Bill Miller

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02:34Fill out the contact form and they will get back to you ASAP. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service and we are excited to have you here today. We got a big one today. We are talking with Bill Miller. Bill Miller is the CEO, founder, president of Icon Entertainment. Icon Entertainment, this is the Johnny Cash Museum. This is House of Cards, Nudie's Honky Tonk, Sinatras. He has so many places here in town and I did not know Bill Miller very well. Vince, on the other hand, Vince who's my partner over at NARA, Vince Lanni, a big fan of Bill Miller and what he has done. As we found out, Bill Miller's a big fan of Vince and so that was really cool that Vince joined us on this interview. We did the interview at his private club above Sinatras and I didn't know what to expect. What we got was a massive amount of stories. We got stories about his passions, what he does, who he is, his relationship with Johnny Cash. They had a 35-year friendship and man the stories were just awesome. This is a passionate guy who loves beautiful things and he loves sharing them with people and he loves hospitality and making other people happy. He's a family man, has three sons. His wife was actually

04:35there for the interview. Her and the director of marketing were sitting at a table across from us so during the interview you hear him ask her lots of questions. It was just a lot of fun. I think you're going to love this. Now, this is only an hour. I could have gone for four hours. We were going to do another episode of Bill Miller very, very soon to continue. I only had one hour. I had some other things I had to go do and I had to leave so it was a tough situation. You're going to love this interview and I'd love to know what you think about it. Find us on Instagram. We've posted lots of clips from this interview on Instagram and I think you're going to love it. We are doing amazing things at NARA. This is the everyday things that we are doing. I want to give a few shout outs. We've got some new members. I want to welcome in Vega, Shwarma, and Lyra. Germantown Pub just got stickered. We have this really cool sticker that says proud member certified local Nashville area restaurant alliance. Our goal is that if you are a diner and you are going out to eat and you see this sticker on somebody's door you know that you are supporting local. We have some really cool new shirts that say eat local. It's a collaboration with us and Twine Graphics and those are for sale. I don't know where you can buy them but if you want to buy the shirt you can watch the video with me and Germantown Pub putting the sticker up there. You can see the video kind of looks like one of those thank you bags. We can get you one of those. They're 25 bucks and we'd love to see you sporting these around town reminding people that eating local is key. We also want to welcome in Flavor Catering and Pie Town Tacos. Juniper Green I believe is what it is. Also that's all part of one group. Chris Crockroll over or Jason Crockroll over there at Flavor Catering. He's going to be coming back on the show. I had him and Maribel on a couple

06:41years ago and they have just blown up and we are so excited to have them as members of the Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance. I also want to give a big shout out to Taylor over at the Wabash Southern Kitchen. Yes if you know that term the Wabash Southern Kitchen the Wabash part of that is a reference to the old Opryland roller coaster the Wabash Cannonball which I have ridden a hundred times and I know a lot of you're like dude I love that place and if you haven't if you don't know about the Wabash Cannonball well Taylor's a local kid grew up in the area and wanted to give an homage to Opryland and his little down-home southern kitchen right there in Nolensville. If you've never been there you've got to go there they've got ice cream they've got espresso and then they've got some great southern staples. They have an icy machine I mean come on the place is amazing. We spent a couple hours talking the other day and just a great guy and super excited to have them part as the Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance. Also want to welcome in Elodie Hebert with Cocorico. They are in and then we have another big one which Puckett's. Puckett's, Deakin's, New South and Scout's Pub. Welcome into Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance. We are doing some really cool things. We are testing out cooler control solutions over at Puckett's and they have a cooler that is outside and it holds some humidity and cooler control solutions is a company that comes in and they actually install these little it's like a disc that goes on the top of your walk-in cooler and it reduces the humidity inside of your cooler. We're testing it there and we're already seeing some amazing results. What it does is it lowers the cooler temperature by a minimum of three degrees reduces the humidity so all of your lettuce stays fresher longer your meat stay fresher longer but the biggest part of this is is that it helps your cooler work less. It doesn't have to work as hard to maintain the temperature so you

08:44have less issues with your cooler. So if you have an older cooler and you need it to work longer cooler control solutions is your company. Check them out. You can go to narahnashville.com, click on our vendor section and you can learn more about them. David and Pete Rodriguez are brothers. This is a technology that you definitely need to be using. So we will let you know the data once we've had it in there for four or five weeks to know exactly how that is working but it is something that is huge and if you have a cooler that is outside or if you're putting a bunch of stuff in there and your humidity levels are high this could be a game changer for you and it's inexpensive and we're talking like $129 a month right and it doesn't take up any room and can install immediately and you there's no disruption no big thing it's they do it very fast and it doesn't take up any room inside of your cooler it goes on the roof of your cooler if you were wondering uh yeah so we've got a great episode for you today very excited to have all uh to this this episode with bill miller excited for all of the new restaurants if you are a restaurant and you would like to have a sticker and you want to be a member of the nashville area restaurant lines we are at 77 restaurants now 77 restaurants strong and that gives us amazing bargaining power when it comes down to what you're paying and how you're paying now we're now we're like a big chain now we as local restaurants can now negotiate like we're a chain because we have strength in numbers if you want to be a part of that if you're a smaller restaurant we've had six restaurants reach out to us in the past 24 hours the word is getting out there we're getting back to everybody as soon as we can uh typically it's pretty fast but we are uh our dance card is getting full quickly don't let that scare you let's go we are we are in this thing we're excited we're saving people money we're bringing community together i want to tell you keep your calendars open september the first we are going to have our nara connect independent restaurant show where

10:47we're going to have all of our vendors uh are going to be there uh just set up a new vendor true uh it's called travador and this is a rum there is a double barrel aged rum and a silver rum and it is um it's a nashville based thing it's actually based uh from you are here hospitality another nara member which includes east side bon meat east side fuss suiza suiza super quesadilla fly pelican fly uh so many amazing locations there um and golden prawn number three i almost forgot about them but this is their rum they worked with raul malo from the mavericks and uh tragically he passed away but they're keeping it going this is a nashville rum and it is from what i hear it's delicious obviously i haven't tried it but they are going to be at the september the first event they are uh distributed by lipman brothers so if you're looking for an awesome rum and you want to support local please help chad and gracie and their whole team out and purchase trovado um that's t-r-o v-a-d-o-r trovador they're awesome uh that's uh that's it that's up for the ads we're gonna have a lot of ads i want to get everybody on this one so thank you for listening and uh you are listening to nashville restaurant radio yep first time became a fan at nine well he was in denver colorado and i snuck backstage well there wasn't really a backstage i just when i saw him give the this to the band i figured this is going to be my only chance ever to meet him so he comes off stage and this is you know this is during the second comeback so he was filling arenas again yeah uh and he had the carter family the

12:49statler brothers carl perkins i mean it was the whole show i mean the whole stage was this giant troupe and he was you know at the peak still you know that thin the big hair the you know all that stuff and i discovered him when i heard live at folsom prison i talked my parents into buying the album and they had no idea what it was about so i used to go in my room and i'd lock the door and play it and stand next to the record player because you know here's their nine-year-old son listen to i can't forget the day i shot that bad bitch down and you know cocaine blues and shot a man in reno just to watch him die so uh we were in new mexico at the time living in new mexico and my dad found out about a concert and my dad claimed to couldn't stand johnny cash my mother you know she was neutral on it so i went there and we were by the time we got tickets we were like in the next to the spotlight operators and when i i asked my dad can i go down and take a picture of johnny cash and he says yeah go ahead and here's the i mean the first time i've ever seen him but i worship the guy i mean you know the posters the magazines at the time he was the hottest thing in the world musically and by the time i got down to the stage i raised my camera and he finished he was finishing uh orange blossom special and actually handed me one of the harmonicas sealed the deal so then at the end he's coming off stage and i run you know i saw two big metal doors they were open there was a limousine i'd never seen a limo in my life i came from a small town so i said that must be johnny cash's car so if i run and get in front of that you know he's gonna have to see me so here he comes off stage one police officer two police officers by the time they get into the the hallway there's three on each side six uniformed cops all with their hands on their guns and they're walking toward me walking toward me it was a long walk and it all of a sudden it gets like slow motion you know when you're in a movie go no you're getting shot and everything's slow motion and they keep coming closer and closer and closer and find it's

14:53like stop and these cops are looking at each other and cash is standing there and i can't talk i mean i i found out you know when people say have you stars in your eyes it's true there's such a thing as stars in your eyes i saw like fireworks and here was cash my hero standing there looking down on me everybody look at me i can't talk i can't move so cash puts his hand on my shoulder picks up my other hand he said hey son how you doing what's your name and i said billy and he said billy thank you so much for coming to the show so honored to meet you i still couldn't talk so they stepped around me and went in and that was it that was the first encounter and then i was active in the fan club and they appointed me the teen editor for probably the other three or four teens that might have been members in those days because johnny cash wasn't exactly you know flavor of the day he was in team beat yeah yeah it was sean cassidy and david cassidy and you know the jacksons and all those people but so so you know i i would go backstage and then finally cash's manager said well i don't think we're gonna be able to get rid of him so one day i walked backstage and you know before it was i had to have a letter and show it to the guard and half the time the girl go ah you know get out of here so one time i went backstage and handed an envelope said johnny cash show personnel admit backstage so now i took that pass and wherever i wanted to go i got in and that began you know we had a 35 year friendship shannon and i my wife were with him at the house in the lake about 10 days before he passed so we got a really great last visit with he was the man never never will anybody walk the earth like that guy i mean he was just the greatest kindest most humble just really really cool man that's incredible i um there are millions of stories in between did that whole experience with johnny cash change the way that you understood

16:55like celebrity um you know storytelling just the presence of being around so what did that change for you you know such a young age like i said the first encounter was you know really weird because here he was and i'm sure that you both have heard people say when when johnny cash walked in the room it's just like you know the air was sucked out of the room and i don't care who it was like you know i've been with i've been with by virtue of who he was every celebrity in the world wanted to come backstage and meet johnny cash and invariably they would just be like blown away just like i was he just had this gravitas yeah it just enters the room and he didn't walk and go you know i'm johnny cash you know come on come on he would just walk in and he was disarming because he was so humble you know in in all those years i never saw him uh turn away a fan no matter he was feeling good or bad when john lennon was assassinated he used to call me when i lived in california bill what are you doing i'm mowing the lawn right now well how long would it take you to get down to newport beach fashion island i had a business there i said well depending on traffic i'll you know i'll stop mowing the lawn and i'll get on my way down there right now and you know he would he would like to walk around in the mall in malls well fast down to nice mall it's very nice but i asked him i said you know with what happened with john lennon you know do you feel like you should have security because he never had security outside of venue and i'll never forget he he stopped and looked at me and he you know very seriously goes he said bill i don't ever want security coming between me and my fans and that that's what i saw for 35 years that's the guy i knew wow damn okay so you were in california when did you move have you always been here and you moved did you live in newport beach because i used to live in laguna no we live very familiar with the area part of town called corona not oh yeah on the other side of the jetty corono no del mar yeah california the ie as they say the 951 the 909 you know that's where we can only aspire to live where you live we're in laguna hills okay well that's that's still it was born in

18:58michigan well you're entitled it was good that was great you're one of those guys well we've lived here california's that everybody complains about i'm not we are not the poor guy who came in a wagon train to open a little little museum stand we moved here in 1988 okay so i've been here for 37 years you've earned i just go back and visit now but i still remember you know surfing 52nd street you know i mean like i my grandparents lived in costa mesa so we would it was a whole thing so i've been coming here since 73 i came to my first fanfare which is now this giant commercial thing yeah and that was my first my first trip to nashville and i remember that my parents put me on a plane in palm springs alone and i flew all the way from palm springs to nashville took a cab to the ramada inn which where i was staying and checked in i don't know how all that worked you know i don't have a memory of what happened but i know there's no adult there to check me in i just got off the plane took a cab and got there and then the fan club leadership you know who were all you know 50 60 years older than me came to pick me up to take me downtown because it was at the uh the memorial auditorium down here that that that in 1973 was there the municipal auditorium was called the memorial auditorium okay so i remember when we got off on broadway they said billy put your head down and of course and of course you know if i listen to a record of you know 10 feet away from my parents i'm gonna peak and you know it was all and porn i mean it was it was bad uh you know we we uh had our third anniversary celebration at sinatra on saturday and rubel sanderson you know rubel and brenda of course sat next to me and he pulled out this little business card of the sugar shack which is where the stage used to be and it was a massage parlor and if you saw what was on this card i mean it would be with the pun intended maybe maybe not it would blow you away there's a there's still a sign

21:00at the stage that says ladies do your do a discretion you know we will massage every muscle i mean it was just again fun in your face it was so on your face but but you know that's what broadway was and you know i never i never saw another version of one you know but i'd come back but i never never came to broadway and then in the summer i came back here for an internship on a tv program called grand old gospel time which was live from the grand ol opry was reverend jimmy snow who had evangel temple church on dickerson road that's where everybody went that's you know dolly went there johnny went there christopher's who went there gatlin went there uh connie smith all of the all the celebrities went there he was the son of hank snow of i'm moving on fame okay canadian ranger i was like so the day after i graduated from high school my girlfriend at the time and i drove from eagle mountain california to good 2000 mile drive excited about the job got here and the producer said oh by the way i did tell you this is an unpaid position now i'm 2 000 miles away one you know one day out of high school graduation and here i am and you know what i did is i lived on the snow had the stack of shoney's coupons good for a cheeseburger or a hamburger and a salad bar and i cannot tell you you know how many times i went through that line but it was it and you know it was really good in those days or at least it was good when you're you know your only other option was starving we would go to shoney's and do the breakfast bar every week after church that was like our family tradition it was every week we'd go to shoney's right there on uh 96 and franklin it was uh it was it was good eating to me back when i was 12 i was really happy all the bacon i could eat it was oh man too was that it was pretty good at 18 too heck yeah okay we have not done a formal introduction here uh we have been talking

23:00with bill miller bill miller is the ceo of icon entertainment uh welcome to national restaurant radio well thank you i've been listening for a long time and when i saw tom's interview i thought you know i'm gonna call him and give everybody a pat on the back because it was very good thank you so much well we um obviously there's been a lot of of things happening in nashville over the past 10 years but in the last six months really with this new assessor coming in and and everything skyrocketing and people's property taxes and just the state of what nashville is for small businesses there's been a lot more interest in downtown i think downtown is really where it got hit in davidson county here with these huge assessments so yeah barrett hobbs has been on we've been talking to all kinds of different people about this and i'm really excited i want to talk about a lot of stuff today and i'm happy to get into that stuff um for those who don't know you uh when you describe yourself today uh what would you say you actually do you know i'm a i'm a guy who who came here to open a museum for my hero johnny cash having no experience in a museum um you know we ended up buying that building we rented 3 000 square feet and shannon and i were at home one day i go i don't know what i've done we've signed a 10-year lease for this building in nashville we've never built a museum we never operated a museum now we actually have to hire employees 2 000 miles away we know what that can you know what can happen with that so we sent my youngest son out him and his wife they were 18 so they kind of ran the gift shop and we had four people for probably a year or so there what year did you open the cash museum it'll be it'll be 13 years this may 29th right and they're gonna they're they're naming our portion of the block from demumbrian through broadway johnny cash way so that's kind of cool they'll do that on the 29th which will be the 13th anniversary so so we came here and

25:03you know the real estate agent said well uh got the lease ready for you and i'm going through the lease and it goes option to purchase and i go mickey i don't know if i'm gonna be able to pay the rent much less buy this building are you crazy you know my hands are trembling i'm 2 000 miles away if this doesn't work i'm dead we're all dead so she goes it doesn't cost anything just leave it in there you never know and i'm thinking oh i know ain't ever gonna happen so we open the museum day one there is a line all the way around the block up to honky tonk central and it's never stopped so 18 months later we exercise the option and we went from leasing 3 000 square feet to owning a 27 000 square foot building in downtown nashville and i don't have investors it's you know it's me and my family in the bank so you know we we don't want to have that pressure of you know being responsible for others people money because you know i i can sleep if things get tough but if if i have people who can lose whatever they invest or everything invested i can't sleep so so we we opened that building and i bought a couple tenants out so we could put our offices there and we expanded the gift shop and then ultimately expanded the museum so that that by now we're doing 9 000 square feet there and then uh a friend of mine uh what's her name shannon paul their name was on the building it's a record store lawrence records paul lawrence but i i think that came after nudie's building uh i try to keep everything chronological no i i like that actually if i get if i get off the rail i will never find my way back so so we used to take these johnny cash museum discount coupons they look like a one dollar bill with johnny's head where george washington goes didn't have to change this part because johnny wore ruffles and you know george washington and abraham lincoln you know they dress just like johnny cash so one day you know i'm going down there and and they only opened when they wanted to they had no air conditioning uh i think the most recent stock they had was probably you know

27:08late 80s maybe you know dave and sugar and you know the worst of the osmonds or stuff like that so you know it was more that their parents owned the building since the 60s and don't get me wrong they're really really nice people but you know you're you're competing with the earnest hub record shop which you know we don't get in that right now but you know that was the place that tourists from around the world came so lawrence records just a few doors down wasn't a real wasn't a big deal compared to earnest hub so they were just kind of biding their time there there were eight children who owned the building and a friend of mine who was johnny cash fan was was close friends with the family and she said i think that paul is ready to sell the building and i said well i'm gonna you know make up a reason to take down some of those johnny cash one dollar bills and i'll ask him so i went in and he said well i've got an offer already uh from somebody who owns a lot of real estate down here and you know at the same time i don't have any funding lined up i'm just you know playing a little poker so he said that uh you know i've accepted an offer and and i i just became obsessed because i thought you know what we've done so well with with the cash museum and now we own this building i really want this building i want to do one of those honky tonks and you know at the time there hadn't been a new honky tonk for probably 10 years i mean it was status quo so i was really bummed but i was obsessed he goes if things change i'll let you know so i'm like every two days have things changed oh nothing and then one time i asked and he said well you know the guy's funding fell through so if you wanted it's yours 5.75 million dollars and i remember we were going to with friends to virginia and they had a cabin up in the mountains where you know the reception was just horrendous and i called my banker before i left and left a message and i said i got this building i want to buy and by then i'd sniffed around a little bit and i saw that there was about you know almost three million dollars in equity based on what that thing was really worth so he said well you know how am i going to do this

29:09you don't have any experience in bars or hospitality we love what you did with the museum and you know i always told him it's not me it's johnny cash so he used that against me you know it's it's not you it's johnny you know that's what they'll do right so i remember he finally got a hold of me in this i was literally a window like this that opened hanging out of the window to be able to hear what he said and he said well i could you know i said i said i could just tell you there's three million reasons you want to make me this loan that equity and he said okay we'll do it and we did it and that's how nudies was born you know i i didn't have nudies uh in mind at first but i thought you know let's make it because you know i love museum let's make it a museum let's wrap a museum around a bar and that was the concept are you a big fan of the hard rock cafe like that style because that to me is like a museum wrapped around the bar was 25 years ago 30 years ago when the hard rock was gritty and you know you walked in there and you had joan jett's crunchy bandana wristband yeah willie nelson's smelly dirty high tops and you know and now it's you know a bunch of manufactured gold records and i'm not knocking them but i think their success speaks for itself lately uh you know i'm surprised that they're reopening the hard rock hotel in vegas that was a shock i think that anything you grow that big that fast you have that kind of success it's hard to keep that you know core grit the founder is a really good friend of ours isaac tygritt and he's a regular here at sinatra and when he was in charge you know he also founded house of blues when he was in charge i mean it was all about grit you know he tells the story of the first hard rock they opened in london and i think eric clapton came in you know we can plug in different names but as somebody of eric clapton's caliber came in and brought a guitar and said you know i want you to hang my guitar right there and then a couple days later somebody like george harris and you know again somebody that helped walked in they go you know what's that and he go with eric clapton and then he goes and gets a guitar and brings it back that's how it started you know one musician said why the hell should he have a guitar i want a guitar so so you

31:13know when people stopped giving they had to buy things and that's when and i actually owned a company in california hard rock was one of my best companies we had auctions of celebrity memorabilia and you know they bought everything from from me from madonna's bustier to you know rare gold records buddy holly's glasses so you know i have a lot of respect for hard rock and and definitely hard rock was my inspiration to start collecting memorabilia because you know you look at a pair of willie's dirty smelly tennis shoes sitting on a coffee table you just kind of repulsed by it but but when it's in this beautiful shadow box with velvet and gilt and it's got the spotlight on it you go this belongs you know in moma this should be you know in the louvre so i thought you know instead of buying stuff you know and hiding it under your bed in a shoe box and never getting it this stuff can be displayed and became art so i i the the business in fashion island newport beach was called odyssey gallery and all of the documents and memorabilia was beautifully framed with plaques so you know instead of coming in and buying you know a t-shirt that kurt cobain won you throw it in these beautiful frames and not worn but not one but worn these beautiful frames and all of a sudden it's hard and it's an it you know in many cases it's an investment too so definitely hard rock i mean in terms of hanging memorabilia on the wall i mean they they are the ones that started it all so absolutely they had an influence uh and and again when you couple that with the museum experience it was just a natural for us we wanted something that you know we knew you could go to 100 places and you know get a get a good drink and some food but what we're going to do to be to be different and not copy and and at the same time do something that was authentic and had meaning to nashville since you know he nudie dressed the first cowboy ever starting with tex williams in texas and then he went on and you know his customers range from johnny cash to elvis to it's actually easier to say who he didn't dress than who he did because the list is incredible john wayne elton john i

33:17mean it's wow he's got an amazing legacy so that's the story behind nudies and how that came i'm curious about something like what do you think separates you from the people who talk about doing stuff like this and you actually doing it is there a there's a there a aversion to fear i mean where where does this come from lack of brains you know it's it's it's you know i would say i'm impulsive and compulsive you know when we were doing this space here you walk through and you see you know antiques that are truly you know museum worthy uh and once i got started i couldn't stop and we had a building on second avenue and the first level is 5 000 square feet packed with antiques you could hardly walk through it and oriental rugs because once i got started in these hawks i go well i'm gonna buy this one thing and then something comes up you go that's really cheap i'm gonna buy it oh my god that thing's worth 10 grand and it's only 600 i'm gonna buy it and i kept doing that and doing that and doing that and you know yeah we had a beautiful collection for a while and i bought a cabin recently that johnny cash designed and built on a mountain in hendersonville it's not the cash recording studio but it was built by the same builder who built johnny's house on the lake and we had quite a bit of leftover furniture and johnny and june collected antiques like you see here european heavily carved you know things of that nature and and there were pieces that that my wife said i think that would be perfect for the cabin and it's a custom cabin i mean it was built with materials you know pre-civil war i've never seen anything like it sits on the top of a mountain six acres we started watching crime tv there because we couldn't get cable i'm sitting there one night going you know what the police don't even know where this place is and we're sitting here watching people get murdered by people coming through the woods and walking through and so so we're sitting there but but

35:19there were pieces of furniture and we're talking pieces that are two three four hundred years old that that fit like they were made for where they went i mean you know it's like you have two inches on either side but it looks like it was handcrafted there so you know it it's it's a passion and you know if whether it's an antique or a piece of real estate or a concept if it really grabs you not just you know i mean i mean the money is always the last thought because you know if you do something that's compelling enough hopefully you're gonna make you're gonna make money doing it now now the cost of entry is higher because you know you can look around and imagine what some of the stuff costs but i i would just say you know if you have a vision you feel strongly about it and then and shannon my wife and my three boys are in the business too so is it a business or is it something is it way more than that it's fun it's fun because i collect shoes and like i buy and sell random shoes so that i can afford my habit of buying shoes i can keep and wear but sometimes i just keep shoes and i just walk into my closet yeah like jordan's and things i go in my closet and i'm like that's a jordan 5 you know i had that when i was 12 years old i bought it from footlocker and now as a 47 year old yeah your wife says she's me she's i haven't you have enough effing shoes is what she says or look at this one's worth oh this is a good investment she didn't care oh she doesn't care i'm sorry i know right but but for me it's like i love wearing a bit still like i love going into the closet and sometimes i'll just sit and look at my shoes it's possessing are you that way too like you walk around here and see things just go oh and just can you stop and smell the roses because it is a business but also to you it feels like it's different anything that makes me feel good that brings back memories now keep in mind i wasn't around the 1800s but i love i love beautiful things but if you look if you open my safe you'll find the very first mad magazine which is you know highly collectible

37:23you'll find a postmarked envelope for apollo 11 that shows the apollo 11 flight signed by the three that went there and it was actually flown to the surface of the moon it's got quarantine stamps so you'll find out you'll find you own this you'll find a creature from the black lagoon original one sheet uh you'll find you know i mean you know whatever whatever makes me happy what do you think about these things he's happy doing it he doesn't bother me about my shoe collection there you go okay her shoes are depreciating as we're sitting here my stuff is going to value so so if we can't pay the property taxes i just take one of those things and sell it life is good again i think everything stems from a passion if if if you know i don't think you can be an entrepreneur and be fearful because all you're going to do is you know lose sleep and ultimately you know lose track of your business uh do what you love do it with people you love that's the most important thing you know you don't want you don't want to walk into your place just oh god you know i like these people they're just you know they're they're liabilities they're you know they're numbers we're we're like one big family and i think between the you know 1099 employees the musicians the magicians the dancers you know we're pushing seven or eight hundred people that are responsible for being sure they get paid and you know during covid we kept the uh the kitchen open at the former you want to talk about my one failure at the former johnny cash bar and barbecue which started out as the kitchen and saloon we kept that kitchen open in three days a week during covid we would prepare three course meals for every single employee and contractor and their families and there was you know angela was there and shannon was there and we you know we'd take these you know styrofoam containers run them out to the to the curb to our employees and i think what's more important than the food was just that contact during covid you know everybody else is locked out of their places on broadway and all of our

39:27people could say you know well you know bill and shannon are still here the kids are still here you know that makes us feel good we we kind of feel like there's going to be something to come back to so you know it was it was the gesture of caring about them we wanted to be sure that that they didn't have the extra stress of you know having to feel you know find out where the next meal comes from and then every other time they came we'd give them a ten dollar gas card because i didn't want them to come out of pocket you know to drive and pick up the food but it was it's very thoughtful you know it you know none of us experienced anything like covid and and i don't think we ever will again at least i won't they can take me away in handcuffs i'm not shutting down knowing what i know now uh i should have bought stock in amazon though you know just my purchases alone would have catapulted it but no i i think you know if if i was fearful if i overthink things if you let other people talk you out of things they'll do their best because sometimes people you know well you've been successful in everything you've done but you know maybe you shouldn't maybe you should just stay where you're at and there's you know i'm 66 so there's a temptation to do that and you know at times my family said you know maybe we should just leave well enough alone and stop where we're at but you know if the right if the right project comes along you know we feel like we we have a big enough variety of business types that we can kind of you know through our own businesses it's like a little microcosm on the entire market and you know the one thing that we opened that i was really you know sort of stepping back about was shulman's in east nashville because you know we're used to downtown nashville and when my son showed me the menu and the prices i said there's no way you know we can make any money with these prices you've got you know and then you know you uh you you've got legacy customers you know been here two weeks but they're here every single night and you know we like to buy around once in a while and so so now we're buying rounds and you know having five dollar hamburgers and three dollar beers and then

41:33on fridays they do you know 40 ounce miller beer they call it four dollar 40s so you come in and you you know at three at 359 everybody's standing there and you know at four at four o'clock there's a four dollar 40 on every table yeah there should be but what that taught me is that you know there are other markets within the nashville market and shulman's is really really highly profitable does very well has a extremely loyal following and it's fun i mean you go in there it's like every man's bar and you know you never i'm not going to name celebrity names but you never know who'll be there but some of some really big names and they go there because nobody bothers them and they also go there because they're treated the same there's one who's a major a-lister was gonna have a birthday party and and we're we never close that was a commitment that my son's made and we never close never uh unless you know nes screws us on electricity going out and then we have to close but uh the celebrity the handler said you know she's coming and we'd like to rope off an area and we said we don't do that you know we also don't do buyouts because again that's technically closing so they said well you know you realize publicity value in this and they go you know she's a regular radio so it's nothing's going to change and then you know i said well you know if you're stanching it off an area that's causing creating more attention anyway so now the focus is going to be there so sometimes you wonder you know is that what they want yeah i mean i know i can speak from experience shulman's is my favorite burger i just gotta say that the other day because i'm a i'm a redheaded stranger green chili burger guy myself which i think is fantastic he's like there's shulman's all day yeah i just had one last friday you know it's really interesting talking to you because i didn't know kind of what to expect i've never met you in person before you have you own all these kind of pun intended iconic places but i didn't know where

43:33to go with the interview and it seems like it brought me a ketchup branded ketchup especially heinz you know heinz is a big deal yeah that's the first one that's ever done that so as i can so as yeah well usually it's a 500 dollar bottle of whiskey or something but i i appreciate i brought you two t-shirts also that nobody has you know so 50 50 or collector items if you want well there's paulie in there no you seem curious passionate and fearless and i see that in a lot of the things you're talking about your business in costa mesa and then you're coming here and i've never owned a museum hey we've never owned a bar i want to do something that's not just a bar where you're hiring somebody who's going to look at a pnl and it's going to be based around bar cost you're like no i want to create an experience one of the questions i had for you as at what point did you realize you weren't just opening venues you're opening destinations but i think that's the thing people say if you do what you love you never work a day in your life and it seems like you're following trends of things that you're passionate about and that you love and you you want to share it with people yeah like i love talking about shoes with people and when you have bars and restaurants and museums you can go in there and your genuine enthusiasm can be infectious and i bet it keeps you feeling young hey i'm matthew clements with robin's insurance agency you know before i got into insurance i worked in the hospitality space so i do understand firsthand how tough it can be to keep things running smoothly now i love to help business owners like you protect what you've built and whether it's a restaurant bar hotel catering operation i know the risks you're up against and how to cover them properly this isn't a one-size-fits-all coverage i'm going to help you find a policy that actually fits your operation your staff and your budget so you can focus on serving guests not stressing about what ifs it's an ever-changing market anything could go wrong if you want to work with someone who knows hospitality from the insides and out reach out to me call my cell phone

45:39863-409-9372 or go to robinsins.com super source develops and distributes high quality cleaning products and supplies as well as delivers wear wash housekeeping laundry programs and food service training they partner with restaurants golf and country clubs hotels and resorts schools universities and health care institutions save time and money and reduce inventory by utilizing their high quality products and engaging with their highly trained service specialists if you're looking for wholesale cleaning products like dish machines in nashville tennessee they have you covered listen guys this is way more than a dish machine and chemical company they do not make you sign a contract they earn your business every single week and let me tell you i will personally vouch for jason ellis and his entire team over at super source if you want a dish machine and chemical company like this give them a call 770-337-1143 and if you are a member of the nashville area restaurant alliance make sure you tell them that you get the special nara pricing are you one of those people who's always on the hunt for the next restaurant location you open any sweet deals on retail space that may come your way why not be proactive and have the market experts out there working for you the retail team at lee and associates led by miller chandler and megan glazier is your go-to for all things commercial real estate in middle tennessee they're located downtown in the heart of it all in the batman building miller is a tennessee native so you know he knows the neighborhoods and demographics and megan is a california transplant who brings fresh perspective as she fully embraces the music city culture they use the best prop tech like placer ai and esri to analyze the data while also leveraging their own industry knowledge and relationships to find and negotiate a killer deal for you if you're one of those people and you'd like to get a hold of them their office number is 615-751-2340 or better

47:46yet you can call them directly to get your conversation started on your next restaurant location you can reach miller chandler at 615-473-2452 or megan glazier at 760-846-6193 that is the retail team at lee and associates give them a call today you can also visit them at the retail team.com running a restaurant is tough staff turnover rising cost and the endless tasks that bog you down and take you away from what you love let adams keegan lighten that load their privately held tennessee-based restaurant and hospitality focused outsourced hr payroll and benefits firm the team at adams keegan removes the administrative burdens of hr administration payroll benefits management garnishments unemployment claims compliance 401k and so much more from their proprietary hris platform to seamless payroll and competitive benefits that keep your team smiling they've got you covered adams keegan lets you focus on what you do best creating unforgettable dining experiences while they handle the rest essentially think of adams keegan as your back office hr department right here in music city one of the many things i love about adams keegan is that unlike big publicly traded companies out there they have an incredibly 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 that's adamskeegan.com for your free hr consultation and see how they can create a customized solution to help your restaurant thrive like the other night we had well you make me feel so young oh that's a sinatra tune um the other night we had the sinatra opening and you know we had

49:50and none of these people charged us to come and sing we had chris isaac here uh chris came and sang and mandy barnett and crystal gale and you know a host of other people and you know what's really weird is that they know who i am which is shocking because you know when they when they got off stage obviously so generous with their time you know these people don't just go out and sing on street corners and when i approached them they called me by name well hi bill and you know i i'd met crystal and and uh mandy years ago but you know just those momentary encounters where you wouldn't think they'd remember you and then there there are guests who will ask our maitre d you know hey can i say hi to bill and i go to the table and it's always fun because you know they're saying we you know we've been looking for something like this or we're from new jersey and we feel like we're at home or we're from nashville and never thought we'd have anything like this and that's what keeps you going and and when people when you see people looking around and and you know when a regular brings guests from out of town and they take them on a tour of sinatra and they show now that these three paintings frank sinatra did and this picture is that you know they're they become our ambassadors and there's one lady uh tory who has eaten here i mean a full reservation not just a piece of shrimp at the bar 121 times and you know she comes to everything so so things like that well you know people love things like that it's like one big family you know we we have we have people who are regulars and they're always posting and a lot of them have become friends but yeah when you when you see people's well so this this place that we're in here is a members only club and it's the one thing that i i felt so confident about that i just go you know what people are going to die when they walk in and especially at night when everything's set people are going to die when they walk in there is nothing like it not only in nashville there's nothing like it in the world

51:52and you know some people shake their heads and but uh was it glamour magazine one of the big fashion magazines they were doing a story on nashville and she said in the article when the elevator door opened i audibly gasped and i said that's exactly what i was looking for i think i did the same thing yeah i was like whoa you know i i love that you know the food and beverages is top notch but you know let's face it especially with all these new restaurants opening and there's a lot of great ones you know we go we go and check them out so you know i'm not going to say it's easy to have great food and beverage you know what you're doing it's it can be easy but when you create an environment where the food is secondary um it says a lot when people just want to come and sit here they go you know i can i can eat an 80 steak anywhere but i can sit here and you know feel like i'm in palm springs in new jersey and i've got these you know these crooners who are doing frank songs uh you know that that to me is an accomplishment because i'm not competing with anybody on food i'm competing with people uh and i don't i never look over my shoulder you know and say look what they're doing we should do that but you're competing with people who are very experienced especially some of these big groups are coming into town and you know we'll we'll see where that all ends up i mean there there's only so much saturation that can take place before you know it floods but you know we don't we don't look at any of that i'm happy for anybody who wants to bring anything to nashville but we're not gonna we're not gonna look at people and go we should be doing that too we you know like i said you take your eye off the ball and you know all kinds of bad things can happen i couldn't agree more how where do you think we're at as far as that flood i mean do you think that are we defcom 3 i mean like where do you think we are you know i would i would definitely have some patches

53:55for my canoe you know if you were ready and and you know a lot of these restaurant tours a lot of these groups are coming from chicago now now chicago has probably five or ten of the top grossing restaurants in the united states you know you have maple and ash which is doing 40 million dollars right across the street you have gibson's doing 30 some odd million so we had their saturday night and we and we do we always go there too we go to gibson's i love the hog salt uh uh concepts there tradida is let us entertain you it's in the top of the of the saint regis so you know a lot of those guys are used to you know 20 million dollar years 30 million dollar and you know it's gonna be hard to happen here i remember when acme did 15 million dollars 15 1 5 after they opened and everybody was like whoa we never thought we'd see that happen here in nashville and i don't know that you're ever going to see a 25 or 30 million dollar restaurant here i just don't see it especially the competition it's an entirely different market as chicago as you know at 10 o'clock you know people are just coming out to eat here at 10 o'clock you're done out so it's an entirely different market uh in in chicago the hospitality tends to be concentrated in you know like three areas river north and what they call the viagra triangle which is what you know that story no it's it's literally if you if you google it's called the viagra triangle where you ate because that's where all the old guys and their bentleys show up looking for for the we walked out and there was a bentley yeah right i was like i like that mac black bentley and with you know spray tan but literally if you google it the viagra trend triangle it defines that area that's funny so i think that you know it started with broadway it's like the the you know the california gold rush and i think the biggest difference is and again i brought this up and i'm not addressing i don't pay anybody or any industry with a broad

55:59brush so you know i'm not singling out individuals or tagging individuals i'm just saying as a general rule if you're coming to a new market and you've got investors drooling oh we've heard about nashville that's the it city there's no way you can't make money man i mean you know the the cash drawers are overflowing first of all the average person has no idea what our margins are and if they did they would never invest in a restaurant it's you know the ice storm can put somebody out of business you know when when you're when you're depending on a weekend and then none of your employees show up it's a huge hit so so yeah exactly we need you know every minute we can get so the difference is you've got all these rich investors who've invested in your successes in other cities and now you're talking nashville we're going to go to nashville and build this venue you know we're going to spend 30 million dollars building it well it's not my money it's those guys it's those rich guys so if it doesn't work out you know i'm indemnified i'm you know everybody you've signed the 50 page circular if it doesn't work out doesn't work out and if i get a little tight on cash i'm going to i'm going to do a capital call i can't do that you know what i'm going to do shannon so one of those persons depreciating it's worth nothing anymore you know what i'm saying so so when you're not signing personal guarantees which encumber everything you own your house you know your everything uh your bank accounts when you're not doing that you can be a little more fearless because if it doesn't work out that's that's business folks so i think that's what's happening there's all this outside capital coming in and i think there will be a day of reckoning i think there's already a day of reckoning when people open these new bars and you know 24 hours later they're for sale what do you what do people think is happening in nashville this gold rush i mean if you have that much money how do you not have the sense to see that something won't work

58:05i feel like how i mean i don't know the guys that own prime and proper just open here in the grand hyatt but i mean you got 150 000 in meat hanging in a showroom style dry aging full wagyu loins every light was custom made i mean i have no idea what they spent on that place but i have no idea how you make enough money build down start cheap and especially now you know um we we do all of our design i mean we use an architect and engineer strictly for mechanical and structural stuff you know nobody nobody has input on what something's going to look like but yeah i mean you can spend a million dollars just in design fees and then you know and and that's just the beginning uh permitting uh but but again if it all goes under you know all of these investors there are accredited investors so you know they walk into it saying i could lose 150 000 and and they have that expectation but and i haven't done this but you know traditionally this is the thing when you go to mom and dad and say mom you know can you help me out talk to dad and he gives you half his ira and then the business doesn't succeed then that's a serious problem so i think you know when it's opm obviously you know what do you got to lose and and if it's if it works you got everything to gain but but a lot of these arrangements provide for a guaranteed management fee whether the the business makes money or not so if you're collecting management fees and the investors are losing money i'm sure nobody wants that to happen but you know you're sort of insulated but when it's you and the bank you know i can't go to the bank and go hey you know been slow we need to make new arrangements yeah how does this affect local restaurants i mean if you're like a local restaurant owner and you are like yourself you're in buildings you're talking to people you're visiting tables you're looking at a pnl you're placing orders you got a chef maybe that you're working with or maybe you are the chef and the owner and you've got

01:00:06a general manager you're trying to figure this out and then this place next door opens up how do i even compete in a city like nashville if i'm a locally owned and operated restaurant i mean you know we hear from those operators every day now and i think they feel betrayed i mean i i don't blame anybody for feeling betrayed because there's this there's this callousness that's prevalent in in government here i say betrayed by who i think betrayed betrayed by the government because we have these outrageous tax increases you know i mean our gift after covid uh in 2020 and whenever that was 2021 i think we had a 35 40 tax 34 so now we don't have covid but but the the market has slowed down remarkably you know there's nobody on broadway anymore that's beating their chest you know saying i had the you know i had the best night ever you know we're all of us i don't care who it is nobody's immune uh have seen this slow down and and it's it's more with the honky tonks than it is with our fine dining place showman's you know seems immune it's it's lower broadway and and if you look at i don't want to get into the tax thing because everybody's beat that to death but if you look at the tax reappraisals of all the buildings on lower broadway you will see a definite trend you don't even you don't even have to interpret it bars were targeted bars were targeted look look at some non-bars some of the most prominent properties downtown and compare how they were assessed against kid rock you know kid rock went from three million dollar to 68 million dollar valuation 68 million good god my one building next to johnny cash museum you know you're not gonna feel sorry me after i sorry for me after i gave you that but you know we had our appraisal was six million it went to 22 million my property taxes went from 86,000 a year to 268,000 a year and there's no justification

01:02:10my sidewalks still have cracks in them you know it's still hard to get a cop to show up because they're understaffed we got bike lanes yeah we we got empty bike well you know that seems to be the argument those are good for jersey mics they got to get those sandwiches out but they're the only ones that use it or maybe they're you know one of the five people that are on these buses but you know we need we lower broadway has generated fully 38 percent of of nashville's tax base 38 percent and i don't know what these people are thinking when they minimize broadway especially people in government who should know better if we go under they got really big problems 38 percent of your budget is huge you know you can't just keep people those property taxes on so i think that that the locals and and you know let's not talk about just lower broadway but khalil arnold um you know people with legacy businesses that that have been here forever i think there's a sense of betrayal because because on one hand you have the mayor saying you know we're not gonna we're not gonna consider you know rolling back into these property taxes but we're considering a grant to starbucks who just got 30 million from the state now i can't figure that one out for the life of me you know during covid every business in tennessee was was given a grant of some sort if you asked for it now the the largest amount was thirty thousand dollars but thirty thousand dollars is better than nothing you know we got from metro not nothing an offer of nothing all we got from metro was you know we're gonna get on your hands and knees and you know you can have six more people in your 50,000 square foot bar so i think i think that you know those of us who have been here who really you know i mean we we there's a group of us on broadway we had you know covid posters printed and and you know we were like the pr machine wear your mask all this kind of stuff we never got a thank you like i said the only thing we got at the end of that was a property tax increase so i think i think local businesses when you look at the the big picture feel betrayed

01:04:15and and i can see that it is a betrayal that's a good answer i i can see that too what do you think it is about the local government that that seems to have something in on lower broadway i mean it almost feels like there's a jealousy or an envy or something that you guys get to have fun all the time and i have to be a politician and act like i'm not doing all the shit that i'm doing on the side but it's like they have everything it's like no no no no like we've worked for this this is not something that just happened to you if you're a restaurant owner looking for a new low-risk way to drive traffic and incremental revenue you need to hear about shared spirits shared spirits is a marketplace where guests purchase drinks online and then come into your restaurant to redeem them think of it as a pre-paid beverage demand that shows up at your door new guests repeat guests and zero guesswork for restaurants this isn't discounting or deal chasing you control what you offer how it's redeemed and when it's available shared spirits helps turn online purchases into real butts in seats giving guests a reason to choose your place next it's especially powerful during slower periods off nights or as a way to introduce new guests to your bar program without changing your menu or compromising your brand if you want a smarter way to bring people through the door increase bar traffic and create moments that convert into loyal regulars shared spirits is worth a look meet your guests before they even walk in with shared spirits sign up at sharedspirits.com guys if there's some area in your restaurant that you can do things at a less expensive way you want to be kind of cheaper because you're cutting costs i understand there are many opportunities for that one of the areas you do not want to do that is when you have your hoods and exhaust cleaned a subpar job in that regard could cause a kitchen fire and then you're out of business for a long time not to mention people could get hurt that is why we recommend kitchen guard they've been operating since 2009

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01:08:26one 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 and b linen they're out of waynesboro tennessee and they don't charge any fees so the linen price that you have whatever that first linen price is that's your price and so you may say well every year they must raise the price on this seven-year contract right no because 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 uh 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 uh i'm gonna post pictures on my instagram you can go find them and you can see how absolutely gorgeous this is to the point that they even wash and sanitize every one of their used laundry carts it's just absolutely amazing if you're looking for a linen company you can trust who wants to earn your business every single week go back and listen to our episode with jason cruz the owner of cnb linen hear it from his straight from his mouth exactly what they do or you give them a call at 9 3 1 7 2 2 76 16 or you can dm me at brandon still on instagram for my exclusive pricing through the nashville area restaurant alliance i don't think that there is a single bar owner in broadway and you can walk them down the street and pull them that that has ever felt appreciated by metro you know it i think a lot of us have always just kind of felt that they'd be happy if we all went away i don't know why i don't i don't know why there's been so much that foreigners on broadway have done yeah yeah i mean

01:10:30we've done 85 of school taxes yeah we've done all we can we've done all we can and as far as i'm concerned we've done all we will you know there's only so much that you can give and it breaks my heart when i see you know operators who literally are losing sleep because unless something happens and i don't have high hopes that it will in time for a lot of people you're going to see a lot of operators closed down you know you got varela's chili across the street oldest restaurant in nashville over 100 years old they're gone they're gone gone i mean that's that's a shame you know when things like that happen and you know should government get involved in business hell no look what they've done so far it's like you know the saying when government says we want to help you run the other way um we can't count on that and and now there's talk of you know helping legacy businesses what does that mean and how much money is that who's you know so if i if i've been here 19 15 years yeah so if i've been here 14 and a half years i'm not going to be as appreciated as a guy who's been there for 50 there's just no sense no rhyme or reason roll back the property taxes and that will help anyway let's talk about something else yeah i mean okay let's talk um let's talk about let's talk about your restaurants let's talk about your business okay how does that sound we've that's a novel approach we've established that you are a passionate guy you love collecting things you love rarities you love beauty and you love to share that with other people so we were telling a story be careful she's my wife i don't share with anybody heard uh you opened the johnny cash museum it's been open 13 years uh you bought that building and then you i want to know the story behind house of cards i'm getting at you had nudie's longest bar in nashville was that something that you wanted to have like the distinction you know you gotta have a hook i mean is that the thing you gotta have a hook right you gotta have a hook the longest bar in nashville and we trademarked that just in case anybody got ideas

01:12:36to add an inch to their bar you're like you can't say it we got it how did house of cards what number was that in your house of cards came after nudie's right as a matter of fact we're kind of doing this we're almost doing them at the same time weren't we uh well nudie said open but we're doing patsy and house of cards at the same time god i'm a glutton for punishment so shannon his wife is sitting right off camera and she's she's our fact checker and and angela is over here too marketing hey angela they're just watching i forgot you guys are over there you've been with us for 12 years now yeah angela's been with us you know from the very beginning wow she has so much on us there's no way we could you know where the bodies are buried yes he's like yes i do i'll just remind you of that so you'll find you'll find out you'll find a common thread here so when you heard the johnny cat so when i was eight years old some friends in the little town that i lived in called eagle mountain california they were the pharmacist they said there's this place called magic castle in los angeles billy that we think you would really love now the magic castle is to magicians what the opry can i be cynical and snide and say used to be to a country artist what the grand old opry is to uh country artists so if you make it on the stage of the magic castle you you've arrived you know david copperfield's been there i mean any any magician any contemporary magician since the 60s that you can name the great ones have all been there are we running out of uh impacts uh we got plenty of that i just we're at the 55 minute mark i don't want i don't want to run over so i know so i went we're not running over we got to draw here i went to this place the magic castle it's like a 1830s victorian uh residence giant and walked through and saw this

01:14:36magic and you know just like what house cards has no tables like this where you can sit with a magician and you know the the memorabilia so when we bought the building the the basement we had would take on water anytime it rained so we're thinking oh this is this is only going to be stored there's also you know like 50 supporting beams columns in the place so we thought there's no way we could do it and and then we started thinking about it more and more and i had a friend who runs the omni hotel he goes bill you got to do something this is an incredible place and i'm going you know the ceilings are low it takes on water there's too many posts you know how do you flush a toilet uphill because you know you can't go down when you're in a basement and so shannon and i said let's do a magic castle version here and we said okay gave each other high fives went to sleep and then i go shannon are there magicians in nashville and it turned out they have a rather large community here so again something i really loved we took and and made into house of cards and and it's it's a fun place i mean i i love going there and i love taking guests there because again i'm not there seeing what people spend i am standing around watching the reactions you know when people lose it when their watches you know the magician's wearing their watch so it's all about the fun you know if it's about you know that's what keeps me that's what keeps me alive i mean i'll say this is a popular third or fourth date spot for me was always house of cards i gotta know why third or fourth date well i mean yeah i want to know why was well i'm engaged yeah and i did take her anniversary anniversary would be good too um well it's a little more upscale and i want to you know before i make that investment i need to make sure that it's somebody that i'm willing to make that investment for right he's calling dates investment he's a smart guy so so this your relationships were the current investment is paying

01:16:37off great so what do you expect after the date when you know you know you're oh just continued dates yeah okay all right just call me again i understand yeah you gotta qualify things these days yeah i thought you were i thought yeah i thought it was like that seems like a great first date spot but we're like if you get fooled by the magic she might think you're dumb or something and she takes three dates for her to think like actually see that i'm smart before i go like how did you take my watch off like he took it when you walked in you ate like i didn't know if there was like a no no she has to know me well before then yeah the other theory is there's so many distractions there you know she's not going to find any flaws so not your case i'm talking well see for me if i took a date there they would just go holy shit you're a giant because my head would be hitting the ceiling and then like ducking as i walked through and people would be asking me if i played basketball i actually had a friend he was he was marketing director for the rhyme and he was like what's he six six six seven i'm six six and i actually brought him in and had him walk the entire place just so he was headed and we were we're just barely there it's tight you let that hair get any longer and you won't qualify i love it um i really want to um i really want to i could keep going for literally hours this is this is much fun i we have to do a part two at some point i don't have all the time in the world next time i'll bring a bottle of booze then we can take all the time we want you yeah yeah i love it um what's that what is it i don't i'll bring a bottle of like a thc beverage are you guys doing thc beverages yeah man we have them here yeah i enjoy like a little five milligram or every once in a while i drink non-alcoholic beers or ted you know all that kind of stuff you drink bourbon right no you quit too that was that was my that was my that was bourbon that took me out really

01:18:38yeah we were talking we were at gibson's talking and i went i only drank bourbon like rock or neat like it was like that was it and i loved it i was only ever adversely affected by bourbon and tequila and vodka and wine and beer that's it gin other than that i'm good that's it though these are good things um well i i definitely appreciate this opportunity to talk to you most of my each other we've been i know on facebook and stuff and we've been communicating a lot and i've spent most of my career on broadway so just knowing you and your company and it is really uh a really good um the way you treat your people you have a really good reputation in town and i always appreciate that thank you well you know what without them there's no us not to be not to be cliche but you know i mean come on i can't fool myself i can put this together but you know what once once i once the staff steps in i don't care how good it looks if you treat horribly they're going to walk out with a bad taste so you know smoking mirrors do not always work they do in house of cards but at the end of the day the end of the day you have to deliver value and experience and you have to make you have to make your guests feel like family and we've really been successful that there are so many of them are just brand ambassadors posting and telling their friends and it's gratifying yeah i i'd say i'm a brand ambassador as well i have like nine more questions i want to ask you but i'm only going to ask you two of them or nine and i'll give you a two-word answer out of rapid fire yeah these are long these are longer questions that have long answers what matters less to you now than it did 13 years ago stuff even though we talk about all my collections and all that stuff what matters the most to you my family my grandchildren my three boys my wife i mean they you know they followed me here yeah three boys not entitled i mean when they came they all started working you

01:20:40know either in the bongo java copy coffee shop we have in the museum or you know taking tickets no one's entitled uh they're not the highest paid so they you know they they bought into the mission and that's you know it's a huge responsibility when i come out it wasn't like come on the gold mine is here all of us took risk including those three boys so those are really easy answers what still excites you guests being happy walking into a place and seeing it full with people smiling and and people of all ages sitting next to each other talking to each other where does that come from why why does that excite you is it just it's the grandmother that liked to cook and like always took care where does that hospitality i want to see other i told you i'll give you two words johnny cash i watched the way he treated his fans and i saw the joy that he got by just stopping and saying hello to somebody the joy they got expected him to just brush past them so if if i learned how to treat people it's it's johnny cash he was just magnificent human being who loved people and you know if you listen to his songs there's so many different stories you hear and he was an observer of people and that's what i like to do you observe your guests and sometimes you can find out if you're doing things right or wrong or you know you just it's all about people at the end of the day it's all about people maybe these are faster questions um what scares you you know i don't know that there's anything that scares me anymore you know i've been around a long time i spent 12 years as mayor of corona when i was 20 years old the youngest mayor so i don't you know i don't think i ever learned what scared is you know i'm not saying that i you know i walk out in the streets and there's a gang and i go come on and get me but you know there's there's nothing for me to be scared of right now so what did you say government oh well once you know i i let her american express bill sit for a few days before

01:22:45i open it so that's as close to fear as matter of fact as a matter of fact she lost her card and i got a call from american express and they're saying that these are unusual charging patterns would you like us to cancel the card and i said no they're spending way less than she does very very i wish i had my what legacy actually matters to you now you know i think i think our family legacy is what matters i've got three incredible sons and i know that you know at least one you probably know blake and jordan i honestly don't really well go to show all the time i think the legacy that you know that those three boys are so committed to this and shannon too and they're all in the business they're all in the business they're all will is uh co-ceo blake's in charge of food and beverage operations jordan is in charge of creative and construction all that kind of stuff and they're all totally unique separate individuals you know will was a staff sergeant in the u.s infantry so he's kind of a you know a solid serious guy amongst us but you know just just knowing that we came and we're able to accomplish this and you know when when someone has to be fired invariably they're still friends you know i still wish them happy birthday and they they write me back we bump into them we have a drink together and you know a lot of them just go you know it was my fault and many of them come back home you know i mean there are very few do not hires in our personnel files so i think the legacy is that these are honest people good people who really cared about not only operations but people who make everything happen and and that i think that's the best legacy you know when you at the end of the day i asked johnny cash once you know what what would you like on your gravestone because he made it clear he didn't want some giant

01:24:48monument you know he said uh here was a good man not the hits not the number of grammys just here was a good man at the end of the day i don't think there's anything better you can say about a person without qualifying it well i don't know if that answer is my final question which is when all of this is over what do you hope survives all of it is there more coming yes we have to do a part two all right i'm ready i will schedule this to the next time we can come down here i love it thank you for hosting us we are here at the southern turf club above sinatra which you probably haven't been to because it is a private club it is and it is gorgeous shannon you have a lot to do with this what's that yes i definitely want to walk around and check it out um this little neat little booth over here is is amazing you can see where we are this is the entire booth bill miller thank you so much for taking time today to speak with us it was an absolute pleasure getting to know you buddy ben sir we finally get to connect so this is a really good day this is great and you get a heinz ketchup with icon on it you can show that for the camera we were at the um you know the we were at the um the what is it called the nra show and we had the opportunity to have a heinz bottle made and i was like i don't what am i do who could i get a bottle made for it i was like we're gonna be talking bill miller tomorrow this is something i don't already have and that's hard to find and so that goes on the shelf with with all the expensive bourbons and stuff right i thought it was unique it is unique we've got that bottle of uh rip and winkle in there it's the uh one of the have you heard about it yeah uh one of the oldest unopened such bottles in the in the world uh distilled in 1916 bottled in the 30s when prohibition stopped and it actually has the medicinal purposes only label on the back so it's unopened maybe this could go next to that

01:26:50one of a kind kind of one of kind yeah i don't know if anybody else will give you one of those i don't think so so i'm gonna hang on to this uh again thank you so much it was an absolute pleasure come back and see us we will for sure all right thank you so much to bill miller for taking time out of your day and uh his lovely wife for taking time out of her day to join us uh for this interview it is now time for the gordon food service final thought and it's very similar to the final thought from last week that you know in this interview i didn't know what to think about it going into it and when i realized that this is a guy who's passionate about experiences he's passionate about really cool things i loved his story about the safe and what's in it safe and then all of the memorabilia from johnny cash and just walking through his restaurants and watching people's reaction uh i love the conversations about the hard rock cafe and what he wanted to do with nudies and just putting up all this really cool stuff because he loves it and he wants to share it with everybody and isn't that what we do you know if you like a song you want somebody to hear it if you like something you want to share that with other people and this man has made a living out of it and i'm willing to bet you if you go back to your roots there is something that you are passionate about if you go back to why we do this the thing i'm running into most when i'm meeting with restaurant owners is they're getting caught in the grind the the toilet backs up uh servers don't show up bartenders don't show up line cooks don't show up deliveries don't show up this company has you know done the wrong thing and you have to go fix it and chase credits and all of the different things and that bogs you down i feel like he is every day living his dream he's living his dream doing the things that he loves and i want you to do that too and so i want you to think back and go why am i doing this what are

01:28:54the things i love why am i sharing this culture and i see that in lyra and i see that in vega with her aunt and liz how they're sharing what they love and i really want you to get back to your roots get back to the things that suck you out of your sheets in the morning what is the thing that you love the most about this industry and if you're a guest and you're somebody who's going out and dining what's the place that you just love because it makes you feel special that's what we do that's what local restaurants do it's not just a business uh this is a passion that so many people of us in this hospitality industry provide and that is hospitality and so i know that that is a thing and sometimes it can be redundant just this reminder as to why you do what you do because we can i meet with so many people who lose sight of that and i want you to find that again because that's where the joy comes in and we want to help you with that this isn't an ad for nara but uh if we can help you find that joy then that's that's our goal and so that's my challenge you that's my final thought i love seeing people who are following their dreams and doing things that they love and i meet a lot of restaurant owners who are currently doing that and i challenge you to do that also in in in the restaurant and in your own family i love that he said uh one of the things he loves his most biggest priority is his family that's amazing i love that he's got balance in all of this stuff so thank you for listening today we hope that you guys are being safe out there love you guys bye