Chris Hall

00:00Hey, this is Jen Heidinger Kendrick, founder of Giving Kitchen. Let me tell you a little more. Giving Kitchen is a James Beard award-winning nonprofit that provides emergency assistance to food service workers nationally. Headquartered in Atlanta since 2013, Giving Kitchen has served over 19,000 food service workers and awarded over $12 million to food service workers in crisis. Want to get involved and support Giving Kitchen? During Dining with Gratitude in October, Giving Kitchen's month-long campaign, where the food service community pledges to raise critical funds and spread the word about Giving Kitchen's mission. Learn more by clicking the link in this episode's notes, givingkitchen.org slash DWG. 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.

01:09My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. So thankful for our friends over at Gordon Food Service. We have got a fun one today. Welcome back to Atlanta Restaurant Radio. We are still, Crystal and I are taking a little bit of time to kind of get our bearings, and she is opening a new restaurant. You can watch us next week on Thursday. We're going to be a Local on 2, talking about the restaurants, talking about everything that's going on in the city. You got anything big happening, new restaurant you want us to talk about on the show? Let us know. So this episode today, we are talking with Chris Hall. I'm going to tell you about the progression. We interviewed five people. We did five interviews, and so I wanted to put the first one out as Billy Kramer. I wanted you to learn who he was, and then I wanted to do the episode with The Giving Kitchen, and now we get Chris Hall.

02:10Chris Hall is the owner at Un Sake, and this is a restaurant group. He's got like five restaurants in Atlanta, and they're amazing restaurants. He has Local 3 Kitchen and Bar, War Horse Investments, Mus and Turner's, Rochambeau, and MTH Pizza. So he's got some good places there. He's also one of the co-founders of The Giving Kitchen, and an amazingly generous guy. He's also a guy that doesn't pull punches. If there's a person I would compare him to in the Nashville industry, I would say he's most close to Kerry Bringle. How does that? If you're looking for a good interview of a guy that just says what's on his mind because he is a confident dude and he gets it, this is him, Chris Hall. These restaurants in Atlanta are big-time restaurants, and he's a big-time guy there, and we're pretty fortunate to be able to have this conversation. Now you out there are used to hearing me talk to people.

03:11In this episode, it's interesting because I'm getting to know these people. I've not really been in Atlanta a lot, so I'm in Atlanta, I'm talking to these folks. They don't know anything about me, so I feel like I'm telling redundant stories that I've already told on the show, but their stories, it's amazing how these two cities, it's so similar talking to different chefs. There's a lot of synergy there, and just the industry. It's so fascinating because we live in our world here, but to hear what other people are doing and to hear what people do in other cities is really fascinating, and I'm really enjoying my time getting to know these folks. Cool culinary scene there in Atlanta. So we're going to continue on with Atlanta Restaurant Radio. If you want to learn, if you want to subscribe to our Atlanta Restaurant Radio on Instagram, it's Atlanta underscore restaurant underscore radio. If you want to subscribe on Spotify, I would appreciate that because we're going to put out the next several episodes. Even when we come back to regular programming, we'll probably put these out on Mondays or something just to kind of alternate, and you'll be able to hear the Atlanta Restaurant Radio.

04:14But I will stop doing that, and then you'll just need to have your own Atlanta Restaurant Radio account to learn more. And I teased last week that we were going to have Ford Frye on this week, and I don't know what happened. I cannot find, I had a new SD card, and I cannot find my old SD card, and that's where the interview is. And so it is a lost episode. This is a lost episode. I have racked my brain. I've looked everywhere. The micro SD card is micro. It's hard to find. So if I find it, we're going to have a lost episode one day. It's going to be awesome. But for now, I don't know where the episode is with Ford Frye. And it was a good one, too, because I was really fascinated. We've talked to him a few times, and to really get into the what is it like to be the owner of 25 restaurants? What does your day look like? What do you control? How do you get to control about people what say about you or what your perception is and kind of what's it like? What's the burden of having 25 restaurants?

05:15What can he actually do? So it's really interesting. It was a really fascinating conversation. He was very vulnerable about all the stuff and just talked it out and it was in studio. It was great. Hopefully, I'll find that one day and I'll be able to share it. But as of now, we're going to be talking with Chris Hall today. We will be back in a few weeks. We're still taking a little bit of a break, and she's getting ready to open her new restaurant. So we hope that you are enjoying your summer and you've had a nice July. Maybe you've taken a vacation. Maybe you've listened to this in the car. Maybe you're in the car right now heading on vacation. And I wish you safety and hope that you have a lot of fun this week. And I do, before I let you guys jump in this episode, I do want to say we talk a lot about the Giving Kitchen in this episode and we have some amazing sponsors that have set up. If you want to help but just don't know if you can help and you own a restaurant, I want to go through the list of sponsors. Number one, All Star Fire Protection. Folks are amazing. They're local. You want to call Rob Bowman over there.

06:16All of the numbers are going to be in the show notes. So if you call All Star Fire Protection and you have an inspection done, then they're going to donate $50 to the Giving Kitchen for each one. New customers. So call and just tell them, say, hey, I heard about you on Nashville Restaurant Radio. And for all of these sponsors, same sort of a deal, SuperSource. If you call and you get a, all you have to do is you have to call Jason, have him come out and him give you a quote. If you accept a quote from him, he's going to make a donate. He's going to donate $50 to the Giving Kitchen. Also our friends over on the Chandler James team at Lee and Associates, Miller Chandler and Lee Ann James. If you call them and you say, hey, look, I want to do a consultation. I'm looking at opening a new space and I need to find a spot. They're brokers. They can help you find that. If you ever wonder how you start a restaurant, this is how you do it. You find the location first and these guys are dialed in. If you call them and you do a consultation, you guessed it $50 to the Giving Kitchen. Hey, there's another one, Cali Sober.

07:17If you're one of these people that are like, you know what? I think I want to try the THC thing in my restaurant. Now is the time. Because if you're, if you're wondering and you are on the fence about it, Cali Sober is going crazy. Everybody is drinking Cali Sober. We just brought on the Green Hills Grill and it's amazing how much of it we're already selling. And I've had no issues. Everybody's been super cool. It has been amazing. They are through Littman Brothers. So if you place their product in your restaurant, guess what, $50 donation to the Giving Kitchen and your name. They're just doing amazing stuff out here. Another one, Robbins Insurance. All you got to do is you got to call Matthew Clements and get a quote. And if you call Matthew Clements and get a quote, guess what? Yep, you guessed it, $50 donated to the Giving Kitchen and your name for all these. Just call these folks. Go in the show notes. You can see all of their names and numbers and call them, get a quote, place the drink on there and let's help restaurant workers. And hopefully as you get through this episode, you're going to go, man, I really like what they're talking about.

08:21And then go back last week and listen with Jen Heidinger Kendrick and Leah Melnick and you'll learn more about the Giving Kitchen. But these sponsors are amazing. Thank you guys so much for everything you're doing and stepping up to the plate for restaurant workers that these guys, these are companies that when I called and said, Hey, do you guys want to do this? Every single one of them said, absolutely. No problem, man. Absolutely. Let's go. Let's go. These are the people who are partnering with restaurants and care about the industry. Let's support them. We all say support local. These people need your support too. So give them a call today and let's get some money over there to the Giving Kitchen and let's get a great vendor into your restaurant who I personally endorse and appreciate. And I think these are all amazing people. So now let's get in with Chris Hall. This is going to be a lot of fun. You can't pick up on visual clues on zoom. It's really difficult. Like interviewing someone on zoom versus sitting across from them and watching when they cross their legs subconsciously or you ask them a question that makes them fidget like different world.

09:26You can't pick that shit up on zoom. Hell, you don't even know if they're wearing pants at the time. It's a whole thing. I've had pretty big chef people, you know, said we've got this person, that person we'd like to have on your show. And I go, great. And they go, can you do it virtually? And I go, no. Or will they be in Nashville? Not for six months ago. Well, then I'll talk to him in six months. Yeah, we'll do it in six months. If it's that big of a chef or name, the one person that I did, I did Will Gadara, you know, unreasonable hospitality. He was in New York. That's where I'm going to go ahead and do that. Danny Meyer's not in Nashville. You take Danny Meyer. Right. I had a zoom with Danny. Those kind of guys I would I would totally do. I would much prefer, you know, Shaquille O'Neal with his, you know, chicken place. I was like, no, when Shaq's in town with Freeman, I want to meet Shaq. I want him in studio. Have you met him yet? Have you done it? I've met Shaq in the past, but I haven't done him on. He's not not yet on the show. His partner. We're going to get him in for a given kitchen burger. He he's he's been he's been good about that. I mean, I'm not a small dude. Here's the thing. Here's the thing about that.

10:27Look at his hand in relation to my head. Yeah, I'm squishing your head. Fucking I want to take a picture of you doing that. Like this is going to make the show. He literally I made burgers. We did this TV thing and I made burgers, right? I just did like McDowell's, right? And a burger in his that's the burger, the Golden Arches, the Golden Arches. Oh, yeah. The burger, a normal size burger. If I gave him an F.A. burger in his hand, it looks like a slide. I have to make I'd have to make a quad. Yeah. No, it looks like a slider. Like he picks up, you know, the little cans of soda, like a normal can of soda looks like that in his hand. You're like, holy shit, that dude is big. I'm six foot six. He's a foot taller than dude. I mean, he is a he is a massive human. And it's not just like everything about like his shoulders are broad. Like he's just a huge man. He's the biggest human I've ever seen. I just want to remind him at the time I went to the Arizona LSU game when I was a freshman in Arizona and we spanked him and he fell out.

11:28That's all I want to do. He would he would like do it. I had a friend. He would then take his hand like this and pound you in the head and you would disappear. I actually had the best line leaving the court. So we were, you know, booing him and he fell that we were trouncing LSU. And he turned to one of the players and he's like, it's OK. I'll be the number one pick. I tell you what, I saw him do something when we were filming that. It was insane. So we had this. It was during covid. They're trying to find contents. We film this thing. And the kid doing the sound was like fucking up constantly. He was like a high school kid. And at one point, Shaq was like, you know, telling him to cut. And he didn't cut. Shaq was like, look, man, when I do this, you got it. And he kind of went through these hand signs with him because Shaq does so much TV. Right. And the kids like, OK, I'm really sorry. And so we get done. And the kids like trying to put shit away. But he doesn't. He clearly checks like, what's your story, man? And he's like, well, my buddy who does this got covid and they needed to fill in. So I did it. But I need money because I'm he's like, why are you working?

12:30He's like, well, I'm going to school next year. So I have money for college and check. And so everybody's gone. I'm around the corner, like literally cleaning my knives and shit. There's no one there but Shaq and this dude. And they don't even know I'm there. And Shaq's like, cool. And he's like, what are you going to major in? And he talks to him. And he's like, give me your phone. And he takes the kid's phone and he puts his phone number and he goes, if you ever need money for books or anything school related, you fucking call me. So now you're telling me I have to find that guy to get Shaq's number. And I look, I got Shaq's number. I can get you Shaq's number. But so I walked out after I'm like, hey, I, you know, I was around the corner. I heard that. I know you don't want anybody to know, but I heard that. And he's like, yeah, like, you know, my parents were in the army and like education means everything. And if I can help people, I've been really blessed. So he has a rule with his kids. You have to have two degrees after college to get the inheritance. Wow. He's like, I don't care what you do. You can be a fucking librarian. You can do you can do so. He's like, he's like, dude, you're going to get some only one degree away.

13:32For getting part of his inheritance. I got nothing. I'm like, Shaq, dude, I'm with you. I got nothing for you, man. Hard knocks. Does that count? Is that a thing? No, but it was just really cool to see him like totally on. He had no that's what impressed me was no one was around. It wasn't like for a camera or for any shit like that. It was literally like, hey, you know, I'm going to do it. OK, so we have been sitting here hanging out and we're just talking. And I said, hey, can we hit record and just start this thing? So you've been listening to what was a pre interview, just kind of conversation that I just hit record on. Let me tell you who we are sitting here with. First of all, welcome in to Atlanta Restaurant Radio, the first ever edition of Atlanta Restaurant Radio. This is very exciting. We are. My name is Brandon Styll, and I'm going to be your co-host today with our host, Billy Kramer. Say hi, Billy. Hi, everybody. Apparently, I'm co-hosting today.

14:33You know, you're the host with the host. You are the host today. I'm the co-host today. I'm just doing the intro. You get to do this one of the next time. Billy Kramer, he is the owner at the NFA Burger. Correct. Correct. Yes. Best burger in Atlanta. Only if you like it. Only if you like it. I mean, I'm sure like, you know, well, you'll introduce the guy across the table, but I'm sure he would say he makes the best burger. No, I actually would. I'd say I go to your place for burgers. That's very kind of you. There's other shit. I make this really good, but not like I'll throw my pizza down with people, but I'm not throwing my very kind of you. But I don't I don't necessarily believe that. Well, Southern Living says it's the best hamburger in Georgia. Well, here's what I tell people, because they come in and they want to. Like on a Saturday, we'll have a line around the gas station and they'll say, well, I read I heard your number. You're the best burger in Georgia. And I said, it's only if you like it. And that sets them back a little bit. And they're like, they don't know how to handle that statement. I said, look, here's the bottom line.

15:34The other people ate the burger. You haven't eaten the burger. So what does it matter if somebody else likes it? If you don't like it, then it's not the best burger. So don't you think that's the most interesting thing? Like we were talking about reviews earlier before we started recording. Like everyone's taste buds are different. Eight million eight billion people on the planet. It's like it's sort of like this pejorative thing or it's bad. Like, how are you going to say this is the best ever? To me, it is. But you got totally different tastes. Like you like different. We've sat around, had plenty of whiskey together. Like we both like whiskey. We drink different whiskey. You might like hot food. You might not like hot. Like this whole idea that there's one sort of like a best is very weird to me. I find it to. I find it to be silly. I'm happy. Look, I mean. And I met this when I say this, like, I don't expect you to say you make the best. By the way, can we just introduce him so nobody knows who he is? I like the anonymity, like I like being. We're revealing at the end. I'm the little green goblin behind the curtain and Wizard of Oz.

16:35I kind of like being. We are talking with Chris Hall. Chris Hall is the one of the owners, partners of an suck a restaurant group. Yeah, you got the pronunciation right. Well, it's right. We have people that have worked with us and invested money with us that can't pronounce it. It's an entirely fabricated word for doesn't suck on. I'm glad that he asked because I feel like I was supposed to know how to say it. And I didn't. So it was one of the I was going to go to my grave just pretending like I knew how to say it. We actually put something on the website that is us like talking about it. And it's a pronunciation guide. And there's this little like cartoon thing that somebody made where we each hold up this little sign that says on suck. On suck. So which restaurants are under that umbrella? Give us the list. So our first was Muslin Turners, which is in Smyrna, kind of Delhi, where you live, right? Right over where you live, right? We live right there. All three of us, actually.

17:35Both my partners and I still still live over there. We have local three. We have M.T.H. Pizza. We have Rochambeau. And then we don't really talk about it, but we have a private dining and social club called Warhorse Investments. So I'll talk about it. I love that. You don't talk about it. Talk about nobody talks about this. I mean, you know, the first rule of Fight Club is don't talk about Fight Club. You know, like it's it's just it's just our little side hustle. But it's been it's been fun. You are also heavily involved. One of the co-founders of the Giving Kitchen, correct? Yeah. You know, we were Ryan Heidinger and Jenny, our dear friends. Ryan was our chef to cuisine at Muslin Turners when he got sick. Remember those days vividly and what started as just kind of really very similar to this sitting around the table going, hey, man, this is this is a terrible diagnosis.

18:38What are we going to do? Is now a, you know, burgeoning national organization that helps restaurant workers and hospitality workers in crisis. So, you know, we happen to be a couple of people around the table. And this is not lip service. It's folks like you guys that have driven this this this thing to where it is. And it's it needs to go further. And it's really important. I know how important it is to both of you. But it's just incredibly gratifying to see how many people have been helped and how folks like you guys have put your your time and your resources behind it and really grown something that's worthwhile. Well, this is that's the reason why we're here today, honestly, is we had the Tennessee tasting in Nashville. Billy was up there. We did a you could be the host of Nashville Restaurant Radio for a day. Andrew Zimmern was kind enough to say he would be the person to be interviewed. But as we did it, we had a couple of people step up and want to do it. And I said, I will come to Atlanta and we'll just have a good time and we'll interview as many people as possible.

19:42And so we're here. He goes, I got Chris Hall. And this is exciting. We are here at the Distillery of Modern Art. And this is a really cool space. So I have a like the people that I meet in the restaurant industry and in the in the hospitality industry. I kind of filled out with people that I really enjoy being around. And you and I had a good conversation the other day. I'm a big fan of process and a big fan of people who like doing things perfectly and with purpose. And so I met Seth Watson, who is the owner and founder of Distillery of Modern Art. He was a customer. So while this thing was being built out for a couple of years, he would come over to NFA, drive across the Dumbwitty and get burgers. And when this right before this place started to open or open, I came and said, can I get a tour? And we became friends. And the great thing about Seth is like he is a and Chris knows him because that's a yes, I've known Seth for a while. I was actually kind of involved in the early parts of this.

20:44I'll tell you that. So so this is like this was Seth's dream. And I think that's very cool. He had a different career before. So this is part event, this event space. Right. So you can have weddings, bar mitzvahs, huge room back there. Yeah, it's a big, empty room. It's gorgeous. Yeah, they do comedy nights and all kinds of crazy stuff here. And then we're actually in the middle of the art gallery, which is pretty cool. So every I think every 60 days, they rotate out the artists. So when I first sat down, you saw me looking around. I was trying to see like who is on display today. This stuff's probably more my speed as I'm looking around some than some of the other stuff, sometimes beautiful. And then also Brandon, you have the direct shot right into the bottling area. Yeah. So Seth and and Matt was just taking our picture. Matt's the head distiller. He they're bottling their own bourbon. They're making vodka today. They're making. Yeah. So they'll make vodka. Their peach vodka. Have you ever had the peach vodka? I've had their peach. We sell a ton of their gin and we sell some bourbon.

21:45We sell a lot of their gin. The peach vodka is just one of those things. You just put on the rocks. It's not like the artificial flavor kind of stuff that you get, like with Absolute or any of that other stuff. This is like real Georgia peaches. Oh, man. But that's amazing. And it's, you know, so like that's the kind of attention to detail these guys have here. So it's an amazing facility. So as we're playing this on Nashville Restaurant Radio, Atlanta is such a quick trip. I love doing weekend trips to Atlanta. There's so many fun things to do here in Atlanta. But this distillery is something if you're coming down and you like bourbon or you just like spirits, you like doing a distillery experience. There's an art gallery here. There's a bar. You can check out the actual distillery. Very cool stuff. The distillery of modern art. Here are super legit. It's fantastic. You could show up here, show up here like any day at like two or three in the afternoon, way before they open. And the bartenders will be back there just. You know, mixing drinks and trying to just trying to make something perfect. Or Instagram, you can see pictures. I'll make a post about this episode. You look and I'll put a bunch of pictures of what this place looks like and what the interview everything is here. But so here we go.

22:46We're all here. Funny story about Seth, like this was when he first started this, he had his first like set of distillates and he brought him to me, you know, local three is a really big bourbon bar. I think, you know, we've been top 10. Show me your 50. Show me your list. 50 best 50 best bourbon bars in the world for, you know, 12 years running or something, whatever. But it's pretty anyway. So Seth, Seth, Seth brings his distillate and like, I don't know him that well. And I tasted like five different things. And I was like, man, do I like really? Am I honest with this guy? Because he's going to quit his job, go do this shit. And I was like, it's not great. Like, and I kind of laid it out like something Seth disappears. Right. Like don't hear anything. And like two and a half years later, Seth pops up. He's like, hey, man, I'm still thinking about doing this. I got some more booze. You want to try it? I'm like, oh, boy, like and why not? And he comes in and I'm like, sure. And man, what he brought me was so I can't even think of like a bigger 180 of like completely different.

23:53I'm like, what the hell? He's like, man, I just went and learned. Like I found the right guy and Matt, I went and learned. And it was such a cool like because I think if you've done it before and not that I'm some arbiter of taste or anything, but it just frankly wouldn't it wouldn't have sold. It was really astringent. And this and the next thing I'm like, I was like, holy shit. You figured it out. But you are the arbiter because you have a really good palate for, you know, you know, it sells. Yeah. You showed me. Do you have your do you have your phone? Can you show him the this isn't really good radio to show somebody something on the unless I unless I feel that Chris has this master list of like wine and and spirits database that he's collected over the years with notes that. Yeah, I'll pull it up and I'll send it to you so you can you can put it. I mean, it's it's unbelievable. But like I my my basics are does it taste good or not? And in these guys like Seth and Chris, like, go take a deep dive. I'm more interested in like the ability to discern whether or not to bullshit somebody or tell them the truth.

24:56When do you decide in that moment? You're like, how do you do that? Now? Now I just always tell the truth. Is that what I want? You just come in. When we were talking about reviews later, I always want the truth. But I think it takes you as we're all in the restaurant business. How long does it take you to filter with the intent of that review? Pretty quick. I can do it. Somebody has really good intent and they're kind of lay it all out. I'm like, great. I learned a lot. It can be painful to hear. But when someone is just trying to grind an axe or do their own thing, I try to be funny. Like, it takes me about literally 20 words in that review. And I'm like, OK, this is serious. I need to dive in or like, yeah, OK, we're just we're just at this for some other reason than than all that. So now it's just always but as not knowing someone. And again, people have different taste buds. I am I'm a firm believer in that. Like you can have bad product that like is poorly made on its face. Like, you know, like some food doesn't taste good. Somebody burn it. Someone. But, you know, just because it wasn't my taste doesn't mean it's not good.

26:00There's plenty of things. I always call it the snack box bistro philosophy. So there's a place right near here called Snackbox Snackbox Bistro rated one of the best lay ocean restaurants in the city. I don't know how many there are, but it's really it's a good restaurant. Like, so I went there with my wife and. Ordered a bunch of things, and that was kind of the beginning of my exploration of food, and I was always just like meat and potatoes. God is like, well, I'm going to start trying different things. So we went there and when the server came over, she said, do you want me to go boxes? And I said, no, I'm good, because half the food we hadn't touched half the food. She's like, well, what was there something wrong? And I said, honestly, it's personally just not my taste. And she said, oh, I'm going to take it off the bill. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You did everything correct. Perfect. You did every you executed what you do perfectly. I just personally don't appreciate it as much as others. And there's no reason to give me my money back. I came here knowing I was trying a food I may or may not like.

27:04And I was happy to have done it right. And that's so I think you can do something perfectly well. Like Chris was saying. And it's just not to somebody's taste. We were talking earlier, there's 8 billion people on the planet. That's 8 billion different taste buds. You're not going to make everybody happy. But you don't need to go online and you need to let everybody know that your taste buds don't match that restaurant. Well, those people don't understand that there are other people on the planet. Secondly, not one person. This is true. I don't know if it's the same for Chris. Not one person who has ever left a negative review has ever come to me first. To solve their problem. Not one, really. That that's my big frustration. So if you we're in the business of pleasing people, we don't want people to come back. I'm in the it's our livelihood. Right. We we don't do what we do to make money. We do what we do because we're passionate about about it. I mean, we happen to make money and you have to because we're not a nonprofit. But by the same token, like like all you have to do is walk up to me and go, hey, man, this wasn't great.

28:06Let me tell you what. Like I'll make it right. Yeah, that's the most disarming question to ask a guest. If somebody is really grinding on you and you just look them right in the face and you know, what can I do to make this right? Half the time, they don't know what because it like I've stopped. I've stopped asking that. What I do is I just go make them a new one. Well, I'll make them right. And it's it's easier for me because my cost basis is lower. If somebody didn't like their stake, it's you know, you're like, I'm going to. Well, for me, it's more the guy that's really grinding on you, because when you ask, what can I do to make it right? And they say, take it off the bill. You know what their motivation is right there. Yeah. Right. As opposed to like that's that's my issue. Like as well as any feedback, like it doesn't matter if it's, you know, a review for an employee or whatever, any review needs to have specific feedback to it so you can take specific action to your point. It wasn't to my taste. Doesn't mean it was bad. I just didn't know. But if you say it was too well, it was too charred for me or there was too much mustard on it for me or the bun was too soggy for me. I can address those things. I don't like it, but I can't address them like once they leave the restaurant.

29:11So if you if you have a problem with something while you're there, I've never turned down. That's the other thing. So one, no one's ever come to me about before they posted something online. The second thing is I've never turned down a conversation with anybody who is asked to speak to me about their meal or experience. Not one. Well, that's what we do, because you care. Right. Well, as I tell people, I'm not in it for your eight dollars. I'm in it for your one hundred and eight dollars. Right. So I'm not in it for the one time you came here. That's not churning. Customers is not a successful restaurant to make. No. So I have a tick tock page for Nashville Restaurant Radio. And what I do throughout the pandemic, I had a baffling to me that throughout a pandemic global pandemic, people are leaving one star reviews for stupid shit like I the one star review couldn't this place was out of brisket. And it's like, well, you came in at 10 a.m. We're not even open. Couldn't place an order like we're not open. I got a one star review because you want to place an order at 10 a.m.

30:13for brisket. We have tons of brisket when we open at 11. And people were leaving one star views. And I was like, this is dumb. So what I did, I made a tick tock. I'm going to play. This is the owner of my restaurant, Maribel. We were open on Christmas Eve and we do a buffet on Sunday. Sunday brunch is a prime rib carving station. She crab biscuits. Very high end. But this was on Christmas Eve, fell on a Sunday. We did a brunch. This person wasn't happy. Let's see if it'll play here. So I get the sound to work. This is a one star review from Jennifer, and she posted this review on Christmas Eve. Horrible service. No menu, just a buffet on Christmas Eve. Didn't tell us when we made the reservation. We'll never be back. Would give it a half star if I could. You know, Jennifer, every year, my mother asked me why I work on Christmas Eve. And it's half star reviews like this that really bring it home and make it special to me and my family. I appreciate it. Thanks, Jim. Isn't that great? So I always loved whatever the segments are on the late night TV shows where they have movie stars read their own me tweets.

31:19It's Jimmy Kimmel does me tweets. That was that was I stole it from that. So before we leave, you guys will find a one star review. If you guys want to read a one star review, we'll get you on our tick tock. It'd be a lot of fun. Yeah, you know, there's probably one or two out there. I'm sure I have more than one or two. But I have one this week. Yeah, I mean, there's always I mean, and again, it comes down to the ability to explain like. If you think it's overpriced, how about giving me a chance to tell you? I'll show you my pricing model. I'll break it all down. I'll break out my P&L for you and you can see that there's no Lamborghini in my my or my partner's futures, right? Like, well, I go the other way. The price is on the menu before your order. If it's too expensive, I respect the fact that you think it's too expensive. But don't order it and then blame me for you ordering it. Right. That's not there's nothing I can do about that experience. All right. I'm not going to make it cheaper. Because I go out of business, you make it cheaper. Aren't you admitting that it's like infamy?

32:21You charge what you need to charge. I pay my my staff gets paid. Both of our staffs get paid really well for what they do. Or I don't know if they get paid really well. I could always we can always hope to pay them more. But relative to other restaurants, I think our staffs and I don't know about Brandon's. I'm sure certain that's what we had. We did have a conversation. We pay really well. We pay people really well. But you know, one thing that we do that's I don't know if it's different. We print menus daily. So, I mean, it doesn't have to be daily. But I'll tell you what, if I use Cisco or GFS or US, who's one of these broad line companies like guarantee you the second that milk goes up, guess what? Their prices change. The second that meat goes up, the fillets primary cut primal cuts, I guess any anything that fluctuates produce, Brussels sprouts, whatever it is. I look at those things and I adjust my pricing daily if I need to. And it goes up and it goes down. And I just tell people, I go, look, Kroger, if you go into Kroger tomorrow and milk is three ninety nine a gallon the next day, it's two. They change it the second the market changes.

33:23And if I print a menu that's good for six weeks, I'm shooting myself in the foot because I have to be able to pivot. So I charge I have a margin. I have a matrix that this is the margin that I need to make in order for all of my numbers to work and I can pay everybody a thing. And then I have a spreadsheet that automatically updates. And I look at it and I go, oh, this item needs to go up three dollars. This item needs to go down two dollars. This item needs to do this. And people are pretty familiar that my prices change week to week. But when you look at our margins like their paper, they're they're thin, right? Oh, yeah. And I think there's a you know, I had this conversation. I don't think it'll mind me saying it like Kevin Gillespie and I were having this conversation about, you know, charging what we need to charge, because when the architect tells you it's going to cost X, like there's not a ton of negotiation. That's kind of the number. When your lawyers like whatever X is an hour, that's the number. Right. So why is it constantly like we have to negotiate like, well, I'll do the event for X or Y or I want a hundred burgers.

34:24At a discount of right. It's like this is what it costs to run a company. And you say on one hand, you want us and we I know everyone around this table takes a great deal of pride in running a socially responsible company. And by that, I mean paying employees a living wage and taking care of people. And like you they're like, you should do that. And yet I don't want to pay you X. Well, those two things, they exist together. They're they're synergistic. You can't say, you know, I want a deal, but you have to pay your people more. We've got to charge what we have to charge to make sure the folks that. Work with us, who we care deeply about, get what they need. Pricing is a really interesting topic that we've talked a lot on this show about. And it's a there's so much fear out there because this guy is going to leave a review that's going to tell me I'm too expensive and I'm going to hear it from the public. And it's like this guy over here has a burger for six dollars and my burger is 19. I'm going to catch it. And it's like, well, that guy has 82 locations and has negotiated a national deal.

35:29He's committed on the front end to buy three hundred thousand pounds of meat and get to this kind of deal. I'm a local independent restaurant that's buying Bear Creek Farms. I'm getting local bread made. It's a better quality. And some people just don't understand that. But you have to you have to you have to stand strong. Right. So, you know, look, of the three of us, you know, random. You have to work for a well-respected restaurant group. Chris here in Atlanta's on Sakei is really well respected. You know, I'm I think I'm well respected, but I have a much smaller operation. And, you know, but what I tell people is we do what we do. And if it doesn't fit with what you want, I I'm sorry, but I'm not trying. I'm not selling food. OK, Chris, it's OK. Like Warhorse doesn't sell food. No, we were very blatant about it. OK, talk to our stuff about it all the time. We're not we sell human connection. Right. We're not selling when you when you come to NFA. Yeah, you're buying food, technically. But that's not why I want you to come here.

36:30I want you to come and have the best burger you've ever had. OK, I'm not you need you need three meals a day. I'm happy to be one of them. But you can go to McDonald's and have a meal for the day or go wherever. You can do that at home. Right. But if you want to have like the experience set up back at our picnic tables, have a group of people cooking your food that do it as consistently as humanly possible on anybody on the more than anybody on the planet, in my opinion. That's what you're getting here. If you just want slop on a plate, you know, go to that that buffet you went to for breakfast. I'm not going to name it, but but I'll put it out there that I do think that's kind of where we're headed in the entire industry is you're going to have people that specialize in transactional food and they really I think we're a lot closer to AI running drive throughs than people think. I know we are. I think we're a lot closer to making burger. Right. I think you got Flippy. You've got all those things. So I think there will be that our our our industry is is bifurcating into transactional where it's just look, I'm going to come.

37:36I'm either going to get it delivered or I'm going to pick it up. I'm going to go. Or I want an experience. You're experiential. Right. And experiences can come around a different thing, which, you know, it doesn't have to be champagne and caviar to have an experience. It can be a great fricking burger sitting outside on picnic tables with a bunch of cool people because you know, the people that are going there are interesting and fun. And that's an experience. So I think you will see. But I think one of the things is going to come with it for the consumer us as well, because we consume is going to be if you want the experiential, it's going to cost significantly more than the transactional. And that this is a little transition to like the gaming kitchen. But this is before we started recording. I told you I sent a long email to Ryan, your one of your partners. And one of the things that I've been saying to people is that I fear that if we don't take care of restaurant workers. They're going to go somewhere else. And then we're going to be stuck in this position of having to serve transactional food, right.

38:41That's that's my biggest fear is that you're going to wake up and it's not 10 years from now. It's like you're a couple of years from now. You're going to wake up in that neighborhood joint that you really love is going to be gone because. Tater tot prices when it doubled, they had to raise their prices and you don't care and you just go to the place as the cheapest tater tots and then your favorite local places out of business. That's my biggest fear. And it's it's it's already happening. But I feel like things like the giving like organizations like the Giving Kitchen keep people working in the industry and give it the best chance to not be transactional and give it the best chance to be experiential. I think that the the pandemic changed a lot of things. We'll get I love the transition to the Giving Kitchen, but I have a theory that pandemic showed a vulnerability in this industry. We lost a lot of people out of the good people in this industry. I think went to real estate or went to other trades that kind of like lifetime. We lost people that have been with us 10, 11 years and the high level. Like one of our chefs was like, I don't want to do it anymore.

39:43And, you know, I think people went, hey, look, I got six months here where I'm on I can get paid money. I'm going to learn a trade. I'm going to learn something else and I'm going to try it. I think a lot of those people are coming back right now. I think a lot of people like, hey, this this outside sales thing's really hard and it's different and I can show up to work and it just I think we're getting some of those people back right now. But the idea of experience like the experience has changed because of tipping. I think that the digital version of tipping now has created an expectation that we need to tax our guests and it's expected. And there's there's an entitlement that comes with flipping the iPad around going, were you going to tip me now? And the restaurants that get it really get it. I think that you can restaurants like mine at Mayor Bowl, which is in a 7500 square foot mansion that's built in 1942 and has character like crazy. And it's just a bit gives us the opportunity. It's so much easier now because nobody expects service. You don't expect it. You go somewhere and you expect to have what do you want? Like, I don't want to be here.

40:44What I have to serve you. And then I'm asking you to tip me when somebody genuinely cares. When you go to somewhere and there's genuine human connection and you can tell that they're invested in what they do and that they care about what they do. You're immediately like, holy shit, I didn't expect this is wonderful. We have a hiring matrix. We have a hiring matrix for our company. You know what the number one thing is? We call it give a shit because I can I can teach you to cook. We say it's and I can teach you how to how to open a bottle of wine. I can't teach you to genuinely want to take care of someone and give a shit. I do think and this is interesting coming from a chef. Like right now, I can't speak for other markets. I can speak for Atlanta and my philosophy and my partner's philosophy. At this point, post pandemic, food is the ante to play the hand. Hospitality, give a shit, caring service is the winning hand. You got to have a rocket.

41:45Everybody, everybody has to have good food to get in the game. Right. Because it's debatable. I mean, to your point. Yeah, I mean, there is. You're right. But I mean, at a certain level, I guess is what I'm what I'm saying. To be successful, but like to be a successful operation. But there's but it really is like that level of hospitality. I mean, I, you know. Whatever your personal taste is, I'm going this is entirely not based in anything but my own messed up brain. I would bet if I took a study of 10,000 people that go to Chick-fil-A and ask them, why do you go to Chick-fil-A? A lot of it would be their food's good. I'm in the mood. It's perceived as healthy. But I would bet you there's a significant number that say the experience in that drive through line versus the experience I get in every other drive through line is different. So that's a complete hypothesis. In and out. Same thing. You know, but but it's no different. I mean, you know, go to your place.

42:46There's hospitality. It's an experience. There's there's something. So I do think that's changed. And I do think people we lost a lot of good people during the pandemic. Hopefully they're coming back. I think in general, there's a perception. So we're what the second largest employer in the country, I think, in restaurants. I think in general, there's a perception that what we do is is transactional. It's just there. Look, we're interwoven into the fabric of our society. And I don't want to overstate it. We're not saving lives, right? There are people out there that are doing. But. There's not a funeral that doesn't have food that I've ever been to. There's not a wedding. There's not a celebration. It's graduation season. Like you're seeing friends, you're making new friends. Food is interwoven to our fabric. And so what we do is not. Meaningless. I mean, they're man, I can read you. I save I get these emails that are, you know, some of them like we do a Thanksgiving takeout thing.

43:48So, you know, we cook your turkey, you come pick it up the day before, do all that, you know. I got a letter last year from somebody that I, you know, like she's literally like my dad. This is our last Thanksgiving. He's got glioblastoma and he doesn't eat much anymore. But he ate all your food. And it was great because we could get all the family together. That means something to me. And it meant something to that family. And having lost a ton of people to cancer, I was like, that's pretty cool. You know, it's not meaningless. You never know. We talk about that all the time. You never know what kind of day the person that you're waiting on had. I mean, it's a live performance every night. It's crazy. People wait in line. You have no idea when they walk up to that counter, what kind of mood they're going to be in. I've got a pretty good idea. Just from looking at me. No, no, no. I'm a I'm a pretty good poker player. I've got a pretty good idea. No, but I mean, you know, they could have they could have the best day of their life. They could have the worst day of their life. Right. That's what we should do tonight. These guys got to play some cards if they're if they're all just glowering. I mean, I think you get it.

44:48But, you know, I mean, there are you just don't know why they're there. We know they're there to eat, but it could be the best day. It could be the worst day. It could just be another day. I love what you just now said. And I use that. It's so funny because I've never heard anybody say it just like that, like because that's that's something I say on a regular basis that we don't know if the person just got divorced, if they just got married, if they just won the lottery, if they just put their dog down. We don't know what they're where they're at when they walk in. But I know when they leave that they need to be better. And I had this these two women came in. I've told this story on the show before. I'll tell you guys, I'll make it really fast. These two women came into the Green Hills Grill. And this is a massive community restaurant, right? Every we know everybody comes in and said, ladies, how are we doing? They said, we're OK. So where's your favorite place to sit? And we've never been here. I go, you've never been here? Like a holy cow. Well, do you want a booth or a table? It took him back to a booth. Super nice came back. We got him, John, the server. John, I think these brand new first time guests. I come back, do the whole thing and got him some dessert.

45:50First time guest dessert. And I came back, so ladies, how was everything today? And she goes, you know what? We just left. This is my mom. We just left our father's funeral this morning and we just needed to get away. And we wanted to go somewhere that we didn't remind us of him. And this is the best experience that we've this is exactly what we needed. You guys crushed it. I would never have known that at those little moments. That's why I do this. That's why that that's the thing that sucks me out of the sheets every day is that second to have people who walk in the door and them to go, wow, we're better now having experienced what we had. That's what makes for that. That's what makes some of these reviews. I'm going to tie it back to that. More confounding is that the idea that you want it. You weren't interested in somebody having a positive outcome in your restaurant is insane to me. Yeah, it just it makes no sense to me. It also makes no sense to me that the group of people on this planet who have basically the least amount of respect showed shown towards them are the people touching your food.

46:53It's right. My wife's a teacher. The people who are teaching your kids shows my your doctor, you know, they're going to grow up to be doctors and fly planes and, you know, do things that are really important, have such like such are so low on the totem pole when it comes to like respect for whatever. And I always laugh when I because, you know, the business we work in is more fast casual or the business that I own. Oh, you need to have high school kids working. It's like, you know, high school kids go to high school. So there needs to be adult. Am I supposed to only think they're not the most reliable? Right. Am I supposed to open at four o'clock every day? Is that what we're doing here now? Like this is a restaurant. We have experienced people cooking your food so that you feel good about it. Right. And they deserve the same amount of respect that you think you deserve. So I would say to you guys, I don't know what they're going through. I know I've had employees show up who are having a rough day. So, look, guys, we make people happy. If you don't think you can make somebody happy today, just take the day off.

47:55I'll take care of you. Right. Like, don't don't force it. But people are coming here to be happy, and it's our goal to make sure that we give them every opportunity to achieve that. When we come back, we are going to be talking about the giving kitchen. Stay tuned. Unleash the Wolf with Campo Bravo Tequila. Campo Bravo is a 100 percent agave tequila with a bold, smooth flavor. Perfect for sipping neat as a shot or in cocktails. Campo Bravo is also certified additive free, which means there are no artificial flavors or sweeteners in Campo Bravo, like there are in many other brands. Campo Bravo gives you all the bold, smooth flavor you want in a tequila with nothing you don't. Campo Bravo is actually truly farm to bottle tequila, meaning our fifth generation agave farmers meticulously control entire production process from the farm to the bottle to give you the highest quality handcrafted tequila.

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51:12They have the variety of products to cover all of your needs. Produce, seafood, meats, gourmet, staples, to go and dairy. At 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. How about we talk about the Giving Kitchen? I'm up for it. I think that we're talking about restaurant workers. We're talking about the people that handle your food, the way you treat people. And if you're unfamiliar with the Giving Kitchen, the Giving Kitchen helps restaurant workers.

52:14So if you're a restaurant worker and you break your ankle, you're out skateboarding and you break your ankle. You're at work or you're not at work. But you can't go to work and you work in a restaurant and you can't. I got to have surgery on my ankle and I can't work for a month. What am I going to do? I don't have insurance. I don't have anything. Well, you can contact the Giving Kitchen. You can put a request in and say, look, I need help. I need help paying my mortgage. I need help paying my bills while I'm down with this thing. You want to go to rehab. You know, one of the things is in this industry, mental health is a massive issue. And so the easiest fix is we all know that mental health is a bottle. You know, you're not doing well. You pick up a bottle, you start drinking. Some people that gets out of control. Some people can't handle that. And you know what? If you're paycheck to paycheck and you're trying to live a life, rehab is expensive and you got to go away for 28 days. Who's going to pay for all my stuff while I'm gone? This is where the Giving Kitchen can come in and they can help restaurant workers. And I absolutely love that.

53:17And we've got two people here who are massively involved in the Giving Kitchen. I'd just like to talk about it for a little bit. Well, I would say this. We were talking earlier about covid and how the employee landscape changed in the restaurant industry. And I would run into restaurant owners or just random people and say, no, these people just don't want to work. And this is a true conversation with the restaurant owner. I said, no, man, they don't want to work for you. OK, that's what that means, because my workers are showing up. I'm paying these guys. OK, you're not treating your employee properly. That's, you know, that's one of the things. The other thing is, is that the restaurant and working at a restaurant sucks. OK, it's not. No, but I mean, it's not fun to sit in an 80 degree, 90 degree kitchens. You know, I'll say it's hard. It's not hard. It's not rewarding. It's the only industry in the world where somebody can live Facebook. They're shaming you, you know, like, you know, like people can sit at their table and just live that whole like trend.

54:19I don't know what you're talking about. There's this whole trend right now. You can literally sit at this happened during covid at a restaurant in Dunwoody. When I was a woman who was unhappy with her experience and she's live face, she's typing while she's at the restaurant. Instead of talking to the owner who is in the kitchen, what's the big burrito chain right now? I should know it. Chipotle. Yes. So there's this whole thing right now, evidently, that people, when they get their order, because they make it in front of you, are filming it because they feel like they get more food. And then if something like if we're at that stage, well, and that's bad. But that's kind of my point is that if you want it, why would you want to work in that industry? Why would you want to work at Chipotle or any restaurant? So it's a it's a really difficult job. It has a lot of, again, it's one of the lowest on the totem pole. Right. And so the given kitchen being involved for me, being involved in the kitchen has two or two things about it. One is my dad was in the shoe industry and he was heavily involved in a in an organization called the two ten foundation. And their motto is shoe people helping shoe people.

55:21It's very similar if you worked in a shoe store and you broke your leg and you couldn't work and you were, you know, earning a living. That's how you're earning a living. You could apply for funds and they would help you out. So when I cool. So when I started my restaurant, I started, you know, I was in. I think I donated the giving kitchen randomly at some point, but I didn't really know a lot about it. But that's what the that's what the giving kitchen does for the food service and for food service workers, food service industry, helping the food service industry. So it's very important for me to be involved, to keep people, to let people know they're valuable to what we do. And they're an integral part of the restaurant community. And we don't want you to feel like you have to leave to go find happiness somewhere else. Right. So if you are having a mental, you know, if you're having a mental issue, like we want you to we want to help you out. It happens a lot. Right. So to me, to me, I mean, I'm not I'm not. I mean, to this, too. Well, I was called crazy. I was called unhinged, narcissistic and insane in a Facebook post the other day.

56:24So maybe I know they didn't mean me. Maybe they might have confused. Well, I thought the I thought the funniest could have been the funniest part was it was a person the definition of posting something online in general is. I mean, that's the definition of narcissism to some point. Right. Look at me. Look at me. Secondly, I think unhinges hurling insults at somebody who you've never met. I think it's insane that you think this is the proper place to do it. Right. So but but that's the industry we're looking at. So the reason I just the reason I defend myself in these public forums is because my employees read these things. And I'm not going to let somebody try out some one of my employees. No. Right. They're going to like, oh, my. I don't know if you've noticed this when you've gone and read other reviews or or talk to the restaurant owners. Most of these people's first instinct is to apologize. I'm not apologizing for anything if my guy didn't do anything wrong. OK, I'm just not. I mean, if they did something wrong, I sit down and talk to them. Hey, are my general response is like, I'd love to talk further with you about this. Right.

57:26And like, here's my email, like email me. And every once in a while, they do. And generally, I've never I've never I've actually I've actually gotten I would say one out of 100. But the the couple I've had have actually led to some good conversations. But it just shows you they're they're venting and all. I mean, I you know, I think the the thing about our industry for so many people and and it's the same in in other industries that are perceived as more sort of important and or lucrative like lawyers trade time for money. Well, guess what? Restaurant workers, the majority of us trade time for money, right? Whether you're behind a grill, you're working in a kitchen, you're serving people, you're trading time for money. When you trade time for money and you can't work and you don't have that time, you don't have money. And you have obligations and other stuff like that. So if we can step in and help out, I think it's really important. And I think. You know, I think part of it, I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I was drawn to restaurants for many reasons, but one of them was it was the pirate ship that I felt the most comfortable on.

58:38And I use that analogy very, very importantly, you know, intentionally, like it's a pirate ship, a pirate ship and different types of restaurants or different types of pirate ships. And we can expound on this crazy analogy that I have at some point. But it. I mean, just that idea of what you said about 210, like, take care of your own people, but also take care of the people that take care of you. I think COVID did do some. It did so many tough things for our industry, but for many people, it did put a stark light on the value of the fact that they missed us. They missed being able to come out and get taken care of. They missed, you know, like going to have experiences and how quickly often we forget whatever it is. And that's been hard. But just this idea that like. There's no one around with us that should have to make a choice between feeding their children or going to get chemotherapy because they can't afford to take an Uber.

59:40Like, that's that's that's bullshit. That's not that's not a cool or be shamed for not having a college degree that they get paid six figures a year. Yeah. And they're doing something that you feel is menial and not worth it. I got I got that. That's when I'll get my hackles up with people that like, you know, like they are doing important things because I don't care what anyone says. The person working your grill every day, working that griddle. And they care deeply. They want every burger to go out and be great. Right. Like, I guarantee you, they do like they wouldn't work for you. No, I was you if they did. So you said something earlier about giving shit. So what I've been asked, like, what's the success of NFA burger? I'm like, we give a shit. That's actually the answer I guess. Like, what do you mean? I said, I empower my staff to be perfect. It's one of the first job any of these guys have ever had working for me where they they feel like it's OK to mess up. And redo something, because I'd rather it be right when it leaves the door than save a dollar fifty and whatever it is.

01:00:44They messed up on. Oh, yeah. So I empower my staff to make perfect burgers every time. Now, do they make them every time? I'm sure there's a percentage that leave, but it's not because they're lazy and it's not because they don't care. But mistakes happen. Yeah. I can't know. Not in the right. No, you're wrong. You're wrong. Not in the restaurant industry. OK, it's the only industry where you have to be perfect. 100 percent of the time. And that's I tell you, you know, back to the giving stuff. I think it's just a really interesting thing. You mentioned the tipping earlier and potential like tip fatigue is real. Right. There are two things that get me like I literally went in for an oil change the other day and they flip the screen around. And I was like, you're just trying to get away with paying people less and have me foot the bill. I mean, I understand there's a tipping culture. And I probably should think more about this before I open my mouth. But that's not you can edit it. That's not my M.O. at all. As anyone that knows me will say, like, I do think like we're getting closer and closer to the hospitality included of just saying like, hey, we're going to pay everyone a living wage.

01:01:53And this is what it costs to do. We're going to add a 20 percent service charge and we're going to pay everybody. And we're going to we're going to do that. And I think, you know, when when Danny Meyer tried it and went away from it, I think it was too early. I think COVID has potentially changed things. It'll be interesting to see. You know, if anything comes of it, because I do think we're edging closer to the fact that we're getting there, because wouldn't you rather know at some point? It's sort of like. I get frustrated, I love to go see live music and I get frustrated when I buy tickets and it's like, yeah, the ticket's sixty five dollars, it's a hundred twelve and it's literally one hundred and twelve bucks. And you're like, well, how the fuck did I end up here? Like, just tell me it's one hundred and twelve. Let me make it a convenience. But but to your point about like you knew what it costs. Like when someone comes to NFA, it's posted right there. The burger is X. Right. Right. The menu, the cost of the cost is right in front of your face.

01:02:56But but I don't think it is like with the concert tickets. And I don't think it is with some of the tipping and I mean, things like that. It's like, wouldn't you just rather say like it's twenty dollars instead of it's fourteen dollars and then you add tax and you add tip and you add everything else on. Here's what's happening is that large companies are supplementing. I interviewed a woman whose whose parents owned ten subways. Oh, they're supplementing their income with tips. And I said, how is it going to subway? She goes, oh, man, we're crushing it since we implemented tipping. And I go, tell me more about that. She goes, well, we we have technology now that on our little iPads, we just changed it, we can put in 18, 20 or 23 percent. She was we were paying people 17 to 23 dollars an hour. Now we pay an eleven dollar flat rate and we've incorporated tipping and they've never made more money. And I went, so you're a multinational company who's then now a public company. You've decided to take everybody's pay down 40 percent. And now you're taxing the guest another 20 percent on top of the sandwich.

01:03:59Are you guys at least filling the drinks for everybody? No, no, no. Are you clearing their tables? Are you what are you doing to provide a service? We're making the sandwich. I go, did you lower the price of the sandwich? No, actually, our prices went up. So you didn't do anything. Your shares went up 10 percent because now you're taxing the gas additional 20 percent because you wanted more money. That's fucking wrong. But here here. Pardon my French. No, but here we get a little bit into this. So first off, we take tips at NFA. We do bring the order out to your car. We do, you know, run to do. There's the service and I'm not in and I pay my guys. I was going to say you pay your guy. And I pay my people. You know, I guarantee I guarantee them a certain hourly rate. If the tips don't max, don't make it above that, I guarantee them they'll make. We do 15 dollars for every employee that we have. Right. So I guarantee you what my people make regardless of the tips. So but what I will say is that just lost my train of thought. That's interesting that it's interesting that all three of us have a guaranteed wage structure.

01:05:03Well, like because we have the same thing. We have X amount of like, look, you're like doesn't matter who you are. You're going to make at least 17 dollars an hour. Everything. So what I was getting at was. The private equity for portion of that conversation about subway. So I'll start with Red Lobster. OK, so I ran and I was at the restaurant show a couple of weeks ago, and I ran into this CEO of another company, it's a regional company up in the Midwest that has like 45 restaurants. And I was somehow we got to talk about Red Lobster is like, oh, well, private equity, let those guys try. They owned all their real estate. They converted it. They sold it off and they turned it into leases. And I don't know how much of this is 100 percent. It's OK. Right. Right. I've read it. Right. OK. So they converted all of it to leases. And then it it jacked the cost of everything up. And then now they have to sell things off. Now they're closing restaurants. Right. So the people are like, oh, the economy is bad. No, no, no, that's greed. That's greed.

01:06:04OK. So, you know, the company that bought Subway is is local. Is that right? Didn't to work by it. I don't know. I think work. I think work about it. I'm pretty sure because there's an anti I think there's going to be antitrust between them and Jimmy John's. He's Chris is going to Google it. Google is your friend. But, you know, that's that's a spreadsheet thing. Right. Like that's not like when they were like, oh, we can buy X company. Here's how we're going to make our money back. That's that's strategy. That's not, you know, am I right? I can't. I got no signal to Google, not able to Google. So that's strategy. Right. That's not economy. That's not that's just greed. Yeah. That's to some extent. Right. But that's how they're paying for this. That's how they're paying for Subway or that's how Red Lobster, these private equity guys, they made their money. Right. Red Lobster didn't go out of business and the private equity people lost out. No, they they they scraped it dry.

01:07:06But who loses out is the employees. Right. So, you know, and that's that's the toughest part. So what I love is a place in this land where we all just paid extra. We all agree to pay extra money for food. Yeah. But then that's just it's never going to work out that way because there's always going to be a group of people who aren't going to do it that way. I'm I think the tipping is really interesting. And we've had we've done full shows about tipping. I have a game where I pay. I have a game where I do. Should you tip? And it's like you go to the gas station, you pump your gas yourself. Should you tip? Like, no. OK, you go to the grocery store and you go through the not the self check out, but you go through the other check out and somebody scans all your stuff. Should you tip? You go to Home Depot and you're painting your hallway and you don't know anything about paint. And a guy walks you through and helps you pick out a paint, a paint color, a satin finish, an egg shell, goes through all that, blends it for you and sends you on your way. Do you tip that guy?

01:08:07You go to the butcher at Kroger and the guy you go, you know, I want a barrel cut. Can you get like a Chateau Brion? Can you hook me up in the back? Can you cut me a barrel cut fillet? And the guy goes, yeah, dude, I got you. And he goes back there and cuts that for you and brings to you. Should you tip that guy? Because you know what? I do. I do tip that guy. I give that guy a five spot at Home Depot. I tip the guy at Home Depot. So is it is it for like, is the tip for a service rendered? Is it for going above and beyond? Because for me, it's like not only are you rendering a service, but you're like, you know, the company should probably pay you for rendering the service. Your employer probably should. That's what I do. You do something outside of that. I mean, that was like special. I want this big center cut fillet. I'm asking you to do extra work, extra work. Here, brother. Here's a little something for you. I appreciate you. That was the interesting thing is all of us probably over tip because we are incredibly sensitive to being the person that like you don't want to be the restaurant guy that doesn't tip.

01:09:07That is the worst look ever. I sort of changed my first off. I always I've always been a pretty good tipper because my dad was. Yeah, right. That was my dad was here. My dad was a commission sales guy in the shoe business, and he always took care of people. OK. But I made the second time I had covid. I was in bed and. I had a small season ticket package, like a 10 game plan to the Hawks. And I couldn't go to the game, so I contacted my guy and I said, look, I can't go to this game. Can I get this other game is like, no, we're sold out of all these other games. You can have this game. I was like, well, I don't want to go to that. I want that game. Right. And I get it. I mean, if the other one sold out, I can't go. Right. But then I read an article online and it was about Trey Young and Trey Young was talking about how he went into practice that day and didn't recognize any of the people at practice because everybody else was home for covid. They had all been in contact with somebody. And so he went into practice when they didn't know the names of any of the players. But they were still going to play that game.

01:10:09OK. And in the NBA, you pay surge pricing, basically. If it's the Warriors, you pay more money. If it's the Hornets, you pay less money for a game. But they're not like, they're not giving you any of the money back when all the players on the quarter, people who are in the G League yesterday. So I had this I sent the NBA an email. I had a lot of time during and I got the email addresses of like every executive in the NBA. And I sent them this email and I just laid it all out. I said, you guys should just shut this down or cancel games. But you can't expect people who work hard for their money. Well, you paid for X and you're not getting X. You're getting it. It's a bait. Right. You're getting you're getting a minor league game. So either give me my money back or give me a credit or do something. But recognize that. Right. I work hard for my own. I recognize it. OK. I got an email back. And it said, we we can play any game. Our rule is if we have seven players, we can play the game. And I wrote him back, I go, that's not the question. I didn't ask you what your rule. Yeah, I know. I know. I know what the rule is, obviously, if you what you're doing, you're doing it right now.

01:11:10Right. If you find any 12 people in America who are willing to put a jersey on, you'll charge $150 for a ticket. So guy I know with the Hawks, we had a talk. He's like, you know, I'm just going to give you the money back for the rest of the season, because I said, if I show up to that Golden State game. And Steph Curry and Clay Thompson and Draymond Green. Are not playing and I paid a premium for that ticket. We're going to have a problem. Isn't that the whole the whole thing that's happening now? These rest days, these guys, you know, but I said you're seeing it with messy in MLS. Right. Well, I think those guys in Portland a couple of weeks ago or wherever it was route, Salt Lake or wherever people paying two grand. And then he's like, I've been here and it happened here in Atlanta. I think it happened last year. It did happen here in Atlanta. I've seen him twice in Nashville. I've seen the biggest in Nashville, I see. So I've got him twice so far. So I sat back and I thought about it and said, you know what? I'm not I'm probably not going to go pay for games anymore. I'm going to overtip. That's just like now I tip nicely anyway.

01:12:13But I said, I'm going to take this money that I would spend and just over in, you know, giving, you know, guys who are out speeding and causing car accidents, you know, and I'm paying the salary for these guys. I'm going to go give it to people who touch my food, who are a part of my industry. People who want to. You also derive genuine enjoyment and pleasure from it as you would a game. Right. I mean, I went out to a nice dinner last night and I went to Kevin Gillespie's new place. My wife just completed her 30th year of teaching. We're headed toward our 26 year, 26 year anniversary. Congrats, man. So I decide. So I said, hey, let's go have a nice meal. So we went to Kevin's new place. I'm going to butcher it when I say it in a dare. In the dare. OK, so I just said it right. OK. We had a great time. Was it good? The service was fantastic. The food was fantastic. And at the end, I left a. Larger than normal tip, because I enjoyed myself much like you. You know, you get your steak from the butcher takes time or the Home Depot guys like, you know what? I know a lot about this pain. I'm going to help you out.

01:13:15I had a great time last night and I'm happy to pay for a great time. And I'm happy to pay these people. And I'm not judging them because they're a server at a restaurant. I have no idea that she could have six degrees. I have no clue. Right. It doesn't matter. This person took care of us. The guys in the kitchen group in the kitchen, they provided a first class meal. I know they enjoyed me being there. And I was happy to take care of them. And so that's the that's my now. That's my philosophy has been I'm going to go to restaurants and I'm going to take care of the people that work there because those are the people you're also easy to take care of, which is which is helpful. Like, and it's not just that it's not just the tips. Like, man, tables that, you know, run you for everything and do all that. Like, you know, but you're you you engaged them, I'm sure. Right. I mean, like you talked with the server. You asked questions. You did things like that has to make their experience better. Right. Do you know what I want to normalize for people like us paying for your food?

01:14:18You probably know a lot of people in town and you go to places and they go, hey, man, I'm going to hook you up. And I don't let people I don't let people hook me in the local restaurant. I always say, no, no, no. Charge me. I'm here to support you. I don't want anything for free. Yeah, there's such a weird like. The more money you make, the more free food you get. Yeah. And I also think it's like it's like a weird it's actually why I think a lot of chefs around town, it's not just because we like the food and it's interesting, but a lot of us eat on Beaufort Highway and eat at small ethnic places is because they don't know you and who we are. Yeah. And you get charged and you know, the other thing that's equally weird is like sometimes I'm with my wife or I'm on my way to a game or I'm doing something. And I just want to go in and get a burger and go home, like or go where I'm going. Like, I really appreciate that you want to send me three things. It's very generous of you. I like and it's rude. You can't be like, yeah, man, I don't really want to eat these three things. How do you get the fuck out of here?

01:15:19You got to sit and eat them, right? Like, like and so I do think it's like this weird quid pro quo thing of. But, you know, there's a converse side of that that plays back into the giving kitchen that has been kind of the one thing that actually restores my faith and in a lot of what we do is that, you know, like I didn't know Billy, you know, we haven't known each other forever, but I knew he had a great restaurant. I've had burgers there. I enjoyed it. And all of a sudden he's like, I want to get involved with the giving kitchen. I just think it's so cool that, you know, in many towns and in many industries, it can be so cutthroat and everyone can be like just at each other and looking for that minute edge to get ahead. And restaurants have rallied together to do this. Giving kitchen doesn't exist without a whole lot of people going, this is worthwhile, this is cool and supporting it. And it really is our industry. And it's it's really cool to see how many people set everything else aside to come together to help people.

01:16:25Can we talk about dining with gratitude? Absolutely. I mean, we cannot. Well, I mean, if this is a we're talking about restaurants and if you're a restaurant owner, which is the primary listener to this podcast, how can they get involved? We talk about dining with gratitude. You know more about it than I do. Sure. Dining with gratitude is is just a program that GK runs to basically help restaurants give back and they can. You can opt in and opt in to to help us to make a donation. You can, you know, I mean, talk about your burger. I mean, I think it's a perfect example of we were talking about it before we were on the air. So last last year when dining was last year, the first dining with gratitude. We did it pre covid and we brought it back last year for the first time. So. Brandon is going back to Nashville, I think, right now and leaving us with the equipment. He might be going into the distillery. So I created.

01:17:26So last year, when dining, dining with gratitude came on, came giving kitchen, came to me and asked me to be a part of it. I was like, absolutely. Now I had already done a burger event, a charity event for the giving kitchen. And I've been donating money all year. And then quite honestly, when dining with gratitude came, when they came to me and asked me to be a part, I struggled with how to be a part of it because I couldn't figure out how to still be profitable and donate money. It was a struggle for me. It's a struggle in the restaurant industry. If you're not in business, then you have no money. You have no money to donate to the giving kitchen. So. So I decided to take this burger I did for my birthday, which was a code name Waffle House. I never got my cease and desist letter, by the way. I'll make sure I make sure they send you. I'm about to get another one for an event. We'll talk about we'll talk about that. So I created this. It's called the giving kitchen burger. And it's smashed, scattered, smothered and covered. So if you've been to Waffle House.

01:18:27Potato scattered, covered. Yeah, right. So it's a double it's our double cheeseburger sauce on the bottom. Smashed tater tots, grilled onions on top and another slice of cheese. So we put it on the menu. Yeah, it's a good it's a good day. It's a good day. So we put it on the menu. I think actually one of my highlights was getting the feed. Walt Emmer, the CEO of Waffle House, one of his burger, one of these burgers and Paul Brown, actually. So we put it on the menu and we charge an extra four dollars and it's on our main message, our main menu board. So now I have an always on dining with gratitude burger. But it's really mostly for October, like one month. But instead of donating a thousand dollars in one month, I'm going to donate five to ten grand this year just from putting this burger on the menu that's there all the time. That's so so. And I think I don't know if it's a part of dining with gratitude, but what did Michael Lennox do in those guys? They donated a lot of money. Yeah, they they had done some stuff over covid and really came through.

01:19:31I mean, dining with gratitude really serves two purposes. One for restaurant folks, you know, pick a menu item, whatever you want to do. And, you know, like Billy said, add a couple of bucks to it. But, you know, say, hey, profits from this are going to go through or two dollars from everyone we serve. But if you put it on the menu, it's equally as important as the money, because we need people to know about GK, right? We need to spread the word and so people understand what we're doing and why it's important, because it's a compelling story. Right. So if we can have opportunities to tell that story. So this is a month and you can stretch it out and do more like Billy has for people to, you know, commit to doing something for the giving kitchen, get involved and spread the word to their guests about what we're what we're doing. I think that you could do a summer of giving right now. I mean, this is July comes out. Yeah, this is July.

01:20:33And you had a summer giving. I think the holiday season is the time when the most people need. It's cold. You need the what is it? The Waffle House. It's in the system. There's Waffle House. But we did one hundred and seventy last month. Yeah, which is with no skin off my back. So eight hundred and fourteen dollars. What is the week for a week for somebody? Yeah, it's it's right now. The number is about eight hundred and twenty four dollars. I think there's a whole it takes care of a restaurant industry worker for a week. So that's rent, food, bills. I mean, and the average, you know, it's funny, when we first started, we thought the average grant, I literally remember sitting around and going, OK, well, we want to give five grants a year because we think the average grants can be thirty five thousand dollars. Right. And I think the first year, the average grant was like twelve hundred dollars. And now it's like eight hundred. It's it's the average grant is something around twenty three hundred because it's like a couple months for the person that does break their ankle or whatever. So but it really provides them between eight and twelve weeks of relief.

01:21:37Right. Because it makes sure there's food on the table. It makes sure your cell phone stays on. By the way, that's a necessity. Anyone else? I mean, you got to have our scheduling is all done via. I mean, gas, electric, water. I walk in the restaurants now and I'm like, there's no schedule posted. And I like I kind of like I'm so a lot of people, they don't have cable. They don't. This is their entertainment. Is there entertainment? So I was watching it keeps the daily show last night from my phone in the hotel. It keeps the phone on. It keeps the lights on. It keeps the kids fed. And, you know, it's not a long period of time. I think the thing that we you know, when we found out it was about Ryan, his cancer diagnosis in this long battle, this is a this is a bridge. It's a bridge to get people for a couple months through a difficult situation. And then they're back on their feet. But if they don't have that bridge, they fall into a hole. And that hole is really hard to you. And you talked about it earlier, the mental part of this. Most mental and I'm most I have no idea what most is, but a number of issues related to your mental wellness, well-being or financial related. Right. So a lot of right.

01:22:48Right. So somebody so somebody gets a broken foot. Their first thought is, oh, my God, I'm. I'm going to be homeless in three months because I have no money. You know, I might be I'm living paycheck to paycheck. Not only I'm going to be homeless, but I'm a provider and I have children and I have a spouse and I am not my children are going to be homeless. I mean, that's the issue for me. I think, you know, we started keeping statistics a couple years ago and the number of kids that are affected by GK, they they might not. I mean, they don't generally work, so they're not receiving the grant. But so much of the money goes to feed and house them. And it is a mental health issue as well. Right. If you're if you're constantly worried about about where you're, you know, if you're going to have a roof over your head. And I think, you know, I hope each of you have this experience. I've been privileged to have it several times is that you will be somewhere. And it's it's it's a while. It's what it's it's GK out in the wild.

01:23:49It's the wild encounter where you literally are eating in a restaurant and you have a giving kitchen hat on or whatever. And someone's like, oh, GK, what do you know about that? And you're like, oh, you know, I'm I'm I'm involved. I did this. And and sometimes they'll look and they'll go, yeah, I got a grant. And I would have been homeless if it wasn't. And my kids wouldn't. And like, there's nothing in the world more gratifying than that. I promise you for me, like when that it's like takes your breath away. Like I ran into a woman who's like, my mom was our caregiver and I was 16 and she passed away and you guys paid for the funeral and did everything and made sure we had food on the table. And like now I'm in the industry, I'm working as a server and I give, you know, a dollar a paycheck. Like, that's so cool that so many of the people that have received grants for us are still involved and are giving back to the organization, whether it's time, testimonials, money in many cases.

01:24:50But it's just a testament to how impactful what we provide is. Right. I mean, it's it's just the, you know, the the pop up docs that we're able to do the I mean, those pop up docs, like so many. That's the only time so many people see a doctor in years. The collaborations with better help. I mean, there's so many. Yeah, I think there's so much important stuff. I mean, you know, we've unfortunately in our organization been impacted with a with a team member taking their life. Oh, man. Everybody, everybody during COVID. And it was one of the hardest things I've had to go through. And, you know, being able to have services for people to call, being able to have suicide prevention training, which is free for all restaurant free for any restaurant work. Go online and sign up for it and do it. Yeah, it's it's you're going to learn a lot. You're going to learn a lot about yourself as well.

01:25:55I did that because I'm I'm a sober guy and I'm four and a half years. But anybody in any of our restaurants that has any kind of drinking problem or any kind of those type situations immediately. Hey, get Brandon involved, because that's my thing. And I it's it's I've sat with people who are you have no idea they're right on the edge. And I've sat with people and I've just put my arms around. It's like, dude, it's OK. And I've had that training and it's amazing. You never know when you're going to need it or when that moment's going to happen. So I recommend you bring up a good thing that we really haven't talked a lot about that I think is really important that that giving kitchen is doing, which is the stability network, which is all this kind of training. But it's also, you know, let's say someone does want to go and get sober. It's oftentimes not only yes, we can help you pay your rent while you're gone for that twenty eight days. You know what else we can do? We can help you find this facility that works for you, that may work with your insurance, that like who's the best, who works around schedules, who like and it's not just that it's a place.

01:26:58I mean, how many people in our industry do we know that if they have an issue with their transmission? Talk about mental health. They're worried about where they're going to get the eleven hundred dollars to fix their transmission so they can get to work. And they're fixated on that. And and they should be right. It's their job and their livelihood. The kid like what happens if we find, you know, we have here in Atlanta some mechanics that will do jobs and take payment plans, as opposed to you have to pay me the eleven hundred all at once. Right. So this stability network is a really, really powerful tool. I mean, financial literacy like if you know how you like. We each have our thing like or I can't say this. I have my things that really piss me off. Right. You were talking about my thing. No, let me tell you what really I've got a note file. Like, right. Exactly. I've probably got like, but I'll tell you, like, like, and I'm I'm not I try not to offend people or be that guy. But if you run an organization that cashes checks for people and takes 20 percent of that check, you are a serious piece of shit.

01:28:05And I will punch you in the face if I see. I mean, let's go. Where is it? Literally, you're cashing someone's check that, you know, is good and taking 20 percent. How do you sleep at night? Like, so if we can help people in a mansion is their answer. Yeah. Right. And that's OK, because you don't give a shit about anyone but you. Right. And like, that's infinity stone. Those people. It just makes me so angry. You can hear my voice. What if we can teach people financial literacy and how to not lose that 20 percent? Because you know who the people that are losing the 20 percent, the absolute people that can't afford to the. Yeah. Right. It's also the 100 percent people that can't afford to the banks charge thirty six dollars when you overdraft, overdraft the people that overdraft their check in account don't have the thirty six dollars. And that's why they also don't have the ability to say, hey, that's too much. Right. So if we can start with the Stability Network to fight financial literacy, I mean, to help financial literacy and fight that, those type of fees and things like that, it just benefits everybody involved.

01:29:09So I think this is a good good time to challenge people. If you own a restaurant out there, create a menu item just like Billy did, where he's got the the giving kitchen burger. Codename Waffle House. Codename. Send me the cease and desist, Mr. Rogers. Send me the cease and desist. If you can create a menu. So think about this. If you create a menu item and you add to 50 to that, you sell a hundred of them. That's twenty five hundred dollars. That takes care of a food service worker in need for an entire month. Two hundred and fifty dollars. It to that's OK. But if we do it every month, then you're right. My math is wrong. You're right. Twenty five dollars extra. And you do a hundred of those. You have twenty five hundred. But if you did that for multiple months. Yeah. You do that for just create an always on program. It's no it's it takes no effort. So I'll tell you, my my investment into this, though, is I have three digital screens. OK. And you guys know how this works. If you have stuff on the screen, people see it and buy it. OK. So last year, last month, we did 70 giving kitchen burgers.

01:30:12It's dedicated on one screen. If I put waffles and cookies up there, which we sell, I would sell more waffles and cookies every month. OK. So I sell fewer waffles and fewer cookies every month and we're giving kitchen burgers. But I'm OK with that. Yeah. OK. Like it's no it's me. It's no skin off my back. I'd go eyes wide open. I mean, look, if you're a restaurant owner, too, sir, like just get involved, get involved, just get involved for the sake of your employees. Get involved so they have the resources. Tell your employees, but in line up people to line up. Yeah. Let us talk about it. I tell you what's one of the most interesting phenomenon that we've had, particularly breaking into new markets like I mean, Nashville is not new anymore. But as we get Charlotte and there there is there's honestly of it's there's a wariness of the employee to be like, what's the catch? Nobody gives like we literally have people like I'm not going to do it because they're going to come back two years from now and ask for the money back.

01:31:12I'm like, there's no catch. And the only way to get around that and to really get people to believe in it is once they start, it's the six degrees of giving kitchen. Right. Like once they find someone that's gotten a grant and they realize there's no catch and then someone else feels empowered to apply for a grant and then someone else does. Then we get some critical mass behind it. I think I think one thing that I think is important, it all goes back to the mental health and the. Understanding that you're not going to get someone's not going to come back to and charge you 20 percent usury fee is the ability for the people you work for to allow you or give you the platform to talk to you. Right. To ask for help or to open themselves up a little. Right. So that you can help them. Most restaurants. And this is the other thing I've asked. I asked the giving kitchen for a list of restaurants that have participated with the giving kitchen.

01:32:13And so two Saturdays ago, my wife and I were going out for dinner. I said, where do you want to go? She was like, let's go for Mexican. I said, OK, pulled up the spreadsheet, the list, pulled up a spreadsheet, found all my kachina, said, all right, we like all my kachina, we're going to go there. And that's where I'm spending my money, because those people. Oh, my God. That was awesome. That was really loud. I'm so sorry about that. That's right. That's pretty funny. Because those in that video, because I know all the kachina supports the giving kitchen. I'm happy to support a restaurant that supports the giving kitchen, because I know that if somebody who works in all the kachina needed help, and went to their went to their boss or went to the owners and asked for help or asked for guidance, they would make time to give. Now, I don't know these people. But if you're involved with the giving kitchen, that's kind of your mentality. Right. If you go to Chris or Ryan or Todd and ask for help, they're not going to say like, hey, man, I don't have time. Right. They're going to help. They're going to direct you down the right path, just like I do with my staff. If my staff first had a guy start day one, it's like I'm having a problem with my car.

01:33:17Hey, take it across the street. Done with the automotive. Jay is going to take a look at it. I'll fix it. Guy didn't even work one shift. Right. But he can't get to work. He can't pay for things. He can't pay his bills. Right. That doesn't mean if you can work for me, I'm going to take care of your car every time. But I recognize you have a network of people that you're willing to share. But I recognize that. I'll tell you, my dad told me he used to have this stack of bills of letters on his desk every Sunday. So my dad traveled Monday through Friday. Friday night, family dinner, Saturday night, he and my mom would go out, go out Sunday night after dinner, he would sit down and pay bills. And he had this stack of charity envelopes, you know, like March of Times and all, you know, you're sure you used to get those envelopes. And yeah, yeah, totally. St. Jude's being from Memphis, St. Jude's is very important to me. But it was like a stack. And I said, what's a stack over here? And he's like, oh, that's a charity stack. He said every week I pick two envelopes and I write a check for 25 bucks.

01:34:21Now, I said, why do you do that? He said, look, there's always somebody who's less fortunate than you. I can't afford to give all the money I want to these guys, but I can help somebody. So, you know, what I would say to anybody listening to this journey restaurant to get involved, you don't have to create a menu item on your burger that generates five to 10 grand a month. You don't have to generate millions of dollars like Chris has done for many charities in his time in the restaurant industry or Ryan and Todd give something right. Just give what you can give. It doesn't have to be a monumental check. I can't stress what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, you just have to find something. Maybe you don't have that glass of whiskey one week. OK, maybe you don't. Maybe you just take that $20 or whatever and you go into the given kitchen website and you donate it. Maybe that's your the $20 you give. I'm not asking you to have a thousand people. Can you have 20 bucks? Can you imagine if every if 50 percent of the restaurant workers in Atlanta gave 50 cents a week, a dollar a paycheck?

01:35:28I'll be able to be like a hundred thousand dollars every two weeks. And the amount of people. And that's 50 cents. And that's 80. That's 80 months of rent. Why can't that's why can't Cisco step up U.S. foods, GFS. I'm going to talk to GFS about this because they're our title sponsor on the show and I love them. And they're they're down to get this on. U.S. foods are heavily involved, but they can always do more. That's what I'm saying is every single invoice. They have something called a fuel surcharge. What if every single invoice and you could send out a mass email to every single customer you have that says, hey, every time we generate an invoice, we're going to add a 50 cent giving kitchen charge and that 50 cent giving kitchen charge just goes to help restaurant workers. And we're going to call this and we're going to match every 50 cents. And you can opt out if you say, no, I don't want part of that. And you opt out. But otherwise, we're going to automatically add it to it. Jimmy invoices, they create a day. The restaurants put 50 cents to every invoice. And if you did that in a month, Cisco nationwide, there's a lot of there's a lot of ways 50 cents a day.

01:36:33And it doesn't have to be Cisco. It can be whoever you know, if your produce company, if you if you sell to us, like I told you earlier, like please don't think I'm not grateful for all the gifts I get at the holiday season from my vendors. It's lovely. I got to start working my vendors more. The best the best. The best gift you can give me is just saying you made a donation of the giving kitchen and we'll write the thank you notes for you for every one of the people you want. So if you would have spent X on gifts to 100 restaurateurs, give that money to the giving kitchen. We'll get people that have had grants written given to them to write a note saying what it meant to them to you. Right. I mean, those kind of things. But if we can harness all this, all the power out there of this, like this thing can be big. And so that's our our real mission right now is it's a we we know what we're doing is important and we know what we're doing, people care about. So now it's how we direct it toward growing it.

01:37:33And Billy's done a great job doing it. You've done a great job doing it. You know, we're just getting started, man. The the the road ahead of us is so much bigger than the road behind us. It's incredible. I think I get and again, we were talking about this before the we started recording. I'm like in the militant stage of being a part of the giving kitchen where I don't understand why when I talk to somebody, I'm like, I don't understand why you're not a part of this. It makes no there's no comprehensible reason that that you can give me. That that you can't just say I'm going to go down and donate fifty dollars, one hundred dollars, ten dollars, whatever it is, there's just no reason for it, because everybody in this country eats out. I like everybody. I I still am militant, but I have to like. Right, you have to dial it down because like there be I get so frustrated. Right. We're talking I get so frustrated, especially when I see fellow restaurant owners that I'm like. And I understand like if you were to have like there are people out there that have a a pet charity for whatever reason.

01:38:40And I don't mean that in a pejorative way, but they have a charity that they're inclined to give to you because something in their life has happened to them. See, and I don't. Yeah. My niece has CF. That's what I'm saying. Like, I know someone who's a friend who's like, you know, they have a child who's a juvenile diabetic and they do a ton with JDR. And that's cool as hell. Right. Because that's affected their life. But if you don't have that thing, like I want and when I see people that aren't doing anything, it does frustrate the hell out of me. It's the biggest. No, Brandon, when I first learned about it, I went, oh, hell, yeah, I've been looking for this is exactly what we need. And then you meet Jen and her story and everything about it and what they do and how you do it. Like, I just feel like this is this is something everybody in our industry needs to be full in on and we can help you. We can help. We can help our own. We can do this. It's a sustainable thing. And this is nationwide. So I think the thing that we miss is the it's based here in Atlanta. Nashville has an office. Charlotte has an office for expanding.

01:39:41This is nationwide. If you're in L.A., if you're in Chicago, D.C., L.A., New York, Houston, wherever Vermont, New Hampshire, Minnesota, there is no office in Hawaii. Yeah. When they had the wildfires and and the fires made in Hawaii, people applied for funds. And we sent funds. Yeah. And those are in Maui. I mean, one of the things that we're already getting ready for, like this is the weird things of you know, you know, something's changed your life, but you don't know something's changed your life when I'm sitting around with GK people going, oh, shit, man, look at these hurricane forecasts. Like literally something that would never I mean, I live in Atlanta. I'm not a beach guy, right? Like I'm not like no one's going to confuse me for the guy who's hanging out on the beach, maybe the beach whale. But other than that, nothing. Right. So I'm literally looking around going, this is predicted like the water's two and a half degrees warmer. And, you know, this could be the worst hurricane season. And we're literally going, hey, OK, what are the organizations we've used down there before to find temporary shelter?

01:40:45Calling Walt and the people at Waffle House going, hey, what are you guys thinking? And thinking about like how we're going to we know we're going to have to deploy significant resources this year down there. And like thinking about that, it's just strange how something becomes, you know, so pervasive, because I never thought I'd care about hurricanes before. Yeah. Now, I just I I told some of the people at the gaming kitchen, I was like, I know you guys can't be mean to people, but I can. Just put me in. And I think we do like those people you were talking about. You went you've had dinners. I'm not going to add them, but you've had dinners with these people. They're not leaving the room without putting money in. And I love that, man. And I think like, don't worry, there's there's big things ahead. And I just it is a no brainer. And I hope everyone it's not all about money. It's about time and talent and invisibility. You can help in a myriad of ways, just get stuck in, get stuck in in some way for you, for the people that wait on you, for the people that work with you, for the people that you care about, for your niece or nephew who's going to end up being a server, a cook in a restaurant.

01:41:54Just get stuck in. I will tell you that I think that my phone is listening to me. And so is the giving kitchen, because I just now got the email that had the impact for May. And I will share the May impact, the financial assistance. If we all got that email, one hundred and seventy four thousand six hundred and fifty six dollars, thirty seven injuries. This is where people have helped. They've helped for thirty seven injuries, fifty five illnesses, fifteen funerals, one housing disaster. And in the stability network, there's four hundred and forty eight food service workers receive two thousand seven hundred and twenty eight resources, averaging twelve point three resources per case. That's a massive month. It's a huge month. It's so good to hear about stability, because oftentimes like there's money at the end of that. Like, it may not be our money, but we've gotten you somewhere that can help with that as well. Right. And it's just there's that's a massive month. And it's the beautiful thing and the saddening thing. It's both heartening and disheartening is that those months are only going to get bigger.

01:42:58Right. They're only going to get bigger, which means we need to be better prepared. We need to be able to do more. We need to be able to help more people. And we need resources to do that. So we would love for you to do that. We're at an hour and a half. This is typically the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. You're going to have some editing to do, right? There will be nothing edited out of this part about where I said the I was going to punch people out. I think like people would, you know. I mean, I think I'm glad to be with somebody who makes me look less militant. So can you imagine like literally saying, like, I'm going to cash a check that I know is guaranteed, and I'm going to take 20 percent of it. I think you are spot on to want to know. I do. I don't think that at all. You are you are literally like vermin at that point. Yeah, like you're you're just you're praying off people that that. Don't have any way to defend themselves, right?

01:43:59And I just don't have any use for it. Well, thank you. I'm on your side. Thank you, guys, every for joining us here. I want to read. I was doing some research on you, Chris, and I have to. I got to read something. This is this is his bio on LinkedIn. Right. Well, let's see the picture. Oh, there's not a picture of the LinkedIn pictures. Just Julian. I just took a screen shot. I'm going to show him the other picture. This is the about Chris Hall. And then we're going to do I'm going to read this. And I want you, Chris, to think because we're about to do the Gordon Food Service final thought, which is where you get to take us out of the show. Whatever you want to say, as long as you want to say, you're talking to the entire audience, the mic will be yours when I'm done reading who you are. This is the about on Chris Hall's LinkedIn page. I am a southern gentleman of leisure and as such, I'm skilled in the following para mutual wagering, drinking, drinking to access the culinary arts, the knowledge and selective application of proper manners, the lost art of proper conversation, games of skill, games of chance, firearms, sartorial excellence, hunting and understanding of good music through various genres and appreciation and knowledge of good wine.

01:45:16The use of off-road vehicles, horsemanship, golf, beer and his application to myself and society in general. Tying a bow tie and proper folding of a pocket square. Women in the proper wooing and courting of the fairer sex. Bourbon, general sporting pursuits of all kinds, with the exception. Did I write this with general sporting pursuits of all kinds, with the exception of anything involving the X Games or a derivative thereof. Moonshine, the proper hound dog and bird dog and the training of said companions, literature, fashion, the dark art of survival and almost anything else you can think of. Just imagine an enlightened redneck James Bond, if you will. I think that's more aspirational than reality, but nonetheless, I read that and I went, this dude is a fucking legend. I'm excited to talk to him today. You know, you can definitely tell that this guy is not worried about writing a resume ever again, because that's not going to happen.

01:46:19So final thought to take us out, one, thank you for doing this. Thank you for shining a light on GK. Thank Billy for having me and for all his generosity. It's people like the two of you that make this thing that is the giving kitchen and is our world go round. My final thought is is just, you know, I don't have any right to ask anyone anything, but I would think about this. What did you do today to make your community a better place? That's how I try and end every day is what did I do today to make my community a better place? So ask yourself that question and hopefully you come up with a positive answer. But thank you guys for having me. Thank you for all your staunch and incredible support of GK. And we're incredibly fortunate to have you on the team. And I was glad to be here. So hopefully I can live up to my LinkedIn bio. I love it. Thank you. Billy, do you want to add anything to the finish there? No, this is thanks, Chris, for joining me.

01:47:19It's been and I know this is so Charlie Aguillo just walked in from East 48th Street Market. He's going to be up next. But two people are like inspirational to me. And I was never in the restaurant industry. So I have five years of being in the restaurant industry. So, you know, to have people that like Chris and Ryan and Todd, it's OK and Charlie, like people I could go to and ask questions whenever I want. Make you want to be a part of the restaurant industry even more. And which leads you to want to be a part of the giving kitchen even more because you want to see the survivability of the restaurant industry. One hundred percent. So thank you, Chris. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon. Absolutely. OK, thank you so much for listening. We are we're having fun with this Atlanta restaurant radio thing. Next week, we're going to be talking to a guy named Charlie Argello, and he owns the 48th, the East 48th Street Market. And this guy has been in the industry for over 40 years.

01:48:23He is a older gentleman and he he owns this little family market. And oh, my gosh, we went and ate there after we did these interviews. And like his whole family was there as his wife was there. His daughter was there. His grandson was there. His grandson's a pilot. He's about to go flying out. And they all they all said they all said his name three different ways. It was amazing. Just the, you know, talking to this gentleman and then going to eat in his restaurant and just everything he said was like true. That's what it was. And it was really special. And we had so much fun doing it. And cannot wait to share that conversation with Charlie Argello next week. So stay tuned with Atlanta Restaurant Radio. Again, follow us over there. If you're not following us at Nashville Restaurant Radio, please do so. Watch us on local on to this Thursday and then stay tuned. We'll be back in a few weeks with some great guests. And we're excited to get back to Nashville. But for now, enjoy learning about Atlanta. These are a lot of fun and hope that you guys are being safe out there.

01:49:24Enjoy the rest of your summer. Love you guys. Bye.