Chris Chamberlain interviews Steven Smithing, Christopher Smithing, and Brandon Styll to announce their new restaurant!

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am typically your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. We're excited you're here today. We have a special edition episode today. I am handing over the controls to Chris Chamberlain from the Nashville scene and he is going to be interviewing myself, Stephen Smithing and Christopher Smithing about our new restaurant. Kind of the idea here was you get to read these articles about how new restaurants are opening and kind of what the story was behind it. But I wanted to bring Chris in here and let him interview us and then you can read the article at Nashville scene dot com and then you can hear his process.

01:07You can hear him ask us the questions and how we responded and then you go read the article and see how he condensed all of that into the article. So it's a lot of fun and this episode is live. Chris Chamberlain is going to be interviewing us. We're going to get to that in just a second. If you're new to the podcast, you can find Nashville Restaurant Radio anywhere that you listen to podcasts. We have a website, NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. You can find us on Instagram at Nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio. We're also on Facebook at Nashville Restaurant Radio and Tik Tok and all of those things where you can find all of our episodes. We publish new episodes. We put them there, but the best way to get new episodes is to find an Apple podcast or Spotify or iHeartRadio or Amazon, wherever you're listening, and hit subscribe. When you hit subscribe, it'll send you a notification when new episodes are available. And I'll tell you, in the past couple of months, we've done first of all, we've done over 320 episodes. So if you like people in the industry, if you want to learn about chefs and restaurant owners, this is going to be your place to do it.

02:11In the past month, we've had Freddie O'Connell, who's a Nashville City council member. He's running for mayor. We've also had Sharon Hurt, who's a council member at large running for mayor. We're talking to mayoral candidates about how this affects our industry, how it affects our city. We've talked to Alex Ballou, who just won Hell's Kitchen. We have talked with Will Gadara, who used to own the number one restaurant in the world in 11 Madison Park. He also wrote the book Unreasonable Hospitality. We do a book club where we read books and we talk about it. Kerry Bringle, all the guys from Strategic Hospitality are only James Beard finalists. Josh Hobbiger has been on the show. Brian Baxter from the catbird seat. Kerry Bringle, Pat Martin, all of your favorites. You're going to hear an hour long uncensored interview with them. Coming up next week, we've got Manique Chauhan and some other folks. Just all the time, every single week on Monday, we're putting out brand new episodes. Sometimes we surprise you with a fun Friday episode like the one you're listening to now.

03:14So please go find us, go back and listen to some episodes because we've been going since March 14th, 2020 so you can hear chefs and restaurant owners as the pandemic unfolded, what they were doing in real time, how they were feeling and what was going on. Really trying to build this community over here. Thank you for joining us today. We're so excited that you're here. Let's jump in right now and I'll hand the reigns over to Mr. Chris Chamberlain. Chris Chamberlain from the Nashville scene and various other publications. He's an amazing food writer here in Nashville, is going to be taking over the show. Hello, Chris. Hello, Brandon. How are you doing today? Doing really well. I'm excited about this. So I've teased this all over the place. We are also joined with Christopher Smithing. Say hi, Christopher. Hello, Brandon. Hello, Chris. We also have Stephen Smithing. Yay. Bring it on. So we have, I've been teasing that we've been working on a new location and now today is the day we are going to let everybody know what the new location is.

04:17The idea here, Chris is going to write the article on this new location and what's going on and we're going to do a podcast. I love the behind the scenes aspect of like somebody's process. I love knowing how you do this. So I thought, what if you came in and interviewed us about our new location and what we're doing and then you put out an article about it the same day. So if somebody wanted to read the article, then they could go listen to the podcast and learn your kind of your process for how you do this. So that's what we're doing today. Well, the good news is this can allow for some really lazy note taking on my part, but the bad news is I'll have to go back and listen to it and I'll also have to really pay close attention to transcribing it because everybody can hear what our interview was. So I can't make up quotes for you guys. Yeah, there you go. And that's what you don't do. No, not at all. Y'all are going to have to be eloquent on your own. And I'm just going to take my little slice of GFS sponsorship today for being the host. Yeah, you got that 100% send me home with a, you know, bag of celery or something and I'll be happy.

05:23So I got all kinds of stuff for you. I got nice mugs and I got water bottles and I got keychains and I will hook you up. We'll send you home with a nice bag of stuff today from all of our amazing sponsors. So with further ado, I'm going to turn the podcast over and I'm going to become a guest on the podcast. Chris Chamberlain, take it away. I won't make you get on the other side of the table. I could. I'm happy to. It already looks pretty, pretty crowded between the brothers over there. So here's a little bit of investigative journalism that anybody could have undertaken if they wanted to. But if you were to go on Yelp, bless your heart and look up Chagos Cantina on Belmont Boulevard, you would see it's marked as temporarily closed. Really? Yeah. They never gave in and said shuttered Google. It said, yeah, permanently closed, see which we changed. So let's use that as the jumping off point and let you guys make your official announcement here and then we will plunge forward from there.

06:28So is it going to be Stephen? Is it going to be Christopher? Who's going to be the? I can. I can take the honors. I suppose. Well, we're planning to get in there and redo Chago. We're going to use the same name, I believe strongly, obviously, as the owner of Mirable, which was started in 1985 in Green Hills Grove, which was started in 1990. I like Nashville brand names that have a good a good history. And Chad did a great job there building that restaurant over the last 12 or 13 years. And we're just happy to go in and make some tweaks and some adjustments and probably some menu modification and system modification. But other than that, we're going to, you know, write on his his very good coattails. Can I make the can I do it officially because I wanted to do this for a long time. Go ahead, Brandon. We bought Chagos. But that would use that cheer for a really long time. There it is. OK, I'm done. I'll stand back now. Well, we bought the lease, essentially bought the lease. You're not selling me the property. No.

07:29And, you know, the name, this is a quick turnaround for, you know, a restaurant changeover considering that, you know, Chad moved to the beach in January, right? So this kind of this, I don't think he's there yet. He's hoping he's hoping to get there by the hot summer. Excellent. So, yes. Chagos was kind of open for a few little pop ups toward the end of January. But by the end of that month, it was ready to change hands. So maybe tell me a little bit about the transaction, about how he found you, how you found them, where the opportunity came came up from. Well, I read that it was closing in some publication. I'm not sure it may have been Nashville Business Journal. But somebody put it out there and I literally just called the restaurant, I think, that day and said, hey, are you interested in talking to me? And they said, sure. So we've been talking for a long time and we've been working on that for quite a while. I mean, that is an old building and there's a fair amount of things that we have to do due diligence wise. And then with any transaction, you got to do a fair amount of due diligence.

08:32But yeah, we showed some interest to each other and we kind of stuck with it through thick and thin. You know, sometimes it isn't easy to negotiate and, you know, decide who gets what and who wants what. We were able to get it done on January 1st. Well, and you had the advantage that he'd already expressed that he was done. I did have an advantage. And yes, there and he and his father own the property. And at some point, yeah, you need to find somebody to pay the rent and the property taxes and all the all the triple net things that we tenants love to pay. All the fun things. Well, and, you know, we're a bunch of longtime Nashvilleans in this room here. And I remember back when it was to bullies, I remember back when it was to days. So that has been a neighborhood fixture of a restaurant for years and years. I don't remember to days to bullies. I don't remember to days to days was a similar concept to to bullies. You know, it was Middle Eastern, but it was just the previous incarnation. That's about as far back as I remember it.

09:33I mean, that's back in the 80s, I think. Well, this has been a really fun process because the way that our organization has structured, Stephen's our visionary. So we work with the EOS process and that's the entrepreneurial operating system. And Stephen's our visionary and I'm the integrator. So we have these one year plans. We have a three year plan. We have a 10 year plan. And part of our three year plan was to grow in the four to five million dollar range in overall sales. I'm telling too much. Let me know. But really, Stephen is a researcher. So, I mean, this guy, if it's a Airbnb for whatever or whatever it is, like Stephen loves getting in and finding stuff. And this has been such a fun process to watch this because I've never opened a brand new restaurant before. I mean, you know, I've opened a restaurant in Mississippi, but like going through this entire process has been so educational for me, just watching these two guys and Christopher over here. This will be our fourth is a bad, he's a bad man with this guy over here. You give him a task list and you get you put him in there.

10:35I mean, I'm as operations go, I'm never been hands off as far as this is concerned. I've certainly done my share of work to get everything ready to go. But Christopher is in that building every single day, tearing down walls, planning, projecting. Like, it's amazing to watch them work right now. Well, I'm expecting that you guys are burning up Belmont Boulevard between Green Hills Grill and the Chagos location. So, well, you know, if you take Mayor Bowl, which is down there in Brentwood and you kind of just come south on Granny White and then switch over one little street and keep coming, you know, they're all pretty close to the straight line, south to north. Well, and I was thinking that you guys really are uniquely qualified, you know, as soon as you told me about this, I thought this is a great team to do this because you've got experience in really rebirthing two local favorite restaurants with Mayor Bowles and Green Hills Grill. So this is you talk about opening a new restaurant, but this is another reimagining reinvention. And you guys have got experience in that.

11:37So talk to why you think you're. If you agree with me, I'm sure you think you're uniquely qualified, too. So we do or we like, you know, I like the creative process in doing restaurants. And prior to owning Mayor Bowl or Green Hills Grill, we worked with Danny York in his group and we redid we turned Princeman's Grill into Bistro 215. And then we went out to Opryland and we turned the Nashville Palace into Canyon Fork Fish Camp and learning with other people how to do that and where our roles fit and where we didn't really have a rolekeeper, which is where branding comes in. And and my wife actually does a whole lot of that work as well on the other side. But we knew we could come in and work on this concept, which really had a great brand name and is in what looks like a great location. I mean, short of a little parking there. But yesterday, as I was slapping some paint on the wall, I had four or five people stop and say, I like that paint. So there's always people walk in there, a lot of foot traffic. And then obviously you've got the large university right across the street. Well, and like I always say, you know, where did you park when you went to Roteers?

12:42People just assume there has to be a huge free parking lot next to wherever they want to go. I call that the mall mentality in Nashville. But, you know, where it's a neighborhood restaurant, it's a walking neighborhood. It's a bunch of students across the street. So I think that should be less of a detriment than it would be if you tried to, you know, open somewhere in the middle of Green Hills with no parking. I think so. You know, we looked at several places in 12 South and we've been interested in that area for a long time and watching talking to some business owners over there. And obviously the growth of Uber and Lyft and people not having to drive and, you know, motorized scooters and all types of things. I mean, people are going to find a way to get there. And it doesn't always involve driving and sitting on a lot. I mean, one of the things at Green Hills Grill, I sat on that property before we ever bought it. And at nights and on weekends, there was nobody there. And I walked around and I counted every single spot. There were 471 parking spaces in that on that on that lot there. And at lunch, they're pretty much all full. But at dinner on the weekends, there was a lot of room. And in Green Hills, you have to be a little more drivable. But even now, people Uber and it's pretty, pretty regular for people to be standing out front waiting for their car.

13:45Well, if you're going to 12 South, I mean, God forbid, you should take the two dollar bus that goes straight from downtown up 12 South and will drop you off anywhere between Sevier Park and downtown. So what if this location makes sense for us? Because, you know, if you look at Mirable and you look at Green Hills Grill, really, we're hyper local. I mean, we are we are neighborhood restaurants that really serve our community. That's within, you know, that three mile, four mile radius of the restaurants really where a lot of people are coming. We want to be the place that people the cheers kind of idea of you want to come. We want to know your name. We want to know that you're here all the time. Steven's the mayor of Green. You see the shirt I'm wearing today? The shirt says, no, I'm not Steven, because when I walk through Green Hills Grill, the worst thing I do is walk to the Green Hills Grill because everybody sees me and they go, oh, and then I walk by and I'm not Steven. And they're like, you didn't say hi to me. And I'm like, I'm not Steven. They thought I got a hair transplant. They're like, how did he get all this hair? You're taller and you got that fancy hair.

14:47So people should be able to tell. But we looked at what Chagos could do. And he's always wanted to do a cantina. And we kind of thought, man, it's not bachelorette. It's not transient people. It's the people that live in that community that we want to learn. We want to take care of the Belmont students. We want to take care of all the people who live in that neighborhood. We want to take care of you, Chris. I think you're you've identified as somebody who lives in that neighborhood. I am Chagos curious. I have a good way to put it. I like that. Are you Chagos curious? So that's what we want to do. People that can walk there, that can ride there, that are close by, that are going to come on a regular basis. There's a lot of opportunity to get to that spot. It's a great walkability. Well, while we consider, you know, Green Hills Girl, four generation restaurant, and it is, you know, a few times a year we have four generations in there eating at the same table, which is kind of nice. But we're never afraid to feed all types of people, mature people included. And I mean, that's a densely populated, pretty high end neighborhood. I wish I'd have gone down there and bought a house 15 years ago.

15:48But a whole lot of smart people didn't have lived there. I've got several friends who are professionals who live within blocks of that restaurant and several professor friends at at Belmont. And pretty much they said there's not a whole lot here that we really want to eat at on a super regular daily basis, even though there are obviously some fine restaurants right there in the row with us. So even though you're not up and operating yet, there's an old restaurant industry truism that says that the second restaurant is the hardest to open because you're trying to do everything at two places. But the third restaurant going forward becomes easier because you don't get to your third restaurant without building a team that you can trust to do the things while you're not there. So what's been your experience with that? What gave you the faith and the impetus to take this on? Well, jumping into the process that we've been doing now for several years, you build a team of people around you. I mean, I realized my wife said that she was surprised. I think that I let it go so easily. And obviously, I'm not a young man. I might have held it a little tighter in the past. But you realize in life that you can't do everything well.

16:50And there are a lot of things I don't do well. And I'm certainly happy to have other people help me do that. I mean, Christopher and I have worked together for a long time. And Brandon came started working with us in 2018. And that was just kind of the beginning of realizing that you can't be in every place. I didn't open Greenhold Group with a general manager. And I thought that people, somebody would step up and take the reins and run with it. And there were some forces that kept that from happening. But when you finally go out and you find a really good GM, which Ashton is there, and you let him run with it. And he did that. He stepped up and he started as a server and to be a manager. Like he was the classic, came up and owned it, did all of the right things to where he was like, this is the guy stepping up to be the GM. And we had GMs before him that just didn't necessarily pan out. Took a little while to find the right one. But when we opened, we did. And I was kind of the person and we had, you know, an extraordinarily wonderful and strong kitchen manager, which helped out a whole lot. I think Christopher would freely admit that when we opened Greenhill's Grill, he's glad he didn't have to do that whole kitchen thing himself, because it was a lot of work.

17:55And Cassie did a fantastic job running us through that. Well, and here's another example where I think you guys have the experience to pull this off, because at both Greenhill's Grill and Mayor Bulls, even though Greenhill's Grill wasn't officially open when you reopened it, both those places were were neighborhood favorites where people had a very firm idea about what they wanted out of them. So how do you address the dichotomy between neighbors that want to see something new and neighbors that want to see things stay the same? Because Chagos is exactly that kind of fixture, you know, and there's a reason why you're continuing it as a cantina. Well, one of the things and we did do quite a little pivot out there, Mayor Bull in the last couple of years. But one of the things that's been part of the culture of Greenhill's Grill, even even in the well into the past, was we change. We do specials every month and you develop these new menu items. And I don't want to say Christopher has to do it or the team there, Josh. They have to do it, but it's part of our culture now.

18:55And when you change something every month, when you have to go out and develop new menu items, train new crew members, how to make them, how to execute, you know, I mean, we've got a whole lot of people working. I think last week there were 16 people working in the kitchen on a Friday night, including managers and and to go people. But you've got to train all those people how to use and make this one product. And that's what we've been successful doing. But when we when we did that, it makes change part of your culture, even though I don't think that people would say that Greenhill's Grill has changed tremendously. We still have the chicken salad melt and the lemon artichoke chicken and the spinach dip. We have items that have been on the menu for 32 years. And then we have new things, though, that we've developed very, very rapidly and that are now bestsellers. But as I learned from Brandon just this week, you weren't afraid to let the Santa Fe chicken go. Well, I tricked Christopher, you know, sometimes it's still online. It's not totally gone. There's a key on the computer for it. You know, I keep telling Christopher, I say, well, that's great. We've got to put that on the menu. And he goes, well, what are you going to take off? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, we don't have to take anything off. We'll just put that on there.

19:56And he goes, no, no, it doesn't fit. And I said, well, you know, they have this little button on the computer, Christopher, that's a font, and you can change it from like 10 to four and then stuff a lot more menus. We can put a lot more things on there. We have a magnifying glass now to find the buttons. And he said, no, that that wasn't going to work in the system. And, you know, you have to, you know, those people who work with us in the kitchen are fantastic. But well, a QR code, you know, you've got to you've got an endless menu if you're willing to scan that. So nowadays, that's true. Oh, that's a good idea, Christopher. What's that QR code? We could have 64 items. No, no, I don't think that's necessary. We've done we've done a good job. The things that don't sell fall off the bottom. And that's pretty much how it goes. I mean, we don't ever take things off the top, take them off the bottom. Well, and that, you know, talking about QR code menus and things like that, that's a development that came out of the pandemic and it came. I mean, really, a month or two in, we found out you weren't going to get COVID from handling a menu that someone else had handled.

20:57But by the time that technology had developed, restaurateurs were learning, oh, I can change my menu without printing anything. I can change my menu daily if I want to. And customers, you know, there's resistance where they want something old school and they want to have a physical menu in their hand. But there's also advantages to things that that developed in the industry during COVID. I mean, carry out a perfect example of that, you know, embracing that, which I know is so important to you guys. You've got your own delivery service, right? We do. We do our own captive delivery. I mean, Christopher, I have to give him a tremendous amount of credit. He had the tech stack in place when we when when the pandemic hit and we had been doing our own to go and deliver a Green Hills grill pretty successfully, but ramping that from where it was at that point to where it is now was certainly a testament to his setting it up properly and getting a whole bunch of people involved to are willing to learn and change. You know, when cultures and change is a little bit part of your culture, they're not so adept to say, I'm not doing that. Well, the advantages are you can control quality.

21:58You can control that. Yours is the only item that's being delivered on that run. You can hire your own people to do it and you're not giving away money to the external services. So I mean, that's just another really, you know, show some business acumen there to to take that on. Well, and you own it because it's yours. So if someone calls and says it's not right, you can't be like, well, the Uber person didn't do it right. You did it. You have to fix it. And there can't be anything more frustrating than watching an order and realizing it just got picked up from you and he's headed to another restaurant to pick up. And by the time it gets to your customer, who is someone that ordered from you because they love you. Well, I think that that's just that's part of our culture. We love our community and putting food in somebody else's bag and letting them it's out of our hands, like the fact that we own the entire process, that somebody in our kitchen puts it in our bag, closes it. It never leaves our possession and we can take it there. The most important thing, I think, in that whole process is when we drop it off. I think that seeing a hi, Dr. Johnson.

22:59Thank you, Mrs. Smith. We'll see you tomorrow. Kind of a situation. It's that community aspect, again, of knowing who your guest is and using their names and, you know, people call and go, hey, is Aaron. Just tell them I want my usual. And they just no problem. I'll be right there, Don. You know, and like, and he just puts the order in and he shows up for his daily delivery. But it's it's extending, I think, during the pandemic, extending that relationship via delivery versus it being who's our random guy dropping it off, being able to see the same person, know your name and say hi, just felt familiar. And that's very intentional. You could steal this. It's like taking your front door to their front door. It is exactly what I mean, that's exactly what it is. And it never, you know, that nobody's stealing a french fry out of your bag and all that stuff. I mean, it's our guys delivering it to you. And it's it's keeping the path. I think that Stephen during the pandemic, Stephen wrote a letter in the bags. You know, I mentioned this before on the show, like there was a we just miss seeing people. He's the mayor at the grill. And he wrote a letter that said, I miss you.

24:00This is my cell number. Call me. I want to keep up with you. And we're able to people were calling him and texting him and talking to him while we were closed. I mean, it was just the community is a really amazing thing, especially at Greenhouse Grill. And we're excited to continue that at Chagos. That said, we're smart enough to know that relationships at three restaurants are hard to maintain for one person. And we've got a fantastic group of people that are going to go and help us do that. You know, one of the other things about captive delivery that our mother was a math professor in the math just never worked. I've been running restaurants a long time for other people and for ourselves. And I've never seen a 30 percent on the bottom line of a restaurant. I mean, if I admire people who get that and somebody probably does, but it's just not a realistic percentage, you know, ROI in the way we operate our business and neighborhood concept. And that's what those most people don't know. And I tell guests that they charge 30 percent or 27 percent. They have no idea. And if you add it to the menu price, you're the bad guy.

25:01Yeah. And you don't really have a choice. I mean, in fact, we were sitting in a room at one of these, you know, at a restaurant tech conference, which my other tech non-restaurant friends laugh about to get a kick out of that. But we're sitting there and in the room, the guy says, OK, so we know we know they're willing to pay twelve dollars for your seven dollar sub. And you guys want to know how to keep as much of that five dollars as possible. And it was standing room only when in this room. And literally everybody kind of leaned in, like, tell us how to do that. And there was no real good answer. I mean, he had some technology that would help, you know, or you could do seven different delivery companies or something like that. But yeah, I know it's tricky. And you got to you got to have a pretty well oiled machine to do it and get the right people driving, because that's a big deal. So do you plan to do captive delivery yourself at Chagos? Yeah, we do. I mean, now it's part of our culture. It's not it's just something we wouldn't open with it any other way. And just being able to and who knows there with the university how far we'll have to go for some of those deliveries. I mean, I think that's well into our it's the edge of our delivery zone in Green Hills, but it's pretty densely populated, you know, smaller area.

26:08I think that we're going to be delivering from there. I think not having to cross 21st and Hillsborough Road will probably help the sanity of your drivers. Probably so. Yeah. And hopefully, though, on the back streets, they just, you know, I remember you got to slow down and do it right, you know. 100 percent. Well, let's talk specifically about new Chagos, Chago Nuevo. You could steal that one, too, if you want. I like that coming up with them today, Chris. We're going to take a short break to hear a word from our sponsors. But today, I'm not going to be playing commercials today. I'm going to do some testimonials because we have some amazing sponsors on the show. But these are also people who we partner with at our restaurant. So I thought that's only apropos to do that. First off, I want to talk about what chefs want. These guys have been around for a long time, and they are so vital in our success because they help us source so many amazing products they deliver on Sundays. They'll deliver anything to us and they find the really tough stuff.

27:11They have been amazing partners. And we absolutely love what what chefs want has done for our business. Gordon Food Service. These guys are more than partners. They're friends. They work with us. They dine in our restaurants. They know what we're doing. They keep in touch. They're just they're just an amazing community advocate. And I just want to say thank you so much to Gordon Food Service. Pop Menu is a brand new partner. And our whole website is going to be generated by Pop Menu. If you haven't experienced Pop Menu, go check out the Green Hills Grill website, ghgrill.com. You can see how all the pictures are there. You can place your order directly from the scene. The analytics behind Pop Menu are unbelievable. We're so excited to partner with Pop Menu. Jason Ellis and SuperSource. Just an amazing guy has already been in the building. We've already got the machine ready to go. He's in there. He's educating. Wouldn't do it any other way. Of our dish, machine and chemicals. Jason Ellis is SuperSource. Sharpier's Bakery. All of our fresh baked bread comes in daily from Sharpier's. They're amazing.

28:11The Erin Mosso and her team just really have been an amazing partner for providing fresh, high quality bread to our restaurants all the time. All of our insurance is done through Robin's Insurance. The Matthew Clements over there has been just an amazing partner with us as well. Corson Fire and Security. Corson Fire and Security. They're putting up all. So not only do they do fire and security, but they've tested all of our hood equipment. And then they have all of our security system. All the cameras that we have set up in the new location is all done through Corson Fire and Security. And they have been so amazingly proactive just getting in there and making it happen. Couldn't be more excited to partner with them. That's what's good. That's going to be our ads for the whole show. I just want you to say these are not just people who support Nashville Restaurant Radio. These are some people who support us that partner with us through our restaurants. Amazing, amazing people. Go check us out at NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Click the Sponsors tab and you can.

29:12There's a direct link to each one of those and some special deals. If you're first time customers, when you go to the sponsor links, thank you guys so much for listening. Let's jump back in with this episode right now. Oh, I'm an idea man. I don't do anything. I just recommend things for other people to do. So I could get with that. Christopher can get a dish. You can call Chago Nuevo something. Chago Nuevo. Brandon would call that a consultant. Yes, very much so. Yes. So now it's going to be two bags of celery. So that's our plan. So what changes will we longtime Chago's lovers see on the menu and the customer experience and the interior? You know, what kind of things have you been working on in this last month? Well, we've got to upgrade some of the interior, especially in the kitchen. We were working on expanding that area a little bit because we need more space. I mean, it's a very, very small kitchen.

30:12And knowing in today's world, we've never owned a restaurant. I've never owned a restaurant or really worked in one in a long time in my life that's this small. And to go and deliver such a large part of our business, we know that's going to come in as a X percent of what we sell. And to be able to execute that and the indoor component, we're going to need we're just going to need a larger kitchen. So that's where primarily we're working to enlarge the kitchen and upgrade. You know, we're working with the codes folks to upgrade some electrical capacity and some things like that. And again, being an investigative reporter slash nosy neighbor, I saw the Macklemore auction. So I saw I saw the stuff going out the door. And I I saw friends that bought chairs and tables. And so tell us about what what the look is going to be different inside when I when I go in to visit. Well, we're actually going to use the same same brand of tables, but we're going to put some boosts in there. I mean, we know it's funny because at Marable, we don't have any boosts, but all the spaces there have to be transitional for events. But at Green Hills Grill, we have a lot of boosts. And this is really a little bit more stylistically toward Green Hills Grill than it would be certainly toward Marable.

31:15And we know people like to sit in them. There's space, not a lot of 11 booths. And then we'll add some tables. I mean, obviously, it's got all those roll up doors there. It's kind of a fantastic, beautiful day like today place to be. It's going to be a little hotter, I'm sure, by the time we actually get open there. And Christopher and I have never operated a restaurant with open doors and things. We have to learn that as we go. And figure it out. But it'll we change the chairs, we change the booths. We'll change the color scheme. In fact, I was over putting some paint, as I mentioned, on the outside yesterday. But overall, we're going to change the bar will be in the same place. But we're going to redo the back bar. I'm going to put some tile in there. We're going to Red Rock tile, which is a local Nashville company. They certainly do fantastic work. So we've ordered some stuff from them that we'll we'll put on the wall and make it work. And I'm I'm feeling like there's a lot of sweat equity from this team, too. We you know, our father had six children and used that labor source well. So we all learn to be pretty handy and do some things.

32:15And so being present and being able to answer questions is important. You know, I was thinking about that yesterday as I'm putting the paint on the wall. I'm like, I guess I could tell the contractor to have somebody go out there and throw that up there. But then I wouldn't have been able to see it, you know, as soon and make a judgment on it. So so, Christopher, you want to speak to the menu and talk about what? What we'll see, what we'll take, you know, what will change? What will still be there? It's still a bit in flux. It's a small box. So it has to be it can't be a hundred different items. It has to be, you know, utilized, utilized a little bit more, you know, cross menu wise. Chicago literally had taco number one and taco number two. So it will have wasn't a big menu. Right. We will have a number of different tacos and then we'll I would probably say four different tacos and it'll be burritos, you know, bowls. You know, we're going to play with each day. We're going to play with some appetizers, get some ceviche in there. Some salads. And then that's primarily where I think we'll go is we'll do more salads than I think we're Chicago had.

33:17I mean, it's one of the number one things we have at Green Hills. I say I feel the Green Hills DNA in that. So well, people love to eat that. I mean, it's crazy how many salads we sell. I mean, it's it's and I remember even back from the old days at the grill. I remember, I don't know what year was 2006. A hundred percent of our sales growth was in salads. And it really never looked back. I mean, people perceive a salad as healthy. So if you want to go to a restaurant and eat healthy, you eat a salad, even though Christopher has a pretty good idea of how to make a salad. Not real healthy. I had one of those. I had one of those at Green Hills Grill about a week and a half ago. And I just stared at it like this is really a salad. I can count this, but it tastes good. Yeah. And we'll do that. I mean, I do think, you know, Mexican restaurants in general don't have a lot of salads. I mean, you kind of get taco salad, which you do very well. And then you sometimes have some sort of corn salad. But we'll work on that. And that may be more American. I mean, one of the things I tell people is I'm not really here to compete against Chewy's and fantastic, you know, super authentic Mexican. Not that Chewy's is necessarily super authentic Mexican. But we want it to be a little bit more Americanized for what people really want to eat.

34:21And we'll ask questions. I mean, one of the things we've done in our other restaurants is you put a menu out there and then when the guests eat it, you go ask them what they think and what to change. And maybe that's one of our gifts is listening correctly and then making the adjustment. And that one will do a lot of specials there, too. I mean, that's going to be that rotating monthly specials to see what the guests feel. I mean, this might be one direction and all the specials are a whole different concept of food to see whether or not that's acceptable in that neighborhood because you don't know until you get there. And I'll tell you, as a member of that neighborhood, they are not afraid to express their opinions. So if you ask, you'll be appreciated because they want to hear that. Yeah, that's good. And you can't you know, one of the things I've learned in the restaurant business, obviously, you can't please everybody. You can't do everything everybody wants you to do. I mean, the number of people who say, oh, put that back on the menu. And you're going to didn't sell. That's why it's not there. Well, and you know, I think Stephen said it really well when I first started with the company four and a half years ago was he said, we like to do good food. People like to eat. You know, we're not the place you're going to come to try the brand new thing. Like we're we're going to make everything from scratch.

35:21So we had a guy interview me today and he said, it's your new restaurant. Are you guys going to are you guys going to do bison? Are you going to do alligator? I'm like, no, we're not going to do bison or alligator. Maybe some octopus. But yeah, not. But yeah, I mean, octopus potentially. But like that's still kind of mainstream. I mean, you know, we're talking ceviche, burritos, bowls, salads in a cantina style, a Mexican style that that is really scratch ingredients, fresh ingredients that people like to eat. It's not rocket. But if you put really good environment, a really good service around that. And I think our bar program is going to be spectacular as well. Yeah, I definitely want to hear about that bar program. But I had one one little detail question. Where are you going to get your tortillas? That we're still sourcing that right now. So I have a good lead with the kitchen manager who's coming up who has a good lead on the tortillas, corn and flour. Oh, of course. I have both. All right. So you got to have both. Those kind of things matter. Yeah, we're excited about. We're excited about the new kitchen manager who's going to be running the place.

36:24It'll be interesting to see as we open what we miss, you know, because you always whiff on something, you strike out. And it'd be really interesting to me when we get it all done and we think, oh, this is some this is going to work and this is fantastic. Then to have people say, well, how could you not have this on the menu? And then to go back and think, well, do we really need that? And it depends on how many people ask. You know, you may need a Mexican burger more than you need a Mexican something else. And the part there is not to have the ego to say, oh, no, I'm not going to listen to that. You have to be like, no, you want it. We'll figure it out. What can happen? And are you starting with the the Chaco Viejo menu as a base and then working out from there like we need to we need to we need to put our touch on that menu or are you starting from scratch? No, we're starting from scratch. We got a pretty good idea what people like to eat in that neighborhood and whether we can turn it enough to obviously give respect to what Chad did very well and to the community and what they had there before. But it'll it'll be a different evolved product, I believe. So how about back a house?

37:25What kind of changes will we not see that are going to be really important to how Chaco's operates? Well, I mean, it's a whole bunch of different equipment that's going in there that what then we sold most of that. You saw that go out. But the footprints the same. I can't the hoods don't move. But there's more of to me, it's more of a. It is a dedicated prep world. This guy has that's his job. And then, you know, it's just it's hard for me to explain exactly what I did there, except blow out walls and make a dedicated solid station so I can commit to that. And I'm just preparing the whole system to be easier. Because if his to go program, Steven's to go program works, even if the guests aren't in the door, the guests are still there. Right. So I still have to be able to produce the food. So my whole thing is the process in my brain was how can I cook everything faster? And that's what I'm working on. So I can't remember. Did Chad have a smoker out back? He had a smoker inside inside.

38:26So under a hood under the hood. Yeah. Wow. He kept his smoke. OK. Yeah, that's why I was wondering whether because I remember he used to do some some good kind of off menu smoked meats as specials. Is that something you have any interest in or right now? I don't have the space. It's not to say we can't move in that direction. Eventually, it's it is an open go and then see what the guests say and move with them. But when you have limited 16 feet there in your hood space, I mean, you got to you got to pick and choose what's going to go in every single inch. You know, in fact, people ask us all the time at the Green Hills Grill to Oh, I want this and this. And typically what they want is something that's fried, which would be traditional with restaurants that you eat out at. And there just isn't linear space to put a third fryer in there. So I'm like, well, that's that's what's limiting. We have to choose what's going in this one and what's going in this one. And Christopher's got a pretty good system of operation for, you know, if you say I'm going to do 10 more things out of that two fryers, it doesn't really work. I usually get yelled at when I talk about making anything else fried. So the number one item we have in that category of fish is the fish and chips.

39:30And that's a dedicated fryer that is that fryer. So everything else has to fit. Well, in people's opinion of what a fish taco is, could either be grilled or fried. So you're going to have to make a decision on that. Yeah, no, you'll do both. And it'll you know, it'll be interesting to see where where with that equipment, Christopher's got a pretty good system and he always has a number of steps and amount of time you can take to cook anything. I mean, you can get in big trouble in restaurants having and this is where inexperienced restaurant people have issues sometimes is they create a menu that's either far too large or has four items on it that are far too complex and take too long to make. And then that guy can't get out of making that to move and make something else. You know, there's a there's a speed to it. And certainly what we do at Miraville is totally different than that. I mean, you have you have, you know, the ability to have more steps in an entree item there because of the nature of the restaurant and the labor that we're using there. Well, it's the you know, the vision of a lot of people that God bless Los Palmas. I've eaten more than my share of Los Palmas meal.

40:31But, you know, our joke was always like they've got to have just like a vat of meat, a vat of cheese, a vat of rice and a vat of beans. And they just combine them in different permutations and combinations to make a number 13 different from a number 11. But, you know, there is a lot of pick up in in a Mexican restaurant. If you're trying to do. If you're not the kind of restaurant that bought the menu first and then open the restaurant, right? You know, a lot of cases, a number 13 is the same at five different Mexican restaurants. I think that Americans have that general idea, and that's not exactly we may do some of that, but not all of that. And then certainly, you know, what what Iker is doing at at Alabrije is even a different level. And what he's doing at the soccer stadium is different than what he's able to do. Some somewhere in between some of that, you know, we'll see. I mean, he's he's a pretty big specialist and does what he does especially well. Well, let's talk about the bar program a little bit. I remember early in Chago's career, I was I was eating there and I saw their happy hour margarita was five dollars and their top shelf margarita was twelve dollars.

41:38And so I went to Russ, who was the opening bartender there, used to be at Jimmy Carl's Barbecue. So I knew him from there. I said, Russ, why should I pay twelve dollars versus the five dollar happy hour margarita? He said, let me make you a twelve dollar margarita. And, you know, he pulled out the juices and the agave syrup and and the, you know, some decent want row and some decent tequila. And he shook it up and he poured it goes, there's your twelve dollar margarita. Now let me make you a happy hour margarita. And he pulled out a glass and he reached underneath the bar and he pulled up a ten gallon bucket and he poured it in and poured it in there. So how do you exist in the margarita world? I mean, people want a happy hour margarita and they want seven different top shelves with jalapeno and passion fruit. I think you do both. Yeah, I think we're going to do I think we're going to do all that. We've been real successful at both of our restaurants with bourbon. We have a top shelf menu where we've been sourcing a lot of allocated and rare bourbons and we sell it by the ounce. And we've been real intentional with how we do it.

42:38And it's had a really great response. And I think that you take it seriously and you're very intentional with every single thing you do. We have a level two Psalm at Maribol, who's our lead barter. Her name is Margaret Humbrecht. She's going to come and help us when we get in there. The bar's up now. But like when we get in there and actually write the program, our idea is huge tequila selection and then high quality drinks. But then I think we also do need to have a happy hour. I mean, it's interesting because you've got Belmont kids coming over and then you have the neighborhood people that come in. And those are going to be two distinctly different clientele. Some are going to want to come in for happy hour and buy cheap margaritas. They don't care that it's made with Don Julio, this and this. Look, give me the stuff with Juarez and I want to drink cheap. I think you have to figure out a way to do both of those, but do them both really, really well. And I'll be curious to see how much call tequila business there is. You know, I look at places like Bakersfield, it's got a wall of agave. And I look at Nada, you know, that shows all the pretty bottles.

43:41But I just I'm not sure I've been out with a bunch of people that buy a bar that, you know, Patron's probably as high as they go. And there's so much education and there's so much misinformation about these celebrity tequilas. And I'm not going to pay more just because Diddy owns it. Or George Clooney, you know, Casamigos or Michael Jordan has a tequila, you know, like there's a new person, I think, with the Kardashians even have a tequila now. And, you know, for people that want to get nerdy about it, there are very definite defined government websites in Mexico where you can put in the name of a tequila and it will tell you all 23 brands that come from that same company. And you can determine, you know, which are going to be the real premiums and which one matters. So, you know, I would I would almost point toward a few top men that have a story behind them that your bartenders can tell as opposed to trying to be a completist. We have seventy five. Yeah. And it's the bar program isn't sealed yet.

44:45But I'm very bullish on it. I'm very excited. I love Margaret when I was a drinker. Margarita was mine. That was probably my favorite drink. I mean, that was my wife and I's code language for you want to go to Mexico? I was like, I'm ready to go drink margarita. I mean, that's what we really meant to say. Do you want to get margaritas? Like, well, disguise that as Mexican so our kids don't know that we're going to go drink a fish bowl full of tequila. And that was the hardest thing for me to not drink when I stopped drinking, was I go to Mexican restaurants and I would just see people drinking margaritas. Like, yeah, but I'm excited to be a part of creating something that is that's I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one. There's a there's a I recognize that there is a very special thing about your Mexican restaurant that you go to and the margarita that you drink. It is a it is a whole thing. And we go to we loved El Lago Vero in Bellevue. That was our favorite place. And they had a margarita named for me on the menu, which is which is crazy. That brand ammonium, the brand ammonium. Yeah, it was my it was it was my that was my alter ego. That's a warning sign.

45:45Yes. I believe that's the first step. First step is when they start naming tequilas. When Margarita is after you, you got a problem. But no, I think we're very intentional with what we're going to do there. And I think that, you know, I obviously having the best margarita in town would be something that is on the on the goal list, but really making a margarita that everybody would enjoy on a regular basis that they want to come back. I mean, our mission is to make every guest repeat guest. It's not it is that easy. It's we want we want to nourish our community and make every guest repeat guest. And if we can do that, we're really excited to do that here at this restaurant. I mean, I think the most exciting thing for me operationally is that we've been we've been moving through change over the last four years and through the last three years, intensely and within restaurants and ideas, and he's a visionary and I'm kind of in executing and Christopher to leading through all of this change is somewhat exhausting. And now starting a new restaurant with all the tech and everything we're doing that, you know, you buy a restaurant and there's well, we've done it this way for so many years.

46:54We're starting this brand new and this is the this is how we're going to operate. I think I'm so excited about the idea of well, we've always done it this way is not going to be part of the vernacular there. And even though you you're doing this turnaround incredibly quickly, it's probably not quick enough to maintain the staff. I mean, you're kind of starting with a lot. You may bring some people back, but I imagine you'll be starting. It'll be all new staff. Certainly we'll reach out to Chad and call people who have worked there that he says may express an interest in wanting to come back. And we hope to do it fast. You know, we're kind of at the whim of making sure we can get through codes and do things appropriately. But leadership team is in place right now and very proud to say that we haven't gone outside of our other two restaurants. We have a leadership development program inside of our restaurants, and we've been able to pull people from our leadership development program and move some people around. And our whole leadership team is intact right now. And it's we haven't had to hire from outside of the restaurant one bit. Well, that's going to be a great experiment to see, you know, you're starting the culture.

47:59I won't say at at Square One, you're starting it with your culture, a new culture in an old restaurant. Yeah, in a favorite restaurant. So you won't run into, well, that's not how we used to do it. We're pretty comfortable with our with our culture and how we operate restaurants and how we can get, you know, staff to buy in. I mean, one of the things, you know, we're really working on is it's cool to care. You know, we don't really operate restaurants where you can come in there and turn and burn and not give a crap and, you know, walk out the door, be last in first out. That's never going to work at our restaurants, really. In fact, the more full time people we can get, and we certainly know being right across street from university, we'll have a hopefully built in labor source that those people won't want to work full time. But the more full time people you can have in your restaurant, being guest facing and in the kitchen, certainly as well. We feel that's a key to success and we have good benefits. We've built a benefit package to allow people to actually stay there and have decent benefits and look forward to things in the future.

49:01So I've I've talked to a lot of people doing, you know, new restaurants, expansions, things like that. And they say that the code system is getting almost untenable right now. And how are you facing that? What is this? What's it done? Are you working faster than they can check you? Well, you're not allowed to work faster than they can check you. So that's what that's what slows down. I mean, we're at a point now where we've done some, you know, the demo in the kitchen that we need to do. We've reframed some things that we need to do. And now we're ready to say, OK, come and look at it. But you have to put all those through. So the big key now is the weight between, you know, putting the drawings in that we've we've put in and waiting on somebody to say, OK, we have approved those. And really, it's just a waiting game, you know, in a, you know, contract or relationship. There's, you know, there's a whole lot of relationships involved there. So I always say I'm never going to hold any restaurant to an opening date. And I think that's something I'm a little different. Thank you. But I also say that the the next restaurant that opens on time will be the first restaurant that opens on time.

50:04So have you got an idea of a of a season, a month? Our goal is in June sometime. So hopefully we'll be able to make it make it there. I mean, we don't have that much work that we need to do. In fact, you know, we're kind of retrofitting one of the there's some apartments underneath Chago, one of which comes with the restaurant and really retrofitting that space to be used as a storage facility and getting rid of all the walls that were in there and then rebuilding it, you know, so that we can store as much as possible in there and or use it, you know, for different things. You're going in and out the door to have to and there's a cooler, a walking cooler downstairs. But now once we feel that once we get some sign off on some things, we can move forward pretty rapidly. It's not a big footprint. I mean, you know, when we did Green Hills Grill, that was a big footprint. This is a smaller footprint. I mean, the the kitchen where you actually cook the food in Chago is the same size as the walk-in cooler at Green Hills Grill. So that's something to be said. Yeah. And we when we went into the grill, we gutted the kitchen.

51:07We took everything out and rebuilt it. We actually did the same thing kind of we're doing here. We kept the hood system in place and then we built around it. But we reconstructed all of the walls, which is, I guess, a little bit of what we're doing here. We're just getting rid of some walls and putting up support walls. But you have to have the engineer drawings submitted to do all that. And then they have to approve it. Actually, putting up the engineer beams is not difficult, I don't think, or super time consuming. Well, and to go back on what I said before, have you had Carter Ha on here? Not yet. We've we've been in communication. Obviously, his mother was grandmother, grandmother with a whole yeah. No, I would love to have him on. I mean, he's a he's a very interesting guy. I give him 100% credit because back last fall, I asked him when he was going to open. He said, we want to open the first nice weekend in February. And unfortunately, the weekend he opened, it was like 33 degrees. But he hit that time that he wanted to do. And it looked like a nice weekend when he told me the weekend was going to be the week before that he was open in the next week.

52:08So, you know, it's fickle when you when you've got a when you're dependent on the meteorologist. But he got streetcar opened in a good amount of time. So there's a lot of factors, a lot of external factors. And we can plan for as many as we possibly can. But we're at the mercy of others to some degree. We're we're we're all chomping at the bit. We're all really excited to do this. Well, and your potential workforce is going home in May. You know, that's going to be one thing that you got to deal with. You know, who wants to stay for the summer? Who's going to be a a student across the street that wants to be that part time worker? But you all figured out I'm very confident. There are a fair amount of Nashville people who go to Belmont. So we're hoping that we can get some crossover there. And we have that issue at Green Hills Grill, really in Mirable as well. You know, any time you use some college students who are oftentimes some of the best people to use because they're motivated, young and smart. But when you can use those folks to help to help you, it really makes a big difference. And really, we're I'm not I don't feel bad about opening in the summer. They're all gives us a little opportunity to find our legs.

53:11Really gives us a really good opportunity to find the neighborhood people who live there versus, you know, students. I mean, if students come in and take up a third of the restaurant, then you as you can work the rest of it around. That'll be something that I think will be valuable. And then when they come back in the fall, hopefully we'll be ready for that and the ability to add more labor. But if you really take an input from the neighborhood, you want to get that early. The students are only going to be there for four years. I mean, they're not going to be your your 10 year customer. So let's hopefully let the neighborhood drive. Well, I mean, they may not live there. Yeah, hopefully they do. And then they come back. But I mean, if you're out there listening to this and you think, hey, I want to go work for this company and I want to be a part of that, I think you should email your resume to Sherry, Sherry at GH Grill dot com. And maybe she can get you set up, get an early interview set up. But we're going to be looking for people real soon. You got to smile, you got to be nice to people. It says right on both doors, you know, walking out of both the restaurants, be nice, be nice.

54:12I mean, it's a big key. You can't. Aggressive people don't work well in restaurants or certainly in our restaurants. You're not allowed to yell and scream at people. You see that on TV a lot, but that's not how it really works in ours. So I guess for my last big menu question, and I asked this for. For me, selfishly for Delia Joe, tell me about the case. So I knew I knew it was coming. Yeah, got to know. I mean, I got to have great case. So it's at the Green Hills Grill right now. So that is that case. So that's what I came up with and we're going to roll with until it goes. We'll have it's good. Yeah, it's really it's the ability at Chago to add more things. Add more things to it, right? Like we'll have the chorizo and braised beef and shrimp. But that's kind of my plan is we we started that early to see if it worked. And it ended up being the number two selling appetizer we currently have at that at that restaurant. So so you started early as a prep for Chago. Yeah, yeah. To make sure how great is that?

55:12To make sure it was right. And the guests like it. And because I can change it, you know, as I need to. But everyone said that's the best case. Oh, no, I'm not moving it. Yeah, the specials list at Green Hills Grill may or may not be a little bit of a for the next couple of months. For the next couple of months, we might or may not be testing Chago's menu. Right. And pro tip for you. And you'll test it in volume. You know, that's the only thing you stress. You stress test it, too. I mean, it's not can we make this at volume as opposed to? I believe you can make about anything. I like that attitude. I'd say that sounds like Steven's influence on you, Christopher. Well, you know, one of the things we try to stay away from the restaurant is when people say we can't do that or that'll never happen. And, you know, you have to. In fact, one time, you know, I think famously at Maryville, we said, well, we're going to try it again. We're just going to do it differently. And we'll hope to do it correctly this time. And it worked out just fine. It was brunch. Yeah, the buffet, the buffet brunch. She said, oh, no, we tried that. Pam's a wonderful person, great manager.

56:13She said, oh, we tried that. It didn't work as well. We're going to try it again. We kept running out of food. I said, we're going to make more food. We're not going to go. It's a good problem to have. Yeah. The manager doesn't need to be in the office. They need to be down there with looking at things and saying, hey, we might need more of that. We might need more of that. Of course, now we have a system of operation where other people do that. But yeah, I could only see the manager in the office while the guests were down there milling about eating and running out of food. And Brandon, did you tell me this and this is not meant to be detrimental, but this is not going to be a free chips and salsa restaurant. As of now, I don't think so. I think it's going to be an appetizer. It'd be one of those things you can add on for $3.99 or $4.99. And if you want to add chips, we'll probably do something similar to a trio. You know, at the grill are number two appetizer, number three appetizer, besides the queso is our trio, which has salsa, guacamole, as well as our spinach and artichoke dip. And I think we're going to have some different dips that we will have on the menu that you'll be able to pair with the trio. So you'll be able to do salsa. But no, I don't. It's not a sit down. Here's your bowl of chips and salsa.

57:15You know, start eating. I always called that the airplane treatment anyway. I give you the salty and spicy stuff. And then five minutes later, you get a drink and you're ready to die. I endorse that. No, I endorse that idea. I do the walking walking Nashville tours. And one of our stops on our new 12 South tour is we go to the buttermilk ranch. I love the buttermilk ranch. Only in Nashville can you serve a bunch of guests a basket of beautiful laminated biscuits and a trio of gravy. Yeah, that's pretty perfect. Yes. So I can see your your trio being something like that, you know, where it's going to be. Yeah, and it'll be a little more elevated, a little more interesting. Well, and from a business perspective, I mean, you have to certainly we're not underpaying in rent. I mean, this is Nashville, Tennessee, and you're going to pay the the rent that you have to pay. And I don't sometimes people's eyes go blank when you start talking about the business of restaurants. They don't really want to hear that. But giving away free things when you may order something else impacts your bottom line and your check average.

58:20And it's just not something we feel comfortable doing at the outset, especially as we get a handle on how to operate, you know, what's essentially a 100 seat restaurant versus the 200 seat and 257 seat restaurants we already operate. Crunching numbers on those is going to be, you know, important and tricky. Well, it puts more pressure on you. I mean, I have absolutely filled up on chips and salsa before anybody came to take my order 100 percent. And at that point, I'm not ordering as much as I would have had I. Or I'm like, well, damn it, now I'm full and I wanted this, but I've just I know I'm going to throw half of it away. So I'll just get the this or, you know, and we don't want people to come to our restaurant to have because the chips and salsa are that great and they're free. That's not that's not a business proposition that actually works in the real world. You know, and that a long time ago, things like that happened. But I think as you've watched over time, those, you know, it doesn't happen nearly as often as it used to. Well, I just read an article about Chicago Tavern style pizza, you know, the thin pizza that's cut into squares and tavern slice.

59:22And it was developed because at bars they could serve without any plate, anything needed. They could just come around with a pizza and people could have a napkin and grab a free slice. Yeah. And that was going to be the salty. They got them excited about drinking some more. But get me beer now. But nobody does that anymore. Now they sell their Chicago style thin pizza. So we got in some trouble at the grill when we open because we had this, you know, butter with the borson butter with the French bread that we used to serve. And I think people's memory of how fantastic it was is far greater than how fantastic it actually is or was. But we decided at that point not to open with it because we didn't have the linear space in the kitchen to put it there. We didn't. We took that space that normally would be a bread cutting station. And we made it into it to go in delivery station. And now we generate a million dollars a year to go in delivery out of that same five feet of space. As opposed to negative income and bread. It's expensive. I mean, I give away the recipe all the time, the borson butter. And they say, well, it says it makes 60 pounds. I'm like, well, now, you know how much butter we gave away every day.

01:00:25And it was a fan. I think I calculated it when we opened. It was about seventy eight thousand dollars in free product. And in today's economic world, we just couldn't give away. I mean, the margins are so slim in restaurants. We can't give away seventy eight thousand dollars in product. And I'm sure your employees would like to have their part of that. Seventy eight thousand dollars, too. I mean, you want to be able to take care of your people. It's a win win. And the way you take care of people is exactly give them something to, you know, the people really want to eat is number one. And then something that they can sell is number two. Well, and I think the other side of that, too, is that there's a back then there wasn't this attack on carbs. I mean, we do free book. We do free bread and butter at Maribor. And half of the time I go to a table to clean a table. That bread is sitting on the table. People don't eat it. They say, yeah, I'll have it. And they'll take two bites out of it or whatever. But you're throwing most of the butter and the bread goes in the trash can. And it's like to offer that. So people, I'm good. I only wanted one tiny little piece and they throw it away. I mean, carbs are the devil now. So, I mean, just giving everybody a bowl full of carbs start to meal. Most people don't even want it. It amazes me to look, you know, and obviously, you know, all good restaurateurs look in the garbage can pretty often, but I look in the garbage can every time I go to Maribor and there's always full bread rolls in the garbage.

01:01:34You can always see always two. It's not like there's, oh, they're way down at the bottom or there's there's they're always in view. People are always saying, yes, I want that. And in a business class restaurant, you may say, well, my guest or the person I'm entertaining may want it. So you ordered. I totally understand that. That's why we have it. But the reality is most people don't eat it. And there's a baker that worked really hard on that and was proud of it. Exactly. From sharpies. There you go. Yeah, locals, locals. So the thing, what are the ideas for opening hours, either starting out and then moving forward? I mean, I can, you know, we open for lunch, then we had dinner and then we had brunch, you know, but pretty much Christmas. I was fantasized about opening off a Mexican breakfast place. I mean, we work with these wonderful people, you know, and so many of them are from Mexico and they make the most fantastic food. And obviously, the the meal that we don't serve in the restaurant is, you know, is breakfast. But if you're in the restaurant, you know, they'll make a community breakfast. I mean, that's that's about the only time I go to La Hacienda.

01:02:35Yeah. Is to get their breakfast over there. And, you know, Brian Lee Weaver has built an entire successful restaurant at Redhead Stranger. Oh, my God, that's awesome. Yeah. I mean, it's good stuff. And we're going to sell the value. We're going to have chilaquiles because I just love them. We've tried them at Green Hills Grill. Didn't really work that well. You know, we do huevos rancheros. We do some brunch items there. And I think certainly in that walking area that is Belmont Boulevard, we can do a pretty substantial brunch, which will be focused on, you know, some more Mexican items and some not. But I think we can do a good job with that. Something to look forward to. But initially opening up lunch and dinner seven days or what? What do you think? Seven days is the plan. I didn't, you know, when you got to pay the rent, you never being closed. It doesn't pay much rent. Well, you know, Trevor managed to do it at Locust three days a week. But he's got a pretty darn good deal. Yeah, I have to say, I don't, you know, every time I go out and see the chairs up, I'm like, how is this happening? How does how does the math work? Well, he's working to that. So it's true.

01:03:35He's he needs three days to prep for four days of service. Well, you're right. You're very correct there. And it's a fantastic restaurant. And they never have an empty seat. Yeah. I mean, you know, when you open the door and the restaurant's full until you close. And did you see about Michael Hanna doing his pop up out of there for one day only? What a genius idea to, you know, you've got a restaurant that you don't want any people in it, but you can give up one station to a guy that makes these fantastic dispensions. Yeah. And do that. And he can sell them out the window. I yeah, I Michael Hanna is like the nicest guy in the city. And I think he's one of the most genuine, most amazing people. And every time I see him, I just he makes me smile. I don't know about that dude that I just love and his pizzas from the best pizza ever had in my life. So I'm excited for everything he's doing. And yeah, it's a brilliant idea over there. There's a lot of makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of good people to root for now. You know, there is. And again, I always tell people that the restaurant industry in Nashville is not a zero sum game. We're not the place where, oh, I heard someplace else is opening.

01:04:37Well, that means that I'm going to lose business. You know, that's not to fail for me to succeed. There's a lot of people that restaurant people root for. I think it's a really unique community of people who when you're in the community, if you if you get what you put in. Right. So I mean, you can open a restaurant and tell people don't go. But if you're in eating at other people's restaurants, well, last time you met Michael Hanna, if you know, know this, you met Michael Hanna at East Side Bond Me one night. We're doing a pop up for SS Guy, which is Emma and Chris's future place. But there was a pop up at East Side Bond Me. We got Chad and Gracie. And then they're promoting this other concept that Michael Hanna is there with his wife and kids. And I came with Stephen and Jolene. And it's just all these restaurateurs sitting around, just talking to each other and just kind of it's it's a really cool thing to be in. When you when you when you put in, you put in what you get out or you. Well, that's what I said the right way. You get out what you put in. Well, I knew at East Side Bond Me when some of the most notable chefs in town were just clamoring to get to do a bond me in there.

01:05:42Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a sign that the bond me project. That's a sign that people are loved and appreciated. And welcomed into the community. I don't think you have nicer people. Also, I mean, Chad and Gracie are like salt of the earth. And they're just amazing. I think Kisser is going to be the same way it opens tomorrow. Tomorrow, this is being recorded way before this comes out. But be open when you hear this. You hear this kisser is open. Yeah. Thank you for giving me more than one day to transcribe and write an article from a little while. Yeah. Awesome. Do you have anything else? And we're at the hour mark. So do you feel thoroughly interviewed? Do you feel I'm happy? Yeah, I think so. I mean, we're just comfortable going over there and do what we know how to do best. And obviously, we know the flavor profiles of Mexico. We do a fair amount of Tex-Mex right now at Green Hills Grill. We're pretty comfortable. We can go in there and hopefully create a product that people want to buy. I mean, that is, as Brandon said, that's I'm much more concerned about having somebody that somebody actually wants to eat and says, yeah, that's good, I want it again than to have something that's technically perfect and is a representation of this that nobody really wants to eat.

01:06:53I'm looking forward to what I hear from you guys, the combination of new and familiar, because that's what the neighborhood I feel is asking for. I think that every time somebody comes in, they make these promises. I think that a high level of service where you feel special when you walk in the door. I want the locals that come there on a regular basis to walk in and be like, this is our place and this is the place we come. We want to learn your name. We want to know who you are. Introduce yourselves to us. If you're somebody who lives close by, come in. We want you to be a regular. We want to have a favorite table. We want you. We want to know your dish. What's this? When you walk in, order the regular, I want to know who you are. And I want you to learn the servers. I want you to learn who the managers are. And we want you to feel welcomed and special when you get there. That it's not just some these aren't this is we're not some restaurant tours from another city coming in to open a place because we're trying to make like we genuinely care that we nourish our community, that the community comes in and then they leave there. They go, wow, that was a really special experience.

01:07:54I feel full, but I also feel better than I did when I walked in the door. And I felt like I just got to hang out with a bunch of my friends who welcomed me in every single time. And it's executed a high level. I mean, high level of service, high quality food, really good drinks that we can do every single day. And you know what to expect when you come there, that it's going to be a great experience where you feel special and you leave and you go, well, we got to do that again. Every time I leave there, I feel better. You know, I think one of our competitive advantages in our restaurants is that we do have a high service environment. I mean, we really do care. And we want that neighborly service. And we work on a tip share in all of our restaurants. And certainly this will even be a different a little bit different demographic or a little different check average than than the other two. But we've been able to have success doing that and allow people who are professional restaurant people to thrive in that environment when they didn't think they could. I think that's that's very important to us. Well, I can I can walk to Chaco Nuevo and I promise I won't take up a parking spot. So I hope I'm one of your valuable customers. So 100 percent.

01:08:55I do have to say, you know, Belmont up the street, about a half a block, they have some giant parking garages. So you get your exercise and you're allowed to park in there. There's no gates, no tickets and all that's directly across the street. There's a big hill that goes right up next to the what's the center right there, the new big. Yeah, the Fisher Center, the Fisher Center. Yeah, right. There's a big parking structure. It's like five levels at the Fisher Center, which is 100 yards. Yeah, there's one on the right and one on the left. Yeah, there's huge parking. The arena is right there and the parking structure is behind that. And then there's one on the right. There's there's lots of parking. You might just have to walk a few blocks. But all the as you'll as you said, Chris, you'll be walking over anyway. Right. Exactly. So you'll probably get more than the point two miles to the park. I'm going to park here at the studio and just walk over. And that's it's less than a mile from the studio, too. So I'm like, I'm just going to walk over. I'm going to park my car here. And I need the exercise. Unless today where it's like raining. But I'm well, I'll just walk it out. I'll get a scooter ride. Sometimes I park in Hillsborough Village and I drive a scooter up here. Just like to plug my car in. The whole thing. First world problems.

01:09:56The struggle bus. Stephen's like, stop talking, Brandon. Well, I may I may apply for a delivery job. You can get one. You know, the problem is, hopefully, your eyesight is good, because at times I'll go run a delivery and I'll be like, because obviously you need somebody needs to run it and the other cars are out. And I'm like, I'll take it. And the problem is, at night, you can't see the streets. I can't see the addresses on the streets because my vision isn't that good at night anymore. So I'm slowing down, getting the flashlight out, pointing to people's mailboxes. And I'm like, this is just taking way too long. And this is way too difficult. I got to I got to let the pros do this. I mean, I can't tell you the number of times I've checked my ring camera after a delivery service said that my food has been delivered and it is not on my front porch. And they've put it somewhere else. And I don't know who got the free meal, but somebody did. That does happen. We've got plenty of times you run a second delivery because something happened. So well, we really look forward to welcoming you all back to the neighborhood. Like I said, it's an important fixture on Belmont Boulevard.

01:10:58And there's there's not more commercial moving on to Belmont, you know, between the university expansion and the value of the real estate there. I can't expect a boom of restaurants coming into that area. So I think you'll be very necessary and very successful. Well, that's good. Well, we're excited. We have amazing neighbors, too. I mean, you know, the people Arnold next to us, the international market and then proper bagel, Athens, we got some amazing neighbors that we're really excited about being good neighbors, too. You know, we're really excited about the people around us and getting to know them and building those relationships. Well, we're excited to have you and thanks for sitting down and doing this. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been Nashville Restaurant Radio. I am your substitute host, Chris Chamberlain. Brandon, you want to give the official goodbye? Yes. Brought to you by Gordon Food Systems or services. We got lots of we got lots of amazing sponsors at Gordon Food Service. You know, lots of great people. We do a Gordon Food Service final thought, and that final thought is going to be thank you for Chris Chamberlain coming in and hosting the show today.

01:12:00This has been a lot of fun. Maybe this will be the new way that people do their announcements for restaurants. We'll call you and go, hey, can we make a national restaurant radio? Can we do the whole thing again there, too? And that'll be a whole new thing for you. Be fun when I told you everybody wants me to write their obituary for their restaurant, you know, because I'm local and I understand things in context and I try to be sensitive about it. But they want to give the scoop to the business journal. So we'll give the scoop to Chris Chamberlain. I'm excited to be a part of y'all's opening scoop. And if you want to give the scoop to Chris Chamberlain, come in here and let him interview you in the as a podcast and he'll do that. Well, we do like the Chris Chamberlain New Restaurant podcast. It'll be full, like a sub podcast over here at Nash Restaurant Radio. Then you can put the article out, be a lot of great times. We hope that you guys are being safe out there. Thank you for listening. Love you guys. Bye.