Best of NRR Volume 1

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host and welcome to our very first best of episode. Well we're taking a break from doing live interviews for a couple weeks while we reset, readjust and just kind of refresh everything. We're going back over some of the older episodes that we had and we're just gonna kind of, you know, the beginning of this whole thing. My first episode was on March 13th and I just started talking to people. I just started talking to people who wanted to talk to me, honestly. It was an absolutely crazy time and some of the first people that came up and talked to me was Margot McCormick and Kerry Bringle and several others and we're gonna do some some like five minute clips of those interviews and it kind of takes you back to the very beginning before all this started and it's gonna start off with Margot McCormick talking to us about kind of what this is doing to her.

01:30I talked to her on March 17th and March 17th was St. Patrick's Day. I did an interview with Kerry Bringle. I did an interview with her back-to-back. It's like my second and third interviews I've ever done so I'm super, super new, super green at this stuff but the Margot McCormick interview is a moment that I will never ever forget because I'd known Margot and we'd met on multiple occasions but we'd never had like a long in-depth conversation. I've always been kind of a sales guy and this was the first time that I really spent like a solid 32 minutes and I got to know her and I was under this spell like I just fell so deeply in love with who she is and everything about her and it's this clip that I'm about to play where she talks about just her vulnerability and talking about not knowing what's gonna happen and then her description of the pain that she's feeling is so it was really a catalyst for so many episodes that I did on this show and the lines of questions that I went through because she so eloquently states just that you know the energy that her I talk about your love language a service of being a lovely but she kind of coined that and this first clip is exactly that so let's jump right in here with Margot McCormick from March 17th 2020 but what are you what are you gonna do unfortunately in the moment you know if people want to get paid they have to claim unemployment I don't have a pot of money that I can just hand out to my employees unfortunately and it makes me so sad because I really pride myself in being able to take care of my employees and so to not be able to do that all the sudden is it is a gut punch and it's a little bit depressing for me a restaurant

03:31is supposed to be full of people that's the nature of the beast and that's what we all love and so for the restaurant to be empty it's just also very sad to see that your livelihood is just like drying up just like stopping is like wow through no fault of anything that we've done we are a much-loved you know restaurant so it's not that anything that we've done and it's just being kind of pulled out from under us so my employees have to face some tough decisions it's like flying on a plane and you know you've got to put your oxygen mask on before you help anyone else so I have to get myself right and that's the coalition of chefs is reaching out to government I'm not sure exactly at this point what can be done the state budget is in the works it's going to be finalized probably by June 3rd a lot of the things that we're talking about sales tax you know abatement payroll tax things like that are so woven into it like the Department of Labor and the federal government and so it's it's a lot to unravel or figure out where to turn so we're trying to get advice on all of those levels about all of those things so calling state government to make sure that we're not left out of the picture because you know those airlines are getting bailed out just like the banks got bailed out just like the auto industry got bailed out but it's like who's gonna bail out the little guy you know who's gonna bail me out so that I can bail someone else out I can look in your eyes and I can tell that the people that work for you the people that come in here on databases that create this community which is the reason why I wanted to do the podcast was because this community we need to find a way to connect everybody and gain perspective in you can look in your eyes this is not something that you're just like oh well I'm gonna be okay tough everybody else the pain here is what's what's gonna

05:36happen to our community of people and it kind of doesn't matter if I'm gonna be okay if other people aren't gonna be okay exactly and that that's my concern too is that okay we're taking all these precautions and certainly absolutely I don't want anyone to die but if we're all put out of work and we can't feed our families or put a roof over our heads we might as well be dead so it's kind of like what's the difference hmm yeah it's pretty harsh it's an interesting take uh-huh well I'm not the only one that shares that opinion that's how tenuous our situation is right now you know we don't have a lot of the things that corporate America we can't work from home you know I'm kind of getting tired of the posts on Facebook of like oh look what we're doing I'm like oh how nice of you that you're working from home and you're having a big time but we're not we're struggling we're struggling being at home and because we're supposed to be here the interaction of people and community is what it you said you got the bug you said I got the bug working with Jodie Faison and it is a bug it is I've worked like I can't do anything different I'm trying my hand at podcasting but I I'm not getting out of the restaurant business I'm still talking to people in the restaurant business it's a community and I think the whole idea of social distancing is really also very scary I mean I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist or someone who has cynicism but I'm like it would seem at this time that you'd want to come together and not grow apart and I do feel a little weird about this whole thing this social distancing and it's the time when we need each other the most and we have to stay away from each other you know I think it was Sartre who said hell is other people well I would counter with hell is nobody you know hell is not having anyone else around it's kind of a it's kind of a six of one half dozen of another well I don't even I it's tough to even think about that I mean because

07:40I've you're presenting things to me that since I'm not actively in a restaurant and I'm kind of you said everything changes as the minute you're making me think like wow that's there's a lot of people out there who need that interaction pretty good money but it's part of their lives. It's what gives me energy is to feed people and nourish people and nurture people every night and when you have a full dining room of people the energy gets back to me I'm giving all this love and this creativity and this food but it's coming back to me and so when we don't have that that synchronicity you know it's it's a void the restaurant is supposed to be alive it's supposed to and not you know it's creepy it is creepy so what's next what are you gonna do during if they if they say because I anticipate in the next couple days right what are they gonna say they're gonna say you can't even you have to do to go and delivery only I imagine we're doing that now this is our last night of seated reservations moving forward it will all be to go carry out whatever and then we've got a friend in in Seattle who thinks that by the weekend the restaurant business shut down all together that you won't be able to do anything so I don't know if that's true or not that's her thought there are a couple weeks you know ahead of us I know that you know restaurants in York are closed restaurants in San Francisco I think are closed so it's probably only a matter of time that we're buying ourselves and just kind of serving what we have and then we'll probably have to close our doors and that'll be a very scary moment a very sad moment and then you know there will be a lot of restaurants here that will not open back a little did I know that Marche would be one of those restaurants that didn't

09:41open back up I look forward to hopefully having another conversation with Marco in the near future when we come back but on to our next interview mr. Kerry Bringle joined me the same day as Marco and we talked about a lot of things again this was my first really big interview that I had done with a really big chef and we got to a point where we had to ask the inevitable question I said hey let's talk about I was really afraid to talk about what's happening in COVID-19 because I didn't I don't know I was new at this didn't know what to do and I came out there and said let's talk about I said what do you anticipate happening and I think one of my favorite lines that Kerry Bringle said is John Cooper is doing a good job I don't know if you'll hear Kerry Bringle say that this that's how early on this interview was done so sit back and listen to just some of the the wonder of us trying to figure out what's about to happen to us I think we have to talk about the inevitable I think the inevitable that they think that I saw an Eater Nashville that we're effed was a was an actual like headline today the restaurant industry and what we're going through is unprecedented and I don't think anybody knows what to do I think I've been talking about with a bunch of people as to what they are doing and I think there's initial stages of we're gonna clean everything we're gonna do all of that because that's our responsibility and we have this social responsibility to do all of these things but here we are St.

11:23Patrick's Day which is a day you said it's my birthday everybody parties on your birthday but they're doing it at home today so the everything has changed like the entire landscape has changed what are your thoughts what's what's going through your head right now you know it's there's certainly worry and the unknown and so there's a lot going through my head what do I do what what can I do for my team to make sure that they're protected you know how can we make sure that we survive through this and that our business continues to survive and that we keep our good people it's tough and everybody in our industry is worried if they're not they should be we are we feel like we're in pretty good shape and like we can weather this storm and that we'll get through it and be okay there's a lot of people in this industry that don't feel that way that they feel like just what you said we're F'd you know this is this could be the nail in our coffin there's a lot of competition in Nashville there's been a flood of new restaurants some people have exorbitant rents with the with the way that real estate is gone here in town and some people had exorbitant buildouts so they've got a lot of debt on top of rents and you know service in that debt and trying to keep employees and trying to keep them paid and make sure that they don't resent you after this because they had to get laid off it's those are all valid concerns from everybody in this industry nobody knows what's gonna happen it's not you know this is unprecedented I just had my mother and stepfather and my father-in-law and his wife and mother-in-law in just a few minutes ago and you know they're both you know my my my

13:24stepfather is 80 and you know he they they haven't this is unprecedented they really haven't seen anything like this maybe the closest would have been the in 1958 but we haven't seen this type of shutdowns and it's just it's unprecedented since probably World War two and so it's got everybody very concerned and scared what is your plan do you have a plan right now I think that the overall consensus if you ask anybody who's been game-playing I think that this thing really Thursday afternoon when everything closed last week we all kind of went okay here we go this is coming this is real and we are all in for it let's start planning I think everybody started ramping up on to go materials and figuring out and talking to their employees identifying this is something that where who are the people that get to work right now because with this few guests coming in you can't you can't staff the whole restaurant as if you're gonna have a line out the door no we sent you know we we asked people who wanted to go today and we sent three people home we probably could have sent more home we will we'll probably make some hard decisions by the end of the day in in what we plan to do or how we plan to respond to this John Cooper is doing a good job I think but he first came out with a statement that said that they suggested that bars closed and of course there was a lot of blowback on that as there should have been you can't suggest something you either need to take a definitive action or you don't you know and so that would be like me saying to my employees I suggest you come in but I don't you know and so it's and the thing is that nobody knows what to do you know it'll be interesting to see what happens we're seeing whole states

15:26shut down the restaurant bar industry like Illinois like Kentucky and so that's unprecedented and some of them are saying they're gonna shut for two weeks and some of them have said they're shut for two months and so a two-week shutdown that's livable for most people and I almost feel like if you did a two week shutdown you know right now maybe nationwide then you've got a little more grip on it but all the states doing different things and and and nobody really doing it together makes it a little more difficult I do think that our national administration is doing a good job I probably have a lot of people industry that will disagree with me but that's my opinion I think that they've taken unprecedented steps in a situation that is unprecedented and they're doing the right thing and I think they're taking the appropriate measures and I don't think that they waited too long to do it when we look at things like the H1 in one there was nowhere near this type of response to it and nowhere near as quick of action on a national level and so that whether you like this administration or not the actions that I see them taking are the appropriate ones and I think they did it at an appropriate time frame so there you go Kerry bring goal kind of just talking about what he thought was gonna be happening you get to hear him say he thought John Cooper's doing a great job and you know one of the things that people do on the show is they every has an opinion we've got an opinion on politics and what our leadership should be doing and shouldn't be doing and I for the most part just kind of nod and smile and I continue I just I just kind of want people to be able to have a voice on the show and I try not to inject my political beliefs too much I

17:28know that there are times where it bleeds over that's part of it but I really kind of want to be the the guy that is open to hearing all sides obviously if there's something that's blatant we're gonna we're gonna stop it in his tracks but this next person was one of the most amazing people I think in our business right now and her name is Claire Crowell and Claire is the CEO of a Marshall Hospitality and co-owner of Hattie Jane's Creamery and when this whole thing went down we've been closed for a little bit and I got an email sent to me that was kind of a Google document that had a bunch a bunch of stuff on it just a bunch of hey there was probably 40 restaurant owners on this this email list and it said these are all of the things that are available to us right now please if you know of anything share it share it share it and I got this I just thought wow we got to get this information out to people as fast as we can so I called Claire and I said hey will you come on the show and will you tell just everything we can and the clip I'm gonna play right now is after she talks for about seven minutes about every single program that she could possibly find in the care in this woman to do this proactively just to figure out to be the leader to lead all these other restaurateurs to find all the different programs to help her people really shows who she is and it's just she's just such an amazing person and she so she comes on the show she spends seven minutes explaining all of these things and you hear me say wow that's a lot like oh my gosh and then I asked her about Tennessee action hospitality she talks about it and that's what this clip is right here but you can just tell in her voice that she's nervous she's scared she's a business owner and this is the beginning of this thing and it's really I don't

19:32know I think it's just it's just really appropriate for the time to just listen to this and feel where we were and this has just been a scary scary time for everybody so let's jump in with Claire Crowell from March 19th 2020 Wow well that is a lot of really good information as it comes available we're continuing to get it out as fast as possible I'm gonna create a thread at Nashville restaurant radio on my Facebook page if you have information that you like to add to this if you know of anything please feel free to comment and let everybody else out there know something that I think we've been seeing all over just just kind of hit yesterday that's a big deal I met with Margot on Tuesday Margot McCormick on Tuesday and she's mentioned that a bunch of restaurant owners and chefs had gotten together and created Tennessee action for hospitality what do you know about that Instagram and text but basically at the coalition of chefs and restaurant leaders and it's a simple web page you go to TN action for hospitality calm and it's a it's just a form making it easy for us to email and send basically a plea to our representatives it goes to a long list governor bill Lee senator Alexander senator Marshall Blackburn David Roe Tim Bursch at Birchett Charles Fleishman Scott Scott Dagerle Jim Cooper John Rose Mark Green and David Gustaf and Steve Cohen over in West Tennessee so that hits most of anybody that's going to hear this your representatives so if you the more they

21:37hear from us the more the more powerful we are basically what it's stating is hey restaurants are always the first to get who when the silent auctions we get out the gift cards all the time we say yes when disaster strikes we show up with food we're constantly donating our charities and our employee base is one of the world as an industry the hospitality industry is one of the biggest employers in Tennessee so our people need assistance and the businesses are going to need a lot of help getting back up and running so we're putting in that that plea and there's a pre filled letter letter so super super easy you just got put your name your address in your business address you prefer that email and then there's a little form where you can write a personal statement about your story or how it's affecting you directly so I personally think that this is really important not just for owners and leaders but the share of your staff as well more people to hear from the better for sure specific things if you're going okay sure that's great some specific things that we're asking for is obviously some additional funds beyond unemployment to go to employees we're also asking them to relax on the business ownership side franchise and excise taxes penalties for sales tax payments and just basically relaxing penalties for bill payments mortgages rents those types of things as much as possible and then and then basically injecting some funds to get us back up and running relaxing some of the barriers to getting the Small Business Association loans and pushing insurance to cover this so right now they're not they're not considering this pandemic a

23:39cause for loss of business which is mind blowing as most of the city is shut down and certainly most of the bars or restaurants in all anything hospitality or related have been severely impacted I spoke with my insurance yesterday on this and they're just based our carry our provider is pushing the carrier but it's one of those catch-22 is a very safely thing until the government tells us that you're mandated to shut down we're not gonna cover it which is one wrong and two it just puts us in a really tough position so that's something we're also pushing the government to lean on insurance companies to do and let's take a quick break to tell you a little bit about trust 20 reopening your restaurant comes with great responsibility are you doing everything you can to keep your staff and guests safe with trust 20 certification you and your guests can feel confident you're doing everything you can to keep everyone safe trust 20 is home to the new standard of restaurant safety and consumer comfort by becoming a trust 20 certified restaurant diners will know the practices you follow to create a safe and healthy environment have confidence you're going above and beyond minimal requirements have comfort knowing your practices have been independently verified to learn more visit trust 20.co that's trust the number 20.co trust 20 restaurants have access to a suite of resources that include expert-led training in four key areas individual consultants communication material and signage and tell them you heard about them on Nashville restaurant radio trust 20 partnering with you to keep everyone safe we want to take just one more moment and talk to you about faux and beau.com it's the new way to hire and be hired in Nashville Tennessee they're a locally owned and operated platform which you can go online and create a profile if you would like to find your dream job and if you're looking for people who want to find their dream job

25:39you can do the exact same thing as a restaurant owner right now foh and boh calm alright so our final segment on this first best of show is a fun one for me so we've talked about we've talked with Margot, Kerry Bringle, Claire Crowell and this next guest is Moni Crawford. Moni Crawford is the COO of the southern region for what chefs want formerly known as creation gardens so as I'm trying to identify who to interview we're going through all this insanity one of the people I really want to talk to was these purveyors and I used to work for creation gardens so I knew Moni gave him a call and he tells us the story of what they did in the aftermath of the tornado with Cisco being down choice foods getting hurt how they reached out what their response was how they were trying to bridge their community and then we talked about how they pivoted and they they made a controversial decision kind of towards the beginning of the pandemic to to put a lot of their restaurants on COD and I don't think it was communicated very well so Moni took this opportunity to kind of jump in and explain a little bit about what they were doing and it's just a microcosm for exactly what's going on nobody knows what they're doing I mean this I love this episode because this particular episode with Moni but all this best of stuff because it just goes back to so much uncertainty and if you're out there and you still feel uncertain and you're scared you can hear it in people's voices just nobody knows what to do and we all will get through this we will get through this together we will make it happen so I appreciate you joining me today for this best of episode we're gonna do a few more of these we're gonna walk through this journey that's been the first six months of Nashville restaurant radio over the next couple of weeks we will have a live roundup next or this Thursday at 330 on our Facebook page as

27:40well as our YouTube channel please go and subscribe to all of these things find us on Instagram and I'm not gonna have an outro at the end of this Moni Crawford is going to take us out and we pick up right after he's explaining to me that they have a preparedness plan and all these companies have a preparedness plan I say what about Cisco they're a big company they had a plan what'd you guys do from March 26th 2020 help if we can deliver your products with your invoices and help you get through these times that's what we want to do Wow and Ron sent that letter out that morning we sent it out to choice foods as well the same thing we knew they'd been hit hey guys we'll go back to being fierce competitors when we get to the other side of this but we want to be a part of anything we can do to help you we've got trucks we can send over to you we know you probably don't but we will come get the product what can we do to help you and obviously that you know he had a good heart he meant well with it but you know new say they didn't they didn't take our take our offer up and so they immediately start trying to get food in from other areas and that was was really difficult on them and as it would be for anybody and so our business all of a sudden we went from you know having a good month there's a lot going on SEC term it was a week away at that time Nashville's always got something going on and we literally tripled in numbers Wow selling out of stuff order in large quantity it was crazy and so you know we had to hire bring in help from global to just try to handle the volume was freaking phenomenal and then also trying to reach out and help people you know that's the thing you're sitting here and you're trying to take care of business but you're bleeding because you're hearing all the stories and you're seeing all the things and so we started

29:41trying to send out products that you know we're getting phone calls hey we're cooking for first-timer funders so we do all the things that we do as people and helping and it was it was quite the ride didn't have any idea that the good Lord was preparing us all for another storm coming a week to ten days later and but it was a different kind of storm because it wasn't a storm when we had that's that's such an amazing story money and it doesn't surprise me one bit that Ron would send that message over to Troy and Cisco and I know Troy's a good friend he's a super good guy but that's just one of those things that it's nice to hear that he did that and I would expect nothing less from him you guys jumping in you're absolutely slammed three times the business SEC tournament and then Thursday I want to say it's like March the 13th maybe it was I forget the exact day which was just two weeks ago seems like a lifetime ago now yeah yeah they shut everything down and an MLB NHL NBA they closed no March Madness that all happened on a Thursday what does your life look like since then everything was so bam bam bam and so it really started Wednesday night runs and Molly's middle son plays for University of Georgia's basketball team so we went to the ballgame that night that Georgia had a really you know not a very good season so they were playing into the early game win tonight and before halftime they announced that there's not gonna be fans to game tomorrow so all sudden you go wow this you know and you could feel it you know if you think about it the prior couple weeks you're starting to hear things really if you look back there was you know the president immediately we hit one person flying from China sometime in January and he said no more people from China coming in the country everybody's like whoa you know regardless what political while you're on everybody kind of at ratio by detention she started you were

31:42you were following it now from that day forward you start to follow it so leading up to that win see you know you could feel things kind of bubbling up what's where's this thing gonna go and then it really started changing literally by the hour Wednesday night you know we're not going you know only immediate family and friends are immediate families going to the ball tournament Thursday Thursday morning you know we'd already make plans to meet down for lunch we were being a and for those of you don't know I'm family I've been married to Ron's sister for 35 years soon to be 36 you don't kick me out between now and then with us all being locked up in the house then it really you know obviously they cancel the tournament and so we're all just kind of sitting around like the rest of you you know rest of us we're watching things develop over the next 24 or 48 72 hours by Sunday it was getting real matter of fact it was real oh yeah we've got a call from one of our big suppliers dot who we kind of compete with the Cisco's but dot and dot says hey we're concerned about your your customer base being able to pay you and and although you've been a a one supplier paying your bills on time for up 10 years now and done in Bradstreet we pay our bills every 15 days unfortunately we were concerned about you getting paid we got put you on COD now I can assure you time we woke up Monday morning 8 o'clock in our executive meeting zoom meeting the motions were high we realized that there was this storm was coming and and and there was no way to stop it and our world changed that morning as we all all our worlds did in this industry and really the whole country you're starting to see other industries be affected by it shut down saying people didn't laid off but my goodness the poor restaurant industry and the event industry just got slammed right out of the gate the next thing you know one of our big meat suppliers same concern and rightfully so you know we couldn't we'd had a long

33:44time relationship with them didn't do business great partnership but they were concerned just like then all of a sudden we had to get concerned so you know unfortunately we we had to make decision okay how we gonna how we gonna keep this thing afloat so Brian we started laying people off that day and when I say we we started realizing we were gonna have to and and started getting our hands around who and how many and you know by Wednesday we'd laid off around 500 people of last week and and we had to put our customers on CLD and that's a difficult conversation you know it's orange but that's one of the things that you and I sells people never want to have to have is hey chef I need some money I might quit ship and tell you yeah and when you have to have that conversation with your partners they've always paid you well they've done their part if it was 30 days of 30 days and you go back to who we were from day one my goodness and just like all of us in this industry you put our people on 30-day terms Lord we all know some of them go to 45 and 60 and we all hang in there together carry those those balances that's what we do we feel couple and you know sometimes it doesn't work out sometimes we you know people don't make it and and some of them hurt worse than the others but we still feel like we did the same you know the right thing by trying to help people you know put them on a payment plan hey just pay us five hundred dollars on the old keep us current you know and on the on what you're buying now so that was kind of our philosophy that we felt like that hey we got to keep money going in we did a terrible job quite frankly on the delivery of it if I would have we were also mostly in the air that we told our people that work for us like all the customers say hey listen we're not asking you to pay monies that are passing that you owe us now the balance we just need you to help us keep this thing

35:44going this cash flow and if you would be so kind to pay us the the monies or the groceries you buy today just pay for those and we'll see you on the other side on the balance as well you and I because when sales we can have that conversation in a humble way and make people feel you know understand what we're coming from I like to think so I mean it's not it's never an easy conversation it doesn't mean it's easy but you and I have when you're a salesman you can you have the ability to have people skills know how to say things in the right way and you know the proper way would be say hey chef I need your help but we had a lot of people are company that doesn't have that skill set and they would just say hey listen it's a so-and-so with the company you know I need I want to let you know we're gonna have to start going COD and well before they could ever explain why to get to any other part of the conversation because everybody's motion were high they just heard the word COD looking back on it we should have come out with a script and the proper way that people like you and you know deal with people daily I don't say our people were doing that but they just didn't know how to understand the impact that we were causing our customer base so it's been some you know it's been some tough days but I think most of our our owner operators people understand the project predicament and if they listened they understood what we were doing if you owe me $70,000 chef I don't need that right now we'll work out a payment plan for that on the side we got cash flow to keep this thing going and so it was difficult Brandon I probably something you know it's probably some of the more difficult times that we've ever had and then you compound that with your own emotions of laying off you know 500 people I've never been part of that I've always said even when I fired people when I was mad throughout my career I never felt good about it at the

37:47end of the day because I knew that affected somebody's family and I guess if you if you start enjoying firing somebody you need to do something different anyway so I think that goes for most people but at the time you know in the motions things someone you let someone go you know might felt good for a second but later on the day you go my goodness he has gone tell his family or go tell his landlord or norwich already no longer has a job so it's just never anything pleasant about that but boy it takes it to a whole nother level when you got 500 people been doing her job part of a growing exciting company nothing that they did to cause them other than to survive to see the other side we've got to let you go home for a while and it's it's been an emotional tough time you know the first people I hired or had let go was my own daughter and that's tough but you know I don't want to pretend or even insult anyone that our journey's been tougher than anybody else's because this industry's bleeding and everyone out here's got the same story that's in that that's in our industry every single one of thanks for this in this best of episode we will see you back here on Thursday for an all-new best of Nashville restaurant radio hope you guys are being safe love you guys bye