Bill Laviolette

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01:05Grunberg Accounting, that's g-r-u-m-b-e-r-g accounting dot com. Sharpierre'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're 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 Mosso and her team have been doing this for a long time. 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 100% believe that they do. If you would like to be working with a 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 sharpiers.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S dot com. And they have pictures of all of the bread that they can have for you and contact information. Go check them out Sharpierre's Bakery.

02:28Welcome 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 and today is a fun episode. Go figure. We have got Bill Lavillette. He is the owner of Shotgun Willie's in East Nashville. If you have not been to Shotgun Willie's, you need to go to Shotgun Willie's. It is fantastic. He's also the newest member of the Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance. And so we are super excited to have Bill on the show today.

03:34Speaking of being powered by Gordon Food Service, I will be there tomorrow. We are going to be in Louisville at the Gordon Food Service show doing live conversations, live interviews with restaurant owners as they come by. No script, no idea who's going to be there. We're just going to be picking people off as they walk by. I think that Bill Lavillette is going to be there so maybe I'll pull him again. So anything that I didn't ask him in this interview, we'll jump into this one next. But yeah, Gordon Food Service show Louisville, Kentucky. It's going to be September 17th. I know that because today is September the 16th and it is my 20 year wedding anniversary. Yes, very excited. Wanted to say to my lovely wife, Jennifer, that I love you and you're amazing and best 20 years ever and I can't wait for another 20 years. So here we go starting today. Today is also Mexican Independence Day, the September 16th. So when we go to Mexico on our anniversary, they throw us this huge party. It's really neat. A couple of announcements to make today. Killjoy, my sister's amazing non-alcoholic bottle shop. It's located in East Nashville. Announced they are opening a second location in South Nashville. Yeah, she's bought, she's rented this little house and in there they're going to have, it's like a thousand square feet and they're going to have Killjoy 2 and it is going to be down there in the Berry Hill neighborhood. So go follow Killjoy on Instagram. You can see all the details about it. You can sign up for their newsletter.

05:07They have all the adaptogenic drinks, THC drinks, CBD. They have de-alcoholized wine, all the beers, all the spirits, all the sparklings. They have everything and plus it's just a super cool vibe in there. And you know, one of the cool things they do and I saw Big Daddy had posted, hey, I'm watching football in my own bar for the first time. I thought that was pretty cool at Gramps Garage and Gramps Garage is the host to Killjoy on Tuesday nights. So Tuesday nights you can go to Gramps Garage and have a full-on bar experience with no alcohol. So go check that out if you're looking for something that's like, you know, kind of a cool hang, cool vibe, not a bunch of drunkies, just people enjoying a bar scene who, you know, are alcohol-free. That is your spot, Tuesday nights at Gramps. Speaking of Tuesdays, let's jump to Thursdays where Ben's Friends has meetings. We're talking about non-alcoholic stuff. Ben's Friends is a collective of people who are in recovery and this is for the restaurant industry. So they're meeting at Oku on Thursdays.

06:22I believe it's at one o'clock. I have yet to make one yet. My Thursdays have been crazy, but I'm going to start going to those. And you can go to Ben'sFriends.org, I believe it is, and you can join a Zoom meeting or any of these things. It's not like AA. It's a little bit different, but it's for restaurant people and I highly recommend you go. I love what they're doing. I just got back yesterday from FS Tech, the Food Service Technology Conference. We were in Orlando. It was a quick trip. I flew out on Sunday, came home on Monday. It was really fast. I wanted to make sure that I was here for my anniversary. So what do we talk about at FS Tech? AI. AI is everything. AI is coming. You need to start paying attention to it because it's going to solve a lot of your problems. And I think that when they're talking about AI, it's work that is dangerous, work that is mundane, or stuff that just takes too long, that just kills your time and momentum. That's where AI is going to be helpful. And there's a lot of really cool tools out there.

07:26Loyalty was a big thing that they talked about. These different AI versions of loyalty programs where they can actually identify who's coming in and why they're coming in and be very specific about loyalty. So that was a really cool side of it. A lot of talk about scaling your restaurant with technology. And then I thought the multi-generational tech was really interesting. How much they talked about the marketplace right now and how many Gen Alphas aren't in the marketplace yet. But Gen Z, Millennials, Gen Xers, who are all out there and we all consume differently. So some are on their iPhone, some are on their laptop, some like that people interaction. But if you don't have a way for each one of those generations to interact or do business with you, you're missing out on a significant chunk of business. And I thought that was really interesting. We'll dive into some more. I got some good connections and we'll dive into some more of this stuff later. But in the meantime, I will tell you some of my favorite chat GPT prompts.

08:31So if you guys, everybody's hearing about chat, I use chat GPT for like everything. I just, I love it. And there's so much if you're creative and you can think about ways to do it. So what I'll do is I'll say, Hey, chat GPT, will you please review all Yelp TripAdvisor scores for my restaurant and tell me what people are saying? What's the number one thing people are saying? Tell me what people are saying that are good. Is there one employee who stands out amongst all of my reviews? It can call all of that stuff really fast. You can also upload a picture, a document, anything. So you can take your PNL and upload that into chat GPT and say, Hey, what sticks out in this? What can you derive from my profitability from this PNL? Where am I missing? And it can spit out a full report. And then it'll say, the greatest thing about chat GPT is I'll say, Hey, I can put that in this format. Would you like me to, and it'll keep asking you questions on different ways you can look at it and it will segment it differently and do all these different things in it. You can do all of this in like six minutes. I mean, the data analysis is absolutely insane.

09:41You can combine spreadsheets. Hey, will you combine these spreadsheets for me and create one master and descending dollar report? It is great. Lots of really cool things. So I like to use the Yelp one. I like to upload a PNL. I had mentioned this today in our fantasy football league. You know, we have all this scoring. I just copied and pasted our entire league's scoring into chat GPT. And I said, based around the way that this league is scored, what the top five draft picks I have, what position should I be really aiming for to get the most out of my league? And it gave me a full comprehensive report on what my draft should be like based around the scoring of my league. Little things like that. If you get creative with it, you can definitely get ahead really, really fast. Not this isn't just a, Hey, take my email and make it sound like I'm not a cretin. It just, it does a lot of other things that will help you in a day to day predictive scheduling.

10:42I mean, all kinds of stuff. Hey, this is my schedule. These are my predicted sales. What does it look like? And you can put in 10 weeks of schedules and say, can you write me a schedule? It'll do all of that. There's a great new loop company out there called Zignal, which is doing something very similar to that. Z Y G NAL. I'm in a beta test with it right now and I'm testing it out and I'm playing around with it. And I will let you guys know as soon as I do, because that's what I like to do. I like to beta test things and try stuff out. And then if it sucks, I pass on it. And if it's really good, then I like to share it here, which is why you should be subscribing to this podcast on wherever you are listening. Please, if you're listening to this podcast, click the subscribe button. I know a ton of you are, uh, and go to the, go to the socials, follow us on Nashville restaurant radio at Nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio, or follow us, uh, for NARA at NARA Nashville, N A R A Nashville. What'd you guys think about that NARA episode? We enjoy that. Do we have any questions? Send me a DM. I'd love to learn more. And several of you have, and we are growing members really quickly. Everybody stay tuned. I'll be with you shortly. Um, the demand is pretty, pretty amazing. I'm pretty overwhelmed right now with, uh, just gratitude. And this is really exciting. And I'm starting to help seeing the help come through, um, spending, uh, in the next hour and a half after putting out this podcast, working on, um, RFPs and reviewing RFPs that have come back. And you know what? They're great. I mean, this is great. We're giving restaurants a chance to make some real money, uh, money they didn't even know was available to them. And they're like, Whoa, that's really cool. So we're, we're building partnerships, building relationships and other vendors love it because it saves them time and energy. And we just put it all in one. And thank you. Uh, everybody that I've met so far that I've talked to have said, I didn't know I could do that. And I go, yeah, yeah, you could do that. I go, well, let's do that. I have many more specifics for you. If you, uh, send me a DM,

12:47at Brandon still underscore on Instagram, or you can email me at Brandon at new light hospitality.com. So that's my intro today. And I am headed off to Louisville where I will be interviewing people tomorrow at the Gordon food service show. I'm excited to hopefully see you there. And, uh, this is Nashville restaurant radio. Kind of a grip it and rip it kind of guy. Absolutely. That's my golf style too. Absolutely. As it should be. I'm not like, uh, are you, do you golf? Are you a golfer at all? Intermittently. I wish I did more. And then what I'll do is I'll play and I'll, it'll be like a year since the last time I played and I'll go, wow, I'm not too bad at this. And then I'll go out the next time and go, wow, I am horrible at this. I'm not a good golfer. Oh, neither am I. I golf like once a year, maybe, maybe if it's like, I get invited to a tournament, then it's like, Oh, okay. Well, I'll play twice this year. You're like, I'm not like a God, it's a beautiful day. I got to get out and play golf. That's not me whatsoever. I can't afford to play golf all the time. Right. It's expensive. It's not cheap.

14:05We were in, um, California. We went to Salinas, like the Monterey area, and, uh, we were touring produce fields and we stayed an extra day. And I was surprised with a, Hey, we're going to go play spy glass. No, we played. It was like that. It was like one of those play at Pebble beach course. Oh geez. And then you just go walk that you don't even have to play it. I've never like, I am a terrible golfer, but I'm like, well, hell yeah. I'll play Spanish Bay. We played Spanish Bay. If anything, I'll just drive the cart. Well, so I was like, cool, let's do it. And then on the first hole were me and, uh, Steven owns the restaurants. We were, we were partnered with another pair of people and they were like golfers. And so now I'm at this like prestigious golf course and like, I have no fucking clue what I'm doing. So guys who can hit the ball straight. I'm on the first hole. I'm on this. I'm on the coast of California. There's like waves crashing in the corner to gorgeous morning. And I'm like, all right, man, let's go. And my first shot, just like 40 feet in front of me. Right. And I'm like, that's on par. Cause I didn't play the year before I played zero times. Actually that's not on par, but I digress.

15:17Well, I hit a 13 on the first hole. Sure you did. To which when I play golf, I'm like, ah, it's a, it's a, it's a snowman, you know, like, you don't go past eight. I'm like, I'm counting an eight in the second hole, like a 12, it was a par three. And like the, the course was so hard. So what you're telling me is you're digging a hole very quickly. Oh, and I'm, but you, I felt so much guilt playing with these people. Like, I don't normally play this way. And you're trying to like make these excuses, but after a hole, like five, I like dialed in. Right. And I was hitting them long, hitting them straight. And I was like, oh, this is the game I normally play. And I'm like, I don't know what happened. There's something wrong with my back today. It's weird. I've been traveling and this is, and I'm from Tennessee. It's two hours ahead. Like I'm basically still asleep. Yeah, this isn't a thing. So, uh, but it was, but it was, it was beautiful to be out there. I'm like, uh, I like to get out and hang out with friends and, and shoot the shit while I'm on the course. Pretty much that to me is what golf is. Some people get really mad at that though. They're like, you don't take the game seriously. And I'm like, the last time I got a paycheck for golf was never, never. This is a recreational thing for me.

16:26Now, if you're that guy, maybe you don't want to pair up with me. You might want to just play ahead. There you go. I always tiger go ahead. Whenever I do scrambles, I always invite the one dude who is the scratch golfer. And you're like, Hey, why don't you play on our team? And we'll just use all your shots. Then we turned in like a, well, we had a negative nine. I'm like, how many shots to Brandon's did you use? Like, well, I got that par. I got that putt that one time when you do that. And they'd say that, well, everybody's got to hit. It's like, fine. I'll hit first. Right. And get my tragedy out of the way. And then we'll let, uh, Johnny scratch go up and drive the bus. But you know, if I need to have a little charity, I'll go up to the tee box with my putter. Boop. Oh, whoopsies. It's a thing. Hey, we're joined right now with Bill Laviolette. We've just been chatting here and I hit record. And I guess the first four minutes of this conversation is us talking about golfing. Welcome to national recreational golf radio. Hey, there's a fifth podcast. Nashville recreational golfer. I'm going to talk to people who just like to randomly bad golfers. This is the kind of stuff we would talk about on a golf course. That's what we should do. We should take the mics and just play around the golf. And it's just that idle chit chat. We could just do idle chit chat. That's kind of what national restaurant radio is. I just talk to restaurant people and do idle chit chat.

17:42Exactly. That makes sense. Right. How you been? Good. Oh, by the way, Bill is the owner of shotgun Willie's barbecue. If you're wondering who Bill Laviolette has been keeping score at home five years since you've been on the podcast officially, we had a full episode. And I think during that episode, your computer died right in the middle of it. Yes. It was awesome. Yes. And now we're in a brand new location. We are. It's not a brand new location anymore. Well, a year. It's still we moved in basically June 1st of last year. We opened Memorial Day weekend of last year. But because it was last year that you on the show, we were at the Gordon food service show right about this time. So if you want to hear Bill on a previous show, go find the Gordon food service show. The Gordon food service show show from last year. If you can't get enough of me. Are you going this year? Absolutely. Well, I'll be that we can we can do like a back to back like this is Bill Laviolette again. He was on the show. Any questions I forget to ask you today, I'll just jump in and say that. Yeah. And what we'll do is like instead of waiting another five years to do it, we'll just do five episodes in 10 days. And I'll just put one out every six months and be like, we recorded this with Bill chatting with Bill. This is our our biannual chat with our bi weekly chat with Bill. So how you been? Tell me tell me how the new location is working out for you. Beyond anything I ever imagined. This is really cool. Thank you. It's crazy.

19:10The I didn't realize how small our old location was till we moved out. And I went back when there was nothing left in it. And really asked myself, how did we do what we did for four years in a space that small. And the neatest thing about where we are now and literally just a mile up the road. We haven't changed anything. We're still open five days a week. We still only do lunch. But the only change was we added more tables and chairs, and we got more parking spaces. And we're doing lots of parking. Yeah, a lot. We have acres of free parking Nashville free parking, free parking, 24 hours, seven days free. Thank you. Free parking. Free parking. Yeah, that's a good thing, you know. And so the coolest thing is our business has exponentially grown as a result without us changing what we do. We didn't stay open later for dinner. We've upped our cooks, obviously, because there's more people. But the greatest takeaway from down the street was when you consider when we opened in the middle of a pandemic, literally when the world shut down, the first two years of our business were straight survival. That it was when I say it was day to day. That's not hyperbole. We were literally living day to day, week to week. And about early 2022, we saw a turn and knew that probably by 2023, we started thinking, Hey, we've got to start exploring a bigger space. And the beautiful thing about what this is, it's literally down the street from the old spot. But it's everything that I needed, but nothing that I ever envisioned for shock and willies to evolve into. And I like to say the beauty of what happened to us is we grew and moved out of demand, not desire. I was very, very happy down the street. I liked my little

21:15shop. I liked the uniqueness of how small it was. But when you have 16 chairs and nine parking spaces and a demand that is aggressively growing every week, we were at that tipping point where if we stayed here, we were going to start to lose business. What do you attribute that growth to? Like when you think about like the demand and all of this stuff, what is it about shotgun willies that you think became this? Where did the demand come from? I really think it's just good people doing good things and doing their best work every single day. And I think that's the foundation on what we do. We try our best every single day. We're not perfect. But every time that you come in, we're going to give you our best every single time. Consistency is a big thing for me. I want to be as consistent as possible with all the variables that we have to deal with. No two cows are alike, no two days are alike, no two logs are alike, on and on and on. But I think people really have started to understand why we do it the way that we do it and the benefit of that. And it's not saying that the way other people do it is wrong, but I think they do see the uniqueness in how we execute our product.

22:39And being from Texas, I feel like if I'm going to do Texas barbecue, I do it in a mindset of I'm in Texas and I have to be that good. So I think that comes through in the product. I think people love the experience. I have an incredible staff. I always tell people that I don't do this in a vacuum. I have the best people in front of me being my customers, and I have the best people behind me being my staff. And without that balance, this simply does not work. And I do not take any of this for granted. I'm more humbled by this than anything, simply because I know how challenging the restaurant industry is in Nashville, and there's a lot of good places to go eat in this town. And when people decide to come here and spend their money, I do not take that for granted, because I know how lucky I am for you to choose our spot that day for lunch. Well, that was a long one.

23:43Well, no, I thought it was a great answer. And you know what? It was heartfelt. Absolutely. And there's a reason why you're doing I'm trying to set up a little camera here so I can see you. I don't know how I'm going to be able to do this. Oh, look at that. Look at that. It's the napkin pepper shaker tripod. The napkin. I didn't bring a tripod today. So we are live at Shotgun Willys. We're not in my studio. We are sitting in the dining room of Shotgun Willys doing this live. The spacious dining room. It is huge. It's cavernous. Absolutely. Cavernous dining room. The crazy thing is our kitchen is as big as our old restaurant. Yeah. And it's an open kitchen, too. You have a really good vibe in here. Thank you. I'm sorry that I haven't been yet. It took me 54 minutes to get here this morning. Oh, wow. Did you walk? I rode my e-bike. Oh, nice. From the whole other side of the world where I live. Well, thank God we're not open for breakfast. Dude. I'm like, this is a haul for me. Every time I come to East Nashville, I get so excited because I love being over here. It's like my people. I love being over here.

24:48It's a good vibe. It's a great vibe. And they're my neighbors. And this is, you know, that's another thing. If you want to harken back to what, kind of going back to the question that took too long to answer, let me even add more to that. I live in the neighborhood. I live literally one mile door to door from my house. At the old spot, I lived a third of a mile behind it. And my goal was to feed my neighbors. I want you to feel like you're coming to my house for a picnic, this, that, and the other. And the beauty of, especially when you consider the years 2020 to 2022, the really, you know, the difficult, really scary years. I had people come in and tell me, look, we don't eat a lot of barbecue, but we want to come in here and support you because we don't want you going away. And when your neighbors kind of rally around, I'm just doing this really to not work in an office. And so when you get neighbors in your neighborhood to rally around what your, what your dream is, that's really cool. And I, that again, and kind of goes back to what I was saying, like, I'm very humbled by this, that all, anybody who walks through this door is literally just supporting my dream. But I get to live the life that I want to live, do the things that I want to do in my neighborhood, because you chose to eat here today. And I will never lose sight of that because it's a very fragile balance. This could go away tomorrow. You know, the world is a volatile place. And I don't, and I don't take this for granted. And I think the day that I start to become blase about it is the day to think about getting out. Because when I stop caring about anything, like historically in my life, we can see a dramatic downturn. And so I remind myself every day simply how lucky I am to be in the position that I'm in. That's awesome, man. Oh, thanks. But that's, you know, that's the,

26:49the local restaurant dream. I mean, that's, that's when people say, man, I love bourbon steak. And I'm like, or I love this chain restaurant. I'm like, man, don't, don't do that. I'm not anti-chain. I am. But there's too many coming to town and they're squeezing us out. And I really feel like the locals are becoming unicorns. And everybody says it all the time. Oh, I'm so sorry that XYZ is going away. And it doesn't have to be a restaurant. It could be a store, whatever. And it's like, well, when was the last time you went in? Well, if it's been a year, you don't have to go in every day. You don't have to go in every week. But when you're seeking these things out, whatever it is, keep those local guys on your radar because 99.9% of them are not going to sleep on pillows made out of money. And they're, they're going, they're, they're, they're, they're humping it every single day and every penny matters. And it's inconsequential as you going in and spending $5. That makes a huge difference. Hey, if a hundred people did that, there you go.

27:57I mean, if it's a, it's a thing, a penny stack upon pennies, it makes sense. I mean, it definitely helps. What's the reason behind Nara? I mean, the whole idea is I've talked to so many people in the, there's so many chains coming in and they have deep pockets because they've got 50 restaurants or 30 restaurants and it's hard financial backing, financial backing. And it's hard for people who are bootstrapping it every day. I mean, you're here cooking brisket every single morning doing this thing. And it's like, it's hard to keep up. It's hard to compete. And it's like, it's not even that you're trying to compete. You're trying to create a product that your neighborhood can come in and enjoy and that you're going to be a part of the community because this is what restaurants are. I mean, restaurants are community gathering points where people can sit, hang out and talk. And when you, when these big chains come in and start pushing people out, it changes your community. I think the word community is very big here that I moved here in 2008. I'm semi-local at this point, but what I look local is anybody who puts into the, when you move here, if you're giving to your community and you're contributing and you're being a part of the community, I consider you a local and you're a local. I don't care if you've been here six months.

29:16Agreed. And I look at some of, I look at Nashville in some ways, it's like the gold rush. So you're seeing a lot of these big entities from LA or New York or Chicago or whatever going on. Oh, we, or Miami to pick a major city going all over. Yeah. Nashville's hot. We have to put an outpost here just because we need our name representation. Exactly. And that's not great for the whole, because I don't think there is a longevity plan in what they're doing. I think they're into make fast cash and if it works and goes away in three years, okay, fine. Where think about someone like me or us, you're spending money in here that I literally put right back into the community. I'm going down to Grimey's to buy a record or I'm going to my friend Michael's to get focaccia pizza. You know, I'm spending, I am reinvesting this money in my neighborhood as so many of our employees are. And when that goes away and when the barriers to entry gets so high for the little guy, because I never would have started in this business in Houston, whether it was the bakery back in 2013 or the barbecue 2016, Nashville, primarily East Nashville gave me that sense of my neighbors will support what I'm doing. They may not make me a millionaire, but I will get to get up every day and do exactly what I do. I didn't feel that way in Houston. It felt like I was just a rat on a wheel chugging away in the corporate world.

30:59So when you start to see things like that going away here, that concerns me because community, people, small business is the fabric of the community. Small business is what identifies your community. And when you start to see these little small businesses go away and you just become another rubber stamp community in any town USA, when that character of what makes a community, I don't want East Nashville or Nashville in general, and it's kind of too late for that, to look like Las Vegas or Times Square or Bourbon Street. I want it to be Nashville. And I really feel like in a lot of ways, the things that make us unique are starting to slowly erode. Yeah, for lack of a better term. And a lot of it's because the independent can't even get money to do what they want to do. Just getting money is too difficult, especially in a restaurant.

32:04I think I got in literally at the last point where somebody would loan money to a self-financed restaurateur. I can't see how you go to a bank today as an independent startup like me with no background, no five-year financial history and go, I need enough money to open up a barbecue restaurant because I make really good barbecue and I think the people need it. And they would be like, good luck. Sorry for that little sound. That's all right. That's a real thing. And you keep seeing restaurants close and they're not opening a bunch of local small mom and pop shops because how am I going to survive? Right. And think about that too. When you see a local business close, whether it was a store that you went to or not. And I'm not saying, look, you have to shop at every independent store, whether you want that product or not. That's somebody's dream dying.

33:12Somebody put their heart, I'm about to get choked up again. Somebody's heart and soul went into that. And hours and hours and hours of stress and wanting to do it and wanting to do it the right way and wanting it to do the best way. And I know as a realist, not everything in this life works out. You're going to win and you're going to lose. And sometimes you're going to have to take steps back because that's all part of life. But that being said, you're watching somebody's dream literally die. Do you know what I think about? What's that? I think about signs. When I see a sign, you have a big shotgun Willie sign out front. Right. I think about a husband and a wife sitting at a dinner table, picking out a logo or creating a logo and then having to call a sign shop. Right. And the excitement and the fear and the cost of a sign. And then when they finally put that sign up and it becomes real, like when you, this was just an empty space.

34:12When you first had the, you probably walked through this building, you thought, oh wow, this will be great. And then you had to go and purchase a sign and you had to have pay somebody to install this sign. They're not cheap. You had to put it up. And when you put that sign up, it became official. And there's probably a moment where you and your wife stood in the parking lot and you looked at it. And it was like this moment that was special. That was like, this is ours. I lost my mind the day they delivered that little cow outside. I was walking in going, a little cow is really cool. I was like, that's our flat. I mean, in a weird way, like we landed on the moon. Boom. And every time I see a business close and I drive by and I see that sign, it breaks my heart. Cause that's what I think. I see that sign and I go, man, the day that they put that sign up, the dreams, the hope, everything about that moment. I mean, I bought stickers for Nara and I bought all these t-shirts and like going online and purchasing those things. And you're like, oh, these are kind of expensive and you're doing this.

35:14And, but when they arrive, you're like, okay, this is happening. All of this. Yeah. I think I got into this business just to make swag. But it's, when you see somebody wearing it too, you're like, oh my God, they're wearing, they're representing me. Like it's a whole thing. When I see a sticker in the wild, like if I'm just driving and I see a shockingly stick on a car, I'm like, oh dude, that's my sticker. Um, but it's, but, and, and more to that is nobody puts that sign up or unlocks that door thinking they're ever going to close or thinking they're going to have to close due to adverse of not working. You, you have a dream, you believe in the dream, you believe in the product you're making. Yeah. How could it fail? I mean, it's, I'm doing everything I can. And I live with the reality of that. Like I said, this could go away tomorrow. Who knows what could happen tomorrow, but that's why I feel when you go out and spend that dollar in your community, you're literally helping somebody live a dream. And most of those dollars are not again, going into this giant vat of money, but somebody is living a life arguably as good as the one that you're living because you're there today. And as the city grows and as this area grows, we shouldn't lose sight of that because like we were alluding to as well, it's part of our identity. And when Nashville just becomes another rubber stamp community with chain ABCDE lining each side of the street, that's not a good thing. I cracked up when I first moved here when ugly mugs opened up right across the street from Portland brew. So what, what 2008, 2009, something like that. I'm like, how the hell can you have two coffee shops, two independent coffee shops, literally right across the street from each other. And sure enough, both of them

37:18thrived, but they had their own special select to customers. I don't think one necessarily took away from the other until Portland brew decided to close, which I, from what I understand was their decision, which is great. They both existed very well. Five years ago, I'll use this space as a perfect example. I have two neighbors, Vegas, shawarma, daddy's dogs. Five years ago, you put two restaurants in next door to me. I would have lost my mind. I probably would have had a stroke. I'm like, Oh my God, how can two other restaurants move in right next door to me when I'm trying to do this? Blah, blah, blah. I'll never make it. I'll never make it. I love having two restaurants next door because we all collectively drive traffic to each other's businesses. Plus with Vega being closed on Sunday and Monday, with us being closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and daddy's dogs open seven days a week, you have an option all week long. So if you come up to our spot and we're closed that day, Oh crumbs, I didn't realize they were closed on Tuesday. Well, guess what? You've got two other options right there in the parking lot next to you that are wonderful options and independence and independent businesses, independent local businesses. This whole center, Madison, what do they call it? Madison square with the exception of I think the gym and the zoom room are all independent locally owned businesses.

38:46Zoom room is zoom room and true feeder chains. I can live with that. Okay, fine. You're a gym. No, whatever. Yeah. Your dog, something or other. I don't even know what zoom room is. It's a franchise too. So I mean, there's somebody probably local who's running it. Yeah, absolutely. But I love the fact that that the majority of this tenant base is local independent businesses. And again, support your local businesses, even if you, I'm not saying you have to spend all your money there, but it makes a huge difference to ever to your life and their life and their dreams. You know, and this is, this is, I'm going to go self-serving here for a minute, but that's, that's what Nara is having these conversations with so many people off air where they're like, man, I'm this small place. I don't, I see these big chains come in and they've got 20 locations. They've got a dude in Chicago who's negotiating deals and they're getting, they're paying, not only do they have the financial backing, but they're paying pennies on the dollar for the same services that you're using. Absolutely. And when they're paying pennies on the dollar and you're not, like you don't have the volume to get that kind of a deal and people come in here and go, you're more expensive than XYZ chain down the street. And you're like, yeah, I don't have the collective bargaining to be able to do that. That's where it was born. It was born of, Hey, look, if we can all band together and we can get a hundred restaurants, maybe now we can have that power. Maybe now we can say, well, Hey, we have a hundred restaurants. Do you want to be a part of this thing? Do you want to come down on some of these margins? Because I'm going to put you in front of a hundred restaurants who can choose or not choose, but still there's a benefit to being a part of something that's bigger than yourself and the collective purchasing power of a hundred restaurants. We can significantly decrease what local restaurants are spending inside their buildings in order to succeed. And when you can start paying what the large chains

40:50are paying, Hey, guess what? Now you can charge a little bit less or you can charge the same and you can make more profit and reinvest in your business or maybe open a second location or maybe pay yourself, pay yourself. Well, for me, I see a lot of restaurant owners that are really beating up a lot of different vendors to get the best pricing that they can. And they're absolutely we're doing is we're losing that moment when you're, when you're standing outside, looking at your sign, thinking about the people that are going to be dining there and the experiences they're going to have shaking their hands and meeting the people in line for lunch every day. When you're stressed because you're trying to figure out how to make those ends meet, that's the hard part. And where do I have the time to do these conversations? Exactly. And that's, where do I fit that into my day to sit down and literally do the legwork? I don't even know who to call to negotiate something like that. That's the point. That's exactly. That's all I do. So as a director of operations for my restaurant group, that is my job. Right. My job is to negotiate all of those deals, to make sure that every line on that P and L, I know who the vendor is, what our deal is, why we're getting it and to hold them accountable.

41:59And so I've been doing that for 10 years, not to mention I've worked as a broad line distribution person in regional sales and produce and all these different things. And it's like, yeah, I see from their side how, what, what, what benefits the restaurant can do to save money and how that whole ecosystem works. Absolutely. And I love to do it. And it's like, could you afford to hire somebody to do that? If I did, if I hired someone to do all that, again, you have to ask yourself, am I making money or is it just lateral money? And it's funny too, you open a business and I'll just use my example with the restaurant business since I'm point of reference. You open a barbecue restaurant because you love barbecue. I love, I love barbecue. I love to cook it. What's the last thing I do every day? Cook barbecue. Cause I'm unclogging a sink, running to the store. That's it. Calling people back for catering on and on and on. Like the last, the last thing you do most days is the thing that got you into this business to begin with. It's almost surreal. It's like, I did this cause I love it. And I just wish I had more time to do it. You know, I was really thinking about that a lot on Monday when I was a elbow deep in a grease trap that nobody literally hand in grease trap, looking for a problem and thinking to myself, you know, they never show this on those restaurant or kitchen TV shows. Like the moments when you're underneath a sink with a headlamp and not knowing what you're doing, trying to figure out why you can't get this sink to drain properly or on and on and on.

43:43You're underneath the dish machine going, why is this thing not draining? You've pulled every component out of the dish machine trying to figure out why is there a fork stuck in this thing? And how do I get it out? And what is this going on here? Usually I'm finding hobos in there, which is interesting. So in the grease trap, no, in the drain types. It's like, Hey, you guys can't live down here. Stop it. Yeah. So, but, but that, all that being said, running a restaurant is tough staff turnover, rising costs, and the endless tasks that bog you down and take you away from what you love. Let Adams Keegan lighten that load. There are 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.

44:57One of the many things I love about Adams Keegan is that unlike big publicly traded companies out there, they have an incredibly high 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. For your free HR consultation and see how they can create a customized solution to help your restaurant thrive. Very excited to be partnering with C&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 am just disgusted with how the business practices work in this industry, which is why I was so excited when I found C&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?

46:17No, because they 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 going to 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 CNBLenny. Hear it from his straight from his mouth, exactly what they do. Or you give them a call at 9 3 1 7 2 2 76 16, or you can DM me at Brandon Styll on Instagram for my exclusive pricing through the Nashville area restaurant Alliance, NARA for short.

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50:51extra six thousand dollars a month in me. Six grand and just brisket, not pork, chicken, sausage. Do you just raise your prices at that point? I can't. We haven't done a price increase since January of 24. I've been accused of being too expensive. I think we are priced perfectly for what we do. I think it could go up to be perfectly honest. Well, if your meat prices went up a dollar fifty a pound, you need to raise your prices. That is true. That's the thing. I mean, that's how this world works. Well, I agree with everything that you're saying. However, I wrestle with that because I know what Nashville's threshold for brisket is and apparently what I charge for prime brisket is at that threshold. But if I will say this and I can hear everybody going, well, if we were in Texas, well, we're not in Texas. I know that. My prices are arguably two to three dollars cheaper a pound for brisket than what you'd be paying for the same product in Texas. Wow. As far as prime brisket goes. We serve only prime brisket period. So let's talk about that. Okay. What is prime brisket? I know what prime brisket is. I'm just saying like for the people listening. Prime graded brisket.

52:16So USDA and choice select prime. Okay. So USDA, what they do is they grade meat. Correct. Right. And so there's lots of different grades. There's the bottom is called no roll. Right. Right. Which means they roll what the grading is on it. And then there's no roll. And then there's choice. There's select and then choice. And then there's there could be upper two thirds choice. And then there's prime and then there's like wagyu in these different versions. But prime is the best selection of meat. It's going to be the most marbled, the best quality meat you can buy. And it's always more expensive. And it's not, it's like anything supply and demand. There's only so much prime out there. Correct. And so that ebbs and flows based around availability. And that's time of season. I don't think a lot of people realize that during the holiday season, like prime fillets, like in the holiday season, everybody goes out and buys fillets because it's the holidays. And everybody goes out to eat and eat fillets and ribeye. Prime rib. You go to like my restaurant at Maribor. We sell a ton of fillets. We have a lot of private events that fillet is on the menu.

53:34Well, during the holidays, the cow has only so many fillets, right? So when everybody's buying fillet, there's a lot less fillets. So the price skyrockets during the holidays. But then it comes back down and all the other meat selections, because you have all these plays ago, all the other meat selections from a cow tend to go down because they know they want fillets, right? Same thing with brisket. I mean, there's times of the year where there's demand, there's not some time, but everything happens like that. And so you've got a pretty decent price for you have a consistent price quarterly. But this changes and your menu doesn't change. I mean, the price doesn't change. I mean, there are times of the month or times of the year where you don't make the same profit. Oh, not at all. Like I said, I'm putting just in brisket alone. Six thousand dollars more a month is my cost. So that's a six thousand dollar payment that goes into the ether. You're essentially burning it. What I'm hoping is it comes out in the wall. So in the in the times where it goes back down, you know, make hay when the sun shines, so to speak. Yeah.

54:45Does it come back down, though? It does. Here's the thing. And and, you know, because I've been accused of, oh, you know, you're just charging X, Y, Z, because it's Nashville. And, you know, Nashville is expensive for you. Let me tell you, it is. Nashville is expensive. Who pays more rent? I mean, you think it's not just the consumer paying higher prices. It's the tenant paying higher rent. It's the tenant paying more for supplies. And I don't want to turn this into a woe is me boohoo, but I'm very cognizant of my prices. And the reason is I'm on the other side of that counter, too. I go out to eat in this town. I spend my money in this town and I know this town isn't cheap. So the one thing that I want to do more than anything is if you come in and spend your money here, I want you walking away thinking I got exactly what I paid for or more, whether in quantity and quality. And I believe we put that on your plate every single day. And if you don't think that, then we'll fix it. I'll fix it right there. I'm here. You can go straight to the top every almost every single day. Periodically, I'm gone for a little R&R. But you can climb the corporate ladder literally by standing in line and you can talk to me directly. And if there's something on our menu for everybody, there is a price point on our menu for everyone. If you can't get brisket, that's okay. I understand. I've got something else for you. That's going to be good. I'm not going to give you half ass just because you can't get prime brisket that day. But I struggle with this because I do know my prices should go up. And I don't want to be constantly changing that menu.

56:41It takes away from what people can expect. They have expectations. I don't want everyone to come in here every day, every week, every month and look at it and oh, here comes the Shock and Willy roller coaster ride. That could be relush number two, Shock and Willy's roller coaster ride. It's like Uber pricing. If you come in at five or six o'clock on Friday night, you're paying three times as much. But if you come in at three o'clock on Friday, you pay 20% less. There you go. I thought about when eggs... Dynamic pricing. How many bakeries changed your prices when eggs went up? Probably not a lot of them. Hopefully a lot of them. I know. But at the end of the day, I don't know. I really do wrestle with this a lot. Maybe it's something I need to pay a little more attention to. That being said, today if you walk in and briskets $33, you're not going to walk in tomorrow and it's $40. I'm still able to keep the doors open by not adjusting that price in a year and a half. But I've had these serious conversations with myself. Because at the end of the day, as we all know, it's not a hobby. This is my job.

57:55It's my life. And I have to make... I can't move laterally. I have to make money at this. But that being said, I want to be fair about it and I want to be thoughtful about it. And let's just hypothetically say we put a little sign... And I did this, I think, during the pandemic because when I bought brisket for the first time ever in May of 20, I paid $4.50 a pound for prime brisket. Highest I'd ever paid for brisket in my life by $2. Almost had a stroke. Never paid that much money for brisket. The next week that I went to order brisket, that $4.50 was $9. And it stayed $9 from basically... What is that? June of 2020 to May of 2022. I changed my price for one time and it wasn't what I should have been charging. My yields were about 40% because the processing was so bad during the pandemic. But I was committed to serving prime beef. That's it. I made that call. This is what we do. This is how we do it come hell or high water. And maybe I shot myself in the foot, but maybe it's what got me here today as well. I was saying that first question of what do you think contributed to that demand? I mean, you're charging a price that was probably under what you should be charging.

59:16People recognize that they're getting over their value and they're like, we got to go have that. I mean, it's good. When we were serving the Blackhawk, American Wagyu, you go to Texas and buy Wagyu, you're looking at $42, $45 a pound. Damn. I was $33 a pound. One of the best deals in barbecue in this state was bang Wagyu beef. But then they, unfortunately those prices went up a little bit and I just didn't want to go back there anymore. And I loved that product. I loved it. And I knew how good it was. But all that being said is my hope is it balances out and we can keep it at that. You know what? It will and we're going to work on that together. But one of the things is I was on this podcast and I want to give a caveat to listening to this, that this was not, there was no plan walking into this interview. There was no, we didn't have a, hey, tell me what's good.

01:00:17This was just a, I haven't seen you in a long time. I want to come in. Let's record. This will be great. I had no, we had no conversation before this conversation, but I was on this. And I don't mean to turn this into therapy either. Half the time that's what this podcast is because not many people are coming. You're not having this conversation with a lot of people. And this is the thing. I was on this podcast the other day. It's called the Luxury Nashville podcast or something. I don't know why I was on this podcast, but it was a, this guy's a real estate agent. He knows I'm at mayor bowl and it's a fancy restaurant. And he was like, Hey, you know, the nice restaurants in town. We want you to come in and tell us the nice red. We didn't talk about any of the nice restaurants in town. I threw some shout outs at the end to like all of my favorite places. But he asked me, one of the questions he asked me was, how do you, he said, what's one misconception you have about restaurants or that people have about restaurants? And I goes that we're all making a bunch of money. I go, because there's, we're not. And pricing is crazy out there and all of these things. And he goes, how do you communicate to people your pricing strategy? And I go, you can't. We can't, I can't go to a table and say, Hey, how's that filet? Let me tell you what my cost is on that filet and how much you can't do this. I said, I think through Nashville restaurant radio, I'm able to have real honest conversations with restaurant owners where this comes up from time to time. But the general public isn't listening. These are other restaurant owners that are listening to this thing going, yeah, I feel that. Yeah, I feel that. So it's interesting because it's kind of apropos having this conversation about kind of what it's like owning a restaurant and how this world that we live in today and what our pricing looks like.

01:01:55This is how I do it. This is the answer to that question is I get to have these conversations where we get to say, dude, this, this, this is a crazy world and it's not easy, but we do it out of love. You do every day, you do this out of the love of all these people who stand in line, who are on their lunch break, live my dream period that comes with a cost. And sometimes it costs a little higher some days than others. But I, again, I know how lucky that I, I know how lucky I am. I signed up for this. Good times, bad times. I'll get through this. I will figure it out because I'm, I know because I know the alternative and it has never outweighed this. I will never, ever go back to working in office again. I will never go back to the corporate world. That's my carrot. So that being said, I get up every day. It's going to be a great day. Do my, you know, do my best. Try my best. I want the best. I expect the best.

01:03:04I put my best out into the world every damn day, every day. Some days I miss because I'm human, but I know that I'm trying and that's all of us are doing. We're just, we have all tapped into our passions. We have taken that leap of faith. We are wired differently and we are wired differently and that's the reason why we're doing it. If you were not wired this way, you would go, well, that's an insane idea to go open a restaurant. What are you an idiot? I'd rather just go eat or cook in my backyard. And we're like, nah, man, we're going to do it for a hundred people every day. Woo. You know, and I love that part of it. I love, I love putting myself out there every single day because I'm serving you. This is me. When you, everything about this restaurant is me. Decorations, how we do it, what we do, how we present ourselves is an extension of who I am as a person. There's not one thing fake in this restaurant. It's not a TGI Fridays. Everything on this wall, everything on these walls has a connection back to me and I can tie that line back to every single piece on this wall. You are looking at little tiny bits and pieces of my soul in everything that's posted on these walls. I like your soul. And, but that's what I'm telling you.

01:04:30When you come in, I'm giving you a little bit of who I am. I'm presenting that to you and I want, I want you to know that I'm presenting the best of me to you. And I hope every time that you come in and enjoy it and spend some time with me, you feel that and you walk away going, we're, you walk away feeling like you got more than what you anticipated. We are a restaurant, but a restaurant isn't all we are. And I've said that all along. We're a collection of like-minded individuals doing our best, doing good work every day. Food is part of it. Experience is part of it. I want you to feel a little bit like family. I want you to feel like you're coming to my house to eat, except sadly, I have to charge you. But I wouldn't want this any other way. That's hospitality. Yeah. Honestly, yes. That's what hospitality is. At my core, and it took me a long, like my dad comes from a line of, he was in the hospitality industry. He was in the hotel industry and travel trade industry basically his entire career. So I have hospitality in my DNA. It just took me almost 40 years to figure it out. I tried everything else. But when I got into hospitality, I fell into it like an old shoe. This is where I was supposed to be all along. I don't care how long it took me to get here, I'm here now. So in this limited amount of time that I've allocated myself to do this, because there's other things in life that I want to do, I'm going to do this the only way that I know how, the best that I can do.

01:06:09You might not like it that day. You might look at something on my wall and be like, that dude's a communist. And I've been called a communist. Go back to my very first Yelp review, kids, if you want to. I was called a communist. But that's okay. If you think I'm a commie, fine, whatever. Are you a communist? Let's set the record straight right now. Mr. McCarthy, I've never had anything to do with the American Communist Party. So no, I am not a communist, for the record. Take that QQ, which took me about two months to figure out his handle. But anyways, there was another point that we had talked about and I lost my train of thought because I tend to ramble on. What you were saying was, I'll paraphrase, I'm a servant. Yeah. And that's what we do. The real hospitality of this thing is my love language is to serve. And when I'm able to show up daily and serve my community and share a part of me, I think Stephen Smithing, who owns our restaurant, does a really great job. And one of our core values is called remember me. And remember me is two things. One is we want to remember the guest names. We want to be memorable. But he also said, look, you know what, if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, you know what people are going to say? They're going to go, oh, that's the guy that owned the Greenhills Grill and Maribor. He goes, everybody's going to remember me because I own these restaurants. That's what it is. So every time somebody comes in this building, I don't want them to think, oh, that's the guy that owns those terrible restaurants. That's the guy that owns that place that doesn't care about you. I want people to go, that's the guy that owned Greenhills Grill and Maribor. Those restaurants were really special. He goes, so everybody who's here is everything that happens in this building is an extension of me because this is how I'm going to be remembered. And so I want people to, what would Stephen do? Kind of a thing that goes around. And we take care of the guests. We're here. We're here to serve. That's why you'll see Stephen bussing tables in the Greenhills Grill on a Friday night because he's here to serve you.

01:08:06And this is how he's going to be remembered. First and foremost, I'm a host. Then I'm a host that brings you in. And are you hungry? Let's eat. You know, want something to drink? Let's get something. But at the forefront of what we do, like you said, hospitality, not a restaurant, I'm hospitality. And that makes a huge difference. I think again, and we're going to circle all the way back to the very first question, why I think we've been able to get through all of this is because at the end of the day, one people wouldn't come back if the food sucked. I get that people feel good coming in here and when they leave and want it. And what I love about what we've done, we don't have a PR person. We don't have a marketing person. I'm not on the phone two hours a week pitching stories. We just do. We just do. But you know who my marketing department is? The people that come in and eat. Exactly. And I get people from all over the world, which blows my mind, that tell me, oh, my buddy was here from Melbourne two months ago and said, when I come to Nashville, I have to eat here. And my first thought is, how in the hell is somebody talking about me in Melbourne? How does anybody even know about me on the other side of the world?

01:09:29But apparently he had a good enough experience where he had to tell another friend. And every single day I talk to people that are here because somebody else sent them here. And I feel like that's all I need. If somebody else can recommend us to someone else, I'll get you in eventually. I talked to a lot of local first timers and you know, I talked to everybody all day long, like, hey, where you from? Oh, we're from Nashville. Is this your first time in? Yeah, I'm so sorry that I haven't been in before. And I tell them, sorry, this is fantastic. I've got you now. Yeah. I don't care how long it takes you to get here. I've got you now because all it takes is one visit. And now you're a customer for a CFL. You're a Willie for life. Welcome to the club. And I love that fact that as a business that's five years old, that's moved into a bigger restaurant location, I get all of the out of town business I can handle because we have the highest Google rating of any barbecue restaurant in the city.

01:10:34What I love is we're still cracking into the local market. We are finally showing up on local people's radar five years into this. I have barely scratched the surface of the greater Nashville metropolitan area. I can't wait till you have like 40 of these across the country. And and I'm playing this episode back. You're like, we're just getting into this thing. I'm like, no, this is this is it. This is it. This is it. You're not you don't have plans to open like a bunch more. Absolutely not. This is the only one like Arnold's. Nope. This is it. Yeah. Like you just have like the one flagship that is where everybody knows it's a local legend. It's all I can handle. I talk to friends who own multiple restaurants like Nick, Idri. I'm like and has children. I'm like, dude, how do you do it? I can barely manage one place and, you know, keep like my sanity and some, you know, quality of lifetime. I don't see how you own multiple. Well, I want to I want to speak to that because I'm going to speak about something I haven't spoke about yet. Okay. Tomorrow we're closing Chagos. Okay. Tomorrow we have three restaurants and tomorrow we're closing Chagos for good. We're not going to do it. And the irony isn't lost on me that I'm out here helping restaurants not close and I'm closing one of my own. Right. And you're like, well, isn't that how does that work, dude? Oh, I get it. Well, this is the thing. Do you have children? Nope. Okay. I have two kids in the level of service that we put into our restaurants, the level of detail, the level of everything that we do with just really me, Steven and Christopher are the three that run these things. He does the kitchen stuff. I do all front of house and all the vendor stuff. And then he's the owner and he does a ton as well. Two restaurants. I can be at one or the other. Right. A third restaurant to do the level of detail service that we do. Right. It's like it's I've said it's like a game

01:12:40of whack-a-mole. Right. So I mean, I'm constantly going to be I'm constantly all over the place. And if I'm at Chagos for three days, cause I've got to be there. Right. I'm not at the other two. Absolutely. And when I'm not at the, when I'm at the other one, I'm not when I'm at one, I'm not at the other two and I need to be at one of them. I need to be shaking hands. I need to be seeing people as I call it playing restaurant. And we just could not spend the amount of time to deliver our value proposition for three restaurants. And I get that. Without a bunch more people with the exact same like mind that we have. It just. Oh yeah. It's not possible. Like you said, one is a lot. If you had two more. That's three times the problems. Three times the problems. But then again, like when you're at one of those, you're not at the other two. And people walk in and they're like, where's Bill? Oh, he's at the river gate location or he's over here. And you're like, Oh, well, he used to be, I guess he's getting big time. And it's like, this perception just starts. And it's like what you can't be in three places at one time.

01:13:47You have two arms and three grease traps. What are you talking about? Now, if I was to put an SOP around everything and cooker, we have three separate concepts, completely different. If it was one concept, then I could just rubber stamp it and do what these chains do. But that's not how we operate. We're not going to do that. And it became a point where I was like, I can't lose Marble or Green Hills Grill. And this other one just isn't profitable over this time. And we can't spend the time there because we don't want the other two to go down. And it just became a point where it's like exactly what you were just saying. Why are we deviating from the two that are the really the restaurants that do a lot that we spend a lot of time in that people have real emotional feelings about? And then Chagos people were like, why'd you reopen that place? Yeah, we didn't we didn't want to go back. But you know, that, you know, one is, to me, it's a quality of life issue as well. I'm really, really focused on quality, you know, work life balance. I, if my wife were to listen, she would laugh. I'm going to say I'm focused on work life balance.

01:14:52And I really do keep that the forefront of my mind that as you know, and as a good chunk of the people listening to you try not to think about this 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but it doesn't matter if you're working every day in some, I have Monday and Tuesday off air quote, I try to give myself at least a half day on both of those days. It's just, there are things I need to do on Mondays and Tuesdays, I run my errands, so on and so forth. But I think one of the things, excuse me, when in talking about Chagos, and kind of reminds me of something my dad asked me when I first opened the bakery, we were open one day. And he goes, what's your exit plan? Like, dude, we've had one day, and he goes, well, you better figure it out. Because if you don't know what your exit plan is, you're going to be continuously going, you know, falling, and you don't have a path. And you have to have, you have to have an out for when things are really great. And you have to have an out when things are not so great. So when I went into this, and we were in the trailer, I had a mindset of, all right, I've got a floor. And we reached that floor. And I said, we're done. We can't do we can't do this. This business isn't working the way it's supposed to be or the way we're putting in too many hours for not enough pay. Yeah. And they couldn't, they couldn't believe me. When I said I'm shutting it down. I said, I'm not joking around.

01:16:31I said, we haven't hit rock bottom. I don't know what rock bottom is, but I'm not going to find it. But I had a floor. And the so and the same thing in going to this. When we started when we signed that first lease, it was a three year lease. And I told Jamie, I said, look, we're gonna try this out for three years and see what it does. It was so cost effective down the street that I said, look, it cost us under $100,000 to start that spot. Yeah. God bless my landlord. I arguably had the cheapest rent in East Nashville. It allowed us to survive the pandemic. If I would have been in any other business or any other building, we would not be sitting here today because I just couldn't pay the rent. So, but we had, we had a floor and I, you know, if we hit, if we hit that, we're going to shut it down and I'm okay with it. Like it's hard, but I also had come to peace with it and acceptance of, okay, well, maybe the, you know, maybe this isn't in the cards for me. I gave it two really good tries. Thankfully it worked out for the better, but I also had a floor for this place and I was getting a little nervous at the end of last year. And I told my wife, I said, look, I don't know, maybe this is too much, you know, on and on and on.

01:17:50If we're at this place at the end of 2025, we're going to pivot. We might, I don't know what it probably would have been a breakfast place because I love breakfast pancakes. I'm a little honestly, I'm going to be breaking news here. When I shut down that trailer and went back into barbecue, it shows you how insane I was. I should have opened a pancake place. I love pancakes. I love barbecue too. Pancakes way more inexpensive than barbecue, but I digress. Not waffles. I'm a waffle guy. I'm a pancake guy. I'm not anti-waffle, but I'm pancake dude. I'm at the house. If it's Saturday morning and the kids come in, they go, what's for breakfast? And I go, you guys want dad waffles? They go, yes. Is that a pancake? No, it's a waffle, but it's a, it's how I make like a whole batter with like all the ingredients and then I put chocolate chips in it and do, you know, what time, what time Saturday? Just I'm asking for a friend. 8 a.m. 8 a.m. I'm there. 8 a.m. Saturday morning, dad waffles. I don't open here till 11. Well, it's an hour away.

01:18:54So that's going to be challenging. Maybe not on a Saturday morning. You could probably get there in like 40 minutes. I'll be early. I'll just sit in the driveway. I'll leave my house at six. You're welcome anytime you want to come over for dad waffles. You have a standing invitation. I love it. Sometimes it happens on Sunday too. Well, if I make the batter on Saturday, you better believe Sunday and Monday, we're having dad waffles. Talk dirty to me now. Yeah. It's a three day event whenever I make the batter. You're really tapping into what my restaurant concept was. I'm about to go. I was going to open a restaurant. And that's what I thought. Is it called dad waffles? No, that would be actually the second location. There's a new way to drink whiskey. It's called Ponyboy slings. These bourbon based canned cocktails are fully carbonated and only 7 percent ABV. So light and refreshing. All you have to do is chill it, pop it, giddy up. Follow us on Instagram or online at drinkponyboy.com. 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.

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01:21:34You should call today. I'm going to put that number down one more time. That's 863-409-9372. Call Matthew Clements today. Pony Boy Slings. What's that? It's a bourbon based canned cocktail from Kentucky. Bourbon canned cocktail? Yeah, but it's only 7% and fully carbonated so it's super refreshing. Oh, I get it. It's not a regular bourbon. It's a cool bourbon. Giddy up. For more info, visit drinkponyboy.com. One of the things I thought because I was so sad when Charlie Bob's closed because I was like, dang it, East National just doesn't have a go-to greasy spoon. I can eat breakfast anytime I want. So I said, I'm going to open a place called BFD, Breakfast for Dinner, and we're going to open at three and we're going to close at ten and all we serve is breakfast. What about the, there's the big place in East National that does like the breakfast. What's it called? I can't think of it right now. My brain's. Biscuit, Biscuit House? Yeah, the Biscuit. East National. I think it's the Biscuit House. Is it Biscuit House? I'm usually here for breakfast so I forgot. Anyways, so all circling all the way back to what we're, so I had a number in my head that if we weren't at that place by the end of 2025, I wasn't going to close the restaurant, but I might have stopped doing barbecue because it just wasn't doing. So can we get the record?

01:23:05That's not happening, right? It is not happening. Okay, good. You already hit that number. We have hit the number and I can't go more into because of superstition, but our business continues to grow at a clip that I don't understand. Like we, I have talked to other friends in the industry that are struggling and we just continue to grow. I am so lucky and I know it and I wish nothing but the best for all of us because again, you know, I want my friends to succeed and they'll get through it, but I'm just, they will tell me we're doing X. I'm like, oh my God, we're like, it's almost embarrassing to talk about because I don't get it. But that being said, I think there are some things on the radar right now that could come around for us for 2026. I'm already a hundred miles beyond anything I thought shotgun willies would be. I can't imagine if things go the way I think they're going to go where we're going to be if you and I sit down at this table on September 12th next year. Can we book that? Absolutely.

01:24:18Right now, September 12th next year, you and I'll sit down at this table right here that we're sitting at right now. We'll do it again and we'll see what it is. The luxurious handmade table that I made. I'm going to put it in my calendar when I stop recording on my phone that September the 12th, I'll send you an invite that we're going to do this again next year. We're going to go, what is that thing? I also, I smell that. Do you smell, is that a pop-up coming? A BFD pop-up here at the evenings? Maybe one week. We should do a BFD pop-up for one week. That's just a breakfast or dinner. We're going to play with this thing and just, you got five days. First of all, you're talking my language. However, I will tell you one of the ideas- I'll come make dad waffles. Absolutely. If you want, I'll make them. I'm going to tell you a little idea I'm kicking around. I've wanted to do it. I've wanted to just get settled in here before I did it, but I have this idea of doing what I call camp breakfast. Allow me to elaborate on camp breakfast. Saturday morning, maybe one or two Saturdays a month, I cook breakfast outside. We do breakfast tacos, brisket, biscuits. I have found some Texas-shaped waffle irons to make pecan waffles in the shape of Texas. That's my favorite. We would do it all outside on the ranch. We would do it probably from 7 to 10, 30, and then pivot into getting ready to do our service. It would be all outside, bacon, eggs, little country breakfast kind of things. One of the things that I- A, as much as I'm a shotgun Willie barbecue guy, I'm also Bill, breakfast dude. I love breakfast.

01:25:58Love it. Love it. Love it. I do too. You're speaking my language. It's my favorite meal of the day. I could eat breakfast three times a day. I just love it. I love the smell and the feel of breakfast outside. I love- There's something about early morning and that cast iron skillet going and you got the bacon in it or in the eggs after that. It's just cool. I just love it. One of my ideas is to do like, I don't know, camp breakfast. So I look at breakfast like I look at Mondays and I'm weird because Monday is my favorite day because it's like by Friday and I'm not the traditional restaurant guy because I do a lot of the business stuff. And so my work week is really, I actually work like a Monday through Friday kind of work week because that's when all the business happens. And so running the restaurant on the weekends, I have a team that's just playing restaurant. That's just execution.

01:27:04It's amateur night. That's just service. You just plug and go on the weekends. But I'm doing meetings with vendors and all this stuff throughout the week. So Monday is like I have the entire week to get everything done. So Monday it's like I have the whole week ahead of me but by Friday I'm like, oh shit, I have nine things on my to-do list. I start feeling stressed by Friday because I'm not going to have a good weekend if I don't knock out all this stuff. And so Monday is like this full of hope. I have the entire week ahead of me and I love that because I love to get shit done. Breakfast is the same thing. You wake up in the morning and you get to have a cup of coffee. You make a breakfast and it's like the whole rest of the day is I have so much to seize the day ahead of me. You're fueled up. At the end of the night you're like, I start feeling, I lay in bed and I'm like, oh shit, I didn't get that. It's like the server who forgot to get the ranch for table 22. They lay in bed and they're like, oh I forgot to get that ranch. I lay in bed and I go, oh shit, and it's just all of the things I have to do but by Friday I need to have all that stuff done. I never do, by the way. Never do. But I still, I digress. I put that on my list.

01:28:10If I've checked everything off my stuff list, I'm like, well take a lap there, William. I get the major stuff done but I'm dropping balls right and left. It happens. So breakfast is like that hope. And the smell. And that's the other thing I love too. Bacon? Come on. The smell of breakfast when someone else is making it for you and you just wake up and there's that toasty or waffly or pancakey or bacony smell in the house. A toasted bagel. You're like, damn, I'm going down like, I'm just launching my day into this. Forget, forget all these scent companies making autumn bloom. You better make one that's called bacon. Every time my wife gets up, she's up at like 5 45. We have two kids, one's in middle school, one's in elementary school first year. So one has to be at school at seven and one has to be at school at eight. So we have like, I take the one at seven, then I try and go to the gym. But like she's up early and she like makes some breakfast stuff. So everyone's like, she's making bacon. And it's like that classic Looney Tunes, you know, where like the smell is coming through and your, your like nose goes up and you just like float towards it. You know, that's what always cracks me up when people come in here and go, oh my God, it smells so good in here. I'm so callous to the smell and I, I don't notice it anymore. So when I go in somewhere else and smell there, I'm like, oh no, yeah, now I can smell that. That's cool. I get it.

01:29:39And you make the entire neighborhood around here smell good. Well, that's our job. That's your job. Every time I do, whenever you grill at home, do you always like, oh, I'm making the neighbors jealous today. Cause every time I'm at home and I smell somebody cooking barbecue, I'm like, oh man, where is that? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I love, I love the smoke from a grill. I'm like, oh, I'm making people jealous. Well, my neighbors grill out more than I do. I just come like, hey Michael, what you making today? What time we eating? When you do this all day long, that's the thing. It's like, I am, I'm cooking all day. When I get home, it's kind of the last thing I want to do. Right? Honestly, it is. And I embarrassingly bad at cooking at home because if you saw what I ate at home, it would make you cry. Um, usually it's like salad out of a bag with some of our chicken that we didn't sell today or a protein shake. I'm like, Oh God, I just want a protein shake. Just let me go to bed. So when I go out to eat and I ain't like, Oh wow, vegetables, these are cool. I buy these little nut bars from Costco, like a, you know, cliff bar or something. They're like, there's nuts and stuff. And so I had for breakfast today, I was in a hustle. I was like, Oh, I haven't been feeling well. So I got up late today and I was like, I'm grabbing a nut bar and I'm out. Yeah. Jamie said, cause I'm a breakfast guy. Yeah. And Jamie's like, what do you want for dinner? I'm like, honestly, I get to see a peanut butter sandwich.

01:30:58You go ahead. If you make some, it's always like, if you make something, I'll eat it. But if you don't feel like cooking, I'll just make it peanut butter sandwich. All right. Right now, how long do you think we've been talking to two hours, an hour and 10 minutes, an hour and 10. And I am, that's how it works. I'm a content source. Extraordinaire. You wind me up and watch me go. My man. Well, I, um, you want me to just put on a lavalier and we can just continue this while I'm cutting meat today. Yeah. Why not? The world's longest podcast. Oh no, that was, that was Jake Howell two weeks ago. I want it now. I remember what I wanted to tell you. We're talking about people not understanding pricing and they don't care. Well, my friend, did I learn that the hard way? So there's a little website that the kids get on called the reddit right? So I get these Google alerts for shotgun Willie's barbecue. So one night I'm sitting at home playing baseball on my PlayStation, which is how I decompress. Um, because I stopped doing FIFA because I got tired of being annihilated by 11 year old Ecuadorian boys online. So, um, and that was really bad for my ego. So I play baseball and so I get a little thing on my phone saying Google alert, you know, would you pay a hundred dollars for this? And I'm going to say this and I'm going to ask you not to go there, which is only going to drive you there. Let me tell you the story of what happened and you don't need to go to Reddit. So I'm like, what the hell's up with this? And so I look it up and there was a trend on Reddit saying people posting pictures of barbecue and would you pay X for this? So someone came into our restaurant and the person who posted it did it innocuously. I hold no grudge against the person who did it. And the fallout from it, he was mortified by, which he actually came into the shop several days later and said, I did not intend for this to happen. Well, so I get the alert. So I'm like, well, shit, Hey man, I'm the guy who made the plate. Let me tell you why. So I logged on,

01:33:01I created a Reddit account, had never been on Reddit before. If you haven't been there, do not go there ever. Um, it's a wormhole. It's anyways, so I get on there and I didn't have, Hey, this is Bill from shotgun, Willie's barbecue. And I'm going to explain to you why this plate cost $85 plus tax. The only way I can, the only way I continue to describe it, it was like me punching a hornet's nest and then attempting to fist fight every individual hornet that came out of that nest. I'm getting lit up 10 ways from Sunday. And I will tell you that I kept my wits in my head about this. I was very calm about it. Hey, yeah, I know you can go to Kroger and buy this, blah, blah, blah, but you're not factoring. I got to pay for rent employees, insurance, internet, you know, this, that, and the other, that, that would post your PNL. Yeah, seriously. And just continuously just getting one after another after another. So finally, because I didn't know anything about ready, because I was getting all these every time someone posted about it, I'm getting these alerts on my phone being, and my phone is blowing up. I'm trying to just play a little baseball online. Just leave me alone.

01:34:12So I finally said enough is enough. I go in and I delete the account. I delete my account that I created. I stopped engaging and just delete it. So the next day I get a Google alert saying shotgun Willie's owner gets lit up on Instagram or lit up on Reddit, deletes his account. But everything he said is still there. And I'm thinking, first of all, look, I'm gonna go blue here. Look, shithead. I stand behind everything that I said on there. There's nothing in the way that it is. Was it a media alert? Like who said it? Who was the writer of this article? It wasn't an article. It was just a random Reddit post. Would you pay 100 bucks for this? I bought who you get the media alert. Like who is the one who said you deleted? It's a Google alert. So anytime shotgun Willie's usually anytime that says shotgun Willie's, so I get a lot of alerts about the strip club in Denver, which don't pertain to me. But it's shotgun Willie's. Apparently, there was a big shooting there a couple years ago. And a lot of those guys are still going to court. So but so I got a Google alert the next day saying the headline of the Reddit thing saying.

01:35:25So somebody created a new thread that a new thread saying that I got lit up and cut and run. And I but yeah, deletes his account, but his poster still there. And I'm thinking, okay, I'm not gonna take this bait because I learned my lesson. But I'm like, yeah, dude, I stand one, I was very civil throughout the entire thing. First of all, and two, I stood behind and I will to this day, stand behind everything I said in that thing, all that to say, going back, nobody cares why you charge what you charge. They're either going to think it's too cheap, right on point or too expensive. I will never, never win that battle with somebody if you're coming in. And I have said this, and I've had to accept this since day one. If price is your sole basis of where you eat, I'm not going to win. I will not win that there's you can go to wits, you can go to barbecues. There's other options for you at a cheaper price point. That being said, you can't compare what I do to wits and barbecue and at the places that are cheaper, or even on our range, we are not those places.

01:36:36There's a reason why you can go to McDonald's and pay $4 for a hamburger. And then go to what is that Jack Brown's green nose grill? I'm at $21. There you go. For a reason. If you can't afford a $21 hamburger, that's okay. Yeah, you have other options. It's our number one selling item on the menu. There you go. And so I have had to accept the fact that some people are not going to think that I am price gouging them for a myriad of reasons. I'm just being greedy, new national, whatever. But when I really waited in and attempted to be very transparent, extremely transparent and extremely level headed about it, I learned that Reddit is the place for people who don't know anything about what you do tell you every way you're doing it incorrectly. So I learned my lesson. That being said, if you read that thread, I still, maybe there was one or two snarky comments because I was getting a little worn out. But I was biting my tongue through most of it. Because you're human. But I was, I was about as calm as one could be. I grew up with a lazy eye, worn eyepatch, not in the day when it was a cool eyepatch that was black and looked like I was like a secret agent. It was this flesh colored bandage that made it look like my eye got carved out from the second grade to the fifth grade. I had a bowl haircut and teeth that looked like Shrek. I was short. I wore these disgusting glasses. If you look at a picture of me in the third or fourth grade, I am the original hipster. I created hipsters. Have you all had our awkward years? I had stop sign glasses and a mullet. Yeah. I was never bullied in my entire life until I was 55 years old. I can't imagine what kids go through today. But when I got done with that exchange, I was, I, I was shell shocked. I'm like, I can't believe, here I am trying to be honest

01:38:43and open and responding to these questions fairly. I thought, and nobody wants to hear it. So that was a long story to say, I'm never going to win the price battle, but I am aware I am cognizant of it, but I have to price my food in a way that a keeps the lights on keeps people employed and I can take home a little change in the process too. How dare you? I know. I mean, if it was a hobby, then we would just come to my house every Saturday and fire up the smoker and we'd all have a good time. Which is where it starts. It does. And it is a labor of love. And I think any small business is a labor of love, but be, I'm preaching to the wrong audience here because everybody here is like, everybody I hope is going, Oh yeah, Bill, I know what you're saying. The off chance there's some guests listening right now. Tread cautiously with how you communicate with a small business person. That doesn't mean you can't tell them when you're not happy or you don't get what you pay for. You don't feel the value in it, whatever. I want genuine feedback. I do want feedback, but understand we are all doing our best in a very chaotic world. Just trying to do our best, live our best lives and provide you with a service beyond, truly beyond what you pay for. Because nobody in the hospitality, if you're in the hospitality business and doing that, trying to provide a service that is equal to or less than what you're charging, then you're doing it wrong. You should be always giving more than you get back. That's why we do it. And I wish, again, it's the internet. I understand the audience.

01:40:44There was a complete disconnect with that and it was really frustrating. What's the point? They're trying to get a reaction. It's like a ten-year-old who wants to get a reaction. He's going to say whatever he wants because he just wants attention. And they can cut and run and that's the thing. And I even said in that post, if you have a problem with anything I said or charge, I am so easy to find. You can find me five days a week from 11 to 3 standing at that cutting board. You want to talk? You want to talk about this? I'll do it. You can do it. You can come and tell me that I'm the biggest ripoff in town. Okay, great. That's fine. I don't think so. Well, pricing is such a weird thing because it's subjective. Absolutely. My brother says something. He always says, you know what the number one selling cheese in the world is? What? Velveeta. Because the world buys Velveeta. You know what's really good?

01:41:46Triple cream brie. You know what's really good? Not the number one selling cheese and it's not for everybody. But man, it's really fucking good. But the world in itself buys the most Velveeta, like this white cheese dipper, just cheese melt is the number one selling cheese in the world. And it's like, yeah, for the masses, the McDonald's, that's fine. But if you want a really good handcrafted prime barbecue, that's what we do here. I'm not claiming to be the cheapest barbecue. I'm not claiming to be a mass. Everybody in the world should come eat prime barbecue. This is kind of a niche. It's affordable. But like, if I make $20,000 a year, this is probably expensive. If I make a million dollars a year, I can probably afford this. I mean, everything in this world is subjective like that. And know what you can afford and go do it. If you're going to splurge, come splurge. But like, that's what it is. Absolutely. It is what it is.

01:42:46The biggest lesson I've learned over the last, one of the biggest lessons I've learned is you can't make everybody happy. You can't make everybody happy. And you're going to kill yourself trying because I wanted to be all things to all people. And I really did. I'm like, and you do take the negative more than the positive. And, you know, you can have 99 great customers on a Saturday and the one person that puts you sideways, that's don't, and puts you sideways at $11.45, it's going to mess up your whole day. And I've really, really gotten more disciplined into really telling myself, just let it go. That interaction was for five seconds. That guy's not thinking about you. I'm going to go home and be like, Jamie, we don't know what our guests are experiencing when they walk in the door. Right. And the guy, and I tell you what, the guy who put me sideways didn't go home until his wife, hey, you know, that's shocking. It happens. I have to accept it and I have to move on. And I really, really worked on that part of my mental health and has made a huge difference. I'm not the same guy who opened a restaurant in 2020. I wish a lot of the ways that I deal with things now, I could have dealt with them in 2020, 2021, 2022. That being said, thankfully, I have adjusted my thinking and adjusted my, the way I process the good and the bad. And it's had an extremely positive result in my overall wellbeing. And it's getting better every single day and I'm evolving in it every single day. But I, it took a while for me to learn how to let go of that kind of stuff, which was obviously highlighted in that spiel. You've grown, every day we're growing. We're just human beings. Everything is here for our learning. This is something I had a conversation with my kid about the day. I said, dude, it was a tough day. He fell

01:44:48on his bike and he cracked a tooth and he got skinned up pretty good. And I was like, you know what, man, I know you're upset. I know that this is frustrating and I'm with you. And after a little while I kind of came back and I said, Hey, you know, maybe we're taking that turn a little too fast. I go, everything happens for a reason. Everything is for your learning. And as long as we're growing and as long as you've learned that, Hey, maybe next time I don't take that curve that fast, then maybe this is what had to happen. But you know what? You didn't die. You didn't break anything. We fixed your tooth. Like you're good. Like it's just a little scrape. Your ego's bruised, but all of these things are for your learning, right? Everything that happens to us is for our learning. If you choose to take it as your learning, you have to, if you take it as a victim and this happened to me, then you'll continue to take things as a victim. But if you can take it as a learning, then you're going to grow and you're going to get better and you're going to become more whole and happier. It's funny. You just said that that sentence, this happened to me and it lit something in my brain that if I'm ever in a situation like that, where you just kind of say to yourself, this happened for me. It's and good, bad, indifferent. If it's a good thing, great. If it's a bad thing, but this happened for me and it's how, how am I going to find the reason? And what am I going to do with that knowledge? Wow. That's well, so I host another podcast called Shut Up and Thrive, and it's with my business. When can I be on that one?

01:46:17Whenever you want. I'd love to have, I'd love to have you on that one, but it's with my business coach and she practices the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership and it's above the line, below the line. It's either through me, for me, or through me, by me, or to me is the world in which most people live as leaders. And the principle is everything in this world, the world's going to world every day. The world's going to world. You're not going to stop it. And there's nothing that's good and there's nothing that's bad, right? It's very stoic. Yeah. And so that's the world's going to world. Everything that happens in this world is a result, right? So everything that happens, it's a result. Either it's a result that you wanted to have happen or it's a result you didn't want to have happen. And after you have a result, the question you ask yourself is what part do I play in the result? Is it, what part did I play in the result that I wanted? And what part did I play in a result that I didn't want? So whatever happens, you know, oh man, I fell on my bike. I'm mad at this. Like, what part did you play in that result that you clearly didn't want that? Well, let's look back and think of that. I had a, the shift didn't go very well.

01:47:27Man, it's that manager's fault. What part did you play in the result you didn't want? Well, I guess if I think about it, I probably could have communicated. I had, you know, institutional knowledge of what's going to happen. I probably could have communicated that to that person. I could have had a one-on-one. I could have done this. Yeah. So next time it's okay. It's not good. It's not bad. This is just going to happen every day. What part did you, if you can look back on it and say, what part do I play in a result that I don't want? And then you can make adjustments and you can look at it that way. Then things are happening through you and by you and not to you. The problem is most of our world lives in a to me. People live in a to me. Why is this happening to me? Well, sometimes there's legitimate things that happen. Somebody rear ends you and you're like, man, why did this happen? But you know what? Because that person rear ended you, you didn't make it to the meeting where there was a mass shooting. And you're like, well, in the moment, I was kind of pissed off. This happened to me, but I'm kind of glad it happened to me because it didn't put me in that situation that would have been a lot worse. You have no idea the chain of events in this world that are going to happen in the future. And it's like, maybe just in that moment, appreciate that moment, appreciate the feeling you're having. Every time I talk to this business coach and I'm sad, she's like, well, let's stop and appreciate your sadness. Let's stop and accept it, feel your feelings all the way through, and then look at it from this perspective. And it's helped me so much in those moments of frustration go, hey, I don't, this is a good feeling. I'm feeling, I'm thinking this feeling of anger. I'm going to feel the, I go sit in my car now and I grab the steering wheel and I scream because you're supposed to feel that anger all the way through. If I don't do that, that's going to, it has to come out somewhere. It's going to come out to an employee or to my wife or to my kids. Go express that anger. Are you Gen X?

01:49:20I am. Yeah. I'm, I'm a zennial. I don't know how to push that shit down. No way. Well, that was the whole, that's why I drank. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. That was my, that was, my answer was don't, you're not allowed to be a man. You're not allowed to drink that away. And so since I don't drink anymore, now they have to learn how to express all of these things and feel all of my feelings. I love it. I love it. It's great. It's very learning. It's cathartic, but yeah, I grew up same way as like, just push it down, man. You just gotta go. Here's how you get rid of your problems. You just put them down lower in your system. And then one day there's no more room and you just spurt them all out at the most inopportune time over the most innocuous thing. Yeah. That's what I've probably over the last two and a half years, I've really started getting into philosophy and stoicism and, and learning how pretty much in summation, what you just said. And it's, it's a, it's something that has made a substantial difference and I'm not perfect. And let me tell you, old habits are hard to break, but to tell you what, the biggest thing that I have now is recognition of when I make the mistake and go, dude, that was wrong. That's not how you needed to handle that. Let's try this. Let's do better the next time. But at least now I've got the wherewithal to say that wasn't how I should have dealt with that and go back to that person. If it was a personal thing and say, look, man, I'm not going to say what I, what, whether I was right or wrong, it's how I handled it. It was not the way for me to handle it. And I apologize and let's me, you know, I'm learning from it and hopefully you can, you know, help me be a better person about it in the future.

01:51:10And again, I feel like one of the reasons why this restaurant continues to succeed as it does is our limited amount of turnover. There isn't a person working here today that has not been here at least one year, if not five years. And now we have a staff here. I'm looking at all the people. Yeah. Yeah. This place is coming alive as we're sitting here. It's alive. It was just us. And now there's all these people in here doing stuff. I love it. It's very bizarre. My youngest employee is Alma is one year and my oldest employee is five years. That's a recipe for success. I'm telling you, I am remain the luckiest guy in this business, in this town, because everything just meshes together and works. I think that's a good segue. We're at the moment where we do the Gordon food service. Final thought. Okay. Let's do the final thought. So Gordon food service, final thought. We have other things to get to and you have like a business to run. Yeah. And I'm telling you, we could be here at one 30 still going. We could do this and we're going to do this again on Wednesday at the Gordon food service show. Okay. So I'll be there.

01:52:18I'll come by and say hi. I'll think about all the little things I didn't ask you today. And we'll talk about barbecue because I got so sideways. This is fun, man. Hour and a half. That's good times. All right. So Bill Lavillette, Gordon food service, final thought. Give it to us. My final thought is thank you. Thank you for letting me live my dream. I, if you are having a challenging time in this industry or in anything that you're doing in life, I will be your biggest cheerleader. Somebody out there is reading for you. You know, they say like tough times don't last, tough people do. And it's not even a question of being tough. Just be resilient. You, I believe in your path. You got this. I love that positivity for the world. Bill Lavillette shotgun Willie's barbecue. I like that. I'm going to use that as I'm going to like, I'm going to isolate that and I'm going to use that now and everything. I'm going to be like, like a rim shotter. Not that one. Yeah, man. Go get them. This is our final thought. Thank you for allowing me to come here today and do this. Thank you for your time. This was awesome. Thoroughly enjoyed this. I hope I didn't put anyone to sleep over this, but if you haven't been to shotgun Willie's, think about giving us a try. Throw us on your radar. Come check it out. East Nashville. How do you follow? Give us the socials and all that stuff. How do people get ahold of you and where are you located? Give us your address, all that stuff. All right.

01:53:54We are located in beautiful crime free Madison, Tennessee at 1500 Gallatin Pike South, Madison, Tennessee, 37115 in the Madison square shopping center home of East side bowl. So look for the giant monument sign. We're also retro monument signs. It looks like a neon. It looks like a Miami vice Longhorn to me. It's right over. If you're on like a Briley parkway and you get off here, Gallatin road, is it? Yeah, it's basically if you get off in Gallatin, you go the opposite way of East Nashville. Like you'd be one way you can go like into like the heart of East Nashville. And then you get off the other one, like you're going to Madison. We are just right off of the right off Briley parkway next to the cemetery. Yeah, we are surrounded by a ghost. We are the most haunted barbecue in all of Nashville. Sweet. We are directly across. I'm going to do haunted pit tours this year. Hell yeah. We are directly across Briley parkway from the home depot. If you're keeping score at home, you can find us on social media. Instagram and Facebook is S's and Sam S G W BBQ all one S G W BBQ Instagram and Facebook. I do not tend to monitor the Facebook account at all because I despise Facebook and the Instagram is an easy way to get in touch with me. I like that much better because I like pictures. We also have a website, which is www dot S G W BBQ dot com.

01:55:25Um, so we're available there. Can you do, do you do catering? We do absolutely catering. We're trying to know that. That's really one of my big, one of the things that we really haven't been able when we were down the street, we just couldn't push it. But one of my big goals for next year and the end of this year is to do more catering. Um, so if you need us to do a catering job, feel free to reach out to us. Um, you want easy cater? Uh, no, I don't even know what that is. Oh, I'll talk to you about it. Just like you will bump your catering. Thank you. Um, easy cater is great by the way. If anybody out there wants to use easy cater, they really make it easy. Lots of catering. You might have just made a sale. So we can do catering. We also do our annual Thanksgiving pre-orders, which will be coming up. We'll probably announce that in late October, but we do turkey, smoked turkey, and then brisket, and then a couple different sides for you. Mashed potatoes, uh, glazed carrots. I think we're going to take greens off the menu because they're just incredibly labor intensive, but we'll post that menu up. We'll also probably be making some pies for the holiday season this year too. So, but come by, say hi, ride the bull. We are the only barbecue restaurant in arguably the South that has a mechanical bull inside the restaurant. So you're able to ride it. I'm going to probably, no, it will, you have to plug it back in. Okay. But it works. I will say until I know better, we are the only barbecue restaurant in America with a mechanical bull. If you know of another barbecue restaurant with a mechanical bull, then I will stop saying that. But until then, we are the only one. Let us know in the comments section.

01:57:11Yeah, seriously. Hey, like and subscribe down below and hey, leave me a comment if you think Willie's has a bull in the restaurant. So, yeah, go on Reddit and talk about the bull. And for those of you who write nice things about us on Reddit, thank you. Thank you very much. These are real people. You see real things. It's not just a talking head and this is a real guy who's in the building every day. I do get comments from people who, when I asked them, how did they find us? They said, Oh, I read about you on Reddit. And I'm like, I hope it was the good one. So we're listening to in 42 countries here on National Restaurant Radio. So Singapore is a big area for us. Well, hello, Singapore. If you get people, you know, I don't know who's listening in these countries, but I get a report that tells me which countries are listening. And there's 42 active countries that listen to National Restaurant Radio. I think we're arguably the number one Texas barbecue restaurant for folks who carry a Singapore passport. I think we are Singapore's favorite Texas. We're creating lots of number ones. Number one with the writing bowl of the Singapore passport, the whole thing. We are the official barbecue restaurant of the Houston Oilers.

01:58:19There you go. Long live Houston Oilers. Is that a team anymore? In my heart it is. Bill Lavillette, thank you for joining us today. We will talk to you soon. I hope in less than a week. Less than a week. We'll see you Tuesday, Wednesday. All right, we'll see you. Thank you so much to Bill Lavillette for joining us on Nashville Restaurant Radio. That was so fun to be over there in the restaurant. I think I'm gonna do more of those. So if you'd like me to come to your restaurant, sit down and talk to you, send a message. I'd love to do that. I'm just packing the studio up and heading to you. So lots and lots of fun. I have some more chefs coming on here real soon. Really excited about. The next episode will probably be the Gordon Food Service show. I do want to tell you real quick, if you have any marketing needs, if you're, hey, what are we doing for marketing? Or you're spending so much time doing marketing. And what is marketing? Do you need help with that? Do you need to identify what you should be doing? Is it email campaigns? Is it organic social media? Do I need to pay for social media? Is it geofencing? Is it text message campaigns? Is it loyalty programs? All of that stuff is dependent on like 50 different factors and you need somebody to help you decide that. That's what Christine Miles is for.

01:59:39Christine is the owner of Miles Hospitality Marketing and she will come meet with you for an hour. If you tell her that you heard about her on Nashville Restaurant Radio, she will come meet with you for an hour and she will not charge you a penny for it. She will just sit and consult with you and kind of decide, see what you're doing, see what you might need to be doing. And if you say, hey, we want to hire you, you get a special rate if you're a NARA member. So I would love to talk to you about that too. Christine Miles, Miles Hospitality Marketing, I want to tell you how you're going to get a hold of her. You're going to go to myllshm.com. From there you can click, there's a contact button. Just click that and she will get a touch with you and come talk to you. Yeah, Miles Hospitality Marketing. That's how we're going to end this show. Thank you for listening today. I hope to see a lot of you in Louisville tomorrow and I hope that you guys are out there being safe. Love you guys. Bye-bye.