Billy Dec

00:01Pliny Crane, Pliny Crane. They are the marketing company you need. I get so many people when I'm sitting down with an owner through NARA who say, what do you do for social media? We have a hostess who does our social media. Our website needs help. We just can't come up with new ideas. That is why you need to work with a full-service marketing company just like Pliny Crane. All you have to do is give them a call 865-850-7809 and schedule a free 30-minute consultation where they sit down, ask you a bunch of questions about your business. They will learn what you're doing and they will create a strategy for you. All of that is free. You can sit down with them and learn what they do but you got to call. You can also email them info at Pliny Crane dot com or just go visit them at www.plinycrane.com. That's P-L-I-N-Y-C-R-A-N-E dot com.

01:03Welcome 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 got a big one for you today. We are talking with Billy Deck. Billy Deck is the owner of Sunda, which I did clarify it is Sunda, not Sunda. Billy has done a movie. This movie is a journey of him back to his Filipino roots to find the recipes of his Lola. It's a great, great film. If you can, go to Billy Deck's YouTube channel. We're going to talk about this movie a lot in this episode. He's a Chicago guy. He tells the story of where he was once on the cover of the Tribune and it was like Chicago's next mayor next to some pretty prestigious people. I was kind of like, that's cool. But man, we were in Chicago last weekend and we went to the NRA and that city is out of control.

02:29I mean, I felt tiny in that city. It was a big pond. You know, and it kind of makes you start thinking Nashville's pretty big. You go to a city like Chicago and you're like, oh my gosh. And to think that Billy would be potentially like offered up as the next mayor. You're like, good lord, this guy's this guy's a big deal. Like that's pretty damn impressive. The NRA was amazing. On our next episode, we went to Tennessee Flavors the other day and Vince and I break down kind of what we did at the NRA. So you can check into that. But what an amazing show. Great to run into some people. Great to run into our friends over at Adams Keegan. If you saw my Instagram posts of all the different people, we got to see Pepsi. Pepsi is a new member of NARA and we're really excited to bring Pepsi on. And so we got to check out all of the stuff that they are doing. We're working on a some really cool behind-the-scenes projects that I think are gonna help a lot of people. And the NRA show was great to make some great connections. So a lot of fun. We will talk about that more in the future. Our next episode, I mean you want to talk about big-time people. We are talking with Bill Miller. Bill Miller is the owner of Nudies. His company is called Icon Entertainment. But he has Nudies, the Johnny Cash Museum, Sinatras. He has Showmans. He's got a lot of House of Cards. I mean the guy's an absolute legend in town. And he gets to tell his story. And it is an amazing story. We had so much fun. I had to go that day. We didn't have like three hours to talk. But I could have talked to him.

04:15We're going to do a part two of this interview. But stay tuned. Next week we are going to have Bill Miller. I want to give a couple of shoutouts. We've got some new amazing NARA members. And just know if you want to be on this list, if you want to be one of the restaurants that we work with, feel free to reach out to us at NARA Nashville. Or you can go to naranashville.com and you can join in. But new members this week are Bill's Sandwich Palace. They're just amazing people. The Clemons, I tell you, they're awesome. I can't wait to work with them. We have a new bar in East Nashville called Cherries. Lyra and Vega Schwarma. You know, I want to talk about this Madison Plaza area, right? We've got, I want to call it Northeast Nashville. And it is really cool. You've got Daddy's Dogs on the end. Daddy's Dogs, another amazing NARA member. You've got Vega Schwarma right next to him, another brand new NARA member. And then you got Shotgun Willys right next to each other in this little shopping center. And I was telling them, I was like, guys, what a great opportunity. If you like want to go out to eat but somebody wants a hot dog and somebody wants barbecue and somebody wants Schwarma, you can do that. You can go to all three of the places and just like, it's so nice having all three of those places right there. Amazing, but please go check them out. Just amazing people at all of these places. We are having a good time out there helping. And that's what we're doing, guys. A lot of people have asked me, they've said, so tell me about NARA.

05:56What is NARA? And I will say, well, let me tell you kind of the genesis here because I won't take too long. But, you know, we do this podcast. I've been doing it for six years. And we have some really amazing operators come in to this studio and sit down and talk to us. And we have amazing conversations. But inevitably, the podcast ends. And then we sit here for a couple minutes and some of the conversation goes to, so how are things really going? Like, what's happening here? And they're like, it's going well, but man, we are dying. Pricing is so much higher. Everything is harder. Guest counts are down. And you get like the real side of it. And most of the time, for the past couple years, we have these conversations and I go, hey, have you tried this? Have you tried that? Have you tried this? Because I'm a solution guy. And what I did as a director of operations was that's what I would do. That was my only job. I didn't have a role in the restaurant. I worked on the business. And that's an area that local operators don't necessarily do. And you realize after a while, there's tons of chains coming to town. And locally owned and operated restaurants are at a disadvantage because they don't have the funds to hire a guy like me, a director of operations. And so I thought, man, I'm helping so many people just on the side just because they need help. And I care, you know, not charging them anything, just what can I do? And one of the main things was, can you help me negotiate a vendor deal? Because I'm buying from four different people. Can you help me do this? It's like, yes, that is something that we do. So we decided that if we bring, you know, 100 restaurants, local restaurants together, and these restaurants together could act as its own chain, right? So when I negotiate a deal with a linen company, a janitor, a anybody, you know, dish machine, chemicals, we use super source here, we can negotiate a better deal that where you guys could really compete. And we want to do this at no money out of pocket for you. We get our vendors give us a rebate, and we're fully transparent

07:58about every single dollar that we make, right? It's not a lot. But our goal is to save you money. And our goal is to have enough people together that it makes sense for everybody. And it's been going amazing. We sit down and talk to people and they tell us what they need. And we go, okay, we could do that. We can fix that. We can try that. And we get to work on it. Vince Lanni is an absolute monster. That guy is he cares so much about this community and the people and it is really freaking special. And I couldn't ask for a better guy as a partner in this thing. So Vince and I are out there ready to help whatever you need. You know, that's what we're doing. We don't charge you a penny. We just want to see you successful. And maybe we'll come talk about on the show and we can help somebody else. We can tell your story somewhere. These are all things that we do at NARA. And then we want to promote you we want to talk about you want to send people to your business because it's hard owning a restaurant and doing social media and talking about this stuff and we have to do something where we can stand up and be a collective and have a marketing arm and help drive people to some of the most amazing restaurants in Nashville. I don't think a lot of people know about the amazing restaurants in Nashville. If you've never been to that Madison Plaza, if you've never been to Shotgun Village, you've never been to Vega Shwarma, you've never been to Daddy's Dogs, Daddy's Dogs is phenomenal hot dogs. And that's not just a hot dog with ketchup and mustard. He's got some pretty fancy stuff and they do 40s and like it's so legit. Go check it out. So that's in a nutshell what we do. We do so much more. But if you're interested in that, you're like, hey we could use that help. We'd like to be part of that alliance of restaurants. We want to, even if you don't need that help and you just want to be part of the social aspect of it, we're happy to have you. There's no cost for membership. You just have to follow our core values which mean you're a good steward of the community. That you're gonna help others when they need it.

10:00These aren't your competitors. These are your brothers. These are your sisters. These are people that you want to help. If you're willing to do that and you want to be part of something that is big in this town, we'd love to have you. That's it. So go to NaraNashville.com. You can click a contact button. You just got to be local. You can't have locations in Detroit and all these other places. You got to be local. And I know Billy Deck, the episode today, he's not local but he wrote a movie and it was really, really cool and I really want to tell the story. So this is entertainment today and he talks a lot about hospitality and where it comes from and I think it's a really good sign to like say, this is why I do this. Because his is all about family and how he grew up and what it means to him to make other people happy and that's probably why you do it too. So it's a really fun conversation and I'm gonna get off now. We're gonna hear this conversation and thank you guys for listening. We love you and you are listening to Nashville Restaurant Radio.

11:06Super excited today to welcome in our guest Billy Deck. Good to be here. Oh my gosh, the people, the crowds are going crazy. They love you man. They absolutely love you. I want that to follow me. I should have that on my phone. So every time I... Wow, rewind that back. Yeah, there's the laughter. Okay, good, good, good. I have a sound effect that I play every once in a while but it's so lame compared to all that. I've got a bunch of these little things I try and get. That's the one I have. That's the one you have. That's the one I have. Well, you know, the technology is pretty cool. Welcome in Billy. I'm so glad to have you here. Thank you. Thanks for having us. I feel like I was just watching a movie that you were the star of. Did you? Thank you. I did. You're the one. You're that one. On your YouTube it says One Watch. That was me last night. It was awesome. Good, great. I'm glad it posted right. Billy is the owner of... Is it Sunda or Sunda? You know what? I've heard it both ways but it's Sunda. It's Sunda. Yes. Okay, because I've been corrected for saying Sunda. Oh, well you should let them know.

12:14Sunda's great and they go, do you mean Sunda? Oh gosh, you should tell that person. I don't know what I mean. I mean it's S-U-N-D-A. It's there in the Gulch. It's Sunda. Now we have the official answer. Yes. Sunda. Yep. Welcome in, man. How are you? Great. I've been on a little bit of a whirlwind media tour. I feel like I just got a plane late last night from Detroit and we're off to New York to do the Today Show and Kelly Clarkson. He's very important. A bunch of things. Not normally. I'm very normally. My default is unimportant but in the moment we're out there trying to tell wonderful stories about this new show on PBS called Food Roots. So this will probably be like none of the other ones that you do because we have an hour. Yeah. And we're gonna go all over the place. Great. There's no commercials so we're just gonna, we're gonna get into it. And we brought my assistant, Izzy, so therefore... Say hi, Izzy. This is my first podcast experience. Really? But you know about 15 minutes ago one of the last things she said to me in my car is, do you listen to podcasts? And I was like, yes, Izzy, I do. Have you ever listened to this podcast? Once I... On the spot. Yeah, I did. Once I heard you were, you know, we were gonna do this. You know what I mean?

13:41Otherwise I have been... What podcast? I get caught up in these like, you know, sort of like business school, like leadership podcasts. I usually just try to... Like Simon Sinek? Yeah, right. Yeah, I think I get... I went to Harvard Business School and I feel like I was a terrible student and so I listened to all of their podcasts and go, oh, that's what I was supposed to learn. So that's how you apply that in real life. It's amazing the way that works sometimes. It's like the HBS for dummies. That's what I listen to. So most people know you from Sunda. Mm-hmm. Nightlife, media, you've kind of been all over the place. I loved at the beginning of Food Routes, President Obama? Yeah. How did that come about? What was that? Because this is just a snippet of you staying next to Michelle Obama and President Obama talking about you. Like, what was that? What was that? Well, I was heavily involved in the philanthropic world, community events and fundraising, especially around the Philippines, where my family's from, and the Asian American community in Chicago and other places.

14:55And there was a typhoon Haiyan happened. There was a big typhoon and I was kind of early to social media and I was out there building houses and trying to help a couple organizations. And I was just doing a lot of social media and I know that they have this Asian American Pacific Islander sort of White House committee that they've always had. And I got the call that they're putting together different types of folks with different backgrounds. And I was appointed by the President eventually to serve not only on the President's Advisory Commission for all things Asian American Pacific Islander, but for the White House Bullying Prevention Task Force, where I traveled the country and spoke with kids and sort of the ecosystem. Here we go. Here we go. The crowd loves that too, by the way. That's fantastic. Yeah, so I was very involved with the community. Actually, the backstory to that, which is really interesting, I was thinking about this the other day. Right around then, I was living in Chicago and one morning I woke up on the front page of the Chicago Tribune was this thing and there was four pictures and said, who should be our next mayor? Were you one of them? Yeah. And the other three were Oprah, Michael Jordan, and Mike Ditka. It was crazy. So I was being asked by some community folks. What did that do for your ego? It was scary because everything back then mattered. Newspapers, right? It was like, oh my god, it's a printed newspaper that's everything. And I started talking to some folks and it was made clear to me that I should never, ever, ever run, ever be in politics as a mayor or whatever. And so I was like, what am I doing here? I'm going to take the show on the road. I want to be free and I've never lived anywhere else but Chicago. And I was like, I did this whole search of where I was going to go next and we moved to Nashville. And that was seven and a half, eight years ago. And it was

16:59our big jump off from Chicago to open up our first place outside of Chicago. And when that happened, I was like, well, I don't really want to be in this divisive political world, but I wouldn't mind doing things that no one can really argue about. Like who doesn't want to help cultures that I kind of grew up in? And then also, you know, bullying prevention. At the time, I was like, so everybody, you know, it just was a very kind of, you know, everyone was behind it. And so it was felt really positive and awesome. And so that was my chapter that I gave there a couple of years, probably four or five years. Yeah. 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 prepaid 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. How's your experience in Nashville been so far? Oh, lovely. I was born and raised on the cement in downtown Chicago, so I never really had a yard. So when I got here, I mean, I live in Oak Hill and it's so beautiful. I sometimes wake up and there's like deer and turkeys and just the birds and so beautiful. I just feel so it's like sunny and positive and

19:00lovely. The world changed obviously right after we got here and COVID happened. So it was like the perfect place to kind of like lock down and have, you know, just openness. And yeah, it was just, it's just great. I mean, there's such similarities, but major differences at the same time. So it's been an adventure and a journey. I love it. That's fantastic. What about you Izzy? You in Nashville, like native, what's your story? No, I've only been here for three years. And I've only been working with Billy for the past two years. So there are some parts of his story. They were the best two years of the three though. They're the best two of those three being with you. I like that. What are you currently working on besides promoting the movie? Yeah. So locations, what do you got going on? Well, we just worked forever. As you know, building a restaurant is crazy and we did all of those things. I mean, we just opened in Detroit 60 days ago. So we spent the last two years literally, you know, from Nashville looking at this really kind of, you know, up and coming city that's just going to blow up because of all these amazing investments and all this transformation. Similar to the way in which we saw Nashville 10, 12 years ago, people were like, why are you? Because, you know, in Chicago, I'm like, talking about Nashville 12 years ago. And people are like, what are you talking about? You know what I mean? Yeah. It's blown up. Yeah, blown up. And then Tampa, I was talking about it eight years ago, seven years ago. And we were, you know, I'm just watching the data points and I'm just watching everything. And I'm like, this is going to pop. And so we went out to Tampa.

20:36And yeah, and I feel the same way about Detroit now. So I've been working on that. I mean, I literally was setting to, you know, yesterday we were, I was training managers and speaking about the brand and the DNA and the history and where we came from and, you know, showed everyone the documentary. So they understood the roots and the why and, you know, talked about everything, you know, about our DNA. And it's so new. It's like a baby, you know what I mean? It's like, it needs all that care. Well, it's interesting because I hear you talk about watching markets and having your finger on the pulse. I mean, you clearly understand business and trends, but this is the hospitality industry. What part of hospitality fires you up? Well, I, you know, grew up, and you see this in the film, in a Filipino American household and going back and forth to the Philippines my entire life since I was a kid. And if you know Filipino culture, it's very much all food all the time as a way in which to say, I love you. I care for you.

21:40This matters. You're important. Life matters. It's always food. It's always taking care of people through food. It's a very caring culture. A lot of work in the service industry, a lot of work in the nursing industry, a lot of work. It's a lot of care. And so I- I saw a lot of that in the film. Oh, well, yeah. It shined through really well. Oh. And we're going to get to the film for sure. Well, it's unstoppable. It's an unstoppable, you know, energy and force. And so that is just sort of authentically and organically in me. So that's the part that pumps me up. I many times get checked and ridiculed and confronted about my lack of sometimes outward focus or communication or pressure related to the numbers. It's not that I don't know them. It's not that I don't think they're important. But I really care about the culture and the feelings and the care and- The experience. The happiness, the experience that creates these emotional reactions that are memorable and charitable and lovely. And that I think the money will come if you can nail those things.

22:48So that's what gets me going. That's a good question. What completely- I have one more like canned question before we get into the- I want people to get to know you a little bit before we get into the movie. What completely exhausts you? The opposite side, like what are the things right now about this industry that just like wear you out? I think the unexpected disruptive abnormalities, especially currently with, for instance, the labor market, I think is a new one. I think the younger labor market, those folks in their younger years, Izzy, what's your generation called again? Gen Z. And they are- How old are you? How old are you? How old do you think I am? Thirty-five? Yes, let's go with it. Hit that button. Hit that button. All right. So that'll be- that's my way of avoiding the question. Wait, what was the question? What were we talking about?

23:50How old are you? No, the other one. The other one. I'll ask this. You're a millennial, I would assume. Or are you a Gen X? Are you a Zennial? Ask me at the end of this. Are you going to like ask ChatGPT one more time? You should be able to like guess. Okay. Yeah. Once you get to know me, that's the whole thing, right? But we were on to a question. We were on to- What exhausts you? Yeah. So this new, sort of like the new Gen Z sort of okayness. Well, there's sort of this, they easily don't show up or check out or don't absorb all the things that used to be important or- You're trying to say they don't care? I try to get around that, but I think you're right. No, I don't know. No, there's a side of that. Yeah, I think there is a side of that and that exhausts me heavily. Oh, I guess because we just talked about what gets me going and it's caring. What gets you going is caring and passion. Yeah, caring. Yeah, right. And what gets you, exhausts you is people that don't share that and don't care.

24:53Yeah. God, this is like a therapy session. I love it. We're getting deep. We're getting deep. We've only just begun. It's going to get a lot deeper. No, I can agree. I agree with you. I think that's the thing that drove me. Because when you're so passionate about something every day and you lay in bed thinking about it and you have such intimate experiences with your guests and with people in the industry, and then somebody just flippantly doesn't care. It's like, don't you get what we're- This is bigger than this. Yeah, there's so many people. And they go, whatever, dude. It's just a certain- No. There's so many people that work so hard to create that smile, that happiness, that feeling of being appreciated and celebrated. There's an entire ecosystem of people to farmers, to fishermen, to suppliers, to truck drivers, to all of these folks, these servers and bartenders and everything in between that rely on this. And just that sort of when you opt out of the chain that is required to execute and orchestrate these millions of pieces all in one sort of moment, it sort of unravels quite a bit. And it's something that's just been happening in an exponential way in the last few years. And I don't know if you're, especially in Nashville, by the way, I think there's an interesting situation in Nashville because every city's different. Every city has its unique characteristics and strengths and weaknesses. And it's really interesting to live in all of them at the same time and kind of feel that. Sometimes I have to check myself and be like, wait, what city am I in? What's going on? Because there are differences.

26:38What do you think Nashville's biggest strength is? Sharpies Bakery is a locally owned and family operated wholesale bakery providing bread to Nashville's best eateries. They have operated in Nashville since 1986. Yes, next year will be 40 years. They providing high quality fresh bread daily for restaurants, catering companies, hospitals and universities. The bread is also free from any preservatives and artificial flavors. They're right off of White Bridge Road. Erin Mosso and her team been doing this for a long time. And you know what I love about them is that they're local and they care. They care about your business. That's like the number one thing you're going to hear me talk about is do they care about your business? And I 100% believe that they do. If you would like to be working with the bakery that cares about your business, give them a call. 615-356-0872. That's 615-356-0872. Now you can always visit them at sharpies.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S.com. And they have pictures of all of the bread that they can have for you and contact information. Go check them out. Sharpies Bakery.

27:55Very 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? 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. 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. I mean, that's just amazing.

29:13Used 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 CMB Linen. Hear it from his, straight from his mouth, exactly what they do. Or you give him a call at 931-722-7616. Or you can DM me at BrandonStill on Instagram for my exclusive pricing through the Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance. 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 KitchenGuard. They've been operating since 2009 and are the trusted experts in the kitchen exhaust industry. They serve as Nashville and Middle Tennessee and they will come in and do a free consultation and they will check out your entire system and make sure that you have everything clean. Your kitchen hoods, your filters, your exhaust cleaning from hood to fan. They can exchange the filters, they can clean the filters, they can do repair and maintenance services and they have clear and consistent communication with every single service. Guys, you got to get the best when it comes to kitchen hood cleaning and that is KitchenGuard. You need to call Kurt Kowalski. His number is 734-344-2010 or email him kurt.kowalski that's k-o-w-a-l-s-k-i at kitchenguard.com. Hey guys, we are talking today about Twine Graphics and I'm talking about people who maybe have multiple locations. One of the headaches I get is the manager at this location buys our shirts from this company and it's not consistent from the next guy who buys it from his buddy who runs this shop. Twine Graphics does

31:19all of your custom apparel including screen printing, embroidery, staff uniforms, branded tees or retail merch your customers actually want to buy. Beyond apparel, they also produce drinkwear, decals, branded goods so your brand stays consistent across every touch point. That consistency happens because they will build a website for your company. At each location, the manager will be able to go into that website and order the branded merch that you have selected to make sure that it is consistent across all of your locations. You can keep them consistent with each location so you know who purchased what. It is unbelievable how these guys partner with local restaurants. If that sounds interesting to you, you need to give them a call. Call Brandon Hagan. His number is 629-281-0838 or you can email him at brandon at twinegraphics.com or visit him online at www.twinegraphics.com. What do you think Nashville's biggest strength is of the different cities that you're in? What do you see in Nashville? I'm in Nashville now I know because this is what I feel. Well, from a personal perspective, I think the strengths are massive in a sense that I just find the beauty and the comfortability of the environment and the folks around me and the communities around me to be very calming for me personally and comfortable and soothing. It's a luxury. It's lovely.

32:51You know what I mean? People are kind. Yeah. It's lovely. I'm paraphrasing for you. You're saying people don't care and people are kind when people don't care? I love that. I agree with you. The idea of southern hospitality, it's moving in a different direction in Nashville. It's going away the more we grow. I feel it on the interstate. You do? Good. I feel I'm not by any means- I feel like going away on the interstate. Yeah. Normally, you see the Nashville wave go, hey, yeah, come on in. You can move over here. Now, you just get a middle finger. Yeah. Well, I've only been here for eight years, but a lot's happened in eight years. I've noticed the differences in just those eight years. There was something different. It's not better or worse or whatever, but it's quite- It's an evolution. ... evolving quickly. And those evolutions are really meaningful. The population growth, the ways in which development's happening, the tourist explosions and the patterns that are created around that are just really interesting. And then the need for labor and the labor shifts and all of those sorts of challenges, while places are continually opening at such massive rates, it's a really interesting situation to watch. It's different. You know what I mean? Yeah, 100%. I've been observing it for ... I've lived here for 38 years, so I've seen a lot of ... from a handshake town to now- Oh, yeah. It's completely different.

34:30Yes. It's completely different. It used to be a really small town feel that had big city amenities. We had a professional football team and a hockey team and a real downtown scene, but you'd go to a hockey game and you'd see 20 people that you know, or you went to high school with, because it was just this real kind of a small town feel. And now it feels like a much bigger town, and a lot of that personality is kind of drifting. I feel that everywhere, too. You mentioned the interstate, but you feel that in restaurants where you're working out, little things that you do on a daily basis. I remember going into ... I don't care if it's the UPS or the YMCA where I work out, or the- Hey, Billy, I didn't know you. Yeah, or the little shop. And if they didn't know you, it was like, doors open to talk. Doors open to say hello, just check in, and they mean it. I think the quantity and types of ... the massive influxes is one thing, but I also think there's a fundamental change generationally that you know, from a labor perspective, they're just different. They set the tone for their business, and the restaurant, and the shop, and you name it. It's like, the tone is just different.

35:49It's not good or bad. It is what it is. And I think it's all for our learning. How do we learn? How do we adapt as leaders to help understand these people and kind of coach them to care? Give them a reason to care. I think that's the most important part. If you don't have something deep behind it, which is a really good transition I've been trying to get to here, into ... At some point, you decided, hey, I want to learn more about my heritage, and really the recipes. And you made Food Roots, and that feels very personal. Why did you make this film? So- Why did you need to make the film? That's a sort of multi-layered answer, I think. I think, first of all, being born and raised in Chicago, in a Filipino-American household with Filipino food 24-7, Tagalog spoken, all these other things back and forth to the Philippines, I fell in love with the world that I grew up in, like everyone else does. And once I started getting into middle school, high school, you get a little bullied, kids are a little rough, and making fun of your food and the culture.

37:02And I began to push away a bit, and also just follow the signs. The world says, hey, you should be awesome at sports, and you should go to law school and try to get on TV and work for the White House, whatever it is. And I was chasing those things, and I was doing them. And I got to the point where I was flying to New York to do the show, and I was in DC for the White House, and blah, blah, blah. And I was just so unhappy. And two of my last three elders in the Philippines passed, and I was like, I don't know the recipes. And they keep passing, and their recipes are written down. And somebody just told me to drop everything and cancel everything, and I just left. I just left to the other side of the world without a plan, 7,641 islands of the Philippines, just to find family and these elders and learn the recipes of my ancestors to better understand the heritage, tradition, culture that more deeply aligned with my specific identity and the folks who created me. You know what I mean? So it's like a turning point in your life. You were like, hey, I'm doing all these things. I'm doing what's been prescripted by the general society as successful, but I don't feel whole. Totally right on, which is a weird thing.

38:21And I need to fill that. I need to find that out. And you just decided, I'm going to go to the Philippines. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I was unpacking boxes in Nashville that I'd never gotten to. For some reason, I found my high school year book. And for some reason in our high school year book, everyone had these quotes that they asked you to come up with. And they're like these completely like pretentious or like really, you know, well-known quotes that, you know, kids like our age didn't know anything about. But I had one in for my grandfather and it was in Tagalog. And it just said, you don't know where you're going unless you know where you're from. And the whole moment in my life at that moment was like, I was just so like anxious. And there was so much confusion and concern and stress. Like what's my life doing? Like, where am I going? And so to hear that quote, it'd be like, well, you're not going to know where you're going unless you know where you're from. And then all that happened at the same time. I was like, well, I'm going there just to, you know, walk the earth and try to, you know, see if anything comes of it. And something crazy did. So, um... So you were actually searching for meaning when you went to the Philippines. Yeah. Like you wanted just meaning.

39:27That was it. I didn't even know what I was going to find. I just knew something was wrong. What were you expecting? Did you expect like answers or were you just looking for like connection? I think I was expecting what I got first, which was like a series of recipes, like a series of cooking segments. Like I had a crew with me that I had filmed with in the Philippines before. I just called them this time because I was like, listen, I don't have a plan, but I'm going to go there and I'm going to go find these family members. And they went with me. They went. We were on boats and vans and trucks and motorcycles and on foot and just renegade slept in like on floors and in cars. And I had that like these like one off moments, but then they started to transition into like I started hearing the story that wasn't in the story. It was like as I asked deeper questions, I was unearthing all of these stories that were so meaningful that you would I would never have known unless I went on this journey to figure this out. And yeah, it's it's the coolest thing is and I truly believe this now is I highly recommend everyone do their own version of this. Like everyone's from somewhere, wherever it may be in the world, and their ancestors are from somewhere. And it's a really interesting way in which, well, first of all, it's a mind blowing discovery journey and it doesn't need to be through food. It could be through, you know, business or art or, you know, music or whatever the through line might be. Someone did someone got back to me and said, like, I did the same thing through fishing. And I was like, oh, you great. And what you learn from that and whatever. And they learn so much about their own identity. And there's this like peace that like comes over you.

41:17I've seen it. We had a year of film fest, you know, route that we went across country and all these different film fest and they were packed with these theaters of people, nothing like me. And I know they probably had no idea what Filipino culture or food was, but it was a human story. Like they all emotionally reacted. They all were laughing and they would cry and then they would be hungry. And, you know, all these things would happen and the Q&A would happen and everyone's hands were up and they were just talking about like their parents, their grandparents, they're this thing and they're this unknown, this void. And the more and more awesome innovation and awesome evolution and technology and AI and all the things that are amazing are happening. We're getting a little farther and farther from like actually understanding family traditions and culture and heritage and all those things. Yeah. Or kids are. I mean, you know, so. When anyway, so it's it just as I've watched people go on that journey, their life's changed, too, too. And so when you started that journey, you know, you probably had expectations. I want to do these things. But emotionally, what did you feel when you were there? Like what emotion did you continue to feel over and over that you didn't expect or maybe you did expect?

42:31I think one of the things that made me go was guilt, if I have to be honest, because, you know, I just felt guilty that I was hustling in Chicago and America doing the American thing. And I was just kind of away from my grandma. I was away from my Lola. And so there was like a repair kind of a thing. If I had to think about it like that's what I was feeling. And then there was like an invigoration. There was probably feelings of like accomplishment, because I was still in the mind frame of like everything's measurable and like, oh, I got one recipe. I got two. I got four. I got six. You know what I mean? And then slowly everything just and some people pointed out to me like halfway through, like my shoulders start like loosening up and I'm like listening more than talking and it's no longer about food anymore. Like the it starts out with like a ton of food conversation, but like somewhere around the back third, there's no more food. And it's like, I didn't realize that. Again, I didn't make, you know, I brought the footage back and we had a version of it that was, you know, okay, but not great. Only until this, you know, Oscar winning executive producer and this Emmy winning director took over the project did it become this like deeper story.

43:57Well, I thought it was really interesting and heart wrenching about your brother and your father and was it weeks apart? How far apart were those two? Well, they were ongoing together. So it was very simultaneous. So when you talk about loss, the, uh, you know, it's like if you have someone in your life that, you know, as that person, and all of a sudden they're still sitting next to you, but they're not that person anymore, or your role has changed where they used to take care of you, but you're taking care of them. That loss happened for many years together. So I was taking care of both. Gotcha. But the eventual human loss was, you know, years apart, a couple of years apart. Okay. Do you feel like that had any bearing on my need to go do this entire trip of losing them at all?

45:00I don't know. I don't, well, wait, okay. So that's an interesting question. Dang, this is like a therapy session for sure. I think now that I'm thinking about it, maybe because the loss was there, there was like a, like a lack of connection to family at a higher rate than most people. And maybe that made it more sensitive when two elders died on the same day. And I knew I had one less left of that generation. Maybe that, maybe that's something. When you're taking care of two people and you lose and you're watching them go and they both are gone and that's so much of your identity and then that's gone. And now I've got to re-identify, I've got to rediscover this side of me and I'm going to go and then you lose the other two and there's only one left. And you're like, I have a window of time that I, and there's a drive to do that. I mean, is that? Yeah. Yeah. Life becomes, well, I've always felt since these situations happened that life is so finite and precious and, you know, just tough to really put your finger on. So I live, try to live life to the fullest all the time and maybe that was part of it.

46:15But I definitely did not have any intention of having any of that in my journey because that was something that I was always trying to compartmentalize, put walls up, you know, create a character of strength so I can go do things that were bigger and better. In fact, you know, originally I was working with Nashville PBS and we've been great partners this whole way through and they were like, we love this. We want it for May 2020. And I was like, okay, great. This is awesome. And then all of a sudden COVID happened. We had to shut down like everyone else in the world and we had different places in Chicago and other places that were closed much longer than Nashville and Tampa. But I, when they asked, does anyone want to press pause for a little bit? I was like, yeah, because I didn't love the doc. I didn't love what we had. It was a series of cooking segments with me looking like I was just doing the Tay show or some other show, which is awesome. But we've all seen that food show before, you know what I mean? So when I showed it to this Oscar-winning storyteller and this Emmy-winning director, they looked at it and they're like, it's good. And I was like, okay, cool. But what do you think I can do better? And they're like, well, what's this one scene where there's like a tear in your eye? Like, what is that? That's what I want to get into right now.

47:40They're like, what is that? And so, because the original doc was only the scenes in the Philippines, no old school photos, no interviews. It was only the run and gun in the Philippines, linearly learning recipe one, two, three, four, five. That was it. And so they kept asking these questions and they wouldn't, they were relentless, you know, with these questions that were like, what is that? Why would you do that? What will tell me more about that? And they just, then they basically ripped all the layers off and got to the real story. And then they were like, listen, we would love to, we think this is a story that needs to be told, but we'll only do it on one condition. I was like, okay. Like, we're going to come out to Nashville with cameras and you have to tell the truth. And I was like, what do you mean? Because I was like, I always tell the truth. And like, no, no, you have to tell the truth. We have to be vulnerable. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I was like, it was, it was, it was, it was, you know, it was post COVID and it was, there was a lot of, you know, there was a lot of rises and, you know, mental illness and other sorts of stressors and stress and loss and all these things that people were suffering from.

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53:30100%. I think that we as men are told, be a man, stuff it down, put on this brave face every single day. When you go to a place like the Philippines and people are just real, do you get to metamorphosize into going, hey, this is where I need to be? I'm trying to think of the right words to say here, but how did that change you? Did you realize this is not what I need to do? Well, this is a random story that just popped up in my head when you were saying that. There's something that would happen to me every time I'd go to the Philippines. There have been times I've gone without a couple of years going, and then sometimes when I served on the President's Advisory Committee, I was going to Asia like three, four times a year. There is always something that refocuses me, humbles me or refocuses me. Centers you.

54:32Centers me. There's this thing I used to do because my life was mayhem in the years that you see in the documentary where I just had breakdowns, mental breakdowns and other things, um, that I used to, because I was playing this role as like the guy that owned, you know, eight top hotspots in Chicago and the nightclubs with 300 people outside and had 800 employees. And I was on the TV show every week that took over the Oprah show. And I would fly to, you know, I was playing this character that was like super cool and way overextended and basically lying to people because I'd go home and not be that cool, but just take care of my family. That was like, literally, which is weird because you're used to take being taken care of by your parents, but I was taking care of my parents. Um, and I used to wear, and it's in the documentary. I'm not like, I used to wear a rubber band around my hand the whole time. And the reason I always, I can't, I didn't even tell the story, but the reason I always throughout my life wore a rubber band on my hand was because I remember as a kid, we had all the American toys. Like, you know, we're just like everyone else. We're just conditioned to like, Oh, I want that. I want that. I want that. I want that. And you would have these toys and you have all this stuff.

55:41Well, all my cousins, same blood, same Lola had rubber bands and they would create these really fun games with them and do these cool things with their hands to create these patterns and story and design. And that's all they had. And they were 10 times more happy than we were 10 times by far. And I was just like, man, every time I get too emotionally, like run over and stress about so much stuff that was pretty self-inflicted and like a products of all the stuff you try to buy into fight for fit in and try to, uh, obtain or dominate or whatever it is. Like I would just look at this one rubber band. I'd just be like, at the end of the day, like I can just go back to what the rest of my blood and my family's doing and just be 10 times happier with nothing. Like there's a scene in the, in the movie and spoiler alert, I don't know if you've seen it or not.

56:46I don't want to give away anything big here, but I think it was 103 year old woman. Yeah. Gave you a tattoo. Yeah. And that was probably the most emotional moment for me really in the movie because the symbolism there was so big. And then, and, and you finding her and the idea that the history behind it and the Spanish conquerors that wouldn't allow these tattoos, they used to tattoo like their lineage and their stories on themselves. And there was one woman who still did this. I think it was a hundred, 203, 103 at the time. So right now she's 107. She's still alive. Yeah. She's still alive. And, um, did she know your entire story? No, she knew, we knew nothing. There's over a hundred dialects in the Philippines and our family spoke different dialects in their family. So the interpreters are trying to interpret each other. There was really no way to tell the story, but the whole folklore about it is that, yeah, the Spaniards called it when they discovered the Philippines or come up, came upon the Philippines, they called it La Isla de Pintados, the Island of the Painted People, because they used to paint their story lineage. Again, this goes back to being present, being with there's, it's not like written whatever it's through story. And, um, they, you know, a lot of times with, there was a lot of brutal takeovers with the, you know, Japan and some other countries, and they'd run into the Hills to take care of their families, save their families and, you know, and protect not only family, but traditions.

58:20And in this case, this art of storytelling through tattooing and, um, there was folklore about this 103 year old woman that was been doing it since all of those days. And would tattoo warriors that were protecting them above the clouds in these, I was two days off the grid, by the way, no phone signal, no internet signal, which sounds like you can do it until it's gone from you. And you don't know when it's coming back and there's no hospital. And you're totally like, you know, trying to climb mountains and be with villages that, you know, have warriors. And so, and, uh, she supposedly, you know, cause traditionally they decide what you get and where based on your lineage. And she usually can feel those things. And there's a lot of scary story about like, that's why I was, I don't know if you could tell, but I was like, so focused and just kind of like being present, but not passing out. Not like whatever. Painful as hell. Like that looked like the most painful thing. It looked like torture. Well, she, you know, worked on warriors. I mean, when other, you know, calling it, you know, just different countries were coming up there to try to like obliterate your family, they would, they would obliterate them first. And these are warriors. There's some toughest warriors in the world. Some of the toughest people in the world are mountain people generally just from going up and down mountains all day. So in carrying stuff and all the things.

59:39And so, um, she, you know, they're the, she, she wasn't light, you know, it's, it's a different, it's a hammering, a tapping of a gigantic thorn, you know, I mean, literally taking the soot off like a cauldron and mixing in a coconut, you know, shell with like a, a yam and just different coconut, just as crazy. You have no other tattoos, right? No, that was, that's your, do you have the other tattoos now? No, no. You have the one tattoo and she put the tattoo over your heart. Yeah. And you had no idea what she was doing or you just said, do this. It actually wasn't until we got back months later that I found out what the tattoo meant. So you want to talk about what the tattoo is? No, cause I'll cry. And then it's, you know, people won't want to see the movie this way. They'll, they'll just see the movie. Okay. So we won't talk about what the tattoo meant, but I will tell you it meant a lot to me. I have one tattoo. Really? I have one tattoo and my cousin Blake died in a plane crash. And the way that they identified his body was they found a tattoo. Wow. And so we got that tattoo. And every time I, I don't ever see it, but every time I get out of the shower, yeah, it makes me, it brings, it's, he's with me and it's a very special thing to me. And I remember watching that going, man, this is, this is, it really hit me hard in that moment. And I don't know if you have any of those things every time that. Oh my God. Every time. Every time you get out of the shower. I know exactly what you're talking about. Okay. Oh, and by the way, if, I don't want to give away the movie, but if I see the thing in real life, I, I, I, you know, yeah, I feel it. I just go see this movie guys. It's where, where can we find the movie?

01:01:31So it's playing on PBS across the country, but, uh, I have a YouTube channel. They allowed me to put it on because it was so personal. So it's just, um, at Billy deck life, you know, youtube.com slash at Billy deck life. They can watch it right now. It's only 54 minutes too. Can you believe it was 54 minutes? 57 with the credits. Oh, you saw that you saw the director's cut to the PBS version is a little tighter. Okay. Yeah. It was, um, it was great, man. Oh, thanks. So you've gone through this. What do you think, you know, your younger self before you did this, um, misunderstood about success, what have you changed? Well, I didn't, man, someone yesterday was like, Hey, did you ever listen to this podcast or about this or read that book about that? And it's like, man, if you think positive and think this and think that it'll come true and all this other stuff. And is that what you did to like, to, you know, work your way up the channel? I was like, I work from fear. Like I was scared. Like I, we weren't going to eat unless I was hustling and outworking people to get in listening to all the people around me and doing whatever they said to get to these higher levels of, you know, opportunity and probabilities of potential, maybe success. Um, so that younger kid, I can't say anything to him because I don't think the choices were there. Like, I don't even, I wouldn't even want to roll the dice on going back to that moment because the odds were so bad. Do you know what I mean? I do. So I, I wouldn't be who you are today without that being a necessity. Without that person, you wouldn't want to go back and say anything because this is what shaped me to be today. I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't physically, mentally, psychologically. And I broke a couple of times. Like I, it was like super hard.

01:03:25I was, I act sometimes and I, I was in a movie and like, they were like, can you cry? And I was like, I, you know, I had an acting teacher that put me through the process of like tapping into things that were really, really sad and hard. And I was like the best at it. Sadly, I could like literally, you know, cause yeah, cause I could just imagine where I was and be there. And it was, I can, you know, and these like people on that set are just like, why would this, what the hell? How'd you, how'd you do that? Yeah. Like he's really good at that. You're like, I got some, I got some shit here. I just, I got some baggage. Yeah. I mean, you know, I now do more like, comedic fun stuff, you know, like, uh, just did this movie called, well, it doesn't sound comedic. It's called single car crashes. But, um, my, I was the lighthearted best friend, uh, that I thought my, I didn't actually know my scenes were funny by the way, until I went to the movie. I went to the opening night, everyone was laughing at my, uh, lines and I wasn't actually funny. I wasn't trying to be funny, but that's the power of writing, I think, and editing.

01:04:33Um, it was funny, but that's what I want to do more. So, cause the stuff about tapping into the sad stuff is real, by the way, when you see those actors like struggling, cause they played like all these great characters, but then they kind of like off it's cause it's real. Like you have, you're really there. You're really going through trauma again. How do you balance all of this? How do you balance opening new places, finding new cities, acting on shows, acting in movies, being on television shows? Like, how do you Awesome people around me, really awesome people. Yeah. Is he stays, I have like a whole, you know, Julie, I have all these great kind, nice people. Actually. One of the reasons I moved to Nashville by the way, it was cause my advisor mentor lived here. Um, and he's still with me today. His name is David Gilbert and he, uh, was with him for two hours today. We do our two hours every Friday and we, um, you know, I've probably been doing this for 10 years plus with him and um, he's just, you know, he's, he's, he's the one that kind of sold me on Nashville and very supportive opened, you know, hundreds and hundreds of restaurants in his day, by the way, you should, you should talk to him sometime. I think he opened like 500 restaurants and he's, you know, was the chief operating officer of the National Restaurant Association and, um, some tech stuff and just great guy. And, uh, he's been that's, that's one of 500 people are way better than me. It's smarter than that are super caring and kind of helped me, uh, fail less.

01:06:00So you mentioned, I asked you about going back to your what advisor, I don't know how I phrased it. Um, what matters the most to you now? Making people happy. More so than it used to. Making people happy. Making other people happy. Making people happy. That's it. How do you make you happy? I told this, I stood up at a meeting yesterday. Were you there? Were you there in, in the dining room of Southern Detroit, as I'm training all these people and I have all these managers there and all these training managers. And they're asking me, well, what's next? How many places can open? What's above? I said, I only care about one thing is making people happy. So if our current staff, our current guests, our current ecosystem around us, if they are not, I just want to make everyone happy. If they're all happy and we have the opportunity to make more people happy. Great. But if we need to keep working internally to build a bench, to refine ourselves, our skills, evolve with the times, really, you know, take it up a notch, be a little bit more innovative, stay ahead of the curve, whatever it is, it's not defined by number of places. It's not, I don't need to go like get into another construction, you know, year of craziness and, you know, just keep doubling down on, on, on chaos.

01:07:20I'm, I'm actually just happy if people are happy. I feel like I've done a lot of things that have been, you know, wins and losses and learning experiences and I'm super grateful to be sitting here and I'm happy. I just want to make other people happy. So if somebody is listening to this right now and they're successful on paper, but internally they're disconnected, what would you tell them? Well, first of all, that's a lot of people. Yeah. It's probably more than that one person you were talking about that if they heard this, like that's the majority of people. Yeah. In a world where everyone has advice and everyone has something to say about what you should and shouldn't do. I'm not the guy to tell you what to do, but I really do stand behind what I just went through. Like at the end of the day, I'm not actually telling you to like go through something transformative or go listen to this or do this. The fact is, is that you are a product of the folks that created you and allowed you the moments and experiences and, and, and sort of, you know, provided the foundation for who you have been allowed to, you know, grow from.

01:08:31So it's like going back in time to learn what your ancestors did, you know, to, to come together, to care for each other, to whether it's cooking for each other or loving each other or coming, you know, just living life. I think we don't give it enough credit until you deep, you deep dive on it. And once, if everyone could deep dive on it, the stories that would come to the table would be really colorful and textural and, and, um, I think beneficial for that person and that person's kids and grandkids and all those other things. And I think if everybody does it, it just makes for what, where we used to be, you know what I mean? Which helped us get here, like just being this very, you know, colorful, diverse, like mix of all these cultures from around the world. You know what I mean? The greatest. Yeah. I mean, listen, I order in delivery from the same restaurants that you do too. I'm guilty. Like, I just like, don't think about it. You know, it just appears in my door and I slam it. I'm like, but like, we're, we can't forget about all that, you know, nuance and like specificity around like where our ancestors got food and how they came together to express love through it. Um, well, like the original intention of restaurants really is to sort of like, you know, share that with people.

01:09:53Well, I loved the end of the movie again. No, no spoiler alerts, but this is just kind of a, and there's not like a, um, my biggest takeaway I think was from the end of the movie where you came home and you made some of these recipes for your family and kids, sister, family together, and you're cooking these recipes and everybody's eating it. And there were smiles, there was laughter. It was real connection around heritage. And I think for anybody who thinks that food is just fuel, I mean, food is a massive connector. It's not just something that we eat so that we're full. Like it's something that we eat to nourish ourselves. I think that nourishment comes from soul and sharing that with somebody and really leaning into it. I think that's one of the things I love about food. And I think that's what I took out of this thing is that like connection happens at the dinner table. Yeah. It happens at restaurants. It happens when we share that, those moments with each other and damn it. Even if it's snails, try everything.

01:11:01Yeah. Try everything once. I love the way in which folks watching that scene put themselves in that position and ask themselves, what would my version be? And why aren't I talking to my kids? That was like one of the top questions or comments in the Q&A sections across the country at these film fests. People very concerned about their kids, super concerned that they were going to lose the connectivity that folks were already sort of becoming more and more distance from just because of time, location, technology, all of those things. Really concerned about their kids. And I said, this is why I think it's important work. Have you ever eaten at Taylor? I love Taylor. Taylor? Yeah. With Vivek Sirti? Yeah. I love that guy. He's fashioned an entire restaurant around this. He's making food that you would make.

01:12:02It's all family style and he's making food that he would have made or his family would have made, and he's sharing. It's a familial kind of entire dining experience. I love the way he tells story in every dish. And I love how there's a very similar, what you're saying, bridge between the past and the present elevated version of it, which is really what we do at Sunda. It's new Asian. It's elevated ingredients, elevated creativity, elevated cooking process, elevated presentation, storytelling, all of those things. And I was so excited to see him, one, doing that because I remember when he didn't have a restaurant and he was doing it at different pop-ups and things like that. And then I also just sort of extra loved it that he was doing it in Nashville because I think like every city that's going through an explosion, isn't it neat to have really passionate folks from very specific parts of the world to bring all of these things to light. So it was neat. I was very proud of him and I'm in awe by what he does. 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 healthcare institutions. Save time and money and reduce inventory by utilizing their high quality products and engaging with their highly trained service specialists.

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01:14:46They 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 yet, 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 & Associates. Give them a call today. You can also visit them at theretailteam.com. We're basically at that hour. That's how fast this goes. Izzy, what did you think over here? What was your take? Are you okay? Oh, yeah, guys. This is crazy. I feel like you cried four times. I was about to. Even some stories that you told I haven't heard before. And every time you talk about that...

01:15:50It's because they're new and not true. I just made them up. Yeah, everything's been a lie. That's why. But yeah, every time you talk about it, I learned something new. So I loved it. Well, good. Well, thank you for being here. He was asking for compliments for him. No, no. I know I'm good. This is episode 425. What do you think? No, look, I love bringing people in, especially with somebody with a story like yours. And I said, this is not your typical interview. Really, I love the connection. I love the connection of sitting in here and learning about you and what you learned through that because everything in life is an experience. I want to check in with you in a couple of months and see what you did with it because I wonder... I will tell you a story of how I did something very similar off air. It's not for everybody, but it's something that I will tell you that it's a similar thing that I did that helped me a lot. And it's emotional, but it's something I'll tell you about here in just a second. All right.

01:16:58I will say thank you so much for coming in. Izzy, thank you for coordinating and helping everything that you do. It has been an absolute pleasure getting to speak with you. Anything, any final thought, anything you want to say to the people out there? No, I love what you're doing. That's it. I think restaurants are going to go through a tough time. I think the world needs to get back into restaurants in order for that to better. And I just love that you're pulling community together and having these conversations because like you said, it's beyond just what's on the plate. It's a whole lot more. It's life. It's everything. So I love it. Good work. Thank you guys so much. Thank you for having us. And have a great time with all of your media blitz and on the Today Show and all the things. Thanks again for coming in today. Thank you. Big, big thank you to Billy Deck for joining us in studio. That was a lot of fun. Hopefully you enjoyed that conversation. Stay tuned. Bill Miller will be next week and I am so excited to get this conversation out. We are booked up with interviews, guys. We're doing this for a long time. Thank you for hanging with us. Click that subscribe button on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Amazon or iHeartRadio or wherever you're listening to this podcast. Click the subscribe button so you know when new episodes come out because we're going to have a bunch of them coming up. It is time for the Gordon Food Service Final Thought.

01:18:28I'm going to go back to the intro with my final thought today and it has to do with why we do what we do. I think through this episode, the entire movie Food Roots was really him going back and learning about where he came from. And the idea of hospitality is why most of us got in this business in the first place. And I had a conversation today with somebody about a bartender and that was very rude. And I was like, you know, people that just don't care, like it's really hard in this business because so many of us do and you can't let those people bring you down. And so if there's anything you get from this episode, the final thought is take a minute. Realize why you got in this business. Realize what this thing is really for because it can be a grind every single day. You go in, it's the same thing. Different stuff happens, same shit, different day or different shit, same day, whatever it is, however you want to say it. But why are we doing this every day? It's because we love service. We have a spirit of service and we love hospitality and we love making other people happy. It's because you're creative and you love to be able to create food that tastes amazing and you love to see people eat it and enjoy it. Don't let this other stuff bog you down. Go in tomorrow with a fresh attitude. Know why you do this. Refocus yourself. Do something like Billy did. Go somewhere and go to a different city and eat at like five restaurants and see how fun it is. You know, get out of your normal routine.

01:20:06Get back to your roots. All right, so there's my final thought. Thank you guys for listening and as always, we hope that you are being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.