Chad and Gracie from East Side Banh Mi

00:00Are you looking to grow your business or are you looking to start a business? Finding a retail spot is number one, you gotta do this. And that is why we're talking about the Chandler James retail team at Lee & Associates. Miller Chandler and Leanne James are your go-to brokers to do just that. They're located downtown in the heart of it all in the Batman building and they're serving all of Middle Tennessee. Let me tell you, both Miller and Leanne are Tennessee native so you know they know the neighborhoods. They know they know the demographics and they can help you find your dream location. Now here's the cool part, Chandler James can help you find and negotiate terms on your next restaurant location. They represent both retail tenants and landlords in our market, which means they can also help you with lease versus buy decisions and act as your leasing agent should you ever decide to go all in and purchase commercial real estate. If you'd like to get ahold of them, give them a call at the office. Their phone number is 615-751-2340.

01:05That is the Chandler James retail team. Give them a call today. Sharpier's Bakery is a locally owned and family operated wholesale bakery providing bread to Nashville's best eateries. They've been operating in Nashville since 1986, providing high quality fresh bread daily for restaurants, catering companies, hospitals, and universities. Their bread is free from preservatives and artificial additives. Learn more at sharpiers.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S.com. Or you can give Erin Mosso a call directly. Her number is 615-319-6453. That's Sharpier's Bakery. 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.

02:32My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service and today we have a fun one. We are talking with Chad Newton and Gracie Nguyen from You Are Here Hospitality, best known I think for Eastside Bon Me, which is one of my absolute favorite places in the world to eat, not only because the food is delicious but because the atmosphere and walking into the people and being greeted by Chad and Gracie and the whole team, Eastside Bon Me is amazing. And today they're celebrating their four year anniversary. I cannot believe it's been four years. Fun fact that I mentioned this on the show, that the day that they opened on April, August 13th, 2020, we had them on the show. The day they opened, right before they did their opening day, they came on the show on the roundup. We were doing the live roundup show and they jumped on.

03:32And then we had them on again later on and they kind of told their entire story. So I didn't go a bunch into that during this episode. We just kind of caught up and it was a fun conversation. I tried to, my goal for the interview was to get Gracie to say as much as I could possibly get Gracie to say because she's always so quiet. And I'm just like, come on, let's go. Cause I wanna know every, she's so brilliant. I just wanna know everything that she has in that brain. Share it, share, share, share. So I'm excited to share this episode with you today. I had an amazing weekend past weekend. We went to, I went to team Heidi and this was in Atlanta. This was the Giving Kitchens big annual event in Atlanta. And it was amazing. It was at Truist Park where the Braves play. We're in Marietta, Georgia. And there was like 70 restaurants and breweries, some great non-alcoholic selections, a big auction, lots of fun, raised a lot of money.

04:34And I was honored and humbled to be there to help represent Nashville and the Atlanta's team, Heidi. Now, I will tell you, if you don't know about the Giving Kitchen, the Giving Kitchen is here to help restaurant workers. They want to, they wanna support restaurant workers. If you are a leader in any part of this industry and you have any employees who need help, they need assistance, go check out givingkitchen.org and you can learn all about them. And if you wanna help the Giving Kitchen, your chance is gonna happen on April the 28th. April 28th is gonna be the Tennessee Tasting, which is gonna be Nashville's big fundraiser for the Giving Kitchen. It is gonna be held at 114 Second Avenue South. It's from four to eight. And yours truly, I will be the MC for that event. I will also be there representing Chagos Belmont Cantina, but walking around talking, meeting people, I would love to meet you.

05:40I would love for you to purchase tickets and come to this event because we are raising money to help food service workers. This is a big deal. This is an amazing organization. And even if you just come to say hi, eat some great food, there's some great food partners. You wanna check out this really cool venue at 114 would love, love, love to see you there. So that is gonna be on April the 28th. We're gonna keep talking about it. Go buy tickets right now at givingkitchen.org. I will also be, this is a fun thing, guys. I'm gonna be doing an auction item. So we're gonna be doing an auction at this event as well. Here's what I am gonna be donating. I am gonna be donating a guest host spot on this podcast. Yes, you can be the host of Nashville Restaurant Radio for an episode. And you're gonna be interviewing a celebrity chef. So here's the deal. You get to come in studio.

06:41I don't know if we're gonna have the celebrity chef in studio for shooting by zoom. We're gonna hopefully schedule it when this chef is in town. But I was at the Atlanta team, Heidi, and I was hanging out with none other than Andrew Zimmern. And I said, hey, man, I'm doing this auction item for the Tennessee Tasting. And I'm gonna be letting somebody be the guest host of Nashville Restaurant Radio. I would love it if you would be the person to interview. And he goes, done, love to do it for your brother. Not a problem. So you have the ability to host Nashville Restaurant Radio and interview Andrew Zimmern as an episode on the show. So that is something that is gonna be so fun. And that will be auctioned off. So anything, if you wanna do that, if that sounds like something that is on the bucket list for you, hey, I'd love to host a podcast. I'd like to, this episode will be put out live, like an episode of Nashville Restaurant Radio with Andrew Zimmern.

07:41So that's gonna be a lot of fun. I don't know if I'm gonna be the co-host yet. We'll see who wins the auction. If they wanna do it themselves, they do it themselves. It's completely up to them. We are trying to raise money for restaurant workers. So there it is. We'll be talking more about this. If you know somebody that would love to do that, come on down, come on down to the Tennessee Tasting. Hey, let's jump in to this episode right now. We're gonna be talking with Chad and Gracie Nguyen, Chad Newton and Gracie Nguyen from You Are Here Hospitality in Eastside, Banmi. Sweezer, Super Case Adia, SS Guy. They're all over the place. Let's jump in the interview right now. Super excited today to welcome in studio. We have Gracie Nguyen and Chad Newton. What's up? You guys make up You Are Here Hospitality. That's right. It's one of my favorite newcomers to Nashville that we've had in a long time.

08:45Thank you so much. That means a lot. So you guys operate Eastside Banmi, Eastside Fuh, Sweezer, Super Case Adia, and then SS Guy, is that under your umbrella? Or I mean, cause obviously Emma and Chris, but like, how does that work? You know, great question. Yeah, it's under our restaurant group, but they own it outright and we help them where needed, but they don't need a lot of help as you can see. They're crushing it. It's an honor to have them still within the group with us and we get to work together with them and they're just amazing people and doing such cool stuff. We just had Chef Max Knupfel. Do you know who that is? I don't think so. He is the executive chef at the Music City Center. And he used to be the executive chef at the Kennedy Center. He was the executive chef of the Westchester Country Club. The dude's been all over and he's a legend. He's been the executive chef at the Music City Center for 11 years, but he said his favorite restaurant right now is SS Guy and Eastside Boneme.

09:49Yeah, I don't know if he lives in East Nashville. I don't know if you saw yesterday, but the big Bobby, the Bobster, Bobby Flay was over at SS Guy eating Thai fried chicken with Chris and Emma. Huge, I don't think you can get even, yeah, I don't think you can get bigger than that. That's legendary right there. That's like legendary status when I saw them today and talked about it with them is that it's just like, you've hit the pinnacle on legendary right there. For all the Bobby Flay naysayers, so sweet, so nice, sat down with them, spent time, told Chris to sit down with them, they just chatted. He was so friendly, so nice. I mean, we've always loved Bobby Flay and he's a great businessman and everything about it, but that's a really cool story to hear. So he was here, had heard the news and went to seek out SS Guy while he was here for only one day. It's probably because he listens to the show. Most likely. What's up, Bobster? So Gracie, how you doing? I'm doing okay. You always are quiet.

10:50You kinda like hang back and you're like, Chad just jumps in there and starts talking and you're kinda like, okay, what's happening? Yeah, I'm pretty chill. I think lately I've reduced my hours and I'm more tired. You reduced your hours and now you're more tired? Why is that? I don't know, my body's like, what's going on? It's almost like if you stop working out, kind of a thing, like your body just, what are you doing in your time where you reduce your hours? Well, I'm trying to recover now because I'm so tired. That's like, I sleep. I'm on like on a mattress island. Did you guys watch Love is Blind? Oh yeah, of course. But not the one that came out yesterday. So I don't know. You haven't seen the finale yet? We haven't seen the finale. Well, this will come out like in a week or so. There's no spoilers here and I won't tell you what's happening. Man, that's a fun show. Yeah, no, it's pretty interesting. Yeah, I don't even know where to begin with it. We're not going to talk about it. But I, Gracie, what are your hobbies?

11:52Like, what do you do like for fun? You guys live more in like the Brentwood area? Yeah, like Brentwood Franklin area, kind of out in the country a little bit. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so we just remodeled our house. So I love it so much that I never, I never leave. When I used to drive over, people would say, where is the best place to go? And like, where's your favorite place in Nashville? I went, my couch in my living room is my favorite place in the city. My kitchen. Yeah, I mean, we're older now and we realize that. So, you know, like living in East is just not even a choice for us. It just wouldn't be right. You know, we don't get out enough, which is kind of sad. We've been talking about that a lot recently about getting out, doing some date nights, going to check out some new restaurants. We're way behind on all the restaurants opening, like way behind. If I told you where we were at on the list, how far back it is, you would just like laugh. It's really sad. You know what I've done is I've started going back, like tomorrow's my birthday. Oh, nice. Happy birthday.

12:53Thank you. And we're going to Margot. Oh, nice. Yeah. And I was like, I want to just, I want to go back and like, cause we get invited to go do a bunch of these new restaurant openings, you know, four seasons of the new chef and you go there and you see people like these OG, like Nashville restaurants still need you to come eat there. I think everybody's so preoccupied with the new things and you guys are about to celebrate four years here in Nashville. So you're rapidly becoming one of the OGs in the way Nashville's growing. Yeah, absolutely. It's been, it's been amazing. Yeah. Like, so, you know, we got the space January of 2020. So we just kind of hit four years of that and literally just hit the maybe, yeah, we were probably on the road at this time driving out so four years ago to move out here. So it was right after the tornado and right before the COVID shut down. So it was literally like, like this next week would be our four, four year anniversary.

13:53And then, you know, a couple of months after that, the restaurant was being built and we were just doing pop-ups around town. It was super cool. So like our real grand opening date anniversary is in August, but we started activating much sooner than that. I was, I was thinking about that. It was like four year anniversary. And I was like, well, our four year anniversary for the podcast is March 14th. Yeah. And I was like, you guys opened, like we were doing the podcast when you opened. Yeah. So it was a few months later, like in August. Yeah, that's like a real official grand opening kind of anniversary, but yeah. Okay, so you move here in January around this March time, you're probably driving right about now, beginning of March. You're excited. Here we go. We're gonna open our own place in Nashville. Bam, pandemic. How, after four years, what we thought was gonna happen versus what actually happened? What were some of the big differences or what have you learned? Well, Gracie's gonna have some great feedback on this one. What do you mean? Well, cause you always get annoyed with me that we were supposed to have this, just this little quiet sandwich shop that was literally doing like, you know, 60 sandwiches a day and, you know.

15:0210 to three. Yeah, 10 to three only. Clothes on weekends. Pure family business, just her and I running it every day. Yeah, it didn't happen. But still making my own bread. I was gonna still do that. Are you still making your own bread? You're still doing it? Yeah. Well, she's still, we have a full-time baker, but she still bakes a couple of times or maybe once a week, but the idea that, you know, she would be in there every single day baking the bread then us making sandwiches together. Yeah, it kind of spun out of control, I would say. In a good way. How'd that happen? I don't know. Was it because of business or was it because of your here hospitality exploding and all this other stuff happening? No, I think it was, you know, I think we were kind of busy from the get-go, which is great. I mean, you can't ask for much more, especially in those hard times. And so, yeah, things just kind of took off. We got busier and busier. We started expanding in hours and different things like that. And then, yeah, it has never slowed down since. I think your banh mi's, and I don't know if this is blasphemy to call them a sandwich, just because of banh mi.

16:07I know, but like if, and I've been asked many times, I think I was asked on television the other day, what's the best place to go in town? I think I said, well, you gotta go to Eastside Banh Mi. I mean, the sandwich, the banh mi that you have there, I love you, Bill Sandwich Palace. Yeah, they're amazing people. They're amazing people. Fat belly. There's some great sandwich places out there, but you guys are the gold standard. I think it is absolutely the best. My wife, last year on my birthday, drove all the way out to Eastside Banh Mi to bring me a sandwich at work at lunch because she knew how much I loved it. I would have dropped off for you personally. Just text me next time. That's like her thing, man. She's like, no, I know when she wants to do something special for me, she brings me an Eastside Banh Mi and she's like looking in the fridge. I'm like, what? Because we live like 30 minutes from you guys. Kind of over by us, so yeah. I'm not like close to Eastside Banh Mi, so if I go, I'm making a pilgrimage over there to do it. Right. Anyhow, I want to talk about You Are Here hospitality for a minute because the first time that I learned, and I don't know if people know this about what you guys do, and I want you to jump in as much as you can, Gracie, because I know he just kind of dominates.

17:17You're here and I love, I want to get more out of you. You Are Here hospitality is a company that you guys created, and tell me where I go off track. Okay, because I don't, I'm just paraphrasing what I think I know. You guys have a hospitality company and you want to help chefs realize their dream of owning their own restaurant. So, i.e., Chris and Ima Baird, Bired, Bired? Bired. Bired. They come in and they say, look, we have this Thai fried chicken concept we really want to do and then you guys bring them into Eastside Banh Mi and they work there, it was like a year, year and a half, two years, I don't know, it was a long time. I kept seeing them in there and they learn your systems, they learn your processes, they learn your inventory, you mentor them and then you guys help them operationally get everything ready to open their new place and then you guys back them and help them until they grow and then you start with the next project and you continue to grow and you want to develop people who want to grow in this industry and you want to share your knowledge and mentorship with them until they can do their own thing and that's kind of your business model.

18:28Am I right or wrong? Where do I go off on that? No, that's pretty accurate, right, Gracie? Yep. Sweet. Well, no, so I love that. Let's talk about that. Here's the breakdown. So you are here, hospitality has a few segments to it. We have our create, own, operate, which is us creating, owning and operating our own concepts and businesses, which we love to do. That's a huge part of our business. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I love to create restaurant concepts. I think we're pretty decent at it. We like to stay on the forefront of things that are happening and try to really create cool things that people will really love but are also sustainable businesses. That's a huge part. You can't just create something that's super cool but it doesn't have the business legs or the foundation to have a long run. And then we also have our consulting arm which we do full service consulting. So I spend a good amount of my time working on the consulting side. We have a few clients right now and we're about to start a couple more projects.

19:30Sweet. And then the third piece is the incubator part. And so SS Guy's an example but it's probably not the best example because like I mentioned earlier, they didn't need a lot of help. They were supremely talented, great people. And there's not one simple way that this happens. The incubator program happens in different ways and each project is slightly different and it has to do with what we have available in terms of spaces and real estate and capital at the time as well. But it also goes to show which we're gonna talk about today is we can do other things to support the community. And so that's kind of what our focus is for this year in 2024 is to really just open our doors at Eastside Balmy on Sundays and ask anyone who wants to pop up, if they wanna pop up, if they have a built out concept brand, what not, they are able to come in and we don't charge anything. They can pop up at Eastside Balmy and do some really cool stuff there and start or continue their building of their own brand.

20:33So that's what your hospitality is, three segments basically with those three focuses. And Gracie and I work on both of them. Gracie's a little bit more focused on the create own operate side of actually just being the corporate executive chef for all of our businesses. But of course she helps out on the catering side or sorry, the consulting side and then also in certain capacities on the incubator side. And so going back to Chris and Emma, they really had a dialed in menu. We never touched any part of their menu. Like it wasn't right for us to do that because they didn't need it. And we give them some support on the marketing side, the PR side, photoshoots, things like that. They need help on it. And they can call us any time of the day and ask us any kind of business question, financial question, all that we share accountants so we can make that process really simple for them if they have questions, we're always kind of involved in it. And that's it. So we support them in that capacity, but they don't need a lot of help. And so I think they're not the typical incubator situation that we'd be going with, but that is a part of it is what we envision for the incubator program is really supporting people that have amazing dreams and really cool concepts, but just maybe don't have the business experience to do it by themselves at this point.

21:46And so we kind of show them that part and help them develop their concept and business into something that could be sustainable down the line. And part of it is coming in and working with us at the restaurant. And the way it happened with Chris is Chris came on as a sous chef, we hired him as a sous chef, then he got promoted to exec when we were opening up ESPs. So Grace, you'll be over at ESP a lot doing that. And so Chris was promoted there. And then Emma came on and ran the front of the house. And so that kind of just happened because it happened. It's not like a strict rule, but we do like people to work with us and that's a way for us to get to know them. And like you said, a way for them to see the inside of a business that is sustainable and works well. Well, I love it every time I go in there because I get to know Emma and Chris just from going at Eastside Bond Me. And so it was a natural, they opened their own place. I was so excited because they're just the greatest two people. I mean, next to you guys, I mean, I don't know, I love it. So what do you do? What does your day look like, Gracie? Well, right now I'm just focusing mostly on the pho.

22:50Yeah. But I was trying to get pho off the ground and even with realizing hot weather is not too good. And so I was just doing all these specials and stuff like that, which is doing really well. And now that pho is kind of like running on its own, we just hired a new chef for Bond Me. So I've been over there trying to help them and. Who is the new chef at Bond Me? His name is Will Norton and he was opening for Suiza. Oh. I think you've, I don't know if you've met Will before, but yeah, he helped us open Suiza. Okay. That's kind of like a kitchen lead and very quickly started running that for us. And then an opportunity for him to move up to Eastside Bond Me came available and we put him in the spot. So he's just started, he's still training right now, essentially first couple of months. And yeah, so Gracie's over there supporting him and the new team there and just working away at all the stores on culinary.

23:50So you're kind of doing training, spending time with them, showing them exactly what the expectations are. And then a lot of times if I have an idea, I'll test it out at Eastside Pho and then if it goes well, then I'll bring it over to the Bond Me shop. But at night we are gonna wanna do more like, like sit down dinner, more Vietnamese food, restaurant type, you know, just do more. I love that. Yeah. Where do you find, where do you find like your ideas? Like, do you take intentional moments where you like ideate and like write things down or like, how do you find your inspiration for your dishes? You know, it's funny thing is I, I always think about like the food I grew up eating and my brother who just moved out here, we always talk about things or if I had an idea, I'll tell him and then we'll call my mom and say, okay, what is the real traditional way? And then I'll start testing it. He'll come out to taste the food and then we then, you know, cause it takes a week or two. It's not like, boom, I have an idea.

24:51It's gonna be on the menu. So you have to have somebody you trust taste the food who knows what it should taste like or? Right. And yeah. And then, so then once I play around, then I put it on as a special and then, you know. Test it out and if it does well, then it might graduate to the menu. Right. And then, you know, you have to train the staff and make sure they follow it and. There's a lot of steps involved. Yes. When was the last time you bombed on one of those? Like you created something and you were like, this is gonna be awesome. And then people were like, this isn't good. Has that ever happened? I mean, I imagine it probably hasn't, but I mean, anything like that ever happened? I think that I might've tested things out and it wasn't like my favorite and then it never went on the menu. Okay. But if it goes as a special, you've tasted enough people, it's good. Right, right. And I always wonder, cause I'm like, my tastes, what I like, and if I eat something like, I love this, who's to say everybody else's? I don't know. That's true.

25:51Like if there's trusted people that you have and you said your brother. I mean, you do have trusted people that it's not just me. I want to know your opinions too. Right, cause he's pretty honest, you know, and sometimes he always has like these little ideas that I totally forget about and it just works and you know. I love that. And he's not even in the restaurant industry. Well, that's probably why. Yeah. Yeah, a little outside eyes sometimes is very helpful. Absolutely. So you talked earlier about giving back to the community and you guys have always given back to the Nashville Food Project, I believe, right? That's your charity of choice. And you did these like guest chef bond meet since year one. It was year one you guys did this, but it was like Sean Brock and Trevor and like Hal Holdenbage and like some big name chefs for a brand new concept in there. Tell me what kind of your theory around doing those events and building your community.

26:53Yeah, sure. We kind of made friends with everyone when we got here cause when we were testing out things and getting the restaurant open, we would send staff meal to our family meal, you know, to all of our, the restaurants we kind of looked up to around Nashville. That was kind of part of the start of it. And it wasn't part of the strategy, but definitely, you know, there's places we really appreciated looked up to here when we moved here. It's one of the reasons why we moved here is cause we saw such great things happening. So we wanted to support that. So we would send like staff meal out to like all these restaurants and chefs that we really looked up to. And that kind of, you know, started off some friendships or acquaintances or whatnot. And then we just came up with the idea of that. We would do a really cool like sandwich collab and let each chef run their sandwich for like, you know, a week at a time. And, you know, a dollar from every sandwich sold would go to the Nashville food project. So season one was bonkers. It was just like so out of control. I think there was a couple casualties involved on our side for a couple of, just some people are like extremely beat down in the kitchen and cause it was so busy.

27:57It was like, we didn't know what it was going to look like, but you know, Brian Lee, we were selling, you know, over a hundred fried avocado, bought me sandwiches, you know, and then Sean's with the roast beef and french fries on it. I mean, that was the most, I think we were selling like 150 a day, which is just- That's a lot of sandwiches. Yeah, exactly. For that one particular sandwich. Just that one particular sandwich, yeah. So as you can imagine what that looks like, but yeah, it was, it was a really cool thing. And we thought it was a great way to kind of give back to the community and, and be able to do some charitable things. And it was a good setup for that. Then we did season two of it and it was another good season. Really, really, really fun. And you know, we've always kind of had a charitable aspect, mostly here it's been the Nashville food project, but we've also done stuff with hands on Nashville, second harvest. We're doing some stuff with them coming up as well. And then our favorite is- Wags and walks. Yeah. Wags and walks. Yeah, the best, the sweetest people ever.

28:57And we have two rescues from them. And within like our friend community here, we have a couple more that have been rescued through them. And so we really love them a lot and try to do some stuff for them as well. We'll talk about them. What exactly is wags and walks? Wags and walks is just, they rescue dogs and help adopt and do everything in between. So they'll help with like all the medical for some dogs or when they're found, they're in really bad shape. Like one of our second boy, we talk about them like they're our kids, cause they are. We don't have kids, we have two dogs, but we treat them like kids. Gracie cooks for them all the time. It's pretty amazing. That's a hobby of mine. I'm not supposed to, I don't know if it's okay to ask, like, do you guys have kids? And like, is that a plan for you guys? No, no. That time has passed. We have like 30 restaurant kids now. So I understand. No, I- Yeah, and two dogs. So that fills up our time, but no, literally Gracie gets like off cuts from Bear Creek farm and cooks it for the dogs. So they live large. Your dogs are doing well. Yeah. So, but like, you know, like our boy Alfie was found in Alabama, like extremely emaciated and just in really bad shape.

30:03And so then what they do is they'll take the dogs in, they'll save the dogs from kill shelters or whatever, then like kind of nurse them back to health, help them out if they have any like major operations needed or anything, and then they put them in good homes. And it's just a really cool local, you know, charity. I think they have, I think they started in LA and the Nashville unit is a little bit younger, but they've been around for a few years now and they're a great follow on Instagram too. Don't follow them if you think that you're in, slightly even in the market for a dog, cause you will get a dog. I mean- I have two, and I went to Louisville last week and I stayed with my sister-in-law and she found a dog. Oh wow. It was a little dog and it kind of looked like a beagle. Wasn't a beagle, but the coloring looked like a beagle. And I walked in, I'm like, what is this? What is this dog just running around? And she goes, I found him. I've called the whatever department and I have 48 hours. I'm fostering him until they maybe find the people who own him or don't or whatever. I fell in love with this dog.

31:04I slept on an air mattress in their living room. But this little dog was the sweetest. I laid down, it just jumped up on the air mattress and laid down like in my arms and it just wouldn't stop licking my face. And I was like, if you didn't have to have this dog here for 40 hours, I was really happy it was me and not my wife cause she would have snuck the dog out and brought him home. And I was like, cause we don't need a third one. Cause we have two also. And it's like, oh my God, our dog's the best. They are the best. They seriously are. But once you have a third one, it's the same thing I was having too. No, nice try. Why is that? It's the same thing. It's not like they can take care of each other. That was our, like the way we went from one to two was exactly that. She said, oh, they'll just take care of each other. And then she brought one, she brought the second one home one day without kind of telling me. And I was a little mad at first, but you know, I think he's now, he's a little bit more of my favorite, but yeah. On that note, we're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors.

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34:16They only use non-synthetic, all-natural Delta 9 THC derived from the hemp plant. It is the real deal. The same buzz, the same chill you'd expect from THC. Best of all, Cali Sober is federally legal because it is made with hemp-derived THC, which is a legal substance under the 2018 Farm Bill. If you're a restaurant, you can pick this up through Litman Brothers. They offer three different flavors, Paloma Spritz, Ranch Water and Berry Ginger Fizz, all with less than 3% THC by volume with five milligrams of THC per serving. Please enjoy responsibly. When I was in the after, kind of towards the end of the, it's probably been two years ago, I was like, I want a dog. And she was like, no. And I said, yes. And she said, no. And then I started looking up dogs online and we bought a dog. And I'm not proud of that, but it is, we have small children and I wanted to raise a puppy from, and I wanted them to be part of it for their first dog.

35:26That's what I wanted. And so we did that. And she now is like the biggest dog person I've ever met. She was like, no. And now she's like, I'm fearing the day we do not have this dog. I'm like, eh, okay. We'll make sure she follows wags and walks in Nashville. No. That's like kids, we have two kids. We're not having a third kid. The man-to-man coverage is what we can do. We go hiking. We each have a dog. Yes. We can go, a third dog, who's going to hold the third dog? What's going on here? So it's a thing. One of the kids. It's like, that's why you have kids. You can have four, dude. Do it. Yeah. So now you're doing something new this year. Are you still going to do the Bon Me, create your own Bon Me project again this year? You know what? I don't think we're going to do that for a while. And there's no like weird reason on that. It's just, you know, I think. Is it kind of a pain in the ass? I wouldn't say that. It's definitely not that. And I think it's actually really cool for our team to be able to kind of like, you know, work with some of these chefs because they don't work with us ongoing.

36:32They teach us how to do the sandwich, but there is that time where they come into our kitchen or, you know, we can go into theirs and drop stuff off and have that interaction of seeing some new techniques. Like Trevor's sandwich was unbelievable. And there was so much technique involved in it. Heron's sandwich was incredible. Heron's an amazing man. I think that was my favorite of all time. I was a really good one. Next to the fried egg Bon Me. Yeah, I know you love the fried egg. Oh my God. But you know, so the team gets to see these really cool things. And I think that's one of the best parts of it. It's not that it's like a hindrance on us at all because you know what? It's great. It makes the restaurant busier. It's for a good cause. I do believe though that the more times you do things like that to kind of like less special it gets. Okay, totally understand that. Yes, going from like season one to season two, there's no change on like the talent that was involved. I just, that was kind of like the feeling. And so I think it's something really special and maybe we'll bring it out in the future. One of the things I wanted to talk to Brian Lee Weaver about is like, let's just run back your sandwich for a day and have fun with it. So we can do things like that, which I think would be really cool because people love that sandwich.

37:35Like they freaked out. Yeah, the fried avocado. Yeah, with the whip feta and the Dream Weaver sauce and all that. The Dream Weaver sauce. So there's ways to kind of pay respects to that whole series, but I think we're good for it for a while. And I want to try to do new different things, and just be creative and keep things interesting. And that's why the whole thing about 2024 is the ideas we came up for Bon Me is to do more dinner specials with Gracie, kind of more special Vietnamese traditional, like everything's traditional, but like a little bit more traditional dinners and things that would be more like a neighborhood restaurant would have. So a little bit more presentation like that, less of a sandwich shop at night, more dinner specials, things like that. And then obviously to support the community and like support pop-ups and do collabs. So even with a successful business, you know how this is. It's like, you got to always work at it. And you know, we said the truth. Yeah, a lot of people out there are gonna be like, duh, but yeah, in October we start talking about what we want to do in the next year.

38:38We budget it out and we come up with all the different points that we want to work on and all the new cool things. Because as a business, no matter how kind of popular you are, you have to always kind of evolve and not reinvent yourself fully, but just really kind of keep things interesting. And so we decided this year would be the year of like the collabs and pop-ups and you know, more dinner specials and fun things like that with Gracie really cooking a lot more in the kitchen. I like it. I mean, you're not pigeonholing you're typecasting yourself into when we only do botany sandwiches or these bowls or the spring rolls or any, that's not all we do. I work, I mean, you guys are chefs. I mean, you guys are chefs that are fully capable of doing a bunch of other things. Do you ever miss kind of, is that, is part of this? Like, hey, I kind of miss doing other stuff and I want to be able to play with stuff artistically. Does that happen or is it? Well, I think I'm just doing that right now. With the other places and everything? With the other places, coming up with new ideas and stuff like that.

39:39So you're getting that, that's not part of it. Yeah, Gracie's definitely in that mode, which is really great because it's a big help for us and it's needed and she's really good at it. My new role is literally, I like don't even cook anymore. The best thing I learned how to do in 2023, you're going to laugh at this, is get out of the way. Seriously, and let her just roll with stuff and not be pigeonholed into like the typical way we do things all the time. That was the biggest thing I learned in 2023, right? Yes. Yeah, and so now we kind of keep that. With the work she did at ESP to kind of get it where it's at has been huge. And so I just let them roll with stuff. Of course I'm watching numbers and stuff behind the scenes, but I'm not really a chef anymore. I hate to say it, it's sad, but. Well, it's similar to what I'm dealing with. I mean, honestly, you have two restaurants. I can be in one of them a good amount over the time where I've got my finger on the pulse. I know what's going on, I can make decisions, I can do stuff, but you had a third or a fourth, like I'm in my third. I've had to realize that I have to prioritize other things and let go of the vine and let the leaders lead because I can't be at three places at one time and I have to trust that my leadership team can do it.

40:51And I always have, but I had somebody the other day tell me, it says, you have to stop being the hero. And I said, what do you mean? They go, if you come in and you're there and you save the day and you're the one who's busting all the tables and getting everything done, you're the hero, somebody has to be a victim. And who's that victim? And I said, I don't know. She's like, the other managers, the GM, they're the ones who couldn't handle it because you had to come in and save them. If you didn't do that, they would figure it out. Or maybe they make the mistake and then they don't do it again the next time. But you have to let them do that. And I was like, fuck, like that's, you're not wrong. So I have to let go and I'm not in the restaurants. I went by, I didn't see you. Yeah, because I just meddle. When I get in there, I do too much of other people's stuff. And then they're like, dude, what are you doing, man? That's my job. And it's like, sorry, okay, I'll just. And it's taken me a little while, six months, to start figuring this stuff out.

41:52It's kind of like your year last year. Yeah, and I think, not to get philosophical about the business, but it is our responsibility to develop people, right? To develop our people. And that's part of it, is letting them do more, letting them fail a little bit. And being there to teach them where we can, absolutely. And we want everyone that wants to develop to learn more and more every day. So I think it's huge. But yeah, I mean, when we opened Suiza, that was like a completely different concept than ESP and Eastside Bon Me. Those two kind of fit together because ESP was pretty much a brand extension of Bon Me. Because we didn't want to do everything under one roof. We always had this dream of doing a little noodle stall, if you will, like a food stall. And so that's what it is. But Suiza was a whole brand new thing with new recipes and new everything. And so that was a little bit of a challenge for us. But that was really fun. I mean, the really reason we opened that, besides I think it was needed here, is that I missed eating that food. That's what we used to eat in San Francisco when we cooked. So it's like, you get out and you go to Farolito late night or whatever your favorite taqueria was.

42:56And there just wasn't a lot of West Coast style taquerias here. I mean, there is definitely, but not a lot. How's the business over there at Suiza? Because I hear lots about SS Guy and then The Wash and Eastside Fub, but I know it's kind of my fight. I love SS Guy, but man, those quesadillas are legit. They're so good. I don't think the people, how's business going over there? It's good. I mean, The Wash is a little weather dependent, as we know. People have figured out the parking piece, so that's no big deal. You can just park on the street somewhere and find it. Figured out, yeah. But yeah, the weather is the tricky part. So too hot, wet, too cold, you're gonna lose people and it's gonna become mostly just delivery and takeout, which is fine to some capacity, but you do need to hit on all three. And when there's a beautiful day, that place is full and it's packed and people are having a great time. It's a cool vibe. And they understand and appreciate what the concept is, is to basically be, I'm gonna go order food from a couple of different places and get drinks and hang out out here and it's really cool.

43:58So we hope that they're gonna build the outside structure soon. It's kind of supposed to happen this year, so. See, I think with you are here, hospitality, with what you're doing, I love Tyler's idea with The Wash and I love it. You guys have three stalls there, right? Yeah, essentially we have three. Three? County and SS guy, yeah. And are you like locked in for multiple, can you put other concepts in there? Are you like first ride refusal or do you have like two years and then you gotta put something else in? Yeah, I don't wanna go into that, but I would love to have every stall in The Wash at some point. So this is what I'm getting at. What about you guys doing your own wash like in Brentwood or like Antioch? I mean, I think that there's over in like that Edmondson Pike area, like you could do something like that and there's some really good food. I mean, you guys could do your own version of that and then you just own it. Have you thought about some? Brentwood Franklin's a weird bird, as you know. It's a very weird bird, but I'm not talking Brentwood Franklin, I'm talking, I mean, look, I think it would work in, I think that would work anywhere.

45:03No, I know what you're talking about, just another example of a wash and yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, we are looking at some projects in other places that are similar to it that we would have all of the F&B business in, consolidated. So we are looking at some stuff and hopefully it comes around, but yeah, cause I really do believe in it. It's a really cool thing. I think it's gone from being like startups and what it's so funny, cause people, they still refer to ESP, like when we're mentioned in the news as like this Fuss startup and I'm like, it's not Fuss startup. It's just a brand extension of East Side Bombie. It's like, you're calling Gracie a Fuss startup, okay. Yeah, right. You know, someone that's done this forever, but yeah, you know, like that's how people view it, which is totally great cause it did do that. I mean, you look at like all the ethnic food in there, it's so cool. And a lot of, you know, folks were getting their first kind of brick and mortar in there to test concepts. And now it's changed a little bit cause everyone else has stayed on and I think that's gonna continue to happen. But yeah, no, really cool. I love exactly what Tyler did and it's such a great vision to do that and it just makes sense.

46:06All right, I'm gonna shift gears a little bit cause we don't have a ton of time today. Thank you guys for accommodating my crazy schedule today. You guys are married. How long have you been married for? 13 years this year. 13 years. Okay, so you've got past all the petty bullshit. Oh yeah. But working together all the time together, how's that work? Do you guys fight? What was your last fight about? You know what? Can we revisit it right now? Can we just? Yeah, no, we're good Brandon. Thank you. I am. Dude, what the hell are you doing? Things are going so well Brandon, really? I can't remember when our last fight was, but we just did a pop-up to do the pizza with Pizza Lolo. Okay, it was awesome. And I was making all the pizzas, even his pizza, and he was expo-ing and I was totally okay with it. And we worked so well together. I love that. I was even making his pizza, yeah, exactly. I was. I was even doing his job while he just stood there and handed the pizza to somebody to run.

47:07Yeah. I wasn't doing much. I was just kind of hanging out. Hanging out at the expo, just air traffic controller while I'm busting my ass in front of a hot oven. Yeah, exactly. Is that what I'm taking out of that? No, but I'm serious. I think we work really well together. We do, we figured it out. In the beginning, it was really hard. And it quite honestly almost didn't last a few times on some of the stuff, because we've worked together now for, what, 15 years? And you guys met each other in a restaurant. We did, we met each other in restaurants, yep. And then we got to a point where we were helping each other in each other's restaurants. And then we did Asian Box together in 2011. And that's when we really worked together for the first time, day in and day out. And that was really hard on us. And that was when we first got married. And it was, yeah, at that point, we'd probably never envisioned that we would still be working together. But I think we've kind of figured it out now, which is great, you would hope so by now. But, and obviously when we opened up Eastside Bombay, there were some definite tricky moments because it was just so busy and we were just so stressed.

48:09And so working so much. But I mean, yeah, I think we figured it out now. Now it's a lot of fun. It's literally like, I wouldn't want to work with anyone else. It's so much fun and we just have a good time and we have our separate roles. And we figured out kind of how the puzzle pieces fit together with each other in doing it. So now it's fun, right? Yeah, super fun. Yeah. Now it's super fun. Do you guys take the same days off? Or do you guys take different days off to go do your own things or do stuff together on your days off? For the last, I would say the last four or five, six months, we really haven't had set days off together. Yeah, we'll take some trips here and there, but especially the last four, five, six months haven't gone that way. In the past, we used to have scheduled days off together and I know we're trying to get back to that. But yeah, we'll get there. I really wish I had done this previously to this episode. But I'm looking back right now on all the old episodes and I'm trying to find when the first time I had you guys on the show.

49:12And what day did you guys open? What is the actual day that you opened? I think it's August 11th, 2020, right? August 13th. The 13th, maybe 13th, yeah. Because that was the first time I had you guys on was on August the 13th from your kitchen on opening day. Yeah, and you're like, this is crazy because we're gonna make you sit down and talk on opening day and we're like, whatever, let's do it. We were live on the show, it was the roundup. It was an episode of the roundup. Ben Whitlock was our guest host. It was August 13th. What's up, Ben? It was 2020 and you guys were like, we're opening a restaurant today. Yeah. And you guys were literally on the show, first time on the show, and then I'm trying to find the day that you guys came back and did the full interview because I don't wanna go back into too much of the history because we did that already. But I wanna let people, oh, here it is. You guys, the first time that you guys were both on the show was June 6th, 2021. Okay. So you did the show on August 13th, the day that you opened and then you did a full episode, June 6th, 2021, which was almost a year later.

50:19Yeah, about a year later. So almost a year in, but in that we tell origin stories and back to California and Southern California and how I used to live over there and it's the whole thing. Little Saigon, yep. Tallest on the basketball team. Yes, I was. I love the stories, yeah. Yeah, so for those in Westminster, California, Fountain Valley, Westminster, Southern California is known as Little Saigon. It's the largest concentration of Vietnamese people in the nation, I think, right? Probably that in Houston or probably the two. In Houston? Yeah. Amazing area, beautiful area of the country. And I went to Westminster High School for two years. It was four to one Vietnamese to Caucasians at that school or just any other ethnicity. And I was six foot six and I was like, I would walk, I was like a celebrity because I played basketball and I would just, it was a lot of fun. And everybody was so nice and I had the best time. Yeah. And so you have family also that is from there or?

51:21Yeah, my dad lives in Fountain Valley. Your dad lives in Fountain Valley. Okay, so you, we all know the same area in Southern California. Yeah. Go back and you can hear the whole story from June 6th, 2021. What am I missing, guys? Tell me, what do you guys want to talk about? Let's talk about some of the collabs that we're going to be doing this year and just talk a little bit more about the pop-ups and the way we kind of like offered that out and what we're looking at to do there. So for the collabs, we just finished one with Pizza Lolo, which was a few weekends ago, it was awesome. So basically Steve came over, who is from San Francisco originally, so we've got a really cool connection there. He came over, brought his ovens. He does like super traditional Neapolitan pies, some of the best pizza in the city, such a sweet guy as well. Yet to have it, I've heard it is fantastic. It's really good. So he literally lives like, you could probably throw a rock from East Side Bombie in his house. That's how close he is. So he came over, did his pizzas, and then we did a riff and used Gracie's bread.

52:25It was like a French bread pizza. So we cut them open, put like a garlic butter on them, and then she came up with a white pie that was like more veggie forward. And I did my typical jalapenos and pepperoni, and we did like ranch on the side. We just kept it really fun on our side. And so we just offered, there was like four pizzas total, two of his, two of ours, and we just had fun with them. People were ordering both and just doing it. So that was an idea to work with someone that we really look up to and respect that's doing a great job in the city, doesn't have a brick and mortar, kind of just pops up around town, but is really pushing it and really believes in quality and really good food. So is pepperoni and jalapeno your go-to on a pizza? That's my go-to with ranch, yeah. Oh, I don't do ranch. I have a go-to is pepperoni and jalapeno, but I add pineapple. Oh, see, that's wild. See, you get the sweet heat with the pepperoni, like the whole thing, it's delicious. Am I wrong for that? No, not, absolutely not.

53:26Everyone's, you know, pizza and burgers are like the two most subjective things. So no one's right or wrong in those worlds. I don't think anybody's right or wrong in any world. I mean, do whatever the hell you like. Yeah, exactly. I know some people are like, you know. Hot dog's not a sandwich, yeah. Is hot dog a sandwich? I don't know, you know. I don't even think I want to get into that one, you know. It's like, like you said, if someone thinks it is good for them, you know what I mean? I don't know what constitutes, anyway, yes. No, the real answer to that is a hot dog is a hot dog, but anyways, no. I have this game called Hot Takes, and that's one of the hot takes, that a hot dog is a sandwich. Yeah. So you had the Pizza Lolo pop up. Yeah, Pizza Lolo. I'm getting sidetracked, I'm sorry. Oh no, no, it's awesome. I love talking about hot dogs. But yeah, Pizza Lolo pop up, which we had a couple of Sundays ago, which was really awesome. We might do another one, or he might just pop up just himself, if he doesn't want to put up with our shenanigans of doing blasphemy French bread pizza.

54:26But anyways, no, he had such a good time too. I think he'll want to hang out again. We got Dream Burger coming up. Dream Burger? Yeah. I don't even know what that is. Oh wow, yeah, it's a really, really, really cool burger food truck that is parked outside of Vinyl Tap, as kind of has like a residency there. And the owner, Cole, is super sweet, super talented, really, really cool. He's been a supporter of East Side Bombi since the beginning. That's where we kind of met him. And I think they're just doing really cool stuff. He's usually parked just right at Vinyl Tap, and you can go in, order burgers, go inside Vinyl Tap, get a beer, and hang out. And he's regarded as having one of the best burgers in the city. He's kind of up there with Bad Luck, in my opinion. Those two kind of are the two best. For just straight burgers. Yeah, like burgers that are more mobile, I guess, if you will, not having a full brick and mortar. But yeah. Bad Luck is legit. Yeah, exactly. That's a damn good burger. And I still think the best burger in the city though, I'm sorry, Andy.

55:29But I think that the Red Headed Stranger Green Chili Burger. Agreed. I think is the best hamburger I've ever eaten. Agreed. It's my favorite in the city. It's just me, it's just you two? Yeah, oh, absolutely. No disrespect. Yeah. No, I mean, again, it's like, let's not talk about best. Let's talk about top threes. And you know what I mean, right? So Dream, you're putting in the top three? Yeah. Okay, I need to have him, I need to bring him in here and learn more about it. Yeah, and then selfishly, I'm gonna say, I think the Suiza Burger's in the top three too. Do you know we have a burger? No, I always get the quesadilla that's like the Don Corleone, what's it called? The Don Juan Especial. The Don Juan Especial is the best damn quesadilla. It has like French fries in it and the whole, I mean, it's- It's wacky. It's a lot of food. It's a lot of food. I never finish it. But just the flavor of it is where it's at. Try the Suiza Burger next time you're over there. It's really good. Was that what you guys were only doing late at night? Yes. But now you're open at any time? Yeah, now it's on the regular menu. Because when I was coming, every time I've been there, it hasn't been at like 11 o'clock at night.

56:33Of course, yes. And you were doing the burger as a late night thing. Yeah. But now you just offer it any time? Now it's on the regular menu. Okay, well next time I go off. So it went from being the late night burger to the Suiza Burger. So it's a lot of fun. The Suiza Burger. Yeah, kind of like a cheeseburger, Suiza Burger. Yeah, anyways. But yeah, so yeah, Dream Burger coming up, which is really cool. Something that's in late April. And then we have something on the books that's not fully set up yet, but we are gonna do something with Redhead Stranger and Brian Lee Weaver. And then also we are gonna be doing a dinner with NoCo in the future as well that we're still kind of working out details. But the idea there is that their Chef Junior is Vietnamese and Gracie obviously Vietnamese, so they could do a really cool dinner together. So we're still working on that. So we've got some cool collabs coming up and not all of them might not be at East Side Bombay. We might be offsite for some of them. But definitely Cole with Dream Burger is the next one in late April. And then besides that, we do have a residency right now happening at East Side Bombay.

57:34I should give out our friend's Breadwinner lunch shop a big shout out. So Luke and John are the owners there. They're doing really cool sandwiches. Luke worked with us for a while and he's left to start his dream hospitality business. So we offered them the first three or four Sundays and every month to be able to pop up at East Side Bombay as a residency. So they have a place to actually set their roots instead of being completely mobile all the time. And so they're doing that first three or four Sundays every month. You can check our calendar. Sometimes we post it, we'll be updating it again soon. But that's really cool. So Breadwinner lunch shop with Luke and John, great guys. And then- So this is Breadwinner lunch shop. Yeah, I'm not sure if it's lunch shop. It's Breadwinner for sure. Sandwich place though, right? Yep, yep. So this is what I love about, and I subscribe to this wholeheartedly. It's probably the reason why I do this podcast. Is that you guys do bond me sandwiches.

58:35And you are like a, like lunch place is a big lunch place. Yet you're promoting another sandwich lunch place on Sundays. Like, I just love that that's what you guys are doing. You're about helping everybody. And I think that's why you fit so well in this community. That's like the Nashville way we've kind of always had it. But you guys came in and that's just what you do. I think that's so appealing and so awesome. And I just, I think that's what we need more of that. Yeah, I mean- In the city. We do anything to support them, whatever they need. And they're just great folks. And I want to see them realize their dream and get their business open. So anything we can do to help them. The restaurant's empty on Sundays. So it's theirs, it's theirs. Literally, we don't even, they just come in open, go in, work, close down and go. No one checks them in or out because we worked with Luke for so long. We just trust them, you know? So on Sunday, it was the only day that I get Chick-fil-A cravings, by the way.

59:36The only time I ever want a Chick-fil-A is on Sunday. I don't know why, but every time I'm like, Chick-fil-A, it's Sunday. When you have that craving out there for Chick-fil-A, I think you could go to East Side Bond Meat today and get whatever the pop-up is today. And there'll be somebody cool there. And I love the idea that if you're hungry on a Sunday, you can go support somebody who's honing in on their craft who needs support. When you talk about supporting local, these are people that are trying to get their dream up and running. They need the business on that day too. So I mean, the more you're able to, every time that you go there on a Sunday, you're helping support a local entrepreneur's dream. That in itself is amazing. Yeah, I love it. And that's why we're doing it. Honestly, it just feels good for us to give back. I think Gracie's talked about before, is just so many people helped us out and it's time to give back. And we're happy to do it. And we're never gonna open up another of a second store of anything.

01:00:40You won't have another East Side, you don't have a South Side Bond Meat? But that's not the same thing. South Side Bond Meat would not be another East Side Bond Meat. I think they get less special. Can you get a West Side Bond Meat in the Bellevue area? Cause that's what I need. Nope, sorry. I would be a super regular. We'll do the same thing. We'll call it something different. It's my work around for her. Same thing. But that's a thing, you're never gonna do the same thing twice? Never. Yeah, I mean, certain concepts lean more to wanting to scale and there is the possibility for some of our concepts, but not East Side Bond Meat, most likely. Or East Side Fo. Yeah, or East Side Fo. But it's the only one you're ever gonna have. Yeah. So anyways. That's interesting. Hey, let's take one more quick break to hear a final word from our sponsors. The Boys in Gold are back and we're talking about the Music City Beer Company. Yes, this is Nashville's local domestic beer. Made in Nashville, by Nashville, for Nashville. And the official local beer of the Nashville SC, who are back in action.

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01:02:44Listen, Robins knows how hard industry professionals work every single day. They also know how devastating accidents can be. Be it a grease fire that damages the kitchen, a severe storm that cuts off power, or a customer slip and fall incident. Both the extensive experience and the savvy to create a policy that protects your business from accidents like those, you can rest easy knowing that the work you've put in will not be for nothing. Visit Robins website at robinsins.com to request a consultation or call Matthew Clements directly. His number is 863-409-9372. Protection you can trust, that's Robins. At What Chefs Want, they deliver the seven most needed product lines to meet the unique needs of chefs and restaurateurs. From local to global, and from staple items to gourmet rarities, they have the variety of products to cover all of your needs. Produce, seafood, meats, gourmet, staples, to-go, and dairy.

01:03:49At What Chefs Want, they're transforming food service by eliminating minimum orders, offering split cases, and providing daily deliveries with 24-7 customer support. This means chefs have the flexibility to order what they need when they need it. Experiment with new ingredients and keep their kitchens consistently stocked with fresh supplies. It's all about empowering culinary creativity while streamlining operations. Check them out at whatchefswant.com or give them a call at 800-600-8510. Yeah, so what other, who else you got? So you got Brian Lee Weaver, you've got Dream Burger, you did Pizza Lolo, you've got the lunch sandwich, lunch place, three or four. Bread winner, yeah. Bread winner is gonna be there three or four times a month. So you can get that on Sundays. Anybody else you got scheduled? We're gonna do something with Egg Drip. Our good friend Kelvin, who we know from, originally at The Wash, really, really great guy doing really cool stuff. Korean like egg sandwiches, pretty wacky, but it's really such a cool thing and people are really digging it.

01:04:55So we're gonna do a date with him too, that's kinda TBD. But then we did also just open it up and sent out a post on Instagram to say like, hey, whoever wants to throw their hat in the ring to come and pop up at Eastside Balmy for free, let us know and we got about seven to eight responses. So I thought that was really cool. And so we're gonna start kind of peppering them in on different Sundays throughout the end of the year. And so I can't say any of the names now because I don't wanna say it before it's booked. Does it have to be like a new restaurant? Like what if it's like just a restaurant you wanna introduce to East Nashville, like Merbol? Hey, my- Like a Merbol pop-up, like what? I think that would just be kind of fun. The next day my banker at Pinnacle literally texted me and said, I wanna do a breakfast taco pop-up. And I was like, okay. No, I mean, no, I think it would be really cool. I mean, I don't think there's like any things that's off limits to it. You know what I mean? That's what's kind of fun about it. I do think though that, you know, we wanna make sure that folks do have some sort of a kind of built out, you know, concept a little bit and that we can kind of trust them to be in the kitchen.

01:06:04You want somebody who's a professional. Yes. Or I mean, who's really going to do something, not just like, oh, my name is John and I make really good waffles and I wanna do a waffle pop-up tomorrow. Right. And I'm a home cook and I'm gonna do this. And then they come in and they're like, I don't know how to using this equipment. Or like, you want people who know what they're doing. Yeah, you kind of have to be, have something in the works and working on and at least have like a logo and different, you know, things set up. No, I mean, we've gotten some very interesting things. And the thing is, is that, you know, it's not in my place, even though the consultant in me wants to like jump in and be like, no, don't ever do this. Don't even try to do this. What are you doing? That's not my place. If people ask for it, absolutely. I will give them the rundown. I will spend an hour with them and sit down and tell them what I think directly and honestly. But yeah. Probably a good, it's probably a good way to build clientele for your consulting business. You get them in there and then you start working and you can spend a whole day with them. And they're like, hey, you know what the fuck you're talking about? And you can go, yeah.

01:07:04And I could do this on a continued basis for you if you would like, I could probably help you. So there's a big difference like with the consulting side that we actually do, you know, anyone around town that has an up and coming thing, I will gladly spend free time and talk to them and give them help if they're really, truly wanting it and interested. I save the consulting for more of the businesses and folks that approach us that actually do have the big dollars and the things like that that are like, you know, a little bit more established, if you will. It's not about the money part, it's just about, you know, a different approach. If someone around town wants advice on anything in the food area, then I'm happy to sit down with them. And I have with a lot of people over the years, which is great, it's fun for me. But I don't need to monetize that on everyone. It's just purely, there's definitely people that stick out as like this would be a paid client and the majority of just folks around town are not. Totally understand. Because you've done consulting too. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Because I have lots of conversations, like, well, this is gonna take me a significant amount of time and energy.

01:08:06I'm putting together systems and processes for you and then I'm gonna teach people how to do it. That's time consuming and that's the thing. I know we gotta get going. Yeah, I'm so excited for you guys. Thank you, thanks for the ongoing support. It's always great to chat with you and spend time. Anything I can do for you guys, whenever I can do it, I am happy to do it. I just, I think you guys are absolute gems and you're amazing stewards of this profession. And I think that our city is better in a culinary sense because you guys are here. I think there's a lot of all these people coming in from all the town in California. Like, if everybody did what you guys did, our town would be the greatest city in the world. It's a great city. But if everybody came in and started doing what you guys do, oh, I'm telling you. You gotta contribute. That's the, we talk about the bad California folks and the bad folks from other places in New York and whatnot just coming to town.

01:09:10But I think the difference is is that if you wanna come here to help contribute, I think it's great. And if you can contribute to the city, to Nashville, to the community, to charities, to just the local neighborhoods, whatever it is, I think that's the key. And so. 100%. Yeah. We do the final thing is our Gordon Food Service final thought. Her favorite part. Where you get to say whatever you want as long as you wanna say it, you get to take us out of the interview. I am gonna turn my microphone off and I'm going to leave it to y'all. Whoever wants to go first. Go. Grace, you go for it. Literally, mic is off. I don't know what to say. Grace just says she's tired and needs to rest, but. No, but. You say whatever you want. Yeah. I'm just. I'm very happy to be here, thank you. Yeah, like blinking with like try to do Morse code to like get me out of here, you know what I'm talking about?

01:10:17Well, you know, this is actually a great tie into the beginning of the interview when you were talking about how I, and she always says that I take all the air out of the room. Well, here we go. This is it though. No, just thanks to everybody. Again, I think I always do kind of the same outro, which is really like, you know, it's just an honor to be able to be here and cooking and having businesses in Nashville. It's amazing. We fell in love with the city four years ago. We're still in love with it. We wanna do more stuff here, bring out some really cool outside things that haven't been seen or haven't been really done. And we're just having fun and we're just happy to support the community as well. And it's just, it truly is an honor just to be here and to cook for everybody. And that's where I'll leave it. I love it. I love you guys. You're the best. Thank you for coming in today. Congratulations, four years. I can't wait till we get to do the eight year show and the 10 year show and the 20 year show. And Lord willing, we're all still doing this thing and making it happen. We will be, we will be. You will be too. I sure hope so.

01:11:18Yeah. You guys, I will talk to you soon. I will see you, I think next week I'm coming in. Yes. For something fun. So I'm gonna, I will see you next week. Great. Whenever that is. But thanks again, guys. Talk to you later. Thanks. Man, I just absolutely love those guys. Thank you so much to Chad and Gracie for joining us here in studio. I did go by there and I did have an amazing lunch to celebrate their four year anniversary, which isn't quite happening yet, but I just love them. I love that they're, they do the, we're only doing one East side banh mi. Although I selfishly wish they could do a West side banh mi, I do enjoy a nice trip into East Nashville. Love seeing that banh mi sign and driving in. And again, that fried egg banh mi, they have a new dish that is a sweet potatoes, a fried sweet potato. And it's the best damn thing I've ever eaten. I'm not kidding. It is amazing. Hey, next week we've got Brett Tuck. He is the owner of Brown's Diner right across street from the studio here.

01:12:21And let me tell you for, I'm really excited for this episode out because March Madness is here today. The games are starting. And if you go to the Brown's Diner during any day, if there is an NCAA basketball game being played, they have $10 pitchers of Budweiser and $10 pounds of wings. So you get a pound of wings for 10 bucks. So that is a hell of a deal. If you haven't been to Brown's Diner in a while, this is the time to go back. On this episode coming up, he's going to give you the ins and outs of what to order when you go there. And right now I think it should be a pitcher of Budweiser and a pound of wings. And you should go check out their branding patio because it is really, really cool. Brown's Diner is absolutely happening. And Brett Tuck's gonna be on the show next week. Hey, if you don't know if you like this, this show came out on a Thursday and supposed to be a Friday episode. And I think that's the new day I'm gonna start putting episodes out. I think that works better than Monday or Tuesday just because you're going into the weekend, you're gonna go hiking, road trips, whatever.

01:13:27Listen to the show. We love you listening to the show, but you will know when new episodes get released if you follow us. So if you're on Spotify, you're on Apple, Amazon, whatever, however you listen to podcasts, click that subscribe button or the follow button and then you'll get notified when new episodes come out. And sometimes we put bonus episodes out. I got a bonus episode coming out around Toast Nashville, which is another event coming up. We're excited to do it. And we're gonna be working with them. Chef Kev Deshane and I think we've got Robert Irvine and Manish Shahan, Alex Ballou, a bunch of chefs are gonna be in town for Toast Nashville. This is gonna be a lot of fun. So stay tuned. If you're a follower, you will get that or follow us on Instagram at Nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio. And there you can find out all the good information as well. Thanks for listening today. And as always, we hope that you are being safe. Love you guys. Bye.