Carey Bringle

00:00When you hear that sound, it's probably too late. You need a guy. I want to be your guy. I'm Kevin with Corson Fire and Security and I'm a restaurant territory account manager. Do you know who's doing your inspections at your restaurant? Please reach out to me at 615-974-2932 and I'll be glad to come out and take a quick look and look at all your fire safety inspection needs. If you're building your restaurant, we can help with that too. As far as kitchen suppression, fire extinguishers, emergency lights, we do it all. One stop, one shop. Call Kevin at 615-974-2932. Let me be your guy, Nashville. Hey, this is Jason Ellis with Nashville Super Source. We're so proud to be a sponsor for Nashville Restaurant Radio. We would love the opportunity to discuss your chemical and dish machine program with you. If you have any needs or any questions about your current program, opening a new restaurant or just need a double set of eyes on that, we'd love the opportunity to help you with that.

01:04My number is 770-337-1143. We don't do any contracts, no minimums, weekly service to make sure that all your equipment is functioning properly. Make sure you have everything that you need. Again, my name is Jason Ellis, 770-337-1143. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now, here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello, Music City, and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service, and I'm joined by my co-host, Caroline Galzin, in the intro today. Hi, Brandon. How you doing? I'm great. How are you? Shot out of a cannon.

02:04You know, I actually almost said I'm highly caffeinated. We're both just like on a level. I'm excited today because we have a third timer coming on today. This is Kerry Bringle's third episode. I've been teasing this for like three months because we've wanted to have him in, and we couldn't have him in, and then we had to change this and change that. Then finally, we got him in here, and I thought this interview was classic Kerry. I thought it was a really informative interview. I really enjoyed. I've known Kerry for a long time, but I enjoyed getting to know more about Kerry, more about his story and kind of what his background was growing up. I thought it was something really interesting and engaging that I didn't know previously. Kerry has a lot of opinions, some I agree with, some I disagree with, but I really appreciated that. I thought this was a great reminder for me that I need to get more informed and more engaged in local politics.

03:06Somebody who always says, hey, you have to vote in every election, and it's so important to be engaged. This was a great reminder for me that I need to brush up on that a little bit. 100%. I could not agree with you more. I think that he is so in the middle of it, and that's a passion of his and really getting there. He's somebody who actually is making a difference, getting into the politics and contacting politicians, knows them all by name. That's kind of why I wanted him in, because he's done the research. Come tell me what you've researched and what you've done. He definitely seems to be in the mix. Like I said, I think it's important for all of us to ... I hate to use this term, do your own research, because I feel like nowadays it's been used to imply something else, but truly do your own research. Get out there and get engaged in what's going on in the city. It's important. It certainly has inspired me to do that, and I will definitely do a lot more of that work. I'm excited to have these type of conversations on this show, because a lot of shows are good interview shows where we're talking to chefs about their business.

04:11I thought he was very vulnerable at some points where he was talking about how he didn't get the first location, and he talks about his childhood. He talks about kind of tough love that his mom gave him, and he talks about who he looked up to growing up, and what kind of ... I think in this interview we get to the core of kind of who he is, and it's not just all political stuff. He talks about things I've never heard him talk about before. Yeah, same. I found it to be very engaging and helped me understand more about who he is and what ... the experiences that shaped him and who he is today. Well, whether you love him or hate him, whatever your story is, and hopefully you love him, but I think this interview is something that you should ... I think hopefully you will learn something today. I know I certainly did. Hopefully you'll learn something about our local politics. Hopefully it will inspire you to want to go do that research and learn for yourself what you believe, because I don't think you should take what I say or what Carolyn says or what Kerry says.

05:15You need to take that as a, wow, that's interesting. I want to go learn more about that, and then go do that research and learn for yourself, and then make that decision with your wallet where you spend your money, and you need to make that decision in the voting box, and you need to go vote. Absolutely. So with all that being said, I'm super excited today to put this episode out with Kerry Bringle. I've had notes the first two times you're on the show, and I went back and listened to the first two times you're on the show. Well, the first time you were on the show. You were my first interview, by the way. Yeah. It was on my birthday, wasn't it? It was on March 17th. Yeah. It was on St. Patrick's Day, 2020. So that's like, how long had we been shut down? Three days? We weren't even shut down yet. I don't think we were shut down yet. We weren't yet. We closed on the 14th. That's like a date that's burned in my mind. The 14th was when I put my first out.

06:15I just talked into a microphone, and I had messaged him to, hey, would you like to be on the show? And he said, come down and see me. And the whole show, I want to know about his history and his upcoming this. I'm doing like a journalistic, I want to interview Kerry Bringle. And I'm like, hey, there's a bunch of shit that's about to go down in our world. That's what I should have died like three days later or whatever. A week later, he writes an open letter. And I'm like, we could have talked about all of that if I hadn't had this month long agenda to talk to him about all this stuff. And third time on the show, I think you're the first three timer that we've had. Is it, maybe? I think so. I'm excited you're here. This is actually your fourth time because you came in to accept the nomination. You accepted your award for the best of Nashville just recently with your son. Oh, yeah. Well, that was the second time. Was I on two times before that? Yeah. We did a full interview. You helped us break down. The episode was called Why is Nashville Broke?

07:18Oh, I got you. I broke in because the mayor had proposed a 34% tax increase. And then you wrote an open letter about that. And I was like, I don't know what the hell he's talking about. Yeah, I mean, I don't I didn't know. And you as somebody who's a business owner, not just a business owner, but you're a land owner. I don't think as many we talked about what it means to be locally owned and operated. And it's like you're the definition of truly locally owned and operated. I own the dirt. I own every piece of this. I don't have a bunch of I don't you have any investors, do you? No. It is you. Yeah. So when it comes down to property taxes, that's not out of my pocket. It comes out of your pocket. And you're very, very vocal about that. And I didn't know necessarily what he was talking about. So I said, will you come in? And I heard somebody say this the other day and I thought it was really funny. He goes, will you treat me like I'm driving alone in my car wearing a mask? Yeah. I was like, is that the new thing? Treat me like I'm a kindergartner. Yeah.

08:18And so I said, just treat me like I know absolutely nothing, which I didn't. And you broke it down. And I was like, wow, that was amazing. Thank you. And it was one of the numbers was the number one listen to episode for the thing is right now, number three or number two of the all time listens on the show. All right. Well, let's see if we can beat it. What are we going to talk about today? Yeah, I don't have a big agenda. I know that I want to talk about in the same vein. I want to talk about the football stadium. Right. Big. A lot of people want to talk about where this money is coming from when two and a half years ago, we have to increase our property tax so that we can pay for general things. Yeah. Now we're coming out of billion dollars to put a new football stadium in. And a lot of people have said, is this the right? Where's the money coming from? And I still don't know. Yeah, because it's because it's dead. We don't I mean, it's bullshit. You know, the thing is that it's not that and somebody asked me the other day, what do you think about the new football stadium or the proposed new football stadium?

09:21At the time, it wasn't approved. And I said, look, I love the idea of a new football stadium. Don't get me wrong. I'm not everybody gets excited about that. Looks cool. All this, you know, but you know what they won't tell you is it'll be one of the smallest, if not the smallest in the NFL. It will probably never attract a Super Bowl because it's simply not a big enough stadium. And although it may have all the shiny, bright lights and everything, it's not a big stadium. Is it smaller than the current stadium? I believe that it is. The current stadium holds sixty seven thousand people. I'm not positive on that. So don't quote me on it. I think is this new one. And now I'll be the person who's like, talk to me like I'm alone in my car with a mask on because I don't really know much about this. And I am a very, very casual watcher of football. So how is how does that compare to like what's a typical football stadium in the NFL? Yeah, I think that's I think I think it's close to being on par. Yeah, but but you know, if we're going, I mean, we're going down in size.

10:22We're saying that our current stadium can't host a Super Bowl. It's not nice enough. So we're building a brand new one and it's smaller. And so, you know, I mean, here's the deal. The mayor came and said, I've got to solve our financial problems and I got to raise property taxes, 34 percent. Well, he convinced a lot of people that was a good idea. And obviously he counts that, you know, convinced our city council, which, by the way, is way too big. And we're the third largest in the country behind Chicago and New York. And they can't get anything done except for they can vote on how to spend our money, which, you know, doesn't affect them. So, you know, now they voted for it and it's, you know, Cooper didn't solve any problems. Cooper took the money that the state gave him for to help small businesses and to help get through covid and he spent it on his pet projects. And our schools are terrible. And, you know, there's some great aspects about our school. There's some amazing teachers in our school system.

11:23That doesn't mean that our school system is not completely broken. It's completely broken. But, you know, Cooper threw money at that. He threw money at his other pet projects, you know, and he didn't give. He didn't do anything for local businesses. I'm going to tell you that. I mean, speaking as a local business person, the city did next to zero. The state did a lot. The feds did a lot. The city spit on us and particularly Mayor Cooper and his staff. What would you like him to have done? What would be something that he could have done? He had 160 to 190 million dollars that he never sent an accounting to to the state on where he spent it and for what and how it benefited small businesses. And then he went back to Governor Lee and asked for more money. And Governor Lee looked at him and said, you still hadn't accounted for the last bit of money I gave you, so absolutely not. I'm not giving you any more money. One city in the state of Tennessee has more debt than the entire state of Tennessee.

12:27You could generate more tax revenue than the entire state of Tennessee, too, right? Yes. Yes, absolutely. And I mean, but it's criminal with what we've done in the last 10 years with our budgets. I mean, it's criminal that we're not in better shape. So, Kerry, do you think that, you know, perhaps the mayor should have created some sort of program similar to like, you know, the restaurant revitalization fund or the PPP or something like that with that money to help local businesses? Absolutely. Some other kind of program that could have. Absolutely. Or tax relief, you know, freeze the property. If I've got you closed, why are you paying property taxes? Well, I mean, you know, and you were saying earlier, Brandon, about Kerry owns his property, so he has to pay the taxes. I don't own my property, but I still have to pay the taxes. And I made that argument in my letter. In my letter, you know, I said it's not just property owners. It is leaseholders that have a triple net lease. You know, somebody like a Rudy's Jazz Club is down the street from me that leases.

13:31You know, they didn't account in their business plan for a 600 percent increase in property taxes. Nobody budgets for that because it doesn't happen ever except in Nashville. And, you know, and I mean, it's unprecedented the amount that our property taxes have gone up. And we see the result of it. All these restaurants are gone. In fact, I predicted two years ago in that letter that places like Arnold's would be gone. And where are they now? Arnold's is gone. Now, Arnold's may come back and Arnold's left on their terms. They were able to they bought their property when I bought mine. You know, after 30 years of leasing and they were fortunate enough to be able to buy that property. But had Arnold's not owned that property, they'd have probably been gone sooner. And they chose to go. But I'm telling you, it's the fatigue from covid.

14:31And it was the fatigue from Cooper's administration and from the tax hikes that drove them out. And you can you can talk to anybody and Cooper might say, well, that's not really why. And they left on their. Yeah, they left on their terms. But let me tell you something. It was a lot of pain before they made that decision. And I know the family personally and I don't want to speak for them. You can talk to them, you know, on your own with this show. But and then and then on the second to last day before before they closed, when I was there on Friday, we fed their staff and Cooper has the gall to walk in and present them with a certificate from the city telling them how great they were. Where was Cooper two years ago? You know, it's funny because I did interview with Khalil in the middle of this and he was he was hot. I mean, it's been it's caused it's caused health problems for Rose. It's caused the family undue stress. I mean, this is and this is not just Arnold's.

15:32Look at who have all the other places that are gone. I mean, we've lost so many and it's a direct result of the fact that our city was not willing to stand up and say we value your contribution to the community. We value the fact that you employ all these people and that you're reliable and you and you attract people at a national level. We value that they don't. So let me ask you this. I don't know. Do you think that there's he's indirectly saying I want your small business to close because of what's going to come in its place from out of town will build a bigger building and I'll get more tax revenue from that? It well, one, they're getting the same amount of tax revenue from me right now as they would somebody else in my space unless they put a hotel up and started collecting hotel taxes or hospitality taxes.

16:33But inadvertently, yes, that's what the city is saying. So, you know, it's a I was in a meeting with business leaders and I meet regularly with a group of business leaders where we'll interview folks. We just spoke with Senator Jack Johnson. We've met with potential mayoral candidates will probably meet with all of the mayoral candidates. And, you know, one of the smart guys in the room or older and wiser than I am, you know, said we got to decide what we want Nashville to be. And he said, you know, we have to decide as business leaders, what do we want? Because we task Butch Spearden and we test the chamber with going out and, you know, recruiting businesses and going out and promoting Nashville and saying this and making this the destination. And they did. They did their job. And and, you know, but but how much is enough? Carrie, you know, something that has always really struck me and I feel like I didn't have a really great understanding of of how it seemed like things were working in the city until during the pandemic.

17:42You were very generous to invite Tony and I to a I guess kind of a Q&A or info session of restaurant and hospitality leaders. To talk to the mayor's office and to talk to Convention and Visitors Bureau about what can we do for restaurants during this time? Now, you and Tony and myself were the only independent small businesses included in that conversation. Everyone else was a large group. I think Barrett was in there. Barrett Hobbs. He's independent. That's right. I was the only female in the room representing a business. I, you know, I don't believe there were any people of color in that room representing a business, which is something that that really struck me. What do you think that, you know, the Convention and Visitors Bureau in the city has really done for small businesses? Do you think that because, you know, I've had feelings at times where I feel like really all they care about is, you know, downtown and, you know, some of the larger corporations and that there's not enough attention put on the small businesses in the neighborhoods.

18:43Yeah, listen, I don't disagree. So double-edged sword. I work with the Convention and Visitors Bureau on a regular basis. They've been good to us. They've helped promote us. I have butted heads with Butch on certain issues and certainly, you know, where they thought something was a good idea, I clearly came out and said, no, I don't. And one of them is like the stadium. And, you know, there have been other issues where I've said, Butch, I can't stand behind you on this. And, you know, when he said, I understand and, you know, I get it, you know, but but I'm I got to go a different way. And I get that he's tasked with something. And I'm, you know, and I've got my interest in mind as well as other small businesses, the Chamber of Commerce. Same thing. They're not aligned with my interest anymore. The Nashville Chamber of Commerce is not aligned with the small business owner in Nashville anymore.

19:44Who are they aligned with? They're aligned with the Alliance Bernstein. They're aligned with the Oracle. They're aligned with the Amazon. They're aligned with the big corporations. And they don't they're not looking out for me. And you can look at it in their actions and then the things that they've sent out because I've had words with them on how I can't support them anymore because they're not supporting, you know, why am I going to pay dues to an organization that's going to act against my best interest? What what are the things specifically? I forget them. I forget the big issue. I had a huge a huge fight with them on. I forget what it was. I'll have to go back and look at my emails. I could tell you. But but they just they're not looking out for us as small business owners. And the fact of the matter is that this current administration is not looking out for us. They can do all the lip service they want. Cooper can go show up at all the photo ops he wants. Cooper can do all the inclusion and equity and diversity appearances that he wants.

20:45At the end of the day, when you lose an Arnold's, if you lose a Silver Sands, if you lose businesses on Jefferson Street, it's because the city has put new development progress ahead of historical landmarks. Roteers, the the exit in, you know, the exit in. Don't get me started on that because I'm not that owners a whole different ballgame. I don't know him personally, but I'm not going to we're not going to go down the exit in road. You go down a lot of roads, not that road. Well, look, I mean, you know. If like I said, I don't know that owner personally, maybe a dynamite guy. But they the exit in was the exit in when they went in that space, they leased the space. You know, now the space has been trashed. A developer bought it. He wanted to continue to have it be the exit in, you know, at least for the foreseeable future and invested in development on people. And, you know, when they left that space, they yanked everything.

21:52The owner applied for a trademark on exit in last year, which is being fought by the new owners. And, you know, look, if you if you truly owned the exit in intellectual property or you were the new exit in or you bought the whole identity, you should have bought the trademark when you bought the business or you should have registered the trademark when you bought the business. That's my personal view. It's not a hindsight, you know. OK, I think the media, I think there's these stories out there that we get really a couple takes. We get a news story that's 60 seconds long and the exit in is closing. And a lot of locals are upset about this and they show on the screen little blips on social media. And then there's an article in the scene or there's an article in the Tennessee and that's a column. Sometimes you get a personal opinion, but you don't get deep. You don't hear. No. And listen, like I said, I hadn't talked to the new owners or the old owners.

22:53And so I'm not educated enough. I've got a personal opinion on it, but I'm not educated enough from both sides to really make a big argument. I will say this as a small business owner. And I've seen this happen time and time again. If you do not own your property or have long enough options on that lease to where you can be somewhere for a long enough time to make your money and to make it work, or you don't have a backup plan if your lease is starting to come into play, then you are putting yourself at risk and that is your issue as a business owner. So I'm not that's not a one way or the other. I'm just stating a fact that if you are if I had signed a 15 year late, well, the original lease that I signed for Pegleg was next to Arnold's on the corner there where there's already fell.

23:54No, no. Opposite way of the building that's connected to Arnold's. Oh, there's like a boutique boutique there. There was an antique store in it when I signed the lease. They had just put them out. It used to be Estelle's. They had just put them out. I had signed the lease. We had I had been talking with the owners for a year. We had agreed on a lease on a term on a on a price. It was going to be a five year lease with two five year options. Waited for a year for that property. Got the keys. I mean, sign then right before right before it was vacant, the owners came back and they said we want to change the terms. We want it to be a five year lease with two three year options. And I said, well, I don't really like that. And we've been talking all year about this other one. But whatever, I want to get open. I've been waiting long enough. And so I'll sign that lease. Now, if I had signed that lease right there, I'd have one more year left and I'd be out.

24:58And so I should have started looking last year for a new place to move if I had signed that. I signed I did sign that lease. It goes back to the owners for counter signature. This is the lease that they wrote. Two weeks go by and they hadn't countersigned it. And they come back and they say our family got together and we decided we wanted to change and we didn't want to lock up the building for more than five years. Now it's just a five year lease. And I said, well, through our real estate people, I told my real estate person, I said, you can tell that family and go fuck themselves. I'm not going to do business with people who do business that way. And I would never be a lessee of somebody who does business that way. And so I walked. It was the most painful moment for me in the restaurant industry. My wife looked at me and said, well, everything happens for a reason. Maybe it's the best. And I said, fuck you, too. And I said, I love my wife. We've been together 35 years.

26:00And but that's the way I felt that day. I had waited for a year. I felt personally, personally just, you know, crapped on. And I was furious. Luckily, we had looked at another building down the street, Shannon Electric. We're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. We are supported by Robbins Insurance, an independent insurance agency known for providing customized insurance policies, sound guidance and attentive service. Robbins is also known for delivering exceptional coverage to Nashville's restaurants and bars. Whether it's a fryer fire that sets off the sprinkler system and leaves your restaurant sopping wet on a busy Saturday night, or it's a once in a decade tornado that cuts off your electricity and subsequently spoils all the food in your walk-in, Robbins has seen it all. They know how to create policies that will get your business back on its feet as quickly as possible in the event a disaster strikes. Look, when it comes to ensuring your restaurant, bar, brewery, bakery, grocery store, hotel or whatever, you need someone who knows the industry, who understands your business and who will create a policy that protects your space, your staff and your concept.

27:13That's Robbins. Visit Robbins website at Robbinsins.com. That's R-O-B-I-N-S, I-N-S dot com to request your insurance consultation. Once again, that's Robbinsins.com. We absolutely love partnering with Sharpies Bakery. Erin Mosso has been selling bread, fresh baked bread, to locally unoperated restaurants six days a week for 36 years. Yes, her father started the company 36 years ago and Erin took it over five years ago and it is doing amazing things. I have so many guests that come in the studio that are like, I love Sharpies, they save me so much time and the bread is so good. So we've got round buns, specialty round buns, dinner rolls, hoagies, baguettes. They do cheesecake, they do flourless chocolate, tortes, they do specialty loaf breads and regular loaf breads and bullies. Bullies, B-O-U-L-E-S, sourdough, long tuscan, wheat, multigrain.

28:14They got everything. You should go check them out at Sharpies.com. That is Sharpies, C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S dot com. Or you should give them a call at 615-356-0872. Supporting local is so damn important. And Erin Mosso and all of our friends over at Sharpies Bakery do that daily. Give her a call right now. But that's the way I felt that day. I had waited for a year. I felt personally, personally just, you know, crapped on and I was furious. Luckily, we had looked at another building down the street, Shannon Electric. We had already toured it. I liked it because it was center block, no windows, it was perfect. They had said they would do a lease to purchase. We went and met with them and then we, you know, proposed what we were going to do to the building. They said, that's too many modifications. We don't want to do that, but we will sell it.

29:14And they ended up selling it. We ended up buying it, which, you know, I had to make that deal work at the spur of a moment, which was not easy. But we got it done and we bought it. My wife was 100% correct. My wife was correct. It was the best thing that ever happened to us because at that point we purchased our property. I like, I like that you leaned into the microphone to say my wife was correct. Like it's now on recorded area. I've said it. She's going to, she's going to record that little thing. It's going to be the way that her phone answers from now on. It's going to be like instead of her ringtones, like my wife is correct. Oh, that's what I've been calling. But, but so it, it did work out. But had I signed, had I stayed with that original lease, I'd be looking for a new place right now. And I feel like we're just hitting our stride at 10 years. So that's the reality of the restaurant business when you're in a lease situation. And a lot of people don't think that they can afford to buy.

30:14But if you look at a 30 year mortgage, you, a lot of owners are surprised when they look at what they're paying in rent versus what they can actually afford to buy. It may be cheaper to buy if they can come up with the original down payment or find a partner that can come up with the original down payment. You know, Carrie, I think that's really, really good for you to say that because I think that a lot of business owners, you know, especially people trying to start a restaurant are starting at such a low rung that you don't even consider that. I'll be honest, I never in a million years considered buying a space when we were first looking for something. You know, I think that something that I've seen happening in Nashville that that worries me when we talk about the future of Nashville is it seems that commercial rents have gone up so astronomically here. They are. That only corporate businesses, only large corporations can afford to come into town.

31:15What are independent operators to do when you have a concept when you want to open something in Nashville and rents start at $35, $40 a square foot, triple net? You know, what kind of business can can pay that kind of rent? Not many. If we were starting out, let's say we're starting from scratch today trying to get Nicky's open, there's no way that we could make that work. It's very tough. I mean, I've talked to people about rents across the board from downtown out to, you know, out to Franklin. And I mean, they're all going through the roof. Are we going to see any sort of a change in this? What's going to happen? 48, 50 and 60 are numbers I'm hearing right now. It's right now on rents. It is like New York. And you know, it's very tough. So I would say that one, if you can find a property, then a lot of people don't realize that they can afford it and that it'll be cheaper in the long run.

32:18And it'll give them one, it'll be cheaper in the long run, potentially. Two, they'll build the equity. Three, that equity will help fuel restaurant growth, you know, and build long term wealth. And and so it's a but you're exactly right. When somebody's struggling just to get the money to open a restaurant, you know, I didn't I didn't have the money to open a restaurant. I went to three separate banks. They weren't going to loan me the money. You know, I had a little bit of money I had pulled out of my 401k and it was right after the banking crash and everything. And so the banks were super strict. I wasn't going to get a loan. And so I found a private investor and and I had an investor when I first started and I was able to buy that investor out very quickly within six months. But the reason that I was able to do that is that I found the building and he and I worked a deal to buy the building.

33:22And then I had that building is equity. And after we renovated it, it was worth more. And, you know, after a year, it was worth more. I ended up buying that partner out of the restaurant part after six months and I bought him out of the building part after four years. They made a twelve hundred percent return on the money they put in the deal. But I had to be smart enough to find the deal savvy enough to negotiate the deal savvy enough to find an investor who believed in me. I had to be able to articulate that story so that they got excited about my vision. And that's what business owners need to understand and and be able to do. And if you're thinking about opening a restaurant or any business, I would say take two years while you're still working your regular job, research, research, research, meet with everybody that you can drink it in.

34:26Go talk to other restaurant owners. I'm I mentor people on a regular basis that come to me and say, what do I need to do? And I'm happy to sit down with them and spend time in my office and say, here's what I would do. And they'll bring me business plans and else. And I'll say this and that. And I'm like, look, you need to slash this. You need to do this. It's about feeding people. It's about putting your ego aside and understand. Do you want to be in? Do you want to get all the accolades? You know, do you want to get all the honors and everybody knows that you're a amazing chef or do you want to feed your family and make money? Do you want to be an Instagram star or do you want to create experiences and nourish your community and feed your family and provide? I think it's hard to because I think that so many people who, you know, came up working in restaurants in a certain kind of way when you want to start your own business, a lot of people come at it from the wrong angle, which we certainly did. We came at it of we love this. We're so passionate about this.

35:26This is this is our passion. This is what we love. Now, you know, through our first restaurant opening and closing and then, you know, now with Nicky's, I have a night and day mindset from when I first started out. Well, listen, I think about profit first. You know, of course, we have great quality food and great hospitality, but I don't I only think about money first. And that's not selling out. Listen to want a better life for your family and to be able to feed your kids or put them in a better school or whatever. That's not that's not selling out in my book. And you can, you know, some people say, do you want to be rich or do you want to be famous? That doesn't have to be a choice. You can be both. But if you want to, but, you know, rich, rich or happy, you'll be richer. Do you want to be happy? Is that the rich or famous rich? I've heard a lot of people say rich or famous. Which one do you want to be? You know, money, money is does money make you happy? Not necessarily. Does money make you more comfortable?

36:26It helps. I mean, you know, I'm gonna tell you, it helps. You're able to access more things. You're able to access better health care. You're able to access better experiences. And you don't have to be a slave to money. You don't have to worship money. But there's nothing wrong with being able to make a good living and be able to provide for your family. You know, that's called, you know, being a good parent. Daniel Tosh has a joke and he says, which immediately should be a red flag that he goes, money doesn't buy happiness. I call bullshit. He goes, money buys the wave runner. You know, it's impossible to frown on a wave runner. You get a waiver, you get a boat because that's what money buys you. That's what money buys you. And that's what it does. It buys you happiness. It's like that country song. It can buy me a boat. I can't remember who it is, but it's like money can't buy happiness, but it can buy me a boat and a Yeti iced down with cores. There you go. I mean, the thing about it is, and I had this problem for years and I just gave this piece of advice to somebody else.

37:32Don't sell yourself short. If you have a talent, if you've worked hard, if you've put in the time and the hours, everybody tends to sell themselves short. I know that I have multiple times in my career. Don't be afraid to fail, you know, because through those failures, you're going to learn more than you can ever learn from winning. And and don't sell yourself short. You know, don't lower what you're worth. I've done a lot of deals where I've underestimated the value of what people would pay for my work. And I probably still do that some, but I don't do it near as much. And that confidence and understanding what my value is to somebody has helped me a lot along the past 10 years. And, you know, and get active. I say get active in the community because it affects us. You know, if we get back to the progress, you know, the thing about Nashville, again, what do we want for our city?

38:38I mean, do we want to continue to grow to no ends? And and that's OK if that's what we decide collectively that we want to do. But there's a cost to that is that you're going to lose the Arnold's. You're going to lose the small businesses on Jefferson Street. You're going to lose, you know, a lot of the character. You're going to lose the exit ends. I mean, that stuff is going to happen. So you just have to you got to know that going in. But if if Nashville truly cares, like our political leaders say that they care about keeping these businesses and keeping these landmarks, then the city needs to start acting like it and acting in a way or making breaks for those businesses to be able to continue to make it. It's like Caroline said, at what point is it just too expensive to run a business in the city of Nashville?

39:46I mean, how much was so many restaurants with so many attractions, everybody vying for those dollars? How much does it take for you to pay yourself and to pay your staff and pay your rent and pay the new taxes? Well, we talked about this on a show not long ago on a roundup where we talked about Caroline got in a review from somebody who was pissed off because they paid fifty four dollars for a pizza shot and a beer or something with tip. And they're like, you're robbing your community. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Fuck you. Listen, restaurant owners need to charge the appropriate amount. I think there's a fear in restaurants that they're going to get that review. So they only charge what they think that other people should charge and go. You have to rent this. People don't under the general public doesn't understand what costs are and overhead and all these other things. You've got to charge what you've got to charge. You've got to charge. And I think there's a fear of people doing that. And when developers and people that you're you're lease owners, they're not afraid to charge that Kroger's not afraid to charge that.

40:51We as restaurant tours have to charge the prices that we need to make it. And I think there's a lot of fear out there for that. There is. And I get it. That that is something that you don't want to hear from a customer. But again, you know, until I wrote the letter explaining the taxes, which, you know, still a lot of people are clueless. I don't think a lot of people in this city, they look at their property taxes and they go, OK, I was paying twenty five hundred and now I'm paying thirty two hundred. That's how that affected me. OK, I can live with that. That's not that big of a deal. They don't understand that. No, I was paying ninety nine hundred and now I'm paying seventy two seventy five thousand. That's how it affected me as a business owner. So you who come to my restaurant, you think about me in the same way that you think about your property taxes on your house.

41:51And you think, oh, this is what's happened with my house. You don't look at it, man. And then, you know, and most of my customers had zero idea what we were paying in property tax. You have a lot of tourists that come in there. Yeah, but our regulars had no idea the burden on us from a tax standpoint. Even when we opened over in the Oasis, before we ever even were able to break ground in permitting, in hookup fees, in water impact fees, in sidewalk fees, we cut fifty thousand dollars in checks before we touched the dirt. So if you're wondering, Kerry, sounds if there's a way he seems upset with Cooper, like when you write in those checks, those are my tax dollars going to play here. You expect something in return for that, right? Well, you know, it's not just Cooper. It's our city council. I mean, you know, Cooper's the easiest scapegoat.

42:54So I'm not inherited a lot of this. Cooper inherited a lot. But let me tell you, he has not done anything to fix it. And don't let him tell you that he has because he hadn't. OK, and the other problem with Cooper is he'll sit and listen to you and act like he's listening and act like he's going to do one thing. You know, turn around and do something else. OK, so, I mean, with with Briley, at least you knew what you were getting because he'd tell you what he was going to do and he'd do it. Cooper doesn't do that. That's my problem with Cooper, is that he gives you a lip service and then he doesn't do it. I've met with Cooper. I was going to ask, have you sat down and met with him and explained your grievances? I met with him on one or two occasions. I met with him when he first got to be mayor. Let me tell you, I wrote a check to the Cooper campaign when he was running. OK, I thought he was going to be a good option. He was a business owner. I thought he would be, you know, the best option that we had. I've sat with him with other leaders and, you know, and he was cordial and he listened, you know, and he acted interested.

43:59But his actions have shown otherwise. And so that's where I have an issue with Cooper is that and he can't please everybody. And I get that, you know, I don't hate Cooper personally. OK, so don't don't get that, you know, but I don't like the job that he's done. I've been very vocal about it. You know, I've talked to his staff and met with groups where we've, you know, asked for help in our community of restaurants and they fell on deaf ears. They were ignored, you know, and and that's where I've had a problem with that administration. And I've been very open about it. I've been very vocal, but I hadn't been, you know, I'm not doing anything behind Cooper's back here. Do you think that organizations like you were mentioning the Chamber of Commerce earlier, which I know nothing about this, but do you think that those organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce are too influential with the mayor's office in?

45:00Well, the Chamber of Commerce gets money from the city. I mean, you know, it's a you can follow the trail of the trail. I mean, look, it's a problem with all of our politics. It's not just on a local level. It's on a, you know, it can be on a regional level and it's certainly at a national level. We're divided right now and that's unfortunate because when we sit down and even though I have differing political views, then even you and I have very differing political views on a lot of things, but we can agree probably on 90 percent of it. Sure. And you and I have always had very friendly and respectful conversations. You know, you're somebody who's been so generous to us just a few weeks ago. I called you and said, hey, I want to run some ideas by you. What do you think is my my neighbor, you know, my business neighbor in the nation? So, yeah, it's a we need to get back to that as a country and certainly as a city. We can't do it with a 40 person city council. And luckily, our state legislature is looking at, you know, limiting the number of people that you can have on any board or council in the state.

46:03And that would knock that down to 20 across the state. And that will be a good thing for Nashville if they do that. Why do you think that would be a good thing for Nashville? Well, I'm going to tell you a very specific and exact reason when they were doing the budget. You know, you had some people in there that really wanted to slash the budget and make some cuts and make some balance that budget and make it work. And it's a double edged sword because some of this comes from the conservative side. Some of it comes from the liberal side with a 40 person city council, which we have no business having. Miami has a 12 person city council, to give you an example. The only two cities that are as big or bigger than ours are New York and Chicago. And look at the shape they're both in. They can't agree on anything. They can't make significant change in decisions. And because of our sunshine laws, which were meant for transparency, they can't have a gathering of any small group of them.

47:04So if you have six people that are CPAs that are on the city council that can get together, say they're from both sides of the aisle and they can sit in a room and they can hammer out a budget because that's what they do for a living. They understand it. They can't meet. They have to have everybody there. I didn't know that. Because of the sunshine laws. It's hard to get that many people together. They can't have a... So think about if you had to put 40 people in a room and make a strategic decision about your restaurant, how hard do you think that'd be? Sure, I think that's a very good point. That's what our city council has to do. So, you know, with my leadership in my restaurant, I lead from the top and then I have, you know, GMs and I meet with the GMs and I tell them my directives and I walk through the restaurant and I see what I do and then my GMs meet with my managers. And that's a normal structure of a business or a restaurant that's as large as we are.

48:05But in our city council, you're talking about trying to get 40 people in a room, 20 of whom may not be able to balance their own checkbook. And now you want to get them to agree on a budget for the city. Half of them don't even know what's going on. I mean, and that's not to call anybody stupid or anything. It's just if that's not your forte, if that's not your expertise, that's why I hire a CPA. To the people who know what they're talking about. Because they know what they're talking about. But you got to have people that have a basic understanding of it. I mean, it would be better to have, you know, folks that can get together in a smaller group and really hammer it out or just have a smaller group in general where you can build a better consensus or explain it to people. And that's not to cut out any representation of any particular neighborhood or any particular people in the city. It's just good business. And right now, our city does not have good business.

49:07And we have in the past. We've had leaders like Bredesen, you know, we've had other leaders along the way that have done a good job that nobody cared whether they were Republican or Democrat. They were fiscally responsible and they looked out for the small business owner in the city of Nashville. So do you think that there's that type of political divisiveness that is causing some of the problems with with Nashville? And I think there's yes, yes, I think there's political divisiveness. We're going to take another quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. The Wineview app is a new sponsor to Nashville Restaurant Radio, and we couldn't be more excited. This is a sommelier in the pocket of every server in your restaurant. Hiring a sommelier is expensive and not every restaurant has the capability of doing it until now. The Wineview app is a sum in the pocket of every single server. Let's talk about how it works. First, download the free app. Sign up your restaurant and the app will pair all of your menu items with wine from your list.

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51:12A healthy workplace with opportunities for growth is a happy workplace. Encouraging your team's well-being will result in higher morale and better work performance. Guys, these are all things that you can get through providing health insurance for your staff. Also, if you don't have health insurance, you can sign up as an individual for health insurance through Southern Health Insurance. Guys, these guys are doing amazing things. Dan Maher wants to talk to you. His number is 832-816-8602. And in 2023, if you're not offering health insurance for your staff, it is an absolute necessity. You need to do this for your team. It's super important. Please give him a call today. Who are your inspirations? Who'd you look up to? When you saw somebody and you looked up to someone, you went, I can do it. Who are the people that you saw do that? You know, I mean, there were a lot of people that I saw. I was always interested in business and people that were successful and entrepreneurs. I was fortunate enough that I had a mentor.

52:14My parents got divorced early, and I love my father. He's passed away now. My mother was very instrumental in my success in the fact that she said, you know, you're going to get up. You're going to do this. You know, I don't feel sorry for you. You're not going to, you know, don't have any pity party over here. You know, I said I want to be a minute. You probably needed a little bit of that at some point, right? Well, I mean, you know, she was there for me, but she didn't. I didn't feel sorry for myself. Sure. My mother had taught me by that age that I had my leg cut off that, you know, you can get up and move on. And but when my parents were divorced and we were here in town, I had a next door neighbor. His name is Reed Morgan, and he's like a second father to me. And he was he was a young man. He was in his 30s when they moved in next door. He was starting a family. He had a son named Clay, who is now like a younger brother to me.

53:16I babysat that boy from the time he was born. But Reed was a salesman and Reed mentored me and Reed instilled in me that you can do anything that you want to do. And you know what? You can. You want to keep your nose just above the water line. And, you know, he taught me early on. We're about to build my dream house right now. I just leveled my house. I was going to ask you about that. I said your house is leveled. What are you doing over there? It's gone. We're building a new house, which I've been wanting to do for a long time. I lived next door to Reed on Woodmont. Then Reed moved into Oak Hill. But anyway, I worked for Reed and his wife, Kathy. And Reed taught me that that nothing is impossible and that you're you you were the only one that's going to limit your success. And I started on an entrepreneurial path at a very young age. And and I had his mentorship helping me. And and so the house that I'm the property that I'm about to build on, I couldn't afford when I bought it.

54:21And but Reed had always told me he's like, you can buy whatever house you want. And I say, no, Reed, the bank will only give me this much money. And he said, well, you go get it somewhere else. And I said, well, what do you mean? And he said, well, you know, there's other places other than the bank. And I said, well, I don't know what you're talking about. He goes, well, I mean, you want to go spend three hundred fifty thousand on a house? And I said, you know, honestly, yeah. And he said, well, somebody will loan you that money. Now, they may charge you 15 percent, but they'll loan you the money. He says, so you have to understand that you're only limited by the risk that you're willing to take. So you can, you know, you can start. I can take somebody's broke right now. They start a restaurant. I mean, they can go out and they can find a million bucks. They may get charged 20 percent. They may get charged 30 percent. Hell, their investor may take 50 percent. They may take 60 percent. But you could do it. But you can do it. It is out there.

55:21And I would say that that's true for anybody. And they can find a mentor or they can find a network or they can go out and network just like I did, just like they can. I mean, the opportunity is there. There's networks in Nashville. There's entrepreneur centers in Nashville. You know, I don't mean to cut you off, but, you know, I actually don't think anybody can do it. I think that people who are entrepreneurs who have the tenacity and the stamina and the I'm not going to give up and I'm going to keep getting kicked and I'm going to keep going. I don't think just anybody can do that. I really don't. Well, I agree. So, yeah, no. I don't know. Maybe. No, I understand your point. Self-loathing breeds. I get your point. So to that point, I think, yes, you have to have the right mindset. What I'm saying is I don't I think you're limited by your own mindset or whether you have the personality or the grit to get up and do parenting for me.

56:24One of the things my favorite quote of all time is a Henry Ford quote. You might know what I'm about to say. And the actual quote is whether you think you can do a thing or you think you cannot do a thing. You're right. And so my kids, anytime he says, I have two boys, they're seven and nine and they'll say, but dad, I can't do that. And I go, well, I guess you're right. You can't do that. And I go, what do you mean? I go, well, it's whether you think you can and you think you can't. You're right. If you don't think you can do it, then you probably can't do it. But if you think you can do it, you could at least try it and maybe you'll then recognize how close you are to not being able to do it. And you can close that gap and you can keep working on it. And then guess what? Then you'll do it. You have to find the way whether you think you can or you think you can't. You're right. And it is a mindset that's back to what you were saying. Everybody can't do it. Some people cannot get past that mindset right there. We had the saying in my house that came from my father and then I gave to my three children was can't never could. Can't never could that I don't want to hear, you know, and same within my organization.

57:28I don't want to hear my people say we can't do that. The answer, you know, it needs to be. I don't think that's such a great idea or that's going to be difficult. Here's why. And here's what we could do instead. Or here's an alternative. Come with a solution. Yeah. But hey, we can't do that. You know, I mean, it's it's. I mean, and when you have people in your organization, you know, that are like you tell them something that's stupid. You know, you need to get rid of them. That's a cancer in your organization. That's not a culture fit. It's not a culture fit when you're a positive person and you want to grow your business and your company. And, you know, I think all of these play into not only being a good restaurateur, but being a good business person and being a good person is, you know, there is a nice sound cold, cut and dry on a lot of things.

58:29That's not who I am. I'm just more of a matter of fact, you know, kind of I'm going to tell you what I think. Well, I think that a lot of people I certainly do appreciate that about you, Carrie, because I think that in this industry in particular, there's there tends to be a lot of bullshit. You know, and I just love I love a straightforward person who's just going to say, hey, here's what I think. And I'm not afraid to say whether I agree or disagree. I appreciate that so much. We said Andy Little in here and he just left before you. And we talked about this. There's an old school mentality that back in the day you wanted to get good. I mean, you your whole life around barbecue and you had to learn from people and you had to listen and you had to go do the grunt work. You had to be the midnight to six a.m. guy on the pit. You know, you didn't get to be the guy in the middle of the afternoon. You had to do the overnight shift and you had to do all of these things. And it's like people today want to walk in and they see on Instagram that you can do this stuff. And they just oh, yeah, I'll just like, no, you have to put the work in it.

59:30And I think there's for me, there's a little bit of resentment there, if I'm being honest, because I had to do all these things coming up. And I was I was passionate. I was thirsty and I wanted to learn from people. Pat Martin talks about in growing up in Memphis or just north Mississippi that he would go find people learn how to do whole hogs because it was just his passion. I don't think you get that today. I think there's a I think there's a I don't I want I want the end result, but I don't want to do that work. And to me, there's a little bit of resentment there. And I don't know how that manifests itself daily, but I daily fight it because I have to learn how to well. Does that make sense? Well, we got a culture. You know, we got a culture that says, hey, I don't want anybody to hurt or get their feelings hurt. You know, it's this culture of everybody gets a trophy and baseball. You know, and I think this is where that attitude starts. It is when you've been told your whole life.

01:00:30Oh, hey, you did a great job. Even if you were out on third base picking you picking your nose when the ball went by, you know, which happens, I'm not telling you. I'm not saying that your coach needs to scream his head off at you. But what I'm what I'm telling you is that your coach needs to say that wasn't such a good job. And let's do it better next time. And here's how we can do that better. And then show them. But when you tell everybody, man, you were all awesome and you and you kept losing, then then they're not going to get any better because there's no incentive. They already got the trophy, you know, and it and it happens. It happens in business. And I see that attitude. We see it in a lot of people coming up. They want they want everything. Now, look, my kids, I mean, I've got 25, 24 and 22 year old. And, you know, they see what their parents have and they want that. And you know what? It's it took it took me 40 years to get here. Hey, sorry, son. It doesn't you don't get what I got in 40 years tomorrow.

01:01:32And as tough as a parent is tough to to do that. But but I think that's where we're seeing in our culture is it's not realistic. I think it I think that there should be more conversation in our culture about how to respectfully disagree and listen to each other. I really do. I don't you know, I don't like to just put myself in a vacuum of surrounding myself by only like minded people. I'll never grow or learn that way. I like to be around and have discussions with people that I don't have the same viewpoints as everything. And I think that a lot of people are afraid of that. I think a lot of people do live in that bubble of only being around people that think like they think and, you know, have the same exact values and, you know, that they have. And, you know, it's it's and you're 100 percent right. And I tell you that one of the places that we can facilitate that is in our restaurants. I mean, it's a my restaurant and I, you know, I go off on some tangents every once in a while.

01:02:36I try and do it less and less on my official account. You know, I feed everybody and I hope that you can sit down and have open and honest dialogue with people in my restaurant or even with me. If I'm sitting at the corner of the bar, I'm happy to talk to you and I'm happy to hear a different point of view than mine because a lot of times I learned something that I never took into consideration because I've been in some bubble where I couldn't see that point of view. So I'm happy to do that, you know, but you get it. You get on both sides. I had somebody the other day when I said the Tennessee and published about, you know, them trying to cut the city council down to 20. And I said, this is great for the city. This needs to happen. Our city's been fiscally irresponsible. We owe more than the state. And, you know, somebody got on there and just, well, I'm never going to eat at your restaurant again, blah, blah, blah. I'll go to Jack's or I'll go to Edley's. And I was like, fine. I said, fine. It was a great place. Guess what? And you know what? I'm 99 percent sure they agree with me. I'm like, you know, so it.

01:03:39But but in restaurants, we can foster that communication. We can keep that open line. And I'd like to say to anybody, even if you didn't like my letter about the taxes, which I got attacked on, don't ever go read Reddit at once. My buddy told me he goes, oh, yeah, there's a Reddit thread. And he was like, don't read it. Well, of course, the first thing I went and I went and read it. It's about 400 people, you know, sitting in their mother's basement's dog and peg leg pork or probably 90 percent of them never have been to the restaurant. But, boy, they had some choice words for me. I was depressed. I mean, I read that. I read that and I was depressed. But, you know, instead of instead of them coming and saying, why do you feel like that? You know, or because that letter was really it was not partisan. That letter was very bipartisan that that was, hey, this is affecting everybody. It doesn't matter what who you voted for. Eight hundred percent tax increase in 10 years is an eight hundred percent tax increase that that sucks for everybody.

01:04:45And the boy, they went after me. I mean, they just went after me hard. And some in particular, I got some council people went after me, which was, you know, and I clapped back on a few of them. And then I had some people reel me in. They were like, that's not good. Don't don't don't do that. Well, is there anything right now? I mean, last time we did an interview like we had talked and then you wrote this letter. Do you have any drafts right now? Do you have any drafts out there that you're working on that you can that we can just jump into? I mean, how much time you got? There's I mean, there's a lot of things I'd love to say. I'm trying to temper myself from doing that. My wife has threatened me on on writing any more op-ed pieces. Well, you can say it was one. It was one I was going to write the other day. What set me off? I forget, boy, I was really I was really torn up. I don't know. It I'm very opinionated. I don't generally hold it back.

01:05:45And I mean, I will defend it and I will listen to your counter opinion. And if you come to me with a valid counter opinion, I'm I'm likely to change my mind, you know, if I've seen something that I didn't see before. So I'm certainly open to those discussions. Well, you know, here's here's something kind of going back to, you know, I think that too many people feel like they can't have conversations with with things that they don't agree with. You're somebody who you've been such a huge supporter to Tony and myself. You've been such a great friend to us at times. You've been a mentor to us and we consider you a great friend. And I I may disagree with some of the things that you've said, but I feel like I know your heart and I know you as a person. So that's not going to make me feel differently. Sure. About how adults talk. Exactly. 100 percent. And this is what our this is what our congressional leaders used to do.

01:06:46And I think that this is kind of the discourse that's that's missing. Maybe we're getting to even bigger topics here today. But in our society as a whole, I think that this is what's missing is the ability for people to sit down. And Brandon might say, well, I think it's this instead of that. And I'll say, I think it's us. And you say, no, it's that, you know, that we can all sit down and we can learn something. Well, it's you know, if you provide a seat for everybody at the table, then then you can have those open discussions and not, you know, take it as a personal affront. I mean, I've got a lot of people that I'm close friends with that. Well, the mentor that I spoke with you about Reid Morgan, who was a significantly influential in my life and who is a reason I'm successful now, one of the key players in my success now has very different political view. He and his wife have very different political views than I do. And, you know, it doesn't make me love reading Kathy any less.

01:07:46We can just we just don't we don't talk about it a lot of time. And if we do talk about it, we'll have a civil discussion. And if it gets too heated, then, you know, we'll go. That's enough of that. My father-in-law says, let's talk about ducks. You know, it or barbecue. I mean, that's a great equalizer. But yeah, I mean, we're in the food business, which can be a great equalizer. And and it's I think we can help facilitate a lot of these conversations as long as we don't polarize each other. And I am, you know, being more on the conservative side in the restaurant business, I'm odd man out. OK, I mean, I tell you. And as a member of, you know, I was a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance for many, many years and still support a lot of what they do. But I felt like the direction they were going in was to beat me on the head with a hammer and tell me that I was a bad guy. I was saying, hey, I'm just I'm just doing the same thing that anybody else is doing out here, grinding out, trying to make a living and do better for my family.

01:08:51They have the mantra of there's a seat for everybody at the table. Well, then they have an annual convention and the tickets are nine hundred dollars a seat. So when the people that they make films about can't afford to have a seat at the table to watch the film that they may be starring in, then I think that you have a problem. And I called them out on this. There's nothing that I hadn't said to John T or to the organization. And they've done a lot of amazing things and a lot of histories and documentaries and stuff. But I felt like and I expressed it and I was, you know, there were a lot of people that felt like me, but that were afraid to speak up. Hey, guess what? You didn't make a seat for everybody at the table. If you wanted to make a seat for everybody at the table, you'd host a one day event. It would be twenty dollars a seat or you would get grant money or you would get donation money and you would allow everybody to come and have the discussion at the table. But when you when you charge nine hundred a seat and your audience looks ninety percent, ninety five percent homogenous and all your speakers may be diverse, but your audience is about ninety five percent homogenous, then are you really practicing what you preach?

01:10:12I'm just saying I'm not I'm not saying they're right or they're wrong. But but sometimes people need to stand up and say, look in the mirror. And I had people do it to me. And I'm and, you know, I'm thankful when somebody says, Carrie, you're not you talking about this, but look at what you're actually doing, then I have to reflect and go, oh, wow, maybe they're right. You know, and that's why I still read almost every review that comes through for my restaurant. It's not fun to look at them. It's like the Reddit. Sometimes they make you feel like shit. But there's a kernel. There's a kernel of truth in almost every one. And if you are humble enough to or care enough about your business to look at them, then it may point out things that you can't see with your naked eye that you can then go back and try and do better on. And now, you know, you've got to weed out the ones that are just emotional or just crappy or just being jerks.

01:11:15But the ones and they're there. Yeah, they're there. Yeah, they're there. I've always appreciated the sincerity of somebody who writes me a personal note or who sends me a personal email that says, hey, you normally do a great job and I'm a big fan, but let me tell you what happened the last two times I was in. And I can tell you that the last one that I got was about my new restaurant, the Oasis, and it was about how the cutters were cutting the meat and they were cutting it the wrong way. And, you know, first thing I did after I got that was I said I went to my GM, I went to the staff and I was like, this customer was right. This is why they had a bad experience. It was our fault. And they're a fan. They want to love us. But we weren't on our game. And so we need to better train the guy that's on the meat block to know how to cut it correctly because that affects the customer experience. And so that's what we did.

01:12:18I think you have the all-time best response from any review out there. And I recorded it. Yeah, I've written a few. You did read one years ago when we had people hate us on Yelp and we had people come out and read bad Yelp reviews. Man, I'd love to do that again one day. That was fun. It was really fun. Yeah. I want to see if I can play this. I've got this on. There you go. I can find my TikTok here. I want to play this and then we'll let you get out of here. We've kept you here for a long time. I just appreciate you taking the time. We've tried to do this for like two months. We finally got you here. Well, these are good discussions. I think you can see that we can have a back and forth and we can agree and we can agree to disagree.

01:13:24But it's important to have the conversation. I absolutely agree. And if Mayor Cooper wanted to sit down with me and have the conversation, I'd be happy to. I don't think he does. Now, we're dying to get him in here for an interview. Maybe we'll wait to release this episode until we get him on the calendar. Well, I've been pretty transparent on that issue. That's what I love about this format, too, is that people can come in and share ideas, share thoughts, encourage discussion. I think it's great. All right, you ready? Yeah. Let's see if I can get this thing going here. Jimmy M. Where to separate all your dishes from them.

01:14:37They don't have it. Can they not have a busboy? You're bombarded with people while you're trying to figure out where they want you to place your bent up silverware. Try St. Louis barbecue way better. Update the owner's smug responses below. It sounds like I was pretty spot on. I had feelings in somewhere. I wanted to go back. What a dick. I think that's the last part of what a dick. So then here I have his response. Here we go. All right. So here's my response to Jimmy. Jimmy, sorry that you had a bad experience. That dumpy rundown building, as you call it, is actually very clean, well maintained barbecue restaurant with a health rating of 98. The fact that it's a cinder block building on a side street doesn't make it a dump. It's 100 percent family owned and operated restaurant and one of the highest rated barbecue spots in Nashville. We're proud of our place and we have quite a bit of money invested in it. Sorry we don't pull your chicken for you. I figure that you can muster the strength to do that yourself. We serve an award winning, very tender smoked half chicken.

01:15:38Pulling it before you order it would only dry it out. You're right. We don't have burn ends or beef. We serve real Tennessee barbecue. It says so on the mural outside. Did you see that before you walked in? That means pork and chicken. If you want brisket, go to Texas. We even have a shirt that says that very thing. Maybe you should have bought one. As far as our sauces go, we have our pig leg pork or original. The same sauce and then a white sauce. We're proud of our sauce. In fact, Bon Appetit named it a top five barbecue sauce in their barbecue issue. We don't need one from every region. We cook Tennessee barbecue. We make a sauce that reflects our regional style and hometown. We don't pretend to be something to everyone. And folks that do usually end up doing a mediocre job of it. If you don't like the cost of the pickles, don't order them. Very few things in a restaurant cost 50 cents. Maybe you can open up a Kool-Aid pickle place and charge 50 cents for your pickles. Who knows? You may not get out of the park. You only have to sell a couple hundred thousand orders to cover your overhead each month.

01:16:39Our bathrooms are not disgusting at all. They're cleaned multiple times daily. In fact, the picture that you posted shows that they're clean. You may be freaked out by an unfinished concrete floor, but that doesn't make the bathroom unclean. It means it has a concrete floor. I don't know what the inside of a prison bathroom looks like, but maybe you do, Jimmy. You do, Jimmy. Lastly, we have bus boys. My son was one of them on the day you were in. We encourage you to bus your own table, but if you can't muster up the strength to do it, then we'll do it for you. My boys are more than capable and have been taught to keep our restaurant as clean as possible. No tip necessary. By having customers self-bus, we can serve more customers and keep costs down. The only thing that you're right about is St. Louis does have some pretty great barbecue. Most of those guys are close friends of ours. Peppy Smokehouse, Bogarts, Sugarfire, Salt and Smoke are all great places run by great people. I hope they still welcome you there because, quite frankly, I'm not sure we'll welcome you back here. See you later, Jimmy. All-time great.

01:17:41So good. I think that's the one you read at our Yelp event. It was the wash, chef's kiss. If you look at the bathroom in the picture that Jimmy posts, it's clean. It's a clean spot. If cinder blocks and concrete floors freak you out, I don't know what it's like in prison. Maybe you do. My favorite is the maybe you can open a Kool-Aid pickle place and charge 50 cents. You only have to sell a couple hundred thousand to cover over it. You may knock it out of the park. Jimmy. What a legend. What a dick. That guy was. What a dick. Jimmy. Well, Kerry, again, I don't know how to say thank you. We can drop the mic with that one. The final thing, we now have a title sponsor in Gordon Food Service. I love them. They're amazing people. They sponsor our final thought, our final thought, which is this is your time. This is the time.

01:18:41You get to say whatever you want to say for as long as you want to say it. You're taking us out. This is Kerry Bringle's final thought of the day. After that, we're just going to drop the mic and go. All right. I would just say folks in Nashville, if you want to keep your landmarks, if you want to keep your locally owned businesses or your independent businesses, the one that are important to you, then work with your city council members, work with your mayor, work with the mayor's office and try and preserve those. Find ways to help do that. Support them with your dollars, but also support them with your voice. You need to let the city know when we lose a landmark, how it affects you personally, and what we can do better as a city in the future. If you're going to bitch about it, then you need to be active in making the changes that will change the situation. Vote. And vote. And before you vote, make sure that you talk to the candidates or you understand their positions and where they're going to be on it.

01:19:48And hopefully, they'll be truthful with you. Most of them are, but a lot of them aren't. So go out there and advocate and support your local businesses. It's important. Kerry, thanks for being here, man. Always a pleasure. Thanks, Kerry. Thank you so much again to Kerry Bringle for coming in studio and talking to us. That sound you heard, he was drinking a coffee. I was drinking a water or something. It was down to ice. And everyone saw you hear this ice rolling around. That was Kerry taking a sip when we would talk. Well, I meant to ask him, and I kept forgetting the whole interview. It looked like tea. And Kerry is just such a Southerner. I was like, I really hope that's a big cup of sweet tea. I bet it was. I bet it was. Whatever it was, it was empty. Because he had it, and then he was just rolling around ice in there. I'm like, well, these mics really pick up everything on that, don't they? I found it to be a very nice ambient sound.

01:20:49Yeah. If people are wondering, what the hell was that sound? There it is. We give you the answer after the episode. Again, thank you, Kerry, for coming in. And we'd love to hear your thoughts on that. So message us at Nash Restaurant Radio. And hopefully, again, kind of like we started off, hopefully that inspired you to want to go out and learn more about what's going on in Nashville, what's going on with everybody. And we're going to do some follow-up episodes on this. I hope so. Where we can get some local politicians in here, and we can talk about some of the issues that are a matter that affect us all as Nashvillians. And we can maybe help present some information to you. I think that would be great. But it's really important for us to understand what's really happening in the city because the change is happening so rapidly. So hopefully we can get some more people in here, like you said, Brandon, and get a better handle on things. 100%. I think this is the fun evolution of what this podcast can do. You know, we come in and we just, you get a guy who wants a barbecue place and we want to talk about it.

01:21:52I don't think we talked about barbecue one time. No, I don't think so. Barbecue never even came up. And that's fun because that kind of propels us to a, wow, and it gets my mind going, and it gives us more opportunity to create some content and hopefully create some food for thought for you. So thanks for listening out there. Hope that you have a wonderful week. Stay tuned. We'll have the Valentine's Roundup coming up next. Hopefully we'll listen and find out what you can do to somebody, for somebody that you love. We're not going to tell you what to do to the person that you love, unless that's make them be happy. I'm just going to shut up right now. Alright guys, have a great week. Hope you're being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.