Bryan Lee Weaver

00:00You know, what chefs want, some people still call it creation gardens, but what chefs want has been, was our first advertiser on the show. Monty Crawford saw what we're doing, he goes, I want to be part of it, dude. I love it. And I just, I love that they're so perfect because they work with locally owned and operated restaurants better than anyone. And let me tell you how they do it. No minimums, no fees, no fuel surcharges, no surcharges any time. They deliver seven days a week. They have 24 seven customer support. You can call, text, chat, email anytime from anywhere, or you can reach them at 502-587-9012. They have a diverse line of products. Their chefs have access to thousands of items across many different categories that allow them to receive fresh product daily. What chefs want is the perfect addition to any broad line company as they've got all of your fresh produce delivered daily, plus custom meats, anything that you need that your broadliner can't get.

01:01Give them a call 800-600-8510, or visit them at whatchefswant.com. 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. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your host. Super excited to be coming at you on a Sunday afternoon. This is the Monday show, but I'm putting it out on Sunday afternoon. If you were a subscriber, you would know that because you'd get the notification. And if you follow me at Nashville, Brandon underscore NRR, I always post on that account when I do cool stuff, when I post stuff up, because it's not the main account. I'm going to put the big post tomorrow morning about this episode today with Brian Lee Weaver.

02:04I am so excited to put this out there. After my Bad Luck Burger Club interview last week, we all went to Red Headed Stranger, and Brian wasn't there. He's like, man, I missed out on seeing you guys, so why don't you come in studio? Let's have a conversation. So bam, here it is. He came in this week and we had a fantastic conversation. I love the part of the conversation where we talked about kind of the similarities between being a musician and being a chef and how he creates his dishes from Butcher and B to Red Headed Stranger to his brand new location that is going to be coming soon in East Nashville. He gives you all the details in this episode. So much fun. I'm excited for you guys to hear it. Want to tell you, if you love Mexican restaurants, and I'll tell you, I have my favorite Mexican restaurant and I'm going to tell you my favorite restaurant is El Aguero in Bellevue. It is fantastic. It's tucked away back behind the bed, bath and beyond. But Juan and Sergio and all the guys over there, they're amazing.

03:06They're my favorite Mexican restaurant in the city. I also love Tito's and I love Cancun and on the border, all of my local Bellevue places. But I know that you have a favorite Mexican restaurant. And we are partnering with Net Chex. Net Chex is going to be, we're going to be putting out a 64 team bracket. And in this bracket, we are going to have Mexican restaurants from all over Middle Tennessee. So if you're in Mount Juliet, you're in Hendersonville, you're in Columbia, Spring Hill, Franklin, Nashville, anywhere, and you want to make a nomination for your favorite Mexican restaurant, hit me up at Nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio on Instagram. Send me a message and say, hey, check out this place in Hendersonville. It's called whatever. Let us know because this is going to be coming out the last week of July. It's going to be live and the winning Mexican restaurant is going to get a special party thrown at their location on July 15th. And of course, the title of best Mexican restaurant in Middle Tennessee.

04:07I have a feeling like this is going to get very, very heated as everybody is passionate about their favorite Mexican restaurant. I know that I am. I'll be voting for El Aguero. You should vote for El Aguero, too, because they rule. So, yeah, we're super excited to partner with Net Chex on this. And they are doing a damn good job to get this done. September 16th is Mexican Independence Day. It's a Friday. It's also my anniversary. But we're going to be calling. We're going to be having a party on the 15th at the winning restaurant. We're going to have mariachi band and all kinds of cool swag. We're going to invite you all out to come celebrate the best Mexican restaurant in the city. So there you go. So if you own one of those restaurants, also send a message. Let me know and make sure that you are promoting it as this contest goes along. Lots and lots of good stuff there. We are going to be bringing back Brandon's Book Club for the month of August, but we can start it now. We're going to be doing the Comfort Crisis with from Michael Easter.

05:10And this book is just amazing. It's a book about getting out of your comfort zone, all of the things that we do every single day that you just we've gone through so many life experiences now that we know what we don't like. We know we do like and we tend to stay in this little bubble throughout this book. It talks about stepping outside of that bubble and learning new things and how it affects your life. And I so excited to read this with you to continue to go over it. And then the discussion at the end of the month, we're going to be providing the actual books for you. More details coming as we get closer to August. Just wanted to give you a heads up. If you're looking for a fun book club to join, Brandon's Book Club will be here. And it is going to be a ton, a ton, a ton of fun. So here we are. It's going to be hot as hell this week. And we're excited that you're with us. We are going to have a brand new. We are doing a pop up podcast. OK, so restaurants do pop ups and I meet people all the time and I say, well, yeah, I've got this little podcast I do. And they go, oh, man, I want to do a podcast.

06:12And so I've met some really, really interesting people. And one of those people was Kayla Ellis. Kayla Ellis is the beverage director from the Oak Steakhouse, as well as Oku. She has 32 other restaurants in that group, by the way. And she's a badass. And I loved our interview that we had just a month and a half ago with Kayla Ellis on the show. So go back and listen to that show because she is going to do a six part interview series. It is called The Gospel of Cocktail with Kayla Ellis. It's going to be her podcast. She's going to be popping up. This show will come out on Wednesdays for the next six weeks. So get ready, because in a couple of days, we're going to have our first episode of The Gospel of Cocktail with Kayla Ellis. And I'm so excited to share the perspective of bartenders and people who work in the bar system. And just cocktail knowledge. If you don't, you want to kind of get into that space. She's going to be talking about it. And I'm so excited to have her do this in studio. She is such an amazing, amazing person. And she's so fun.

07:12If you're out there, hey, look, I think I should do a podcast. I want to do a pop up. We're going to be doing these six week runs. I'm going to be introducing you to new people. Maybe these things will catch on. But right now we've got just six at a time. If you want to do your own podcast and you want it to be broadcast over the Nashville Restaurant Radio Network, give me a call or message me. Let me know. And maybe we can talk about it. If it's something that sounds interesting, maybe I give you a shot. All right. So at Brandon underscore in our Instagram, give me a follow. Go follow that. Go follow Nashville Restaurant Radio. Go follow Brandon's book club. And of course, the Nashville Restaurant Alliance is coming out. I got a lot of follows for you. Got a lot of irons in the fire. Good stuff going on. OK, I'm like sweating. I've gone through so many things here. Holy cow. All right. Well, we're we're ready to get going with this fun, fun episode with my super good friend, Brian Lee Weaver. Super excited today to welcome in Chef Brian Lee Weaver to Nashville Restaurant Radio.

08:21How are you doing, Chef? I'm doing great. First time we've done an interview in person. Yeah, yeah. It's nice to not be on a Zoom call. Yeah, seriously. I had we just did the Bad Luck Burger Club and Eric Cacciatore from Restaurant Unstoppable texted me and he said, dude, how great is it doing interviews live? Yeah, it's like it's a horse of a different color. Yeah, yeah. I'm not like a video person. So it's been weird from the get go doing Zoom stuff. And now I'm like, I'm just I want to leave that behind. Yeah, I'm so happy to leave it behind. Yeah. Every once in a while, if I get like a chef in California or something, I can pull it off. But I definitely prefer not to. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if it makes sense. But if we're both in Nashville, like, let's do it. Let's do it. OK, so I have no idea what we're going to talk about today. Yeah. Well, I went back and listened. We did a show on October the 11th. It was like a 15 minute interview. I was asking you about Audrey, because that it just friends and family. And then you were going to dinner that night at Yolan.

09:21How was that dinner? Yolan was great. Yeah, we sat at the bar. Tony was there. He took us around, showed us the kitchen. We kind of ate a little bit of everything. It was it was really nice. Yeah. I love the pasta there. It's good stuff. Yeah, it's good. And I think Tony's a big fan of the bees, so he was happy we were there. And so since we've talked, also, you know, finished the way that we finished the last episode, as you said, hey, maybe there's another restaurant coming. Yeah, I'm hoping to get an update on that. And then I just my brain is just went blank there. Let's jump into the next restaurant. Do you have another restaurant on the way? I do. Yeah. We don't have a name yet, so I can't tell you the name, but we do have a concept. We have a location. We're starting design work, stuff like that. Where's the words? Where's it going to be located? So we're going to be pretty close to Redhead, a stranger on Dickerson. OK, there it's an old Piggly Wiggly grocery store. That's a big space. Yeah, we're not taking all of it.

10:23They're kind of splitting it up. OK, I was like, wow, you're going to be in a warehouse. Yeah, yeah. But actually, the the bones of it feel similar to butcher and be like, it's got kind of some exposed beams and like old, you know, there's like there's like wood, there's concrete, there's cinder blocks, like there's glass. There's some like clouded glass that looks really cool. So we're going to try to keep some of the elements there. It's also going to be Philip Krijak is opening a place in there. And I think the people from Old Glory, the bar over here. What's the building called? I don't know if it has a name, really. I'm sure it does, but I don't know what it what they're calling it. I heard about this project. I saw I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's going to be a flower shop in there, too, which is should be cool. Yeah. They were in East Nashville. Their shop got messed up by the tornado. So it's it's going to be nice to see them in there, too. How is East Nashville doing right now as a as a ambassador for East National got everything going on in East Nashville?

11:27You live in East Nashville, too, right? I do. Yeah. I'm like kind of between the B and stranger. So can we get a East Nashville update from you? Yes. How's the general how are people doing? How's it going? I think people are doing good. I mean, you can still see signs of kind of rebuilding and what happened. It's nice to see, though, like Smith and Lines open back up. Attaboy's obviously doing well again. Yeah. You know, if you go kind of down the pathway of it, you can see a little bit of the stuff still going on. But, you know, and some of the buildings have changed, obviously. And it looks a little different. But I think the vibe is good. People are out, you know, people are coming in to eat. Yeah, I think the fear was that a lot of these places that closed or had damage were going to get insurance money, but they're just they're never going to reopen. Mom Pops aren't going to reopen. Yeah. And have you seen any of that going on? Have you seen some big box stores coming in or anything along those lines? I've definitely seen there's a few places where it looks like housing is or, I don't know, you know, homes are going in where they weren't before, which probably to be expected. Yeah.

12:37You know, there was that whole stretch where it was like burger up. And I think there was a soda shop in there. Like, that's all gone. And I don't know exactly what they're doing there now. But most everybody that like I know that we were like kind of friends with is like rebuilt. It was sad to see the hotel across from the B. They never really rebuilt. I don't know what they're doing there. Is that the Fieldhouse? Yeah, it was like the Fieldhouse Jones. That was called Fieldhouse Jones. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a bummer because we were getting like a lot of people coming into the B from there. And my parents actually stayed there once and just they really liked the vibe. Really? Yeah. Hmm. I mean, it only opened for a short amount of time. Yeah. No, it was maybe six months. Yeah. Yeah. So how what how do you spend your time right now? Where are you mostly? Are you 90 percent redhead stranger? Are you ever at Butcher and B? I'm really not that much. I mean, I'm still a partner there. I still kind of consult on the menu a little bit, but I really just kind of one stranger really got going.

13:38And then through the pandemic, like I wasn't really involved there that much. And I just kind of wanted to give the ball to them and let them run with it. You know, everyone there, at least in the bigger roles are people that I trust. And like they were ready to kind of take what I was doing and run with it. So a big, big time James Beard nomination. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, technically it was for the Charleston restaurant. But still, was it was at the Charleston restaurant? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're the same company. So it was pretty cool to see, you know, it was outstanding restaurant, which like that's a big, big category. You know, huge category. A lot of it, I think it was just a testament to my business partner. Michael did a lot of work through the pandemic, just helping restaurants and the restaurant relief fund and all that. So I think a lot of that was, you know, it was it was a result of the work that he did and kind of getting recognized for that.

14:38That's fantastic. It's a huge honor, either way. Do you take what what influence did you have on the Charleston location? Little. I mean, some, you know, they they use a few dishes like we share, like the whipped feta and the crispy rice that came from Nashville. Those are pretty big staples. I was I went down there quite a bit in the first couple of years just to kind of help and get the vibe and like make sure the restaurants were sort of on a similar page. We never wanted them to be like cookie cutter type things. But yeah, now, I mean, I just kind of I go there for like wine and food, you know, like the festival stuff. But I don't really like help out in Charleston that much anymore. Do you want to win a James Beard Award? Some chefs are like, yeah, that's the prize. That's the thing I want to do. Some are like, I really don't give a shit. Where are you? It's like wax and waned over time. I mean, I think there was a time when I was like, yes, I want that. Like, I would like that recognition.

15:39The older I get, I kind of don't give a fuck. You know, I want it'd be nice. But, you know, I feel like I people respect what I do. They come. We're busy. Like, it would be cool, but I don't really care in the end. Yeah. You know, we've just hired an executive chef at our restaurant, Marable, and he's doing a lot of really cool stuff. And I'm like, we're not trying to win a James Beard here. What we want to do is we want to feed the people in the neighborhood multiple times a week. And he's into it now. He gets it. He's still doing really, really cool stuff. But I think that when you're trying to win a James Beard, it's hard to do that because you're your North Star isn't service. It's some other thing. Yeah, it's I don't know. You could tend to maybe lose focus on what you're really doing. I will say, though, a big part of the motivation of the new spot is just to get back doing food that isn't just like smoked brisket all day. You know, I mean, don't get me wrong.

16:40Like, I love what we do at Stranger. It's like my my baby. But I do kind of want to get back in the kitchen and like flex a little bit, you know. Yeah. Well, I I can imagine. Yeah. Well, I apologize that the first time that I've like really eaten at Redhead Stranger was last week. Yeah, it's OK. Because I mean, I don't ever it's just tough. It's tough. Sometimes people, you know, they can't make it to the east side all the time. I hear that a lot. But I mean, there was also, you know, pandemic or whatever. I wish I could be on the east side like all the time. Like every time I cross over the river, I just feel better. And we've talked about this just like going over the east. There's just a whole vibe there. Yeah, it's definitely I mean, it's a little different vibe. I notice it, especially just coming over this way, you know, driving around Vanderbilt and all that. It's it's definitely a different world, a different Nashville. Yeah, for sure. I'm excited. I just built I'm literally yesterday didn't fit. I've kind of finished it, but I have built a pit in my backyard.

17:41Yeah, whole hog pit. Nice, nice. 95 cinder blocks. Yeah, I had a custom made great four by six feet. I'm really excited. I'm going to try and get a bunch of people over and do some do a pig. I'm going to try to do a whole pig. Yeah, well, Pat was in here and he was like, you know, he just did this book, Life of Fire, and it kind of outlines everything. And I got inspired and I was like, dude, I don't know how to cook with fire. Is that you know, I think I'm a man and I've had this like thing like I cook with fire. I'm a man. I have no clue what I'm doing. Yeah, I read that book and I was like, I want to learn this art of like the early fire in the middle of the fire. And then what you do with the ashes and there's all these different things that happen when you cook with fire and the type of wood. And I just want to get really good at that. And I've never done it. I can cook on a grill. I'm the one I'm the grill master at our house. But I don't know what the hell I'm doing in all honesty. Like I just get out there and I grill like I think it should be done. Hey, look at how great those steaks are cooked. No, there's no rhyme or reason to it. Yeah. And it's totally different when you're just it's like only wood.

18:43If you're doing that. Yeah. We learned that a stranger like doing the doing the brisket and stuff. It's like it's not it's not just like, hey, let's put it on there and forget about it. Like you really have to manage the the fire. And I don't know. That's the best, though, right? I mean, he's pretty awesome. Crossing my fingers, hoping and praying that he will come over and help me do like the first one and like I can learn from him. Like, well, the first time I did a whole hog, I did it with Pat Martin. That will be. Yeah. I've said it here on the podcast, Pat, if you're listening. We're calling you. I'll come to do it. Well, it's kind of my thought. I was like, if we get like I have this dream of like mentoring people and if we could get like five chefs and five of their like superstars, like you have somebody at work who you think is going to be a star that would benefit from hanging out for 24 hours with a couple other chefs and a couple other up and coming rock stars. Yeah, we just do like a whole hog cook or something like that. We all hang out. And it's just a 24 hour day with like you and some other rock star that you've got working with you.

19:45And they can gleam information off of these other. I think it would just be a fun experience. Yeah, totally. That would be awesome. It's kind of my vision. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I should say I didn't get too much into the the food that we're going to do at the at the Piggly space. But let's talk about it. We're going to do like probably mostly wood fired cooking there. We're not going to have like a fryer or anything. I think if we do anything stove like, it'll be induction, but it'll be mostly like a wood oven and a grill. And we're also pretty focused on vegetables like it's going to be very produce forward. And we want it to be like sort of an approachable, like fun tasting menu. You know, we don't want to be like a stuffy three hour experience. We want you to be able to like have three dishes in an hour and get out and really focus on produce. I mean, we're not going to be strictly vegetarian. We're going to use some fish and maybe have like an off menu beef item or something like that. Yeah. But really just focus on the produce here from the farms.

20:46And that's kind of the gist of what you answered. You can answer one of my questions. Supply chain's been a real nightmare right now. Where do you buy your produce? I love to give shout outs to people that are out there hustling. Yeah. We get a ton of stuff from Farmer Dave. He's still out there. He's still out there. Yeah. We get all our poblanos. We get all of our tomatoes from him. Jalapenos, all that good stuff. And then whatever he has sort of seasonal, like he just got into melons and he brought me some plums the other day and stuff like that. At the Bee, we we work a lot with Nashville Grown. OK, which I still I really like. We've used them for years, but like just the sort of interface they have to like connect you with all these different farms that you may not always know about or see. They're like a big one that we use over there. And then, you know, the strangers a little bit, we don't use as much like the local farmers for that.

21:49I mean, we do, but it's just like it's, you know, it's mostly Farmer Dave. Who's your broadliner that you are just from? We do. We use creation or what chefs want. OK, good. That's where we get, you know, all our dairy, all our, you know, cheese, all that kind of stuff. Awesome. Yeah. Great people over there. Yeah. What shows they're very responsive. Yeah. I mean, you know, they're quick to solve problems if we have them. And, you know, no, no issues with them. Good deal. Well, I like that they're sponsors. So it's always fun to shout out people who sponsor the show, who are doing a great job. Yeah. Now, it's just one of those interesting things to me, because I think there's some local farmers out there that people use. And every time I go eat, you go to Butcher and Bee or I always use Hal at Laughlin is like the example of like, dude, what do you do to your vegetables? Because you go in there and the vegetables taste different. And this is one of the things I told my chef when he came on, as I said, I want you to use the best produce you can possibly find. That's in season. Yeah.

22:49Like, I want to follow the seasons and I want the menu to be based around what you can get that's growing right now naturally. I don't want hothouse anything. I don't want to be serving asparagus in December. I want to have the right thing in the right season. And it makes a big difference. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's always been kind of part of the ethos of the company that I work with, you know, especially Butcher and Bee. It's like we change the menu as often as we need to. Stranger's a little more static, but we also aren't, you know, using a lot of like seasonal. I mean, we do we do have specials all the time and stuff, but like, you know, brisket isn't seasonal, you know what I mean? Yeah, no, that's a good time. But I should shout out Bear Creek, too. We didn't I didn't talk about them, but I get all my beef from them. I've been using them since since I moved here. They're Leanne's pretty special. I love what they do. I got to get them on the show. Yeah, I need to tell their story. I haven't I I just don't have a lot of experience. Everybody talks about them, but I don't know a lot about them.

23:51Yeah, she I mean, she's amazing to talk to. She'll have you out on the farm. Hell, yeah. She'll take you hunting if you want. You know, like I'm not. Have you ever hunted? Are you a hunter? I'm not a hunter, but I mean, my dad shot guns growing up. I know I'm aware of it, but I don't. It's not my thing. Not mine either. But it was interesting. So I just wrote a book called and I'm going to bring back the Brandon's Book Club thing. It's called The Comfort Crisis. And he talks about going out and having to shoot his food. Yeah, because he got out of his covers and went hunting. And he's like, I've never shot. Sorry, an animal. But when it was it was like a spiritual thing for him, like you're going out and shooting it and be like, well, that's terrible. You sure is like, well, you eat meat all the time. You just don't know how it was harvested. Yeah. And like the idea of actually doing that one time is for one time in life, seeing the full cycle of hunting it and killing it so that we could stay alive. We're in that he was in the Alaskan outback. And he goes, it was it was like a soulful special thing that this animal gave its life so that I can continue mine.

24:56And it was it was interesting. It was just like this whole wow. And then I don't know where I'm going with it, but I just thought it was where your food comes from. It is. I mean, I think it's important. I don't know. I mean, I eat a lot of meat. And I, you know, I we had a chicken farmer that we used to buy from. And we went up there on a process day one day and killed a lot of chickens and like kind of learned the whole process. You know, and it was like it was, you know, it was kind of sad, kind of. I don't want to say fun, but like it was interesting, you know, just as an experience process and like what kind of a small farmer has to go through to like get this to your kitchen. Yeah. Yeah. I shot a squirrel when I was like 11. Yeah. BB gun on my window, my parents house. I was literally like stalked it like it's on the tree. And I shot it with like a pellet gun and it fell to the ground and just like was like dying. Yeah. And I went down to look at it and like blood coming out of his mouth. And I was like, I am so sorry, little squirrel.

25:58Like I did that again. I've never been able to shoot anything or just my me personally. I can eat meat like no problem. But I also have a problem with how they do it. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I feel you on that. But yeah, I do think it's good for everybody to sort of experience what that feels like, you know, and like, it's sort of a responsibility that I think you owe it to yourself or to the world or whatever you want to believe in to like see how that goes. You know, so you have two restaurants and another one that's on the way. What do you do for fun right now? Have you got back into like any kind of a normal rhythm of life? Are you traveling at all? I was trying to travel. I just turned 40. So congratulations. I was trying to do a big trip for that to go to Iceland. But my wife just opened up a bookstore, which kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed. So she ended up opening, I think, the week after we were supposed to go. Oh, so we just kind of had to put that on pause.

27:00I think we're going to go in the fall. So I haven't done a ton of traveling. I went up. I went to Charleston for wine and food. I went up to Milwaukee and did a dinner up there with my my friends from Dan Dan. But that's about it. I need to get out and do a little more. But I have been a little more normal with like life. You know, I took up playing tennis a few years ago. Really? Yeah. So I take lessons from my guy, Bryce. He's a regular stranger. And I go once a week to play with him. And this is hard, man. It's like it's difficult to play. Yeah. Yeah. It's I had I started from scratch. Like I, you know, I'm pretty athletic, but like I didn't I didn't know any of the fundamentals or anything. So learning that was very interesting. And then just the whole psychological element of it is just fascinating to me. What's the psychological element? Just like you're playing somebody one on one. Like, I don't know, it's all like it's so mental. You know, like it's yeah, you have to be good at it. But a lot of it's just like sort of playing and messing with the person you're playing with a little bit like it's all really fascinating to me.

28:07I feel that same way about darts. Yeah, I've never played darts. What? I mean, I played, but like not not really. Like, I don't know anything about it. Yeah, I play. There's like a million strategies when you play. And I love gauging my opponent and how what their their style, what they're shooting at and how they're shooting and where I feel like I can take advantage of the game. And it's it's a whole crazy thing for me. Yeah. I mean, I played baseball growing up, so like team sports are cool. I'm a huge basketball fan. But like there's something about the individual sports tennis golf. I mean, I imagine darts is a solo activity. It is like I just I like the sort of ability to like manipulate what's going on just with like your actions, you know. It's control. Yeah. To me, I think it's. I'm a crazy kid. It's one of the reasons why I don't drink anymore was because I tried to control every single thing in my life and I couldn't do that. And I started drinking because I would get frustrated. Yeah. And finally, that's one of the steps.

29:09You know, they say you're powerless over this thing. You've got to give it all away. And it's the most amazing feeling. But that is it. And I can try to rely on anybody else to do something. I don't have to communicate anything. It's all in my head and nobody else sees it. Yeah. And you kind of just go from there. Yeah. Yeah. It's I don't know. Tennis especially is interesting. Like I feel like I'm getting pretty good, you know, and then like, they'll have me play somebody and it's like the worst. It's like I've never picked up a racket before. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, yeah. So I don't know. It's it's it's cool. Like, you know, I I wish I had the time to play even more. But but yeah, it's been a it's good exercise. And yeah, it's a fun activity. What's the name of your wife's bookstore? It's called Novelette. It's a novel at booksellers. It's over and it's on the side. It's sort of between Gallatin and Cafe Rose. I guess it's sort of geographically a good point. But it's it's it's tucked away in a little neighborhood. It's an old church that they're kind of remodeling, but she's the first business that's opened in there.

30:12Nice. It's awesome. Yeah. Well, congratulations to your wife. What's her name? Jordan. Jordan, congratulations, Jordan. If you're out there, go visit the bookshop, right? Yeah, yeah, they they got a good selection of everything. They're super knowledgeable. It's it's her and her best friend that opened the place. So it's kind of a lifelong thing that she's wanted to do. You know, well, we're going to bring back Brandon's Book Club in August. And I've got a sponsor for it. Robin's Insurance is going to be sponsoring it. And we're going to do that book, The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. And hopefully we can get a bunch of people on and we're going to buy the books for you. So if you want to do it, well, well, there's an Instagram handle Brandon's Book Club and go follow up. But it's going to be a lot of fun. Maybe we can partner with your wife and we can buy all the books from her. Yeah, that would be awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Just don't buy it from Amazon. You know, you go straight to her. That's good. Well, it's funny because it's like people don't recognize like Davis. Kid used to be a bookstore in Green Hills and it was like the best bookstore. I mean, it was amazing. And when it closed, everyone's like, oh, man, I love Davis kid.

31:14And I'm like, when was the last time you were there? Like, oh, I've been there in years. I got my stuff on Amazon now. I'm like, that's why they're closed. That is why they're closed when you start just purchasing stuff. And I love Amazon like anybody. I mean, it's so easy. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's a time and a place for it. But, you know, if you have the opportunity to support, it's just like, I don't know, you could go, you come in a stranger. You can go to Taco Bell or whatever. You know, I mean, you always have choices to make. I'm going to say your Crunchwrap Supreme is a lot better. Yeah, I think so. So I had your Crunchwrap Supreme the other day because my wife called me while I was there and I brought home like another massive amount of food and I ate half of her Crunchwrap Supreme. And I had never eaten a Crunchwrap Supreme before from Taco Bell. Yeah. So the next day I went to Taco Bell and I ordered one because I wanted the comparison. It's a little different, huh? Well, it's just it's OK. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's Crunchwrap Supreme. Yours was the flavors were just amazing. Yeah, a lot different. I mean, a big thing on a big thing that we do as strangers is trying to take sort of nostalgic stuff on stuff and doing it in our own way with like really good ingredients, you know, like with the Bear Creek meat or, you know, we make all our tortillas in house and like you can really taste all that.

32:27You know, oh, it makes a huge difference. Yeah, I think that's something people don't recognize. You know, when you think about buying local and eating local, like. I was thinking the other day about just why you eat local and there is when I was at Taco Bell because they don't have Mexican pizzas right now. I wanted to get a Mexican pizza, too, because I had one of those in years. Yeah, since they took them away. They brought them back and then got rid of them. They brought them back. And there's a sign that says you love them too much. And now we're out. We're sold out. And I went to the front window and I go, are you serious? He's like, yeah, we can't get any tortillas. We can't. We're going to try and bring it back in January. And I was like, what do you mean you can't get tortillas? Do you have tacos? Like, how do you not? How can you not get the tortillas? It's not like there's a bunch of complicated ingredients, like there's hatch green chilies in there and they only grow for a month out of the year like it's a tortilla. Yeah, drives me crazy. Yeah, it's it's interesting. I mean, well, when you buy from when you go to these mass places, these huge chains, what they do is they negotiate deals.

33:31They build their food in a commissary and it's delivered and everything is frozen and they just microwave it, get ready to go. But in locally owned and operated places, everything is made from scratch for the most part. And that that's flavor. Yeah, that's what you're getting. Yeah, I mean, healthier. We struggle at stranger just to keep up. I mean, we've been we've been so busy. We have a line down the building a lot of days and like our kitchen is tiny, you know, and like, excuse me, we do everything from scratch. We make all our sauces, we make all our tortillas like we can only make so many tacos at a time, you know, and like people get frustrated with the weight and like, well, I don't I'm sorry, you know, but we're also like up front about how long things take and like we try to do our best, but it's you know, it's not just coming out of a bag. It's not just coming out of the freezer. You know, it's it's it's it's made by us, you know, with love. Yeah. Yeah. So I asked you earlier, what do you do for fun? Like what's what's your daily routine or, you know, what are you getting out, going to eat, traveling?

34:34Who do you hang out with? And who are like your friends? Do you have all chef friends? Yeah, I mean, a little bit. It's a lot of people, you know, work with or have gotten to know through the restaurant. Honestly, I don't have a lot of free time. I spend a lot of it with my dogs. Those are probably my best friends. What kind of dogs do you have? How many dogs do you have? I got two dogs. Shout out to my two cats, too. They're cool. But yeah, I got I got a big old blood hound that we got. We got in like January before the pandemic. So we drove down to like a trailer park in Mississippi and picked him up. Really? And he's this 100 pound, just goofy idiot. And then we have an older rescue that she's a coon hound. I'm not sure how old she is. We got her when she was like full grown, you know, but yeah, those are my two my two babies. I take them out to two, three times a day, sometimes like just wherever we go to, Shelby, a lot. People see us walk around all the time.

35:35But yeah, you know, like. It's it's tough to especially. I don't know, it's it's tough to like have friends a lot of times, especially like people who don't work in restaurants. Their schedules are completely different than mine. So, yeah, you know, and then, you know, who knows? With some of the chef guys, it's like sometimes we'll just spontaneously like meet up and have a have a beer, have coffee or go to dinner or whatever. But, you know, it's it's it's tough to like make time when you're when you're working the way that we do. When you go out to dinner with your chef friends or you do anything like that, do you guys are you able just to enjoy the meal or do you constantly like watch for service and food and how they're preparing it? Are you not necessarily analyzing, but and not comparing. But can you just relax and enjoy a meal? I can now. And it depends on the place to like, you know, I don't know. It's it's interesting, like if I'm if I'm traveling, I'm going somewhere and I'm spending a lot of money or whatever.

36:36I'm like, I expect something, some level of of service, you know? So I can be judgy, but like most places, like I want to sit so I'm not facing the kitchen if it's an open kitchen. Like I don't I'd like to just sit there and like have a good time and feel like a normal person. Like I generally I mean, people know my name, but I don't use my like work email for reservations. Like I just I want to be I want to just have a normal time. I don't want a bunch of stuff sent out to me a lot of times. You know, like it's just like like I just want to see what your restaurant's like. And I just want to eat here. Yeah, yeah. And just like just feel like a regular person, not not a chef is here. He's you know, because because I don't know, you get that all the time. Even like if I go to somebody's house, like if we go to a barbecue or whatever, they're like, oh, I made a pie for the chef. It's just like it sucks. You know, it's like, yeah, I love this pie. I just I don't need you to tell me that I'm going to think it sucks. Like, yeah, I don't know.

37:37It's it's weird. All that stuff is, you know, I can imagine that's kind of why I ask the question. Because, I mean, if people just calm down or if it's always a chef here. Hey, but you know, it's like I imagine it is like if you were a comedian and you're hanging out, people like, but I'm not as funny as you say something funny. It's like, yeah, I'm not at work and I write jokes, but I'm not here to be your entertainment. I imagine if the chef, you're like, but you must you want to cook. I'm just hanging out. Yeah. I just want to chill. And it even took a while, like even with even with like my wife. And she would make me dinner, be like, she'd be like, I don't know. It was just she sent guests off. But you would probably done it this way. Yeah, it took a long time just to be like, hey, man, I'm so happy that you're making me dinner. And that's all I care about. Like, it's it's it's weird sometimes when there's expectations and like, you know, like I said, there's there's a time and a place to be judgy. But more often than not, it's like I'm just there for the food and the company. And, you know, if you if like the food's a little weird or the server fucks something up, I don't I don't care.

38:41You know, like I'm not going to go leave a one star review or something, you know. Well, what's your least favorite thing about Nashville? I suppose I'll ask like your favorite things. I was thinking about this question the other day. I don't know why I was like in a pool. And I was like, my least favorite thing about Nashville is probably the drivers. Yeah. To me, like the inability to merge appropriately to me drives me nuts. Or the lack of using a turn signal. Yeah, that's a big one. I'm like, dude, like, wouldn't it be so cool if we had this like lever that you could just push one way or the other to signal where the fuck you're going? Nothing gets me more angry than people that don't use turn signals. Yeah, yeah. I. So I'm lumping my thing that I dislike about Nashville. The most of it is like drivers and driver etiquette. And there was a long time in Nashville, those of the Nashville wave. Or if you pulled up somewhere and you're like, hey, can I can I get in here? But yeah, go ahead. No problem. And now it's just like they won't make eye contact with you. Yeah. People people will not look at you and you're like, can I guess you're just going to pretend like I'm not here?

39:44Yeah. Never mind. OK. I guess while we're on traffic, it's four way stops when somebody stops clearly before me and then they just sit there and then they flash their lights for me to go. And I'm like, I've been sitting here waiting for you to go because this is how this works. It's a first come first served kind of a thing in a four way stop. Yeah. Anyway, man, least favorite thing about Nashville. That's a really hard question, you know, like. Like nothing immediately comes to mind, really, you know, I really do love it here. I do wish we had a little more in the way of public transit, bike lanes, stuff like that. Again, traffic comes back up. Yeah, yeah. I mean, when I when I moved here, I was renting a house like a half mile from the B and I walked to work or I at first I rode my bike. That was crazy. I couldn't do that because people just don't respect bikes in a lot of ways here. No. But even just walking to work, the amount of times I almost got hit by a car like for like just because somebody was on their phone and like didn't see me or something like that.

40:51It was just like, it's crazy. Like and there's no sidewalks in a lot of the places, you know. I think just some of the public infrastructure and parks and things like that. I mean, I feel like there's a long way to go as far as that goes. Yeah, and we're only growing. It's only getting bigger every day. Yeah, I live on the west side, live in West Nashville, and it's like it's it's. Been relatively untouched, I say untouched like that, but it's Bellevue area. Like the traffic's not bad, like everything's OK out there, but it's it's happening. Yeah, like that's all the stuff is now growing that way. And it's like, fuck and just know it's it's going to happen. But yeah, what do you do? Yeah. What do you do? Yeah, yeah. You enjoy your property value going up. Yeah, I mean, that's that's a thing for sure. What do you want to talk about, man? I didn't have a big agenda today. I love just kind of wrapping with you, but like what's been on your heart was something that's important to you right now. If I was if we were sitting at a restaurant talking right now, what's something you would ask me, what would you want to talk about?

41:57I don't know, you know, like I honestly I've felt a little just kind of exhausted with just life. There's been a lot going on with it was like it was like the tornado and then the pandemic and then the election and like just all of these things. And there was just an interesting time where like it felt like people were starting to be like, let's get back to normal and blah, blah, blah. We've had all this time off. We've been locked inside. But we we weren't like we were working the whole time, you know, and not only working, but like in very stressful ways. A lot of times, like we took on the burden. I think of a lot of people's frustration. We were a lot of people's cure. And a lot of people will go out to eat to feel normal. But we're out working our asses off and not getting that opportunity. Yeah. And in a lot of ways, I felt like it was very it was even more draining than the normal work of a restaurant, you know, which is already challenging, you know, and so, you know, it's I guess it's just it's just an interesting time with everything that's going on. And we just had Fourth of July. Yeah.

43:07And it was tough. I mean, I think that most conversations I had I had a few yesterday when we hung out at the pool for a while and I was able to clock out just my parents are out of town and they live a couple of hours down. They have a pool and my sister was there like we just got to hang out. But it was like happy Independence Day. And my wife's like, yeah, I'm happy to live in a country where I don't have autonomy of my own body. Yeah. And, you know, just insane shit that's going on right now. It's like it's hard to be like, yay, freedom, because I don't necessarily feel that right. I don't I'm not full of patriotism at this moment. I'm I hate to say it, but like I'm kind of like, fuck. Yeah, yeah, I feel the same way. And I think a lot of it, you know, if we were sitting down, I probably want to talk about music or books or something just to completely not have to distract myself, you know, from like, you know, I don't want to think about the restaurant. I don't want to think about whatever is going on in the world. Like, let's you know, let's talk about a band or let's do that. Let's talk about a band. Yeah, let's do it.

44:07Did you hear did you said you listen to the Bad Luck Bird Club interview? Yeah. Did you hear my Eddie Vedder story? Yeah, that was that was pretty awesome. Do you have that tic tac in here? No, but I should bring it in here and put it in here. The little tic tac in the the gold coin. Yeah. That says Ed on it. Yeah, it's so funny. I don't know if I can show I'll show you how you wrote Ed here. On this gold coin. You can see that nice two boxes and there's if you took that away, it's an E and then the D actually was that way. Yeah. There's just like a little E D and I'll I'll show you on Will Johnson's card here what that looks like. If you're watching online, you can see the E D. That's so funny. Is there any like who's who's the biggest celebrity you've ever met? Like you were just like starstruck on. Oh, man. You know, I don't get starstruck that often. We see a lot of them in the restaurant. Oh, I mean, I moved here from L.A. and we were pretty near a lot of studios. So like that place was crazy.

45:09It was like Tom Hanks, Cindy Crawford, like the Lakers would come in all the time. It was it was there. I mean, a different level of star to me. It was. Yeah, I never got starstruck too much. David Cross is a comedian. He's on Bob and Dave. Yeah. Yeah. Rested development, all that stuff. But he had a house behind the restaurant, so he would like sit at the bar. We like kind of became friends. So that was pretty cool. Cool as hell. It's funny as shit. Yeah, dude. He's so funny. One one time I was at the airport and we actually saw each other, recognized each other. It was kind of cool. But it was him. And Brian was saying it was another comedian. And I was kind of sitting behind him. And they were like running jokes on each other, just practicing. Oh, wow. It was the funniest shit I'd ever I'd ever heard, you know. So that was pretty cool. Who's your favorite comedian? Do you have do you are you in the all time list of like, who's the best comedian out there? I don't know. I don't know who I would say the best is. Hard. Yeah.

46:12Man, I love Dave Spell, like everything that he's done for the most part. Pretty into Bill Burr. Did you go see him? No, I've never actually seen. I've never seen him before, but I love him. He was just here last month at Bridgestone. Yeah. A month before in April, he was here. April 19th, 23rd, something like that. Yeah. He has a good podcast, too. He is funny as shit. Like he's one of the I was literally crying at the show. Like I couldn't stop. Like I was like trying to catch my breath as like tears. He was so funny. Yeah, yeah. I love David Tell. So I'm the genre. You're you're like that late 90s, 2000s, kind of like people that really hit it. Then I'm a big like Sam Kenison. He to me was like one of just the he's a genius. Yeah. And I love Chris Rock. Chris Rock, I think, was just an absolute. I think that to write a bit, like to write comedy like that and then work it out and have the delivery, that's like there's a performance involved there, too, that I think Chris Rock just kills. So does Sam Kenison.

47:15So does Dave Chappelle. Yeah. Yeah. If we go a little older, I like like like Bill Hicks. OK. Or like, I mean, Richard Pryor, you know, stuff like that. Nothing that's cookie. It's like irreverent people that straddle the line. Yeah. I think that's what good comedy is. Yeah. Yeah. And like officer, you know, observing the world and, you know, which Hedberg always makes me laugh. How about Nate Barghetti? I don't know. I know him, but I haven't really listened to him too much. All right. Here's what you have to do. I mean, there's not a lot of comedians like you have to go on Netflix. If you're out there, you don't know who Nate Barghetti is. Go to Netflix and find a show called The Standups. This is the first seat. There's like four different versions of it. Nate Barghetti is in the first one. He has a 30 minute bit, and it's one of the funniest 30 minutes I've ever heard. Same deal, just crying, laughing at some of the stuff. This guy goes over with everything.

48:15You got to go watch it. The Standups. I'm going to put that in the show notes for you guys to go watch. And he's from Tennessee. Listen, Franklin. Yeah, yeah, I think I saw that. He doesn't swear. I watched the I think I watched the newest season of that, but I didn't go back on it. The Tennessee kid is his newest one. He has one called the Tennessee kids, a whole stand up special. But you got it. You got to go back to the stand ups first. That's like his first one. And then all the rest of his shows kind of build from that one. Yeah, that makes sense. Yep. Yep. So I won't say reading a book that you can't start a chapter two and three. You don't know how some chapter one. Yeah. Yeah, totally. You got to do that. Yeah. As I just say, Tim Robinson, too. He has that show. I think you should leave on Netflix. It's I've never seen it. Oh, my God. I watch it so so so many times over and over. He he used to be a writer for Saturday Night Live, one of the like main writers. And I guess the basis of I think you should leave is like all of the rejected skits from Saturday Night Live. But it's it's so fun.

49:16I heard Howard Stern talking about this, all the rejected skits that they couldn't do that he was just going to do. Yeah, yeah, it's I think it just got renewed for like its third season, but it's it's really, really good. I always attribute like this, get writing like those little things like writing a menu because there's it's so much creativity to do that. And then to put that out there is that is that because one of my goals, I'll tell you, one of my bucket list things is to do five minutes on stage to get up and do five minutes and open night, open mic nights like that. But I'm scared to death. It's hard to write it out. Do you forget that when you do like a new menu item? Do you create something new? Do you test it like 10 times, 10 different people? Or you just do you just say, fuck it, I'm putting it out there on the menu. It depends on the dish. Sometimes I think about it like writing a song, I guess, just because I used to play music. So I think it fires the same parts of my brain. But sometimes it works. You nail it right away. You know, like, this is good.

50:18I think other times it needs some tweaks. You need no matter what, you always need other people to taste it. Make sure you're not crazy or like just one track like. Can you get like your palate just kind of gets numb after you've tasted so many different things? You need somebody else's opinion. I've always been curious about this. Like, what do you have a process when you create a new menu item? Like, do you go into do you read cookbooks? Where do you go? Where do you find inspiration? All over the place. I mean, I definitely read a lot. You know, pre pandemic, I ate a lot. A little less so now, but a lot of it, especially with reading, it would just be I'm not going to like see a dish for a steak and be like, oh, I'm going to make that steak with the same sauce. It wasn't like that. But it would be like finding a component of something, you know, and being like, oh, I've never I've never thought about. You know, I remember when I was a lot younger, I can't remember what I read. But it was like, you know, cooking a vegetable like in its own juice. So like you take a beat and you juice the beat.

51:19And then you sort of process the beat like by cooking it in its own juice. I'd like instead of just like boiling it in water or something like that. So like picking up little tricks like that. That's like where the reading comes in. And then, I mean, some of it's just natural, like walking around, seeing what you have left over, you know, stuff like that. But, you know, looking at the list that the farmers give you and be like, I've had this idea in my head for X, Y, Z. Next time they come to me with gooseberries, I'm going to make this dish that does this, this, this gooseberries. But, you know, yeah, you know, I think there's always just going to be a natural element of creativity that not not everybody has or wants to do. You know, like not everybody, I think, wants to come up with a dish. You know, like maybe they do, but like they don't know how. And a lot of it is just repetition and trying it over and over. Like, I mean, when I first became a quote chef, like, it's not like I really knew what I was doing, you know.

52:20So you know, first of all, nobody knows anything they're doing until they just freaking do it. Yeah. And you just have to fail. Yeah. You have to fail over and over. And eventually you either fix your failures or not necessarily fix them, but learn from them. And, you know, or you don't. You know, I guess it's pretty simple. Well, that's not even just that's not even cooking advice. That's good life advice all the way through just to do that. It's a lot of persistence and just care caring about what you do. I mean, tasting stuff like that. And we're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. Did you know the number one cause of methane or greenhouse gases in landfills is your food waste? Restaurants waste so much food. All the food people don't eat all of the scraps that come from all of your prep. It all gets put in a dumpster and then gets buried in a landfill. And as it decomposes, creates methane gas. Well, thank God, Jeffrey Ezell and his brother Clay have come up with the compost company. You can now compost your food waste.

53:22They take it to their farm. They create organic soil out of it. They then sell that to Whole Foods as well as local farmers and landscapers. So it's literally coming full circle in your community. If you're a restaurant owner or manager, you need to be calling Jeffrey Ezell at 615-866-8152 and they will set you up with the green bags and the green trash cans that they will come empty twice a week. If you work in a restaurant and you would love to have this option instead of putting food into a trash can, you can start composting. Tell your manager to call Jeffrey Ezell. That's 615-866-8152 or follow him at the compost company on Instagram. We are super excited to introduce Maintain IQ for restaurants. Maintain IQ is a modern digital checklist system that simplifies your operations. They are designed specifically for restaurants. You can standardize, track and manage food safety procedures, temp logs, daily checklists, preventative maintenance and ongoing repairs.

54:25He's saying that you can managers will save up to 10 hours per week. You can repair. You can reduce repairs and maintenance spend by five thousand dollars a year. Staff will know what to do, how to do it and when to do it. Everything is digitally recorded. Minimize liability, ensuring safety, cleaning and compliance standards are upheld. This is the best thing since sliced bread, guys. And we're going to talk about that just a second with Sharpies. But we are talking about a checklist to do every single thing in your restaurant that's all kept nice and neat in a little app. You need to call Will Jackson. His number is 888-534-0261 and set up a 30 minute demo. If you do that, I'll give you a free Nashed Restaurant Radio hat or I'll give you a free Nashed Restaurant Radio t-shirt. Just send me a message on Instagram. Check out Maintain IQ. We are so excited to introduce you to the future of restaurant technology. GoTab is it with GoTab QR based online ordering and payment processing solution to the all in one restaurant POS software.

55:30You have the flexibility to adjust your service model based on your guest preferences and staffing levels. Our system even allows easy menu management based on what you have in stock. Unlike traditional restaurant POS hardware, you don't have to be locked in to one way of doing things that starts and ends with the server taking manual orders and swiping credit cards. You can hand off more of that control to your guests. Free up your staff's time to focus on great customer service and creating customer loyalty. You can even continue to use the more traditional server focused ordering and payment processes for guests who prefer table side interactions. Guys, to have that option is everything right now. Go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Click the sponsors tab and you will find a $500 gift under the GoTab tab. Do a 30 minute demo and I will give you a free hat or I will give you a free t-shirt for Nashville Restaurant Radio. Just DM us on Instagram and let us know you set that up.

56:33Go check them out right now. Do you know your insurance provider personally? That's a question I ask people when they come in the studio and they go, who's Robin's Insurance? And I go, they're right down the street. They're a local insurance company that specializes in working with restaurants. I ask some people and they say, I have progressive. I think you think you don't know. You got to know. You got to know your guys, Matthew Clements and Van Robbins over at Robin's Insurance personally work with restaurants to help them be protected. We had Benjamin and Max Goldberg in here and they went, oh, Robin's Insurance. We love those guys. They went to school with Van growing up. They're local. They're amazing. We use Robin's Insurance at both Marable and the Green Hills Grill. And they do a fantastic job. They will sit down with you and identify exactly what type of insurance you need for your business. It is very, very important. So I'm very happy to introduce you to your new insurance guy. His name is Matthew Clements and his number is 863-409-9372.

57:39Give them a call. And next time you're in studio and I ask you, who do you use for insurance? You can proudly say Robin's Insurance. And now we're going to get back to the interview. And I want to tell you that we're going to talk about a little bit about my chefs at rest at Marable and I want to give a big shout out to Julius chef, Julius Gilbert and Mohammed Al Casey, his sous chef. These guys are amazing. And I love them to death. You guys rule. Just want to give you a shout out before I talk about you. Let's go. My chefs over at Marable are so funny because I told them, I said, I love my favorite scene in a movie, but it's a bold statement, a very good scene in a movie that I reference a lot was in Ratatouille. I love that movie. Whereas brother, a meal finds him at the restaurant, right? He goes on the back of the restaurant. He's like a meal and he's like, Oh my God. And he says, this year in here and he goes, yeah, let me bring you some food. And he brings him a piece of cheese and like a, like a berry of some sort. And he just starts throwing it all in his mouth. He's like, Whoa, what are you doing? What are you doing?

58:39He's like, I'm eating. And he goes, no, no, no, you have to try these flavors together. And he takes the piece of cheese, just eat this piece right here. He takes the bite and like the little music notes go and he's like, okay. He's like, now try this one. And he tries the berry or whatever. And then the music notes goes, he goes, now eat them together. And it's like this cacophony of just crazy sounds like, Whoa, that's amazing. That's kind of the thing I look for in like a really good dish. That's kind of like, if I was on chop, those are the things that I would be judging for. Like if I took these three ingredients together, which you would not think would work, what does it do to my, like whole, all of my senses, did I encapsulate any part of the, the trial and error of creating a menu item or creating a new dish? Yeah, a little bit. I mean, sometimes it takes the right thing for it to come together. Like, um, like let's just talk about like the, the crispy rice dish that we do that, but you're gonna be, I don't know if you've had it, but it's, um, they're in your taco, the number eight taco. I'll tell you that much.

59:39Cause that's the poblano and the cheese and the crispy rice. And I was like, what is this texture I'm having right now? And it was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's it though, right? Yeah. Yeah. So like the, the crunch, the kind of puffed rice thing is like, I knew I wanted that to be the, the sort of star, the dish, right? I think when we opened, does that, is that a thing though? When you started, do you have to have a star is in every dish? Is there like a star to the dish and you work around that? Even if it isn't the center of the plate? Yes. Like I, you know, there, it may be, it's a sauce. Maybe it's a, maybe it's just a component or something in your pantry that you haven't used before. And it might, it might just be, you know, maybe it's the quail, like, you know, maybe, maybe it is the actual ingredient, but yeah, I do think that there has to be some sort of inspiration on of like some one particular thing, right? So let's talk about this crispy rice dish. How did you create it? Like, what was your process? So, so it started as just eating a crispy rice dish at a Thai restaurant in LA. And I was like, this is amazing. I want to do something similar to that.

01:00:41Um, so when we're opening the B, I think that dish started as it was crispy rice, uh, like cucumber noodles and a poached egg. It wasn't that good. Cucumber noodles. Yeah. We like, uh, mandolin like Julianne cucumber, basically. So they looked like spaghetti or something, right? That's cool. Um, and I can't remember what the sauce was like. There was some kind of dressing involved or whatever. It was okay. Like it wasn't the best thing I ever made. Right. Um, and then after that we were like, well, maybe we should kind of do like a play on a poke. It turned into an octopus dish. So it was like the crispy rice octopus, but we made this, uh, dressing on that one that was like amazing. So I was like, okay, so now we have the dressing, we have the, um, the, the rice. Um, there was a couple other things in between there. Um, but it ended that we, we wanted to have a vegan salad on the menu. Um, and I think we wanted it to be gluten free. Um, so that was sort of the basis to start.

01:01:44And then, so it ended up being like crispy rice, avocado, that dressing. Um, we had a ton of greens at the time. I think they were collard greens. So we like cut those like Julien them and served it like raw, kind of like a kale salad. Um, but anyway, we mixed all that together and it was like magical, you know, like it just, it worked perfectly. And I think it's been like four years that's been on the menu. It hasn't changed, but it's just crazy that that started as like a cucumber salad sort of, you know, so that's the life cycle of like how that works. You just, you try it. It didn't work or this little aspect of it didn't work. You gain opinion from people you trust or anybody really, right? Yeah. What's your feedback? And then you, um, now, now here it is four years later. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, I mean, we sell other than the whip Feta. We sell more of that dish than not even close than anything else. Is there a dish that you have that, um, was just an absolute failure? Like, oh, that you, like, I think this is really good, but everybody hated. Yeah. Oh man.

01:02:44I'm trying to think of, it's like so many. That would be, yeah. Yeah. Um, nothing, nothing's jumping to mind. Actually, the ones that get me are the ones that like, uh, like a stranger. We have this, we had this, um, mushroom taco and it was mushrooms and it had a runny egg on it. Uh, I can't remember what else, but we did not sell any, like we sold like 10 a day, like nobody bought it, but those 10 people that would get it every day. Like I still, I hear about it all the time. They're like, when are you going to bring it back? What do you, we run as a special and, and then it doesn't sell. I'm like, I don't, I don't know. So it's a mushroom taco with a runny egg. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we put, that sounds fantastic. I love it's good. Every aspect of what you just now said, I love tacos. I love mushrooms. I love eggs. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of messy, you know, from like the runny egg. And, um, I think there were black beans and I can't remember, but, uh, but I thought it was a really good taco. It was like breakfastie and yeah, some people think so, but like, it's like, I can't keep this on the menu if we're only selling this many a day, you know?

01:03:51I don't know that kind of stuff is, gets a little frustrating, but, and I'm trying to think of what a failure. I don't know. Nothing, nothing's coming to mind, but it definitely happens where you get, you get sort of obsessed with something or you're like, I love this. This is right in my wheelhouse, but I don't know your house is different than mine, you know, so sure, but yeah, I just, I've always found it incredibly vulnerable. I have, I've never created a dish that I put on a menu. It's never been something that I've done. I'm not a chef right now. I've certainly done enough wine lists and liquor menus and different things to, to put something out there. And they always sell nobody's going to yell at me for putting on Kendall Jackson. I mean, there's, there's not a lot of risk there, but I've always wondered like how people as a chef, do you taste something and go, this tastes really good. I'm now going to put this out there. And what if the feedback is, this is terrible. Yeah. Like how do you, it, it's like a process of, oh, that wasn't good. I got to change it. Or because now you have a reputation, your reputation around town.

01:04:53That what you do is always really, really good. And it's a little different, but it's, there's a high level call. Like, does it scare you now to potentially put something out? People aren't going to like, or are you just like, I don't give a shit. Let's go. No, it definitely doesn't scare me anymore, but I'm always interested to see what people think, especially it's not like we're just doing like mashed potatoes and gravy or, you know, it's, it's like, we're, we're, we're trying to be a little more creative with it. So we are sort of putting ourselves out there. Um, you know, uh, I, I do think that that that's probably the most important part about like sort of what we talked about a minute ago about like making sure that you work it out before you actually are having guests try, you know, it's, it's fun, maybe like at the bead, they sit at the counter, maybe we have a dish we're working on and like, Hey, try this and we'll send it to them. That's cool. Right. But if they're paying for it, you know, that that's, that's different. You know, I think the last time I went to Pelican and pig Nick was there and he was like, I said, do you got anything you're working on you?

01:05:54And he's like, yeah, here. And he made us a couple of dishes of stuff that he was working on that were same similar deal or knock out amazing dishes, but it was, I asked for us. I had, is there anything you want to test on us? Let's go. Yeah. Is that something people can do? And they, what if somebody said that when they walked into the restaurant? We generally have something that we're working on or that we would, if you're that enthusiastic that you would ask for it, then hell yeah, like, like I want you to try it, you know, um, especially if it's something that like, we're close to putting it on the menu or that we've worked on, you know, like that's, that's fun. I mean, that's why we have the open kitchen is why we have the chef's counter. Like that interaction is super important. No, this is one of those things that I think, I don't know if I should say this on the air or not, but I'm going to do it anyway. There's like this thing in the industry. And I don't know if this goes out anywhere else, but I go to a lot of restaurants and chef will come out and say hi or something. I'll go, what are you guys eating tonight? And I go, I don't know. And he goes, do you just want to feed us? Just start sending food out. We'll just take whatever and just eat it. Just whatever you want to do back there. I've probably had that meal 50 times or it goes somewhere in the chefs.

01:06:57Like, dude, I'm just going to feed you. And I'm like, awesome charger. Let, let, let's go. Is that fun for you when somebody, when that kind of thing happens, or is that like, dude, I'm busy. There's a menu. Like I don't have time to just be creating things for you. Like, or do you just send stuff out that's on the menu? Should we let anybody know that that's even a thing? Well, that's a two, that's a two-parter there, I guess, in response, uh, cause we do have the sort of chef's choice menu at butcher and B, which is sort of like. You have an actual chef's choice menu. Yeah. So it's like the, the guests don't really have to make any decisions unless they want to, like we'll ask them. You know, if there's any dishes they really wanted to try, but for the most part, it's us just sort of curating an experience for them. Um, it's not necessarily, we will have a couple of special dishes here and there, but it's not necessarily like, you're just going to cook this off the cuff. Pick stuff out. That's on the menu to serve people. Yeah. Yeah. But I've never said it's been a while. So I've eaten the B sorry, but like that, that's, that's so cool and innovative.

01:07:58We, I, I honestly, I didn't love it when we first did it because it, it just, I don't know how it felt. I was like, we, we tried to call it kind of a tasty menu and I was like, well, that's weird when we're just serving normal dishes, but the way that it's evolved and, um, our GM Jake over there does a really good job of like training the staff on how to sell it and stuff. And it's probably, I think we sell at least a third of the tables that come in order that, um, so like, you know, they're sort of, and, and it works really well both for regulars and for people who have never been in before, because a lot of people who come in, maybe they do know about us, but a lot of them don't. They think they see butcher and they think we're going to be like a steakhouse, you know, so then they look at the menu and they're kind of confused. So it's an easy way to like, um, introduce people to the restaurant. But for the regulars, it's a good way for them to like try new dishes all the time and stuff too. Yeah. Um, butcher and B what is the name signify? Um, well that got chosen before I was involved.

01:09:02So I didn't really come up with like, you know, naming it, but I do think that like, um, Michael, my business partner, Michael, like really liked just sort of the, the spirit of like a butchery and like the, the craftsmanship and then just sort of like a worker be like, and then just the alliteration, the B and B. Yeah. Um, it's worked pretty well, but it does. I mean, uh, it's butcher and B and you're getting sort of, um, Israeli inspired food. I could, I understand why it can be confusing, but, um, but it's working. That's amazing. Um, we're, we're, we're there. We've, we've talked for an hour and it was quick, huh? Isn't it amazing how you just sit here and you're like, that was an hour. What the hell? Yeah. Oh, we started talking about your favorite bands. You're wearing a Seattle supersonics hat. Um, we were talking briefly before we even started about, who was there? It was like 90s alternative rock somehow. Yeah. What was it we were talking about? Um, well, I was plugging my friend's podcast to you.

01:10:04Uh, that's right. That's right. I think it's called breaking waves, breaking waves. Yeah. Or it's either breaking waves or making waves. So I'm sorry, Brickman. I can't remember the name. What's his name? Uh, his name is Brian Brickman. He produces a bunch of podcasts. He started doing like a fish podcast. Um, like the band fish, not the animal, um, that was really successful. And, um, we have hopes of maybe doing like a NBA. I'm, I'm super nerdy about basketball. So, um, we've talked about trying to incorporate that with food somehow. Are the supersonics still a team? Nah, they don't, they moved to Oklahoma city. Well, they didn't move. They kind of, it's a kind of a controversial thing, but they ended up in Oklahoma city, but they're probably going to get another team soon. And your big, are you front? You've said LA, but are you originally from Seattle? No, uh, I just always liked the sonics when I was a kid. Um, I did live in Portland for a while, but it wasn't when, um, the supersonics were up there, but now my wife's sister lives up there.

01:11:06So I don't know somehow there's a connection, but, um, I mostly just like the cool hat, the hats pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good one. Uh, you have one of the original, you got like the very second hat that I ever got. Yeah. Yeah. You're like the first person that I gave a hat to. I know. I remember you coming by. I was super pumped. That was so fun. Yeah. Yeah. I have a new one for you today. Nice. You have a new hat and a bunch of new stuff for you. Uh, anything else, anything we're missing, man? No, we're just kind of just coming in chat today. This is a lot of fun. I appreciate you doing it. Yeah. I'm super excited to come chat. Um, any restaurants you've been eating at that you just want to tell everybody about, they should go try. Uh, and, uh, yes, uh, they are at the, uh, the East Nashville farmers market, but they have a shop that I've never been to. I think it's called horn coffee. Um, horn. Yeah. The horn of Africa. Yeah. Yeah. And they do these, um, they're like, they're like meat patties.

01:12:07I don't know what they call them. Um, but they, it's like, uh, it's, it's like, uh, kind of a, it's almost like a Jamaican beef patty is kind of in that vein. Interesting. Um, but they, one of them is vegetarian. They have a couple of different options, but they're, they're really good. I get them every time I go to the farmer's market in which farmers are East Nashville farmers. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure there are other ones, but, um, and what's called the, what the horn, the horn, I think it's called like the horn cafe or something like that. Okay. So if you horn horn, something you've got to go find the horn and go give us, give these meat patties a try. Yeah. And, um, I'll plug always East side by me. Uh, I love Chad and Gracie. Um, they got the full shop there, um, that opened at the wash. And then right next to there's Tootsie Lou's who, um, are doing some pretty fun tacos. If you are wondering about these places, you can always go back and listen to post, you know, past episodes. We've had Chad and Gracie on a couple of times and, uh, all the people from Tootsie Lou's tacos before they opened the wash.

01:13:07Those are really fun people. Yeah, they're, they're great. Uh, Drew worked for me at the beef for a while. So, you know, shout out to Drew, um, but they're, they're just really sweet people and their food's really good. And, um, I just, I, I'm really excited by what they're doing at the wash too. The washes. It's such a neat concept. Tyler just really did some, just the, I love the innovation of that guy, just to see that and that vision and to put it together and make it happen is really cool and just to have like a rest restaurant incubator, you know, like, Hey, we're going to start bringing new people and you know, Chad and Gracie are doing something similar to that. Yeah. But their whole system with their hospitality group is we want to help mentor you come in and work just like almost like an apprenticeship program before you open your new place and they're going to help. And I got to get him in here to explain the whole thing, but it's really, really innovative and really cool. Yeah, it's really cool. Um, we're actually doing something similar in Charleston at the, at Butcher and be there, um, yeah, you know, we, they had an incubator space, um, in Charleston called workshop, um, where they would, it was very similar to the wash. It was more in indoors, but, um, but very similar.

01:14:10Like they would, they would give restaurants a space to sort of try stuff out. Um, but now they have, I don't know the details too much of it, but, um, but Michael's sort of turned that into, um, sort of sponsoring somebody. Like I think the, the woman he's working with right now does Pakistani food. Um, and just trying to give people more opportunities that, that might not have it. That's amazing. Speaking of staff, how are you guys doing staffing wise? It's up and down is better than it was. I'm definitely getting a lot more, um, increase than I was before. Uh, it was pretty bleak there for a minute. Yeah, it was, it was, it was tough. Yeah. Um, although I'm still just this past week, I worked the line one shift. I worked tortilla one shift. So, um, you know, it's by no means like solved, but, um, I do think that it's gotten better. I always love to give shout outs to people, um, who you may say I've had too early, I can't give enough shout outs to people, but I will say that we were there the other day and Magnolia did an amazing job and she just made us feel so at home and it was, she had a great job.

01:15:22She's fantastic. Anybody that you want to give shout outs to for this whole thing, who just made it through with you arm in arm that you couldn't have done it without. And Magnolia is great. Honestly, the whole front of house at, um, stranger, uh, deserves something because they have to put up with some of the dumb shit I want to do. Like the no fucking chips thing. They have to explain to people why we do that. And you know, it's, uh, that's all, um, a little fun thing, but really, uh, you know, all of this stuff that I have, like, they're pretty invested. They've been there for awhile. Um, big one, probably to, um, Scott Lippman, who's like my CDC at Butcher and B, um, he's worked for me since before day one at Butcher and B. So since I think he started December of 2015, um, he had like zero kitchen experience before he worked for me. And he kind of went from prep cook to line cook to now he's the CDC there.

01:16:22So, uh, just watching him sort of grow and learn and still be enthusiastic about it, like what seven years later, it's pretty cool. That's awesome. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Where the people I'll show people here on the screen, this chip, this pin that you gave me, this is no fucking chips. Do you want to tell me the story of no fucking chips so that they don't have to every listening, this can go, I don't have to ask them when I go in. Yeah. Uh, well, yeah, it's a two parter. One, I basically open read at a stranger because I wanted to make flour tortillas. I wanted those to be the star of the show. Like that's what we do there. That's what I want it to be known for. Really good with the queso. Yeah. Um, you know, like I, I've made corn tortillas in the past and I just, I didn't have the space and I didn't want to go through that. I also didn't want to just rip open bags of pre-made chips. Like I think it's just not what we do. It doesn't fit our vibe. We get tons of negative reviews about it because they think we're cheap. Cause we don't want to have chips and salsa on the table or whatever.

01:17:24So when we started, it was like, uh, it was, it was just kind of a joke. Like the first week with the staff, they're like, they would come back and, um, they would just, it would be like every table was asking about it. And do you have chips and salsa? There's no fucking chips. Yeah. They would just come back and mutter under their breath, like no fucking chips. Like we don't have fucking chips. So, uh, um, basically became a thing. Yeah, it kind of became a thing. And then, uh, my, uh, one of my bar people, Devin had an idea to make a shirt for it, um, which is hanging up right by the menu. So you see it when you're ordering foods. It's crazy to me that people have missed that, but, you know, uh, so anyway, it just became a joke. That's kind of evolved into a kind of a fun thing. Um, we actually, we just shot, uh, an episode of, uh, triple D with a guy Fieri and he was like obsessed with, with, uh, that shirt and like, what we were doing with that. So I don't know, I don't know how they're going to, uh, say that on TV, but you know, it was pretty funny.

01:18:25Has it aired yet? No, I don't know what they won't tell us when it's airing, but I think it'll be the fall sometime. Well, that's cool. That congratulations. That's it usually gives businesses quite a bump when they show up on that show. Yeah. It was, uh, it was quite the experience that we've done a few TV shows, but nothing, nothing that big, you know? So, um, he was, I mean, he was super nice. Like he's done a lot for restaurants. So it was, it was cool. Yeah. I've been everything I've heard. He's a, he's a very cool guy. Um, Jen, my cohost, previous coach, she's going to come back. Hopefully I'm interviewing her today also. So if you're listening to this, Jen's episode will be out Friday and Brian's will be out on Monday. Um, but, um, she has her husband on soy bistro and Brentwood. Yeah. Have you been there? I haven't been there. No, but, uh, I've wanted to, I haven't heard Jen on here for a while. I know. Right. So she she's been, she had so much going on in her life and we just had a conversation one day and she was like, listen, I love you. I want to do this. It's great. But I have to focus on the things that are at the top of my priority list right now in mental health and everything is one of those.

01:19:33And I said a hundred percent, I could totally get it. I can talk to people. I'm good. Like I missed the shit out of her though. Yeah. I mean, like I, I love doing this, but she adds so much to the show. In my opinion, she just is so it's nice. Sometimes she'll throw something out there. I'm like, that's a great point. I didn't even think of that. And like, I just need that. I need the female perspective sometimes. And it's like, or just her perspective. I love her perspective. Um, she's just an amazing human. And so I was like, yeah, no, take your time, but she's going to come in today. And hopefully she tells me, I've already talked to her. I mean, this is, we're literally going to like catch up doing a live interview. And see what it, see what's going on. So stay tuned for that. And hopefully I can talk her into coming and doing some more interviews with me, or maybe like bring back the music city roundup or something. But yeah, she's, I think she, everything's going well with her. So I think everything's going really good. She's well, and you know, her kids, I think one and a half, her husband just celebrated a year sober, a lot of good stuff going on there. So hopefully I get a good full health report there.

01:20:34Everything's going all right. But I have a feeling that it's, that we're both going to, we're going to go down the rabbit hole of this country and what the hell's going on. I'm, I'm anxious. I'm, I'm not like an anxious person. Like I don't get anxiety. I, I'm a very much a, a restaurant guy. And I told my wife this ago, the hardest thing in the world for me being a restaurant guy and you not being a restaurant person is that shit just rolls off my shoulder, like nothing shocks me. And I'm just ready. I'm ready for anything to happen. And we just spring to it. And she's like, ah, no, but this, the election, the next election coming up, I'm, I'm afraid. I don't know what is going to go on. I'm, I don't trust the, I don't, I don't trust any of the Republicans right now. I'm sorry. I just, there's some crazy shit and I don't know. I don't like, I'm legitimately anxious about what's going to happen. This next presidential election. Yeah, I, uh, I try to be a pretty optimistic person and like something's always going to get better.

01:21:36It's one of the first times in my life. I've not felt that way. Um, I'm scared is pretty, it's pretty depressing, but yeah, it is. And I don't know. This isn't necessarily the podcast where I dig into that stuff. But I think it's important conversation. I think it is too. I mean, I think it's important for people and businesses to like say what they think, you know, I mean, we, we went through that. You know, in the past few years, like we, we're not afraid to say kind of what we think about things. And, you know, it might alienate some people, but for the most part, like people know where we stand and, and, you know, what we believe in. And, and, um, you know, I think that we gained just as much from that as, as we would lose, you know? So Caroline Galzin was a huge, uh, she talked about how she constantly would say the right things, do the right things just so that anybody can dine here. It's fine. And I think she still says that anybody can dine there. It's there's no, no, not segueing anybody. But she said, when Donald Trump was in office and just all of the horrendous things he was doing, she goes, I kind of, I chose people over this stuff and I couldn't not say what I'm feeling and believing.

01:22:48And it was just too strong of a, I'm so adamantly against this, that like, I don't care if you don't eat here. Yeah. Like I'm, I don't, if you're going to be in that mindset, I don't care. Yeah. And I thought that was incredibly brave, but I also thought it was kind of a sign of the times that we're in. Yeah. I mean, it's unfortunate that that things are sort of as divisive as they are, you know, but, um, I don't know if there's like, for me, there's just like no room for, for hate and a lot of the stuff that's happening is hateful and there's not, there's no other way to say it, you know, and like, I just don't want that. Some of the comments around this whole Roe versus Wade thing, I'm shocked. I'm like, how do people have the call to go online and say some of these things? Yeah. I don't know where they get this confidence that that's okay or that, like where do people believe this stuff? I don't, I don't, I'm sure Jen and I are going to get into that today. I want to, I want to stay kind of away from it, but we'll see, we'll see, you know, I'm excited to catch up with her.

01:23:49Yeah. It was fun to catch up with you too. Awesome. Talking to you. Thanks for coming to the studio. Yeah. It's great. And you brought me a t-shirt and like the coolest hat. Yeah. Yeah. I'm wearing that all the time now. Thank you. We just restocked on all the merch. So come buy a shirt, whatever. We'll go to redheaded stranger. It's an amazing experience. It's a cool vibe in there. Yeah. It's fun, man. It's like, it's like fun. It's kind of a, it's kind of a diner. It's got some kitschy shit on the walls. Like you can watch them make tortillas. Like we got Christmas lights everywhere. It's sort of, it's where I would want to go eat if I wasn't working there, you know? That's a great, it's a great testament right there. This is where I'd want to go eat if I wasn't working there. And I love on the wall, when you first walk in, there's like all the little drawings from previous specials you've had, like, or people have like drawn out like what the specials were. Yeah. I love that you've kept all of those. They're so good. Like I've had ideas to like turn it into a color coloring book kind of thing, but we'll see where we go with that. But it's been fun to sort of watch it evolve over the past couple of years. And I'm excited to have you sign my door.

01:24:51Yeah. It's going to be, I'm excited to see where that goes. People come in here and be like, wow, look at all these chefs that have been in here. This is really kind of cool. Yeah, it's cool. So you get to sign right next to your boys from the Bad Look Burger Club. Yeah, man. Uh, maybe we can have a burger off one of these days. So I heard a lot of talk about the best burger kind of got me going a little bit. Yeah. Well, I think Shane Nasby would want to be in that too with Cletus. And then I love the shout outs they give to dream burger and, um, cabin addict. I hadn't heard of that one. I haven't had it either. So I'm like, I got it. I guess I got to go try it. We went to Hugh babies yesterday or no, it was on Sunday. What day is today? Tuesday? Yeah. It was on Sunday. We went to Hugh babies and that was a damn good burger burger. And then on, I think it was Sunday, Saturday morning. I actually went and I had my Bad Look Burger for the first time. Nice. Good stuff. It was legit. Like that was a damn good burger. Yeah. Yeah. I love what they're doing. And they have a good vibe too.

01:25:51Yep. Good deeds. All right. Well, hey, here we are. We're, uh, now we're an hour and 20 minutes. And I think we, uh, we finished the show over there. You're very familiar with this. We have the Gordon food service final thought and it's your turn. You're, you're say whatever you want as long as you want. I don't know who you're talking to, but people who would listen to this, I guess I don't know who they are, but you're out there. Uh, take us out. Um, and you know, I, I know that you do this and I thought about it and I, I have nothing, but, uh, but I would mostly say like, be kind to other people. Um, you know, go support your local businesses, go support novel at booksellers, come to read at a stranger, go to butcher and be, um, and no matter where you go, don't ask me for any fucking chips. I love it. There it is. Brian Lee Weaver. Thank you for joining us today. Thanks Brandon. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, man. All right. Brian Lee Weaver, chef Brian Lee Weaver. Thank you so much for joining the podcast.

01:26:53That was his fourth, fourth visit to the podcast. We did an individual episode with him a long time ago in 2020. And then he came on on our best of Nashville episode where he was the, or he was Nashville scene, best in Nashville, best chef in Nashville. He came on that episode and then just a couple months ago, he came on to talk about his favorite October 11th, his, his, uh, visit to Audrey. And now his in studio live, such a kind, kind person. I just love talking to him. He, you kind of get caught up in all of your own shit. And then you talk to a guy like chef Brian Lee Weaver and you just kind of go, Hey man, just chill. Everything's good. Like everything's great. I love talking to him and help center me. All these in all of these interviews help center me and, um, man, thank you guys for listening. I know that, uh, there's a lot of competition for what goes into your ears.

01:27:54And, uh, I appreciate when you guys choose this podcast, if you would, if you like this podcast, I'd love for you to share it, like, let somebody else know about it. Word of mouth is big time. We're trying to grow and, uh, we're doing different things with this net checks bracket, we're going to have the pop-ups we're doing the book club. We've got lots of fun things. Our goal is to help the community in Nashville, help support locally owned and operated restaurants so that we are here forever. That's what the national restaurant Alliance is going to be about. Lots and lots of fun things going on. So again, thank you for listening. Hope you guys are being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.