Caroline and Tony Galzin

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We've got a great show for you today. Caroline and Tony Galzin of Nikki's Coalfired will be our guest today and we have a good time. I think we talked for like an hour and then at the end of our conversation we play the newly reopened game, which is a take on the newlywed game, but it's all about them working together in the restaurant and it is a lot of fun. So we are going to talk about their story, where they came from, how they met, even get a little proposal story in there, kind of how they fared through the pandemic and it's a really interesting story if you don't know who they are. Super interesting couple and I can't wait to share this story with you. We're gonna share the story with you right after I talk to you about Mobile Fixture. You may have heard Ben Whitlock on the show a few weeks ago. It's been a really big episode for us, but these are the guys you need to call if you want to open a restaurant. Not only do they have everything to outfit your kitchen, they'll help you design it, install it, and make sure you know how it works. Check them out at mobilefixture.com and if you're thinking about opening a restaurant, give them a call.

01:44Do a free consultation, set it up, go visit their showroom. Super great people who are here to help you in this business get set up for success. If you listen to this episode, you kind of learn that it's vital what they do to make sure that you guys are set up and ready to go. So we're not gonna dilly-dally. I want to let you guys know we do have a YouTube channel that has been up and running about 15 videos up there. I will be releasing the newly re-opened game on video tomorrow, so if you want to watch that, please feel free to jump over to our website at www.nashvillerestaurantradio.com and you click the watch button. There's a tab right at the top that says watch. You can go click that and you can see all the videos we have for you to watch right now of our interviews and just different tidbits. All the what's the delias from our Friday show, the roundup are up there. It's good stuff. So thanks for hanging in there. We're going to jump right in now with Caroline and Tony Galzin. All right, so with super, super excitement, I want to bring in Tony and Caroline Galzin, the owners of Nicky's Coal Fired in the Nations. Welcome to National Restaurant Radio. Thank you. This is so exciting because when I first initially started this podcast, one of the first people, but you got to talk to Tony and Caroline, you got to talk to Tony and Caroline. It was like, it was a thing that I heard from a lot of people and now here we are. So I want to get one thing straight.

03:33Caroline, when I kind of started doing a little research and I saw a post that you did on Facebook that said if another person introduces me as Tony's wife, and not the owner or co-owner, I'm going to lose it. Tell me about that. You know, I'm somebody who, I'm not a very egotistical person in the way that I need that kind of, you know, attention of, oh, I'm the owner of the restaurant. But it is very frustrating to be as involved in running the restaurant. I mean, it's just like, I know all the behind the scenes stuff, all the work, all the stress you bring home and worry about and, you know, all the things that you do at the restaurant and stuff. And then someone's like, oh, this is the owner's wife. She's like, no, dude, she like is the owner of the restaurant. Yeah, it's just frustrating. And I think that it's hard, especially as a woman, to not take that personally. I think if it was the other way around and I was the chef and Tony ran the business, I don't think that the same thing would happen to him necessarily.

04:46Well, yeah, there's another company right there in the nations who I've had on the show, and it's Pennington Distilling Company and Jeff Pennington, like they're a couple, but it's every interview that I saw was always Jeff Pennington owner. And I'm like, I think she kind of runs the show over. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Johnny's definitely a boss, a boss. And then Nick and Audrey Gidry have these couples that run these businesses and they're co-owners and they both put so much into it. And then to have somebody say, oh, this is Tony's wife, you're like, yeah, but I'm like the GM and I do all the stuff here, too. So I wanted to get that out there because I'm so excited that both of you are on the show today. Oh, yeah. Chicago, I'm going to go back because I like to tell the story. You guys are both Chicagoans, right? I am. I just sound like one. So I was born and raised in Chicago. It's the only place I lived before we moved here to Nashville about eight years ago.

05:50But Caroline, you could tell where you were originally from, Alabama. I know I don't sound like it, but I grew up on the Gulf Coast near Mobile. OK, part of how we wound up here. I wanted to move back to the South, but you've been in Chicago for 10 years. Yes. Yeah. You worked famous. You started as a line cook, kind of worked up, Tony, to you're working at a place called MK, right? Mm hmm. And that's where you guys met. It is. Yeah. I had taken the job at MK as they had they were hiring a pastry chef and I had bounced back and forth between pastry and savory, which is, you know, the other non pastry side of the kitchen kind of started in savory and then moved to pastry and then back and forth a couple moves and just this really great opportunity came up to to basically try out, you know, create some dishes and do a tasting for the chef, Michael Kornick and Eric Williams at MK and ended up hiring me.

06:51So I was a pastry chef there for four and a half years. And then, Caroline, when did you start? I. After a year, after I'd been there. Yeah, you've been there for about a year. OK, you've been there for about a year. I had actually worked there briefly prior to Tony being a pastry chef. I left to go to another job and then came back and I was a bartender there. And it's a very old restaurant cliche of a chef and a bartender hooking up and getting into a relationship, as happens many times in restaurant bar. Bar or host. Yeah. How did that happen? When did you how did you get into the restaurant? How did you as a pastry chef in the building, you being the bartender? I mean, I don't know how cliche that is. I mean, how does the pastry chef get to hook up with a bartender? Because everybody's a drunk and everybody is at the bars until four a.m. every night in their 20s after work. There's just, you know, especially, I mean, I mean, you know, that's kind of like hospitality industry.

07:52And then Chicago has an extra layer of like just, you know, like tavern culture that is, you know, it's one of the cities with the highest amount of like bars per capita. So it's really like you take an industry where everyone goes out, you know, after work to get drinks and, you know, kind of stays out late and you close down at two a.m. or whatever. And then compound that with like in Chicago, that's really what you do. So it's just like you just end up going out a lot. So just like, you know, there wasn't like literally the entire restaurant would. Yeah. Go out. Yes. Basically, the entire staff. And you would see other entire restaurant staffs. Yeah. You just feel like, oh, that's everyone from Grand Elegant. I remember seeing that quite a bit because we were we were near them. So I was envisioning that you were going to say, so I made these tartlets and I wrote on there, will you go out with me? Said yes, the one that was lemon that said no, because it was bitter. And she gave me the cherry one and I was like, hey. Well, that sounds like a great idea.

08:53You should try it. I know, but I definitely did use my low ranking status as the pastry shop's girlfriend to get him to sneak me free food in the liquor closet during service. Sorry, Michael. So when did how long did you guys date before you actually proposed before you got married? Was it one year? It was about a year. Almost exactly. Just a little over a year. Me, I married my wife for 15 years and was at like the one year mark, a little less than one year, like 11 months. I proposed to her. How did you propose to her? How? Yeah, it was on I was actually on Christmas Eve. And we both were. We were both working. We both worked Christmas Eve. It's always a very busy night at the restaurant. And I decided, you know, I was going to propose. I got the ring and everything. And I had. Not stolen, but borrowed like Caroline had, you know, just like rings that, you know, girls wear. So I had grabbed one that I've seen her wear before to get a general gist of the size. And I brought that to to the to the jeweler.

10:01And, you know, had the had the ring made inside. I think you still had to get a resize, but either way. So then I put that. Where did I hide the ring? Did I? I think you got to the bathroom under my mattress. I like tucked it. So I lived in a very small studio apartment in the Gold Coast near the restaurant. It was like a six hundred square foot studio apartment. So like, you know, that your bed was there. And I think we went in, we were hanging out. And then I think I kind of tucked it just in the corner of the mattress, the little box there. And then I had we were going to exchange Christmas gifts. Yes. And so I had wrapped up the ring that. I had like taken from her. And so that was like wrapped up in a little, you know, in a box, in a in a it looked like a jewelry case. So she opened it and it's like a jewelry case. She's like, oh, and she opens it. She was like, oh, it's my ring. I forgot about that. So funny. Yeah. You're just like my ring. And I'm just like, oh, that's the ring that I took to get the size. So then I could give you this ring. And then I reached out, reached and pulled out the real ring.

11:06Yes. Memories. So Christmas Eve is always a special night for us. That's awesome. That's kind of like one of those. You could see if you could. I don't know if you can see the look in your eye when he was telling that story. You were like, that's I remember this was I know it's so dreamy. What a cute story. Yes. And then you got married and it's time to get closer. Winters in Chicago are both fun and exciting, I understand. So not for me. Caroline Hades. I mean, I, you know, as a Chicago and you embrace winter. I had a Jeep Wrangle. I mean, my whole the whole reason I chose the car that I drove was because it was good for winter in Chicago. And and I embrace things like ice fishing and, you know, doing stuff like that. I'm just like, yeah, you want to do I grew up on the golf winter stuff. I literally spent six hours baking in the sun yesterday.

12:08It's like, give it all to me. Yeah. So that was more of a factor for you. But it was I think the winters after 10 years in Chicago, I think she was done. We were planning on moving. I was planning on moving back to the South before I met Tommy. So you chose Nashville's a burgeoning scene, 2012. And you went to work. You guys both you moved here and then went to work. Was it taste? Was that your flight flight flight? OK, I was thinking taste flight on a. Both had a Y. Yeah. FLY, yes, yes, yes. OK. And from there, you guys rest. And you did you guys buy 51st or did you just kind of take it over and run it? What was the story of 51st Kitchen? So we we knew one of the partners just kind of through knowing different people in the restaurant scene in Nashville and had been asked to consult on the opening of a different concept than than what it ultimately became.

13:13I wanted to open as like a wine bar. Yeah, it was going to be a wine bar. And we went in and we saw the space and we had. Very long story short, gotten to a point where we've been here for a few years. We've been trying to get our own thing going. And we've been doing pop ups. They were successful. I think we were kind of out there a little bit. And people knew we were looking for spaces. So we were kind of in a space where we said, hey, we're either going to get something going like now or we're going to think about maybe moving back to Chicago, moving somewhere else. Like we've kind of gotten to the end of our rope here. So we went and we saw the space and we said, hey, instead of hiring us to consult, why don't you bring us in as partners and we will make it our concept and run a new restaurant and get a full service restaurant? Yeah. And that's really just how that came to be. The partners went for it. And then another long story short, ultimately, it just wound up not being a great fit for us. We loved the restaurant.

14:13We really, really, to this day, have such wonderful fond memories of the things we were able to do there. We're still wonderful friends with most of the people that we worked with there. Some of the some of the people we worked with, they're still work with us at Niki's to this day. It just ultimately it wound up not being a great fit with all the partners. You know, they kind of wanted to go and do one thing or casual. We kind of wanted to do a different thing. And we got the opportunity to work with new partners who are just truly, truly the best, most incredible. Again, long story short, we kind of saw the writing on the wall. We're just like, we're probably going to have to figure out something else. And then that's when we kind of I should say, Caroline started circling back to people that we had met, you know, previously looking at deals and sort of just like, all right, let's, like, reconnect with, like, a new group and sort of wound about or roundabout way. Our current partner who's our kind of our main business partner, who's Tony and I run the restaurant.

15:16Obviously, all of our other partners are silent. But our main partner within 10 minutes of meeting him for the first time, we were in his car looking at real estate. And it was just I mean, we clicked from from moment one. So we're very lucky. That's amazing. And then what's that like? What's it like when you find this spot and you kind of sign those papers and it's yours? Like, this is going to be yours. Like, is there that that's true? That's the truest American dream you can have. We're going to own our own business. We're going to be the operators of the business. It's going to be amazing. What inside you makes you want to do that? Is it sounds like something you both have wanted to do from very early? Are you both entrepreneurs? Did you that's something that you guys knew going in? And how does it make you feel? I feel like Caroline always has had a little more of an entrepreneurial spirit where you're always kind of like you.

16:17Like I've heard her say before that she knew it from a very young age that she always wanted to like work for herself or start her own company or whatever. You know, I would have been happy to. You know, be involved with a great restaurant group or or just as well open my own restaurant, you know what I mean? Like for me, I'm just like, well, I'm not going to go one way or nothing. I'm going to, you know, keep my options open and see what happens. But Caroline was really the one always pushing to be like, you know, it's for better or worse, for better or worse. No, and I couldn't, you know, I'm super happy that we do. We have our own place, and especially now we can kind of control everything, you know, we're doing OK. So, yeah, I don't know. I there was a it's hard to put my finger on what exactly the Tony's right. I've always had a very, very entrepreneurial spirit. I've always known I wanted to work for myself and do my own thing. I'm somebody who I think that I'm better at coming up with ideas and seeing a big picture and delegating. I'm not somebody who my strong suit is not in the tiny details and the kind of follow through of everything.

17:21I'm good at saying, here's a great idea. Here's how we can make it happen. Here's the right people to help make it happen. Yeah, I will say, though, I was super on board with that. I mean, that's why we came to natural or basically we saw it as a better opportunity than we had in Chicago, perhaps to just just for a myriad of reasons. There was a lot of the people that we knew that would probably be able to fund our restaurant. We're like funding another restaurant that was similar. And just there's a bunch of things. We're just like, maybe we just let's just head to like a small market city or a media market city and, you know, make friends. We already had a few connections and see what we could do. So when we moved here, I was I was pretty much all on board with that, you know, which had never really occurred to me in Chicago. My next step from, you know, pastry shop, fine dining would probably be like, oh, let me let me like, you know, find a hotel job or something that's going to pay a lot more and, you know, be more flexible hours or something. That's kind of sorry. I just want to yell at her. So sorry, totally fine. So that's interesting because like it takes both, you know.

18:24And so how does that dynamic? So for somebody like you, Tony, who's a chef, who's happy in the kitchen doing your job, you kind of know what you need to do. And then Caroline, kind of the yin to that yang of somebody who is a little more willing to take the risk and seize the big picture, wants to identify people to help execute. You're really the operator of the two of you. And in essence, when gathering what you prefer to do, how one of those things work together, do you guys ever fight? We have we have. I think it took us. Fifty first was a good learning curve about it was just like establishing like who's got what and how to bring up, you know, whatever. Like, hey, like, I feel like I know you got the bar, but I had a thought about the bar. Maybe we could do this. Or she is like, you know, you got the kitchen, but it's just like, hey, like, I got some feedback about this or, you know, I was thinking about this. So I feel like from day one, Tony and I have always very have clicked very well as a work relationship.

19:32The fights that we have are not. I don't know. I feel like when we bicker about something at work, it's less about a work thing and it's more about like, hey, I know you were really stressed, but you snapped at me. And like, I don't like that. You know, it's just it's that kind of thing. It's less about like fundamental things with the business. And I think really how well we work together is a testament to the time that we both spent working at M.K., which the way that we do things is because we both kind of go working at M.K. is kind of like going to college, going to grad school a little bit for restaurants. So we both have that same style from M.K. Yeah, nice. And that I think that totally helps. And I don't I go down this line of questioning because there's the dynamic of husband and wife owners where one's the chef and one's kind of the GM. They're not all over the place. I mean, these are like the questions that I am curious about. But you've been able to do it wildly successfully.

20:33I mean, what you've done at Nicky's was huge fanfare. You guys, you know, you've opened have just had nothing but great accolades. I've eaten there a couple of times. It's very good. And you've had to. Did you guys have any damage from the tornado? No. And I we are I I don't know how we got so lucky because there is terrible devastation immediately to our west, terrible devastation immediately to our east and north. And we were not touched. I mean, the whole nation's it just bounced. It went kind of through Bells Bend because it started at the airport at John C. Toon Airport, which is just west of us. And it's really flat, everything west of us. And it kind of was coming down centennial and then just bounced over across the river. So like for the TSU agricultural kind of went, you know, through Bells Bend and then and then popped back over the river and went. Yeah, through like TSU, kind of through that part of North Nashville. And then, you know, on the East Nashville from there to just totally.

21:37Well, I love what you guys have done with the restaurant. I started this podcast on March 13th. And if you go back and listen to my gosh. Well, I did it in response. I was going to do a podcast and I did it in a response to this whole thing because I'm working with restaurants and I'm talking to general managers and we're putting together game plans. And I just I'm meeting with all these different restaurants and kind of identifying what we need to be doing today. They've closed the they just they stopped March Madness. Everything kind of closed one day. And I went, I'm just going to start talking in a microphone. And the one thing I told people was, as I said, this is a time that you have the ability to reset. This is a reset button for a lot of people. If you choose to use this moment as a reset button, there's a lot of things you can do. You can be upset and cry and be like, what was me? This is happening to me. Or you can say, we're going to really adapt and move forward. And from everything I hear, that's all that you guys have done.

22:38You've taken this. And while there's been a lot of shitty things that have gone down, there are 34 percent property tax and closing restaurants and now closing bars, all the stuff the mayor's doing can be somewhat of a challenge to small business owners. But you guys have really made lemonade with this and change how you're operating. Talk about how that came to be. When did those conversations begin? Who started them and how did everything evolve? That's a good question. Well, I mean, so I guess going back to a lot of restaurants pivoted kind of right away to take out, you know, some people kind of waited for, you know, a few days and then sort of reopen. So actually going back to the tornado scenario. So because we were totally unaffected, we never lost power, not even for five minutes, just pretty amazing. And because of our proximity to the National Food Project, we have a really good relationship with Jennifer Justice and some of the people over there that, you know, we reached out right away.

23:45And we're just like, hey, we have power. We have extra space. The way Nikki's kitchen is laid out is we have a big kitchen in the back. But when service starts, pretty much everyone's in the front. It's an open kitchen and we have a big empty area at night. And there's not really that much prep that goes on. So, you know, we kind of reached out to starting with the National Food Project and being like, hey, we've got a ton of space back here. We can prep meals. And just long story short, that sort of snowballed. Caroline started reaching out to community groups and organizations in North Nashville, which, you know, just to the east of us got hit. And we ended up, you know, for the part of, you know, better part of 10 days there, just Nikki's became like a little mini hub where we got volunteers to bring food, we got volunteers to cook, we got volunteers just to help like bag stuff and or bring stuff. And and we, you know, personally, we're in and out of community centers and trailers full of food and food kitchens and all this stuff. And, you know, had other people bringing in stuff. I'm going to call time out for one sec, because this is what you just described is exactly what I want to talk about.

24:50And I want to get back to exactly what you did. But every single person on this show that I talk to, when I talk about hospitality and what we do in this industry, locally owned and operated businesses, there was no question in your mind. This tornado went through. You had the ability. You contacted the Nashville food. You said, let us help, let us help. Restaurants are the first people to jump in and help. And this is where I've been standing on top of the mountaintop saying, if you're going to go out to eat, do not go to Red Lobster tonight. Do not go to the locally operated restaurants because they need your help right now. Like they second tornadoes happen. You just shifted to help people. That's what we do in this business. And I just love that. And I wanted to highlight that real quick, because that story you just told is everything that there's a hundred restaurants that are locally owned and operated, just like you in Nashville, maybe to do the exact same thing you did. But everybody pivoted at the same time to say, how can we help?

25:52And now the general public's time to come back and help you guys in this time. So I'm sorry. Yeah. And you were saying that you pivoted, you did. You had the open space. You started producing prep meals. Yeah, we were just like in and out of, you know, just interaction with tons of people. Plus, it was just like a busy week at the restaurant. It was really busy. I don't I can't tell you why, but it was one of the busiest regular weeks we've had for no apparent reason. And then, you know, kind of it was right that I guess since that weekend. Yeah, the 14th, 15th was a Monday, right? When everything kind of shut down. So like, you know, that by the time that that Sunday night came, we could see that people were starting to like, OK, it went from Friday night being like, oh, we'll wait and see what happens to Sunday night. We're like we're closing tomorrow and we don't know when we're reopening. Yeah. And then we also made that decision just because we looked at we were just like, we have to hard close to and like based on, I mean, this is the very infancy of kind of the coronavirus quarantine. And we're like, we don't know a lot of time or we don't have a lot of information or like the incubation time of the virus or all this.

26:59But we found out that Tony and I had directly interacted with someone who did test positive pretty early on. So we brought some bunch of food and we gave them a hug. Yeah. And so we just like we made Nickies. We just basically we weren't going to send people to work if we weren't going to be there. And we were like, we've been around thousands of people in this last but just between customers coming to the restaurant and going to all these community centers and blah, blah, blah, and just like in big groups of people and all the things you're not supposed to do. And like we had just been doing this aggressively for two weeks. So we just shut Nickies down right away for two weeks. You know, like we didn't even think about pivoting or doing. We were just like, we need to just quarantine and make sure we're not sick. And then we can start to come up with a plan. So that's how we that was just why at the beginning we shut down. Yeah, I think that that's kind of leads into to answer your question of like how those conversations started about why, you know, why we pivoted to the service model that we're using now, how that came to be is because, you know, it was a great time for Tony and I to hit reset and take a look.

28:08We Tony and I, since we since before we opened this restaurant, have never had the time like we had in the quarantine to say, what are we really doing here with the business, with our lives? You know, just a really this this time that we had together to have these conversations and ultimately what we the conclusion we came to is, you know, what is really important to us? What do we want the future of this business to look like? What do we want our futures personally to look like? How can we implement these changes? Because, you know, in those early days, there were still questions of, are we going to reopen the restaurant? Is our business going to be one of the businesses that closes? Are we going to be able to get relief from the government? You know, all of these things we had. In the week that we closed the restaurant, we had to pay out around thirty five thousand dollars between we had to run a full payroll for the whole restaurant or we had to pay out checks for a previous payroll. We had to run another payroll. We had some vendor payments that were automatically coming out.

29:11Utilities, all of these things. And we had one week of payroll that we just simply didn't have the cash to cover because we had paid out so much money right off the bat. You know, and so just really being uncertain about what the restaurant was going to look like and were people who are always going to dig in and do everything we have to do to make it work. And we said, if we are going to do do this, if we are really going to do everything we can to keep this restaurant open and make this work, what are the compromises that we're not willing to make? What are the hard boundaries for us? And for us, the kind of two things that we weren't willing to compromise was, first and foremost, health. We were not willing to say we're going to send employees to work while we stay home because we don't want to get sick, but we're going to risk them getting sick. We're not going to create an environment where we're making money, but it's at the risk of someone getting sick, whether it's an employee, a customer, or whatever it is. And then the other.

30:13The opposite of owning a honky tonk. Yeah, pretty much. I would ring it for the comment of the day right there. I mean, it really is. You know, we would not be owners who are going to say, hey, we're going to stay home and we'll be healthy and safe and OK. You guys are, you know, can go to work and risk literally risk your lives, possibly to to make us money. I would never do that. You know, the other kind of the other. Boundary that we drew that, you know, another hard line in the sand for us was that we said we have to change the way that we live our lives outside of work because this restaurant is running our lives too much. You know, we we have to, you know, make sure that if we're going to make these things work, that we are setting aside the personal time that we need away from work to spend time with one another to, you know, have alone time to hit reset to.

31:17Yeah. When Nicky's is busy and it was getting busier, I mean, our like year over year growth was, you know, we started good and then sort of settled into we're in the nations and then the nations started building up and then, you know, we started, you know, at that, you know, we've been open for a year. So then, you know, people are coming back and then it just sort of kept kept kept going. And by the time like, yeah, like right before pandemic, I mean, it was just like, hope I can get a day off this week, even though we have 40 employees and, you know, just like only open for dinner. I think we didn't realize how really burned out we were until we were forced to stay home for two weeks. Yeah. And we were just like, wow. Having this moment to press pause that we're forced to press pause, honestly, we kind of realized how miserable we were. Yeah. And it was, I mean, not miserable, but I mean, work-life balance was not good. Yes. Was not sustainable. Not sustainable. That's a great way to put it. I'll say, you know, not without, you know, just having, you know, like a miserable time on your day off, like not having a day off and being able to enjoy it or recharge or, you know, whatever.

32:25Yeah. Something that we talked about. So the week after Valentine's Day, Tony and I went to Charleston for a few days and we'd never been to Charleston together and we're so excited for this trip and we're going to eat, we're going to drink and we're staying in a nice hotel and we're going to be there for three nights and just have a really nice time away, the two of us. And we went and we had the worst time. We just had the least fun vacation. How do you not have fun in Charleston, you know, staying in the French Quarter? What was that? Why wasn't it the best time? Because we were so just like stressed about different things happening with just dumb stuff, the very so we drove there and we checked into the hotel was like a Monday and, you know, check in at like, did we drive? We drove straight there. So we woke up early and like probably got in Charleston like three in the afternoon or something. And and like the very first I get a phone call from the guy that's supposed to be working pizza and he's like, hey, I'm leaving. He is like the guy that worked last night, like didn't take out the garbage, you know, like correctly, and I got to do some extra stuff.

33:29And like I'm I'm I'm pissed. So I'm leaving work. I'm leaving. I'm like, fuck, man, I just got to Charleston. Like what you knew I was going to like, just like so that I have to like, you know, the first two hours of vacation, I'm like scrambling to like try to get someone in there. And then I'm walking someone through how to start the fire, which is very complicated, you know, and, you know, and it was just like, it just set the tone for like, I can't really get away for, you know, three days. Right. And like, you know. So I feel like that's a very long winded way to get to where we are now. But the current model that we're working with, you know, again, kind of starting with first and foremost, we feel like is the absolute safest way for our employees and guests to interact. The only time employees and guests are interacting are when with when a guest doesn't have a mask on is if somebody is dropping food at a table. And that's a very brief interaction. So that kind of resolves our first problem of, you know, wanting to make sure that I should go back and say we move to counter service.

34:35Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yes. We're we're doing counter service now. And it also has helped us adjust our labor model so that Tony and I can focus our attention on the things that make us passionate about being in this industry and owning and operating a restaurant and not just so mired in the kind of day to day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just doing that. Yeah. Kind of the the counter service model, like Caroline said, it all started with the idea was how do we limit interaction the most? We're not going to send someone with a face mask and a plastic shield and gloves and long sleeves to go like wait on tables. It just felt too it's just just crappy. You know, so the counter service thing made sense. And with that, you know, we sort of limited the menu because also there's a fair amount of uncertainty about how much business there will be. So I'm like, let's limit the menu. We're not bringing in that much produce. We eliminated we used to kind of do a decent amount of like kind of seafoody stuff.

35:35We'd always have a catch of the day. Some other things sort of like limited that. Just just a lot of things to make sure we didn't have any waste, that our cost was low. We didn't have to like spend a lot of money to keep, you know, stuff in house. And it's been been pretty good so far. It's been good. We're we're hitting the numbers that we need to hit. You know, we are just having this conversation this morning with my friend Ben Sticks, who owns the Beehive in East Nashville. He was asking how it was going. And I said, you know, for us, this feels like a time, not necessarily to make money, but to just make what we need to make to stay open for right now. And as long as we can do that, it's it takes a big weight off kind of feeling the pressure of like, oh, I need to add additional seating or I need to try to pack it out more or or whatever, you know, if we can operate a very limited service, which is what we're doing. We're honestly we're probably still operating under phase one guidelines as far as our seating capacity.

36:37So we definitely are. We definitely are. We have six tables in the dining room, but we have two patios as well, which is great. You know, I don't feel like this is a time for us to focus on making money. I think it's a time for us to focus on getting to the other side. And it sounds like if there's a North Star for you, it's doing the right thing. You know, I mean, it sounds like you guys are going towards a what is the right thing to do? I'm not if I'm not going to be there, I'm not going to have my staff there. Let's we're in this together, which is which really shows leadership. I mean, it really shows strong leadership from people who are running a business and then doing the right thing on a consistent basis. I imagine your staff is pretty, pretty loyal. We have a really, really good staff. We're very, very lucky. You know, part of it, too, is we have changed our our labor model from what we were doing before to now.

37:44All of our staff works together much more as a team. Everybody is paid a high hourly as their base pay. And then instead of taking the tip credit, we're doing a tip pool for the whole house. So everybody's making the same money. And for my servers in front of house people, we don't really have servers anymore, but people who previously were servers, it's allowed them to honestly, they're making the same money or better than what they were making before waiting tables. And for our back house, they're making way more, way more money than they were making before. And it's also allowed people to explore different things. You know, we have people who are servers that have now learned some new cooking skills and are working some back house shifts, which is something they may have been interested in before, but wouldn't have been able to do because they couldn't afford to pay. You know, it's. Yeah, we just basically started with our most the people with the most seniority and kind of went through and were just like, hey, you know, I know you were a server or bartender, but I do have the position that some prep stops and I think I can show you how to make pizza dough.

38:48And, you know, people are just like, yeah, cool, like want to work. And, you know, just the people, you know, now we just everyone that's there is super, you know, on board with what we're doing. I love hearing that. And it's, you know, right now there's a real problem. It's so funny because you hear your story and me, I'm an operations guy, right? So I love all of this stuff. I can talk about this kind of stuff all day long. But when you constantly are doing the right thing and you're caring about people and you're just as everything that you do, you get people that come back, they want to come back, they want to work for you. And there's a real issue right now. A lot of people can't find people to come back to work because of they're getting paid more unemployment or whatever the case, afraid to come back to work. And I think that if you're operating a building where you're putting people in unsafe environments, I honky tonk in town where people are getting sick and they're trying to cover it up and not close. Ridiculous. It's obscene, honestly. Yeah, I mean, like that's not the right thing to do. And I mean, I can't imagine wanting to go back to work there.

39:52So, I mean, what you do is having people that want to come back to work for you is fantastic. So, you know, honestly, for us, I mean, I will say maybe we haven't always done the right thing. There's certainly been a learning curve over the years. One thing I know for sure is our heart has always been in the right place. Yeah. But whether I can say we've done the right thing or not in the past, you know, hindsight is always 20-20. You can say maybe I should have done that differently or maybe we should have handled this differently. I do feel right now, though, that we are definitely doing the right thing. I feel more confident in that as an operator today than than any other time in the history of our restaurant, which might sound crazy to say in the time of a global pandemic. But I just I somehow feel more optimistic today than I almost ever have in the history of our restaurant. It's wild. Hey, everyone, we're going to take a short break to talk to you about Springer Mountain Farms Chicken. They're a family-owned business nestled in the hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains with over 50 years of experience in raising chickens.

40:58They exercise great care in all that they do and their dedication to providing their chickens with a quality life and healthy diet results in a healthier, more delicious chicken for you and your family to enjoy. But don't take it from me. Take it from Khalil Arnold from Arnold's Country Kitchen, who last week on our show told us that Springer Mountain Farms is one of the better vendors that they use. And there was one week during the pandemic that they were unable to get the product and the guests were in an uproar. They wanted to know why they didn't have the best chicken on the planet. You yourself can get this chicken to find a store or restaurant near you. Go to SpringerMountainFarms.com and click the locate a store or restaurant near you online. And don't forget to join the flock in your email address to get weekly updates and emailed recipes. And let's get back to Caroline and Tony Galzin. You know, it's interesting because I think you hit on something earlier and maybe it's a bad trip to Charleston, you know, but it's a weird light bulb that happens.

42:02And it happened to me, you know, kind of end of October, but I realized I wasn't like happy in the things I was doing and I wasn't the work life balance thing. I was, I was just working all the time and I wasn't spending the time with my wife and the people that were really important to me. And I think that this whole thing, I've been able to spend time with my kids and able to spend time with my wife. I've been able to be so much more present. I also quit drinking, which is a big deal. Eight months ago, thank you so much. Um, which has been amazing, but I've kind of tried to turn this whole thing and kind of reckon I've been, I think it's like a growth opportunity that you guys have done something, so a blessing in disguise. I mean, there's a thing and a lot of tough times that came from this. A lot of people that haven't been able to be that fortunate to do these things, but, uh, I'm really excited that that's what's going on for you guys.

43:05Yeah. Like you said, the opportunity to reset. I mean, that's just kind of what we, you have to look at it like that, you know, cause there's who knows there, you know, obviously there's another side to this. We're going to get to the other side of this, but nobody knows what that looks like or when that is. So you just have to kind of be like, let's make the best of it. Let's reset. Let's gotta, you know, you kind of got to do that. So, and just fortunately for us, the reset was, was good. It worked out, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So Caroline, you said to, you've said that you're not as active on social media. It's not something that you're not like, Didn't use today. I've got a lot more to say lately. I had a little bit more to say lately and I don't want to finish this interview. And I, I didn't tease everybody earlier, but we're going to play a game of, it's a style of newlywed game. I'm going to call it the co-owner game, the restaurant newlywed game, pandemic condition.

44:07We're going to do that here. But I would be remiss if I didn't talk about kind of the times we're in today. Yeah. And I believe we're all going to come out of this thing better. I have referenced this, that we're all kind of like caterpillars that have gone into a cocoon and when you come out, are you going to be a beautiful butterfly or a moth, right? That is the best analogy I've heard. I think we all want to be butterflies. And I think that through all of this, I've had to look in the mirror in a big way and kind of go, Hey, what do I believe in and where am I? And how can I improve with race relations? You know, as a white male American, I had to look in the mirror and go, what can I, what can I do to change other people? No, what can I do to change myself and really do that, do that work? I've read some books and kind of went into it, but you've made some posts and you've done some, you've been more active on social media recently.

45:09What's going on there? Well, I think that, I don't know, maybe, hopefully, maybe as somebody who hasn't been very active in social media, people seeing me posting my opinions very loudly and strongly will be like, Oh, there's someone that I didn't used to ever see a post from. So yeah, I mean, Caroline, you know, handles the social for the business. So she does a lot of social media posting as far as, you know, Nicky's is concerned and stuff is concerned. I think basically there was for a long time, you know, a sentiment of you can have, you know, whatever political beliefs and stuff, you keep that separate a bit from, from your business, right? Like we, we didn't, we wanted to be inclusive to everybody and didn't want to necessarily alienate any dollar. Um, you know, so there was little things we would always do.

46:11I mean, Nicky's always had, um, like, uh, on our front end, the host stand, we always have a gay pride and a trans pride flag there, regardless of if it's pride month or not. And there's, you know, stickers on our door that, uh, actually we got it from Carl Worley, right? Oh yeah, Carl from BiscuitLob. It's like these little stickers that say, you know, hate is not welcome here. And I remember the day we posted it to Instagram on our Nicky's account. And it's this, it's just a little round sticker and it has like an illustration of like a dove holding a key or something on Adam. They're like something, you know, and then it's like, hate is not welcome here and around it. It's like, you know, like no racism, no sexism, no something like this. And, you know, a nice little post to go with it. It's just like, Hey, this really, you know, turbulent times, but you know, we welcome everybody and really believe, you know, like some nice quote like this. And I remember that somebody commented, is our president welcome there? I don't remember that. You don't remember? Well, I will take today as an opportunity to answer that.

47:14No, our president is not welcome at my business. But I remember like we didn't address it. I remember like another customer like addressed it was just like, said, no, the sticker says, or it's like, yes, the sticker says everyone is welcome. Just how to be like, you know, to take a stand and that's, that's just like, you know, if people are going to say stuff like that, then we're, then we're going to say stuff like that. If to put up a sticker that says we don't condone hate is to be like, well, that's controversial. Is that controversial? Can our president go there because he does condoning hate or whatever. I don't know what the, what the, what that person was equating that sticker with, but now, you know, since, you know, because of the, the, the black white matter protests and all these protests, and we just feel that Caroline made the opinion, I think you summed it up best that you're just like, we came to the realization that we have a responsibility to, to, to speak up and that the restaurant is not necessarily just a restaurant.

48:19It's not just a business because it's a small mom and pop owned business that it's really, you know, it's part of the community, but it's, it's a, and it's, it's an extension of us. And so that, you know, if we can use, it's not going to use the restaurant to push radical things, you know, maybe we would, maybe, I mean, but, you know, what, but, but what I, what I'm saying is that, you know, we're going to support organizations and use the voice of the restaurant and the potential for the restaurant to raise money for donations or whatever, to register people to vote, you know, whatever we can do. We're not, we're not scared to alienate people that aren't this tolerant of other people anymore. And that's just kind of where we're at. Yeah. Um, I also, I just, I've never thought that it was productive to argue with people on social media. I'm responding to family members and other people that I know.

49:22And making my own posts. I made a joke with Tony last week. I said, I'm the common sense troll. So I'm trolling people's Facebook posts, but with common sense arguments. So I don't know. There's just something in me. I never used to respond to a Yelp review or Google review. Now I am just letting people know how I feel. I, here's what I think it is. I think that for such a long time, small business owners have felt like you had to kind of walk on eggshells and like Tony said, you can't alienate any dollar. But I think that people need to acknowledge and have a little more respect for what a small business is in the community and the personal sacrifice that small business owners make, you know, it's if you didn't like your pizza instead of, you know, being rude and unkind and disrespectful. Um, just talk to me about it. We're all human beings. Tell me you didn't like your pizza. I'll buy you a new one. Or I'll refund your money. Or I don't know, we'll work something out, but don't try to close my business because you didn't like your pizza.

50:28And that honestly, that's what people do. People, this is horrible. This place needs to shut down. It's I didn't, I don't like pepperoni. Like, I don't know what is wrong with people, you know, it, not everything has to be that divisive. It doesn't. And you know, one of the things for me is I've never really had a platform before, you know, and now that I'm actually speaking into a microphone and I'm putting it out there for the, I feel like I have a little bit more of a voice. And there's, while we want to be political, especially for yourselves, where people are coming in dining, you just want to create a fantastic experience for whoever they are. You want to nourish your community. And there's a point that I flipped that switch and I thought, I now have a platform in me being silent is me choosing the wrong side. I think that, um, how to be an anti-racist, you know, when you see something that's racist, not saying anything is racist, I think that to continue and there's no place in this world for, for that type of hate and the fact that people just go, Oh, well, that's just Johnny.

51:41It's like, well, I'm not going to associate with Johnny. I'm going to let Johnny know that that's not acceptable around me. Like I've started doing that in my life and I've decided that on this platform, I'm going to be, I'm going to let that be known. And if you don't like that, if you feel like black people are inferior or that the police need to be killing people for no reason, if you, if that's something you believe, don't listen to my show, like don't eat at my restaurant. Yeah, I'm done, but I don't need that. I don't care. Like I'm done. That's it. And that's where I need to stand. That's kind of the look I've had to take. And the thoughts have gone to my brain. I'm not afraid to say it. I don't care if you know, you can call me whatever you want. That's the way that I feel. And, um, it sounds like a lot of the thing that's encouraging to me is there's a lot of businesses that have taken that stance. A lot of businesses have now said, Hey, if that guy doesn't want to eat here, like I'm not going to let president Trump eat in my building because he does not, I don't care. It's fine.

52:43And I love that. I love that, that you've taken that stance and I encourage businesses to do the same. Thank you. I think that for, for whatever reason, a lot of guests now, certainly this is not everybody. It's a very small percentage, but there's always that guest that has that sense of entitlement, like they are owed something from a small business and they will burn it to the ground if they don't get what they are owed. And I just, I don't have a tolerance for that anymore. There's a time that I would have apologized and accommodated and this, that, and the other. And now I'm just like, you know what? It sounds like we're not good for each other. You don't like my business and I don't like you. So go, go find somewhere else to eat. I mean, that's not to say if we make a mistake, we're not going to make it right. But some people just can't, but some people just can't. You're right. They're just like, yeah, like people literally write in the reviews, like this place needs to close just like, cause you didn't like your Caesar salad.

53:43Like you can get off it. Yeah. Well, I will give you guys public praise right now, because we have a segment that we're going to be putting out on YouTube and on Facebook where we have a bunch of chefs in town that are going to be reading their worst Yelp reviews. The worst, the meanest, like the reviews are absolutely asinine. I'm excited to get you guys on this, but I got the idea from somebody who told me that you had a party at your restaurant where you had a bunch of chefs read their worst Yelp reviews. So I want to give you credit because Caroline that had, whether you guys got the idea from somebody else, it was from your party that I got the idea. Thank you. Being in town. It was really fun. It was really funny. I was called people hate us on Yelp. And it was like an after hours, uh, with a bunch of like chefs and bartenders and restaurant owners and GMs and stuff. And yeah, they read bad Yelp reviews. It was really fun. It was just meant to, it wasn't meant to bash Yelp, but it was just meant to kind of be like a camaraderie, you know, bonding experience.

54:45And it really was, it was really fun. It did piss off the Yelp community manager who had some, we saw, I feel like we got blacklisted on Yelp for a little while until we had to really like. We were conspired against by the Yelp community manager. We were, it was, it was a real thing. Yelp stars went way down, which, which is, which is I don't care about Yelp, but also I don't want to have three stars. So it took, it took, it took a, it took a lot of like, Hey dude, like stop. Yeah, stop it. And so then, you know, we got back to where it's supposed to be, but, uh, it's not malicious towards Yelp or any sort of platform like that. It's just meant to bring the most obnoxious things in a comical way. So that's what we will be. We'll be doing that soon. You'll see that, uh, on our, uh, our socials. So before we get into the game, I want to thank you guys for coming on the show.

55:48Oh, thank you. Thing you'd like to say, I like to end the shows where I ask people if there's anything they like to say to the general national population, anything you want to just get out there, if I gave you the floor for as long as you want. Just, um, I will just say this. If you are not wearing a mask when you go out in public, you are contributing to the destruction of your local economy. Sorry. Our dogs are going wild. It's like a zoo in here. Um, but that's just very, very, as, as plain as I can put it, if you care about local businesses and you care about more than yourself, um, you need to wear a mask when you go out. The end. That's it. Yeah. Wear a mask. It's not political in any way. Not a new, we just got back from Florida. Um, we had booked a trip to Florida and you would not know that there was a pandemic in Florida. Yeah. We wear masks everywhere. We like had, like, we have masked kids, everybody.

56:49And every time we go into a restaurant, we were the only people. I mean, there was very, very, very like you'd see somebody like with a mask on. It's like seeing a deer driving down the street. Like, oh, there's a deer. Like, like there's, there's nobody with masks on it. We got looked at. We got stared at. Weren't wearing masks. Like the servers, nobody, like there was a Mexican restaurant called K Pasa in Destin and all the people that worked there wearing masks. And I was like, okay, I feel so much better now. We're wearing in a crowded lobby and we're like, we're just waiting outside. It was icky. It was just weird. And, um, well, you know, and I think that that just really shows your responsibility on, on behalf of the ownership as well, because you can enforce mask wearing. I am here to tell you, as a business owner, you can enforce mask wearing in your space, in your dining room, not just with your staff, but with your customers. That's it. We have a sign that you have to basically, we block the pathway to the restaurant with a sign that says you must wear a mask to enter our building.

57:57And people come in with a mask on. We have, let me knock on wood, not had an argument with a customer about wearing a mask. I'm really happy that the city mandated it. Uh, now because before, you know, when it was people's discretion, basically no one did. So we were able to buy masks at about 80 cents each. And we went through in the first two weeks we reopened, we were like, we'll have masks for people that don't have them. Presumably everyone has a mask and the amount of people that would show up without masks, we spent $300 in two weeks on free masks. Yeah. More than that to give out. And we're just like, well, that's not sustainable. So now with the mask mandate, you know, actually I was talking to Caroline. I'm like, Hey, I still don't, you know, I don't want to alienate anyone. Like we should still maybe have some masks in case someone shows up. And Caroline's like, no, screw that. If in the middle of a pandemic and a city ordinance, you still show up like you can't either. And I'm like, okay, that's fair. That's fair. All right.

58:58So if you're going to be going to Nikki's coal fired, and I highly recommend that you do make sure that you have a mask, if you'd like to actually enter the establishment, that's, that's, that is where I'm asked. Don't be a racist. Uh, don't be rude. Come out for a good time. Come out for good food. Leave all your hate at home and come out with the mask on. And it's not something that they're trying to do because they're communists. This is for everybody else. Y'all come out, eat at Nikki's. You're going to order the food upfront, and then you're going to sit down. Server's going to bring it to you, but they're not going to stand over your table and breathe on you and take an order done. So you guys have done this thing the right way. And I encourage everybody to go and dine with you at the nations. 51st Avenue, if you get off of, uh, 40 and drive down 51st Avenue, it's just kind of right towards the end, but the end of it, like as you, you almost run into it right there, past the 51st deli.

59:59All right. 51st deli. So if you don't know where Nikki's coal fired is, that's a, you didn't change the name at all. It's still Nikki's coal fired. Right? Nikki's coal fired. Yeah. Cool. Well, thank you guys so much. I'm so excited to do this game. I'm excited. Yeah. I hope I did the right questions. I will see how this works. It's going to be restaurant based questions. It's going to be like, what's your favorite place to make whoopee? You know, like the game, like the newlywed game. Um, all right, so Tony, you got to leave the room. All right. I wish I had some really cool like game show music here. I feel like, but I don't. So this is the newly reopened game. There you go. The newly reopened game. Today, our players are Tony and Caroline Galzin. Caroline, are you ready to play the game?

01:01:01I'm so ready. All right, we're going to do, here's the rules. There's no winners. There's no losers. And I'm not keeping track of points. It's just for fun. There's no prize. Fine. Love it. Well, I'm going to ask you a question and I'm going to write down the answer to the question on my piece of paper. It's probably going to show up backwards, but it's okay. Okay. You're going to answer the question and I'm going to ask Tony the question when he comes back in the room. Does that make sense? Okay. So I'm going to tell you my answer, not what I think his is. We're going to do both. Got it. Okay. So the first question is, what is the thing that is Tony's pet peeve when he walks in the door to the restaurant? So if he walks in and something isn't right, what's the first thing he's going to notice that's going to, what's, what's his trigger? I would say if, um, the, like the line had not been cleaned and shut down properly. And I'm going to ask him the same question about you.

01:02:04Okay. You going with the same answer? Oh, I would probably the same for me. Like if things had not been cleaned properly, is there a specific part of the restaurant that's not clean? So the things is pretty big. Like for me, like if I walk in and the host stand is dirty or if the front those are dirty, the TVs on TNT instead of sports or sure. I feel like I drive him crazy about, oh, okay. So if we walk in the restaurant and it's like running, like it's first thing in the morning, if we're not open, I would say cleaning, but if we walk in the restaurant and it's, and it's like during dinner service, for me, it's the lights, I go nuts about the lights. Yeah. They have to be at the right level. If you, question number two, if you won the lottery, if Tony won the lottery and I'm talking 300 million, what's the first thing that he buys? Jordans.

01:03:07Jordans? Jordans. The shoes? Like more pairs than what he has now. Like that'll be, that'll be his first purchase. Like even though it's not like a huge purchase of like, you know, a Bentley or a house or whatever, that will be the first thing he buys is Jordans. What would he say the first thing you would buy would be? Maybe, um, maybe a Mercedes G-Wagon. All right. Now we know what to get you for Christmas. Yeah, right. Please. All right. This might be an easy one. What dish is he most proud of? Um, I would say one of the pastas, probably the, I would say probably the tortelli. I may not spell it right, but I wrote down tortelli. What is the dish that he would say you are most proud of in the building? Or is there a drink or something? What is there some, what is the equivalent for maybe what you do?

01:04:08I would say, what's your favorite dish? My favorite dish, also the tortelli. All right. So if you're listening to this, get the tortelli. Get the tortelli. I got it. All right. We're going to go back to question number two. If you had won that $300 million in question number two, what would Tony do for work? If you had to get a job, you're risked beyond all you could do. What would he do for work? Good question. I would say maybe, um, something, something with sports, like, uh, if he could be like an announcer or a scout of some sort, and I would say for the white socks, he's, he's a white socks and a bear spam, but I'm going to go with socks for this one. Or it's an announcer for the white socks. I, yeah, something, something along those two.

01:05:11That's pretty specific. I like it. No, for me, I don't know. I, for me, it would probably be like starting some sort of a political organization. So for me, I would probably start, um, uh, some kind of a political organization that's, that's geared towards helping women. Not that I'm like some, such a major philanthropist, but I just, I don't know if I'm a bajillionaire and I have a bunch of free time on my hands. I love it. Why not? Yeah. Why not? For sure. All right. Um, what has been the most frustrating? What would he say is the most frustrating part about the coronavirus court quarantine? No sports. What would he say is your most frustrating thing about the coronavirus quarantine? No beach or pool, beach or no beach or pool.

01:06:16I did try to put like a, uh, 10 foot by 10 foot children's pool on our patio. And I was not, he, he shut that down. Um, okay. So that's my last question was what is the anniversary day of your first date? But if you're all hanging out all the time, if you didn't have like a first date, I couldn't tell you, uh, well, actually we do say our anniversary of like our dating anniversary is labor day. Okay. Uh, well, I'll ask that question and see if labor day is the answer. It just says, I'll just see if he knows. Excellent. So we can bring it back. Okay. So we are back to the newly opened game. We have brought in, uh, Caroline's husband, Tony gals into the game. Tony, what we're going to do is we're going to ask two questions. We're going to ask the first question and you're going to try and guess what she would say your answer would be.

01:07:19And then we're going to ask you a question about her. So we had two questions to ask you for every answer. Okay. What is the thing that is Tony's biggest pet peeve when he walks into the door of the restaurant? So what, what do I think she says? No, what would you say is yours? Oh, what is my biggest pet peeve? First thing when I walk into the restaurant. Yeah. Uh, uh, dish pit that's not been cleaned, not an incomplete breakdown on the dish pit. All right. Um, this point backwards, but she said the line clean and shut down properly. Ah, yes, that too. I was in the right neighborhood. You're in the right neighborhood. It's, it's improperly cleaning something in the kitchen. Improperly finishing your closing work at night. So we switched this question around for you. What do you think her pet peeve is if she walks in while you're open?

01:08:22While we're open, you're open. She walks in. What's the thing that frustrates her the most? Hmm. I think just seeing, seeing people hanging out, not, not, not doing stuff. Is that it? Belin, you got time to clean, right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't like that. That's what I would, that's what I would say. My biggest pet peeve. The lights. Oh, the lights. Yeah. Oh, I knew the lights. Yeah. Yeah. You can't, too bright. Yeah. Every night. Does nobody know? I would love walking into a restaurant and just like the lights, like, does nobody recognize that it's nighttime. What is going on here? Why is this? My big pet peeve, not just at my own restaurant, but at every restaurant. I call it the cleaning lights. When I walk in and the cleaning lights are on, I hate it. Dang it. I should have gotten that. You should have gotten that. Very obvious. Okay. We asked Caroline, if you won the lottery, Tony, not, I won $500 on a scratch off, like you won $300 million.

01:09:28What's the first thing that you would buy? Boats. That's C. I should have said that. What did she think? She said more Jordan. Yeah. I mean, maybe immediately. That's what I thought. Immediately. The very first thing that you're going to buy. Jordan. Jordan's more shoes. Yeah. The boat. The boat. I don't think the boat is better than the Jordan's. Yeah. Jet skis. Jet skis. The thing you use, if I'm asking you now, Tony, what's the thing that she would buy first? What is the first thing you would buy? Difficult to say. There's a few. There's so many things that I won. So many things. I mean, I would say boat too, but I don't think you would buy that. You might leave the boat buying to me.

01:10:30I would say something clothing related, purse, shoes, something like that. She said a G wagon. Oh, a G wagon. Oh, nice. Yes. Gold. I knew what color it's supposed to be. Yeah. Well, we're not as good at this as I thought. See, I cheats it by saying how confident I was. All right. We're going to go back to, oh, I'm sorry. Um, what dish on the menu are you the most proud of? That's different than your favorite dish. What are you the most proud of? Hmm. Most crowded. It's on right now. Yeah. It's on right now. Yeah. Uh, what am I most proud of right now? I mean, I like all their stuff. Um, I, maybe the crawfish mafalde because this kind of came like you liked it.

01:11:34And then it wasn't something that I necessarily would have made into a dish, but then I'm really happy with the way it turned out. She said tortelli. Oh, I was going to say that, but that seemed like the easy answer. I'm overthinking it. We're really, really crap in the bed here. What would you say is her favorite dish? Like the most proud of dish? The crawfish. We're overthinking this, but it's the tortelli. That's your, your most proud of the tortelli. That's my favorite. Oh, it is? I thought you liked the crawfish. I do, but I, I made that dish because of you. I'm sorry. Okay. All right. They don't get easier from here too. What is, um, let's go back to the question number two, we'll go back to the, you got $300 million from the lottery of your boat and a bunch of Jordans. Yeah. What would you do for work to work, but you got to find a job.

01:12:35You're rich beyond means what's the job that you're going to do? But there's no longer a restaurant. I don't have a, I don't have a restaurant anymore. No restaurant. Uh, I don't have a restaurant. I don't have a restaurant. Oh, no restaurant. Uh, what would I do for work? Um, would it be something with sports? You can't ask that question. You just have to say you would. Uh, I mean, I mean, maybe it would just be like a professional gambler. I love this game. You were on the right track there, but a professional gambler. What, what, what would you, what would you do? Play cards? Uh, a mixture of cards and betting on sports. Okay. Said that it would be sports. Give me a sports announcer for the white socks. Ah, oh, it's like dream job or I could actually do that. You could buy your way in. I could probably buy my way in.

01:13:36Okay. That's good. Sports related. It was something to do with sports. I'm going to give you a point. You got to get guys. We need a point. What is the dream job for Caroline? The safety police. No, that is actually my dream. That is your dream job. No, it was if I'm a military, like if I won the lottery, what's my job? Uh, uh, you would start the hair rep business. Oh God, no, no, that's like my, uh, okay. What is your, your job? Uh, I feel like you would fall like volunteering. Okay. It's pretty close. I'm going to give her that cause she said she would work for a political organization for women's rights. Oh, okay. There you go. Yes. Yes. That's a win. That's a legitimate win right there. Oh, good job. We got it. All right.

01:14:37Yeah. And who knows, you know, if you get 300 million, what you could actually, I mean, think of what I could do with all that money. I could refund. For real. Um, what Tony is the most frustrating part about the coronavirus quarantine for you, what would she say your most frustrating thing during the Corona virus is, uh, no sports, ladies and gentlemen, no sports. What are we supposed to be doing? Nailed it. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Verbatim. What would you say is Caroline's most frustrating part about the Corona virus? So is it, because I think it could either be what you're, I feel like your frustration comes from other people not taking it seriously and that's prolonging the quarantine.

01:15:43And so I would say people acting like there's not a pandemic. No, I'd say that is very, that is very frustrating. However, it does frustrate me, but I said something much more shallow. No beach or no pool. Yeah. No pool. Okay. That's the easy answer. Yeah. Sorry. Coming into this. Yeah. All right. But I had a, um, I had a tiebreaker question because, you know, why not? And it was, what's the anniversary of your first date? It is Memorial Day weekend. Is that Memorial Day or Labor Day? Oh, actually dates though. Or is that, do we count that? Which one is it? I don't, which is the one that comes at the end of the summer? Labor Day. Yes, Labor Day. Okay. There you go. There it is. Good job. I'm like, once at the beginning, once at the end, I can never remember.

01:16:45Yeah, I do the exact, I'm with you. All right. So you guys got a couple of them, right? Yeah. Couple. A couple of them. I knew it, but all the other answers was like, Oh, of course. So it's not a game. Yeah. Nothing was, but nothing was left. So that's good. No. Yeah. I was, I was, I think that if anything, everybody now knows that if you go to the damn crawfish dish, that's what you need to do with both of your, or the tortelli, that that's the, you're going to have a surge on both of those dishes this week. Good. So, um, all right guys, you, you're off the hot seat. There you go. That was fun. That was really fun. Thank you.