all you have to do is you have to go to nara nashville.com there's a tab on there that says winter social nara connect just click on that tab there's an eventbrite register for it this is for restaurant owners if you're a gm if you're a chef somewhere if you're in leadership in a restaurant then that is for you this will not be full of vendors and people trying to sell you stuff this is for restaurant owners hanging out getting to know each other also introducing aubrey and tyler olaski so we would love to see you there if you have more questions send me a message over on nara nashville.com very excited to be partnering with c and b linen if you know me it's my number one topic of conversation is linen companies and how shady linen companies can be i have just disgusted with how the business practices work in this industry which is why i was so excited when i found c and b linen they're out of waynesboro tennessee and they don't charge any fees so the linen price that you have whatever that first linen price is that's your price and so you may say well every year they must raise the price on this seven-year contract right no because

54:38they don't do any contracts there's no gas fees there's no clean green service fees there's no replacement cost there's nothing the only price you pay is the price that you pay for the actual product i know it's too good to be true no contracts they do formats they'll make custom formats for you they do fresh linens cleaning supplies and guys i just did a tour of their facility and it is immaculate it is state of the art i'm gonna post pictures on my instagram you can go find them and you can see how absolutely gorgeous this is to the point that they even wash and sanitize every one of their used laundry carts it's just absolutely amazing if you're looking for a linen company you can trust who wants to earn your business every single week go back and listen to our episode with jason cruz the owner of cnb linen hear it from his straight from his mouth exactly what they do or you give them a call at 931722 7616 or you can dm me at brandon still on instagram for my exclusive pricing through the nashville area restaurant alliance running a restaurant is tough staff turnover rising cost and the endless task that bog you down and take you away from what you love let adams keegan lighten that load their privately held tennessee-based restaurant and hospitality focused outsourced hr payroll and benefits firm the team at adams keegan removes the administrative burdens of hr administration payroll benefits management garnishments unemployment claims compliance 401k and so much more from their proprietary hris platform to seamless payroll and competitive benefits that keep your team smiling they've got you covered adams keegan lets you focus on what you do best creating unforgettable dining experiences while they handle the rest essentially think of adams keegan as your back office hr department right here in music city one of the many things i love about adams keegan is that unlike big publicly traded companies out there they have an incredibly

56:41high standard of customer service and that that's what we all need is really good customer service in these areas they don't give you a 1-800 number and make you fill out an it ticket submission they surround every client with a team of experts all based right here in tennessee you can call them today at 615-627-0821 or visit adamskeegan.com that's adamskeegan.com for your free hr consultation and see how they can create a customized solution to help your restaurant thrive hey guys today we are talking about robin's insurance and restaurants carry a very unique set of risks we can customize a menu of insurance solutions to meet your specific needs reviewing the options and developing a plan for restaurant insurance coverage is a perfect recipe every restaurant owner has heard the statistics about how tough it is to survive and thrive in the business but getting adequate insurance at least gives you a fighting chance to mitigate some of those risks it's well worth considering a custom-built restaurant insurance policy as it'll not only make life simpler but it may even overcome some risks you haven't even considered for example you'll usually want to cover risks to properties such as the building and equipment along with liability to customers and staff right yeah that's easy but remember there's an important difference between general liability such as a customer slipping on a spoiled drink and a professional liability such as about a food poisoning from bad food or inadequate preparation other elements that are easily overlooked include the risk of fraud and data theft that come with handling cash and card payments the risk of spoiled food you have to throw away if there's a power outage or refrigerator failure and the risk of lost business if you close for repairs after a fire protect your restaurant business by contacting them today it's so easy and when any of those situations happen what you don't want to do is get and dial an 800 number and be put on hold to talk to somebody you have to explain your business to that is why you call Matthew Clements Matthew Clements at Robin's Insurance when any of those scenarios happen

58:44you pick up the phone you dial 863-409-9372 Matthew answers goes how can I help you you tell him your problem he's your friend you know him why would you not have an agent that you work with every single day any of these situations right here you need guidance you need support and Matthew Clements and his team at Robin's Insurance are there to provide it you should call today I'm going to put that number down one more time that's 863-409-9372 call Matthew Clements today well we want to bring people in too it'll be really fun to bring and this is a good central location it's not Franklin it's not yeah you know it's it's kind of right here close to downtown area and we're going to talk after this we're going to figure this out because that would be really fun I mean that's also why we wanted to move like what was so intriguing about living here is that you have access to so much talent and there isn't a when you have talent surrounding you it's an energy that we wanted to be with you know that was hard to leave New York there's just natural energy and drive and excitement and passion that we were really excited to live in a place where we have that now well that's so exciting this has been such a fun conversation just to learn the history behind prim because it showed it showed up in my neighborhood and I was like I don't know what this big city that's kind of the perception that and because it's so well done I mean it looks really beautiful inside I had a one-star uh google review the other day and I got like really upset because well first the lady was like I really wanted to not like this place because it's a chain from Las Vegas and I'm like Las Vegas is eight hours south of Reno we're closer to Napa and San Francisco but then I was like and we're not a chain and then I googled what a chain meant and a chain is just a restaurant that's like has multiple locations or especially in different states and I'm like oh no we are a chain are we a chain because you think about

01:00:48chains and you think about Applebee's or Chili's like hundreds of locations corporate you know yeah the word corporate corporate um or franchises and I'm like oh shoot I guess we're a chain but it's just so hard to convey that where it's literally just it's my husband and I how often do you go to Reno um we fly back when we first left and we had trained ourselves out right so we have an incredible team a management team that they actually flew out here and helped us open here and we had when we first left we would go back one of us would leave every three weeks one would go back and forth and then we started to go you guys don't really need us do you but we wanted to go and see them you know um and so it's kind of like every two to three months now okay yeah well that's not bad yeah we opened a little location in the Nevada Museum of Art in August um so we flew out for that opening and then we were just there for we actually just went out just to go to Parenz giving it's our company potluck for thanksgiving Parenz giving yeah we had one here we had our first official one here um at the Franklin location but we have one in Nevada too so we flew out for that wow this is fascinating let me see if I have any other like questions I'm ready I'm so warmed up but I'm really used to talking in this microphone now you like it now see she was initially like what's going on here with all of this the setup here in my restaurant um what's been the most surprising part of this whole entrepreneurship journey I joke that I've either I'm so numb to the stress or I'm growing up and maturing as someone in the industry this was definitely the hardest thing we've ever done in our entire life is move across the country while still trying to operate restaurants being in the industry itself is very difficult having four kids without a lot of backing I mean it's the whole thing right the hardest days where we were lying on the floor going what did we do this better work like we hope this pays off the fact that our kids were healthy that we were healthy and that our marriage was healthy was literally the only thing that mattered and we're stronger and as a couple from

01:02:52this whole experience and I think that's the biggest surprising is you realize your stress threshold just increases with everything that you've done and I think that there is there is something to say like as you age and you get wiser that that is the case and I think that's probably the most surprising is like anything can happen and it will but it's all the way you take it and it's how you ride the wave finding gratitude in the small things that you have versus constantly focusing on the things that you don't or why something isn't happening centering yourself regulating those emotions and saying hey we have a lot of great things going for us and we're all healthy and we're doing our thing like this is totally we're good and then let's let's focus on the next thing we can I think some people focus on the things they can't control and they let that run them right and versus the looking what's right in front of you we all are we're all like that and I think that's the biggest thing too is just realizing also and I think I'm such a big advocate so I'm so glad that you're taking that leap of take their risk it is move to the place that you want to live go do the thing that you want to do take the trip you never know what's going to happen to you and you'll never know unless you try and I remember Grant Atkins was at the CIA and I was helping him do a book signing on and I was like opening the book as he signed it and he had his his line is what's next that's what that's what he would write in every single book what's next it's great it's great at kids of course owning a linea in Chicago yeah those of you who like who and in my head I always like well what's my what's my line going to be one day if I ever write it in a book and it's why not like why not you know so that's kind of my my motto right now is just why not I love that that's so um to get deep and poetic no I think that's so cool why not like just do it um if you could go back and give Aubrey day one Aubrey

01:04:54a piece of advice if you're if there's entrepreneurs out there who are starting this journey me what advice would you give maybe you just did it's so frustrating because I am obsessed with listening to other stories of very successful people like I'm a I am a advocate I love listening to how I built this with Guy Raz I don't know if you've ever listened to that you absolutely should right now I should I will I was actually on on advice line with Guy Raz I got to like talk to Guy I was so excited and my question was like how do you find a mentor that was really exciting but I listened to that and one of the things that I get really frustrated with is when you hear someone say like what's your biggest advice and their answer is just go for it it'll you know it'll happen you just have to go for it and it's like yeah thank you I'm going for it you know and you get frustrated like it's nice to say when you say you know you when you're at the top and you've made it and so it's funny to say like you know what what would I say in return of like what advice would I give to myself and yeah I think that's a question I'm gonna have to continue asking myself and I and it's probably gonna change every single day but it is the just keep going all right we got a couple fun quick hit questions and I'm gonna warn you right now if you've never listened to the podcast one of the things I do at the very end is you get to take us out right we do the Gordon food service final thought and you get to kind of give your final advice you could talk about whatever you want to talk about you're gonna take us out of the podcast okay so you can I'm gonna do some quick hits and then I'm then we're gonna do that so I'm giving you like a minute and a half to firmly in your brain while you answer questions what the finish is gonna be the pressure oh my gosh there you go um your desert island uh pastry what are you taking a classic croissant just a classic croissant you can't go wrong with a good one I'm taking a chocolate croissant okay and my wife's taking a cinnamon roll which by the way I brought her home a cinnamon roll she had the brown butter we had I got the brown butter cinnamon

01:06:54roll from here or from Frank and I on my little bike I carried it home all the way and I was like I brought you because we've never been able to we have kids we have two boys that are 10 and 12 and they don't like standing in line you take you you ride your bike down there and then you stand in line for 30 minutes they are losing their minds so we haven't been able to like go as a couple and just like enjoy it so I brought her home a cinnamon roll and we started eating this and I was like this is really damn good and then the heart of this the very middle part of it she kind of was like taking bites of it and then I ate the last piece which was the heart and she looked at me like you just stole her did you just eat the final piece of this so I have to bring her one you will bring one home but this is what I also have to say you have to warm it up just slightly okay to get the butter from room temperature to warm it completely changes the experience what's the most underrated ingredient in baking underrated underrated what are you using that nobody knows that really is a game changer underrated ingredient I would say the quality ingredients and I think this is a great time of year to talk about that because everyone's making Christmas cookies please don't use the cheap flour cheap butter when you're making your Christmas cookies please please use really good butter and use really good flour what's a really good butter I mean we use this you know I have a pound of a signy mare on our counter at all times it's a french butter but a high fat butter or just a good organic butter we use an Irish butter and carry gold carry yeah carry gold I think that's what we use in our house we get from Costco yes it's got the green label but when you see like that that changes and I should say like that's what's gross about those holiday cookies right now is when people don't use great ingredients okay so quality of ingredients is underrated perfect that's a great answer all right here's a fun one you ready what's a and you might

01:08:55say the chocolate croissant for me and that's okay please do not it's a it's a guilty pleasure I just like it's very basic but you said croissant yourself a pastry or dish you secretly judge people for when ordering if somebody orders that you're like I used to work in an Italian restaurant and we had all these amazing dishes and somebody would get the spaghetti and meatball and I would judge them I'd be like dude there's like I judge you for working at a place that has spaghetti and meatball on it so when somebody comes in here and they order what is the most basic thing you can order versus what you have oh chocolate croissant I mean I feel like saying that against our own no because even when I when I when someone orders a classic croissant I'm like oh you are that's classic you know um I can't say anything on our own menu I'd say let me put it out there for like the more broader and I judge my own husband on this if he loves a cream filled donut and there's something about that that's always I'm not a cream filled I'm not either so even like our creme brulee quinoa which is filled with like beautiful vanilla creme brulee filling I'm like okay you're a cream filled donut that sounds delicious let's take one home too I love creme brulee let's go um who's somebody in the hospitality world right now that's inspiring to you I mean I just met Will Gadira for the first time I was I was gonna I don't know why I was gonna say I was like Will Gadira's I mean it goes along did he come in here so we actually got invited to a book release kind of thing that he had that we got invited to which was like incredible and we met him Tyler and I he like talked the whole time and it was a small group of people so Tyler and I like this is our chance this is our chance to meet him and we actually love I don't know if you were the welcome conference so all of us have all read unreasonable hospitality in the in our in our our team has and I had when it first came out read it in like two days and we take our team to the welcome conference in New York I went they did one here I went last year and then Tyler took the team this year or like some of our team

01:10:59and even when I was at the CIA and he he did a he did the speech when he was still working at 11 massive park so like I've I've known about him since the very beginning like when he was still at EMP um and Tyler staged at EMP and had family meal and Will had said like oh come sit with us you know for family meal and so that was like in his head and so when we when we met Will we were both like what do we say you know I've had him on the show really yeah he's been on this podcast yeah he's just incredible amazing genuinely so nice and we actually met Brian Candles too and he was at the at the thing too so that was really fun so um yeah I mean he's always I what I love is that he's he's leading hospitality into a not just a food and beverage way he is he's expressing how important hospitality is in your everyday life in every industry and I think that's incredible he's not just going in from money and negotiating vendor stuff which is a lot what I do he's really hitting it from a personal side how do we listen better how do we create which is essentially what I was going to ask you earlier I said if you genuinely care about the people that are dining here and you have that genuine hospitality it works and that's what he's championing and I love that and I've tried to champion that in my own restaurants and it's it's a it's a lot of fun when it works out really well it's really fun when your team understands it yeah you know we we have this thing in the restaurant too where we we kind of encourage the team based off of his book truly um to find something out about the the guests and then get excited and do something special so like two weeks ago we had a couple from Spain that were eating at our Franklin location for dinner which you have to come to dinner at some point it's very very fun we do a full english roast it's very fun um and we had just had brought in some abarico for something else and we sliced some abarico and brought to the table and the team got so excited that it made them excited to do it the next time too you know

01:13:05what I mean and it it when they're on board it makes them excited and then it comes full circle because you're making other people happy and you're being you're and I think that's something we can teach us like to our kids too it's like 100 making other people happy actually makes you happy too you know I love that okay we're at that time are you ready anything anything I miss anything you wanted I really wish I knew what everyone else said so I can figure out what I was gonna say but I feel like more on the spot okay we're gonna do the Gordon food service final thought and I know you're on the spot I know that this is the whole thing you can't I always tell you I joke I go you could say nib high football rules you know like out of Billy Madison I don't know anything that is you're passionate about right now that you want to share it doesn't have to be restaurant wise it could be literally anything any advice you've heard recently is there a favorite quote whatever you got okay now I'm gonna be real for a second good chat gbt is a very big hot topic right now yeah and I think it's really incredible for restaurants and people in this industry I think will only help our industry when other industries are very very threatened by them and it makes I think for once I feel very proud to be in this industry because I feel like my job is very is very something that a robot or a computer cannot take over and it goes back to the hospitality and it goes back into all of that so I think this is a really exciting time to be coming into the industry and to be proud to be in it as well so I've been I've been like talking a lot about that and like kind of preachy about it like hey it's only gonna help us it's actually you know it's gonna help us organize it's gonna help us read pnls better it's gonna help us as an industry overall and be really excited and proud y'all today we are talking as always about super source and you know one cool thing about super source is did you know that they develop most of their cleaning products and chemicals in their in-house facility they're environmentally

01:15:05conscious and only use dyes that are safe for the employees and the environment they carry a number of products for keeping your dishes flatware services floors restrooms laundry basically your entire facility clean bright and smelling and feeling new this is just one of the many reasons super source is taking over this city for dish machine and chemicals you need to call Jason Ellis his number 770-337-1143 and he would love it if you would give him a call and let him come down and just check out your operation meet him say hi see if there's any way he can help he is here to help you succeed that's Jason Ellis with super source 770-337-1143 Sharpier's bakery is a locally owned and family operated wholesale bakery providing bread to Nashville's best eateries they have operated in Nashville since 1986 yes next year will be 40 years they providing high quality fresh bread daily for restaurants catering companies hospitals and universities their bread is also free from any preservatives and artificial flavors they're right off of White Bridge Road Erin Moser and her team been doing this for a long time and you know what I love about them is that they're local and they care they care about your business that's like the number one thing you're going to hear me talk about is do they care about your business and I hundred percent believe that they do if you would like to be working with the bakery that cares about your business give them a call 615-356-0872 that's 615-356-0872 now you can always visit them at Sharpier's.com that's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S.com and they have pictures of all of the bread that they can have for you and contact information go check them out Sharpier's Bakery it helps me in this world because I transcribed this podcast and I say write my show notes

01:17:10yeah see and I don't have to go back and remember and be it just goes oh here's your conversation with Aubrey Oleska it's you can plug your P&L in and say where are my opportunities which is insane and it will just spit it out well looks like your kitchen labor was high last month based on everybody else you're at a 16 percent it needs to be a 12 and it'll go through all of that you're like whoa yeah so anyone that I talk to I'm like are you using this as a tool yet you should be you know I like to look at it and say hey chat gpt what's the internet saying about my restaurants right now you could say what's the internet saying about paren bakery in nashville and then it'll find everything it'll find all your help reviews everything is like well shoot that's that's a little more than I might want to know about it right now well you could even say go through all of my reviews and tell me the top three things that people don't like about the restaurant and then you can look at it and it'll call all of your any reviews that aren't anything that says these are opportunities and it'll say everybody loves the food but they say it's too loud or but they say that you can't use and you'll see and it's it'll just do so much work for you yeah and then you can be like so how do I respond to these it'll respond for them too it's pretty neat a little bit therapeutic too Aubrey it has been an absolute pleasure talking with you thank you for taking the time today to the podcast this is so nice yeah this is great and you'll have to have you back on anytime you want to come back on and have something you want to promote we would love to have you there and then what was I gonna say I want I really want to thank your pr company for helping this helping make this happen that's where we as like in doing on the ground we hired a pr it was our first time we ever hired them because we realized we don't know that side of things we don't know how to introduce yourselves when you're actively working and to put yourself out there you know well Julie's been on fire and she's sitting right

01:19:11here watching what do you what do you think of the show so far the interview how do you do oh really hello oh see so it's fun because when we do these we can we can like be in a place like this talking in a microphone we can hear each other fine yeah but she's like I don't know what they're saying my first like real official podcast your first real official podcast I love first timers did I do okay you did wonderfully okay how did you give me your notes I like notes how did I do fantastic you kept it smooth you kept it rolling you made me feel comfortable so many people come in are super a lot of people that don't do podcasts on a regular basis are really nervous walking in and they're like I don't know I've never done this before and I go would I before I so I go you'll be fine it's fine then every single time 100 percent of the time we finished podcasts they go oh that was really fun never mind like I've not it's so glad that you took the time today to do this and thank you Julie for making this happen what what'd you say she said thank you all right guys we will be back soon uh with our next guest thank you again for joining us thanks yes thank you so much to Aubrey Olasky and a big advance thank you for hosting our NARA connect event that is going to be again on January the 13th it's a Tuesday night from four to seven go to nara nashville.com get your tickets now it is free if you are a restaurant owner a chef a general manager somebody who's in the restaurants we'd love to have you there we'd love to meet you just love to say hi big big thank you we want to tell you right now another thing some restaurants to go check out our next episode is going to be with Jessie Tigges she is a content creator and if you're curious about content creators and an influencer she breaks it down what she does and why she does it and I thought that was really interesting and I'm using I met her because we're using content creators at the restaurants and I

01:21:15love it it's been really great for us and I think you should too and after that we're going to have Matt Ramis and Matt is the owner over at common ground if you have not been to common ground go check it out I kind of talked about on the intro another restaurant that I absolutely love that you might not know about or you may not have been to but if you like latin cuisine I would definitely go check out Tentissimo Tentissimo is Anna Aguilar and Josh Cook over there are just their food is second to none it's in Sylvan Park it's a tiny little place and it is so good you need to go eat at Tentissimo the other place that I am in love with right now is Saint Vito focaccia Ria if you haven't been to Saint Vito in a while and we're going to be having both of those people come on the show here in the next little bit we're going to be doing an interview with Tentissimo next week so you might get to see I may throw that out there sooner and then we're going to do another episode with Michael Hanna coming up real soon and so many more chefs restaurateurs coming on we're sharing their stories and we are so thankful that you are here for it if you have somebody you like us to get on the show somebody that's doing an awesome job who's a good local restaurant send them us send us uh send me their contact information whatever I can do um we would love to have them on the show we have been having so much fun all these conversations and there's there's going to be a ton more we are back I'm so excited to be full time doing this and really getting the word out for local restaurants and building this community so thank you guys for listening hope that you guys are being safe out there love you guys bye