Daniel Frazier

00:00This is Jen Heidinger-Kendrick, founder of Giving Kitchen. Let me tell you a little more. Giving Kitchen is a national nonprofit that helps food service workers. 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. If you or someone you know works at a restaurant, food truck, catering company, concessions, bar or taproom, and needs financial assistance or stability network resources due to illness, injury, death of an immediate family member or housing disaster like flood or fire, please ask for help at givingkitchen.org slash help. Hey everybody, it's Brandon and we are talking about All-Star Fire Protection. Listen up because we've got some specials for you. You know All-Star Fire Protection, they've been here in Nashville for 34 years. They've been servicing restaurants, hotels, hospitals, everybody for fire extinguisher service, hood inspections, and they have a special for you right now.

01:05Here's the deal. If you call All-Star Fire Protection and you use the promo code Brandon, you will get 10% off your inspection. Now here's the coolest part. You just heard from Jen Heidinger-Kendrick. They want to help restaurant workers. So for every inspection that uses the code Brandon, they're going to donate $50 to the Giving Kitchen. Yes, $50 to the Giving Kitchen for everybody who signs up. Now all you have to do is give him a call. 615-431-3760. You're gonna ask for Rob Bowman. Rob is gonna be the specialist right here in Nashville. Been doing it forever. They would love to help you with your fire suppression needs, inspections. Plus, when you call him to do an inspection, he's happy to walk through with your staff, teach them how to use all the equipment, how to use a fire extinguisher. This is a major thing, guys. If you don't know how to use a fire extinguisher, he can come in and help you do that. That is All-Star Fire Protection.

02:07These guys are legit. They're local. Please, please, please give Rob a call today. You're listening to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the podcast that's not about food, it's about food people. Now, here's your hosts, Brandon Styll and Crystal DeLuna-Bogan. Hey, everybody, it's Brandon. And Crystal, welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. And we're here to introduce you to our guest today, Brandon Styll. Brandon, welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Hi, everybody. I'm Brandon. And I'm Crystal. And I'm Crystal. And I'm Crystal. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Yeah, all right. We are back and better than ever. Than ever. Hi, Crystal. How are you doing? I'm doing good. I don't think I've talked to you since we did this last week. I know, it's irregular for us. So let's go with the question, how are you doing? Oh my God. And not a greeting, hey, how are you doing? No, like what the real.

03:09You're in the thick of it right now. I'm opening a restaurant. How are you doing? Can you give any information about this restaurant yet? When does this come out? Today, this week? Friday. Yeah, like the 20th? 21st, maybe? Yeah, let's say it on the next one. Oh, there's a teaser. So on the next episode. Let's do next episode. Which we'll be talking with Alexis Salar in that episode. That's a great person who I'd love to like, you know, let's do that. We're gonna make your announcement next week. So this week, just know you're in the middle of a lot. Opening a restaurant and then just food truck season. You know, just food truck problems. We had a cancel event on Sunday, which was Father's Day. By the way, Father's Day. Thank you. No, propane leak, just propane leak. You know, just things that happen on a food truck. It's just wild and it's very stressful and it's very stressful on the team. You know, it's like the whole day is ruined. All the food that was prepared, you know, has to go away.

04:13You know, the staff that was scheduled, you know, like every, we try to recoup as much as stuff and time as we can, but we couldn't open at Cheekwood and we were there, like actually set up and. Just couldn't do it. No, it's cause safety is first. 100% every time. Safety is first. So you just have to make those calls, you know, like early in the morning when you get those text messages and then turns into like kind of nervous energy of like, what can we do? What can we do? And usually there's always a way to figure it out, but this was not a safe way to figure it out, especially at Cheekwood. So we had to leave and that's just stressful. You know, it turns into like having to fix it as soon as possible because we have a full schedule this week. Being a food truck owner is really like nerving. I can imagine. It's just nerving. Yeah. I've never done a food truck, never worked in a food truck, never owned a food truck. I know nothing about it. So I'm really fascinated, like taking a restaurant with you.

05:13And like. I mean, it's the best idea and the worst idea. You know, like let's go to where all the people are and let's bring like enough food to feed, you know, 500, 600 people and then, but like, you can have transmission problems or a flat tire or, you know, like flat tire. Think about that. The best thing last week, the fryer got dislodged when they were driving and the whole thing tipped over in the truck, which has never happened to us before. So after an event, after they've like, you know, it's 90 something degrees right now, 100% humidity, they, you know. It's hot. Get back to their, you know, cleanup area and realize the fryer had dislodged, tipped over and fryer roll was everywhere. Like it's just, some weeks it's just really hard. And the last week was really hard and it's really hot. So, you know, it takes a really strong crew. We have such a strong food truck crew. Shout out to Nelson. That's our food truck manager who's just dealing with all the problems.

06:15And yeah, it's like, we gave each other a hug yesterday. We're like, it's gonna be okay. You know, like. We're gonna do it. It's gonna, we got this. So we can't do it. Who can, you know. It's good that you work with people that can, that you can rally like that and you can. Yeah, you have to. No, we're all in this together. You know, like his problems are my problems, but he actually is physically fixing them. You know, so. Well, we went off without a hitch at Mirabell on Father's Day. How is that? Well, you know, you're worried because it's getting back 102 heat index and like air conditioners. It's an old house. I've got like 15 HVAC units in that thing. Working. And at one point, like the main room where we do all of the buffet and everything was at like 79 degrees, which is warm. Yeah. That's warm in a house and you're picking out food. We had some, the, some of the rooms stayed pretty chill. Like we had like four tables sit outside. Nobody wants to sit outside, obviously. But overall, I think everybody had a great time.

07:15All the dads, everybody. I had fun. So you were there. Yeah, I was there. I was there until like three. I stayed, I mean, I was there from like eight to three. So I mean, it was a nice little, I was there for most of the rush and everything. I went home and did the most dad thing I could think of and mowed the yard. Mowed the yard. Did you watch some golf and eat some steak? I can't watch golf. I love playing golf. I have like an app on my phone. It's like some game that I play all the time. I'll tell you what it's called. It's called ultimate golf. Okay. And it is my ultimate golf. I just sit there and I play little golf matches all the time. It's so fun. Golf matches. My husband has real golf, just real golfing. If I have time, I love to real golf. Yeah, I mean, who has time? I got to organize friends to get together and meet. If there's like a tournament and somebody invites me, I'm in, I'll go. I'll play. I'll tell him. If you're out there and you're doing a tournament, I'll come play. Are you any good? I will come play. There was a pause. There was a pause.

08:15No, I'm not. I'm good at a lot. I'm good at like. I'm good at other things. Basketball, you're very tall. I can play basketball, darts, corn hole though. Anything you could do like while drinking. I got really good at. I got really good at those things. A non-sport, non-sport. Yeah. Like shooting pool or swimming in a pool? Either. Both. Either, either or. That's what I did for Father's Day was Wednesday, I went, we went to the Harpeth River, took our little kayaks as a family and we went kayaking. How fun. That's so fun. Best day I've ever had on the Harpeth River. Oh, wow. We go up like to the ballpark. It wasn't that hot yet, right? It was hot. I mean, it was like 90, but the water was just low enough to my kayak didn't drag at all and never hit bottom. Awesome. And the water, I've never seen the water on the Harpeth River this crystal clear. Well, I was gonna say, usually it feels a little murk. It was no murk. I mean, it was a hundred percent clear. I saw probably 500 fish. I'm not kidding.

09:16You just fish everywhere. And you can. Just reach your hand in and grab. Pretty much. I mean, you could just see them everywhere. I mean, it was so clear. I've never seen it. It's so cool. We also didn't see one other canoe or kayak or the entire trip. Wow, were you supposed to be out there? Yeah, that's what I said. Like a Wednesday at two o'clock. I think that's the thing. People do that, you know? That's the cool thing about being like a restaurant person. You don't have a nine to five, yeah. No, no, it wasn't. It was nice. So what else is going on? You know, I went last night. I went to the preview for jam blocks. Got to go. Yeah, Shane Nasby. So wait, there was jam in all the sandwiches. There was jam in some of the sandwiches. So it's a double meaning. There's not jam in all the sandwiches. No. Okay, tell me about it. They're all very cutely named. Like he has like the Humpty Dance and then there's like a Cranberry Linger. There's all these different band names that go with everything. And they were delicious.

10:17And then Fat LaForge Brewery is really cool. Oh, it's inside. Yeah, you know what? Hold on a second. You know what we should do? I told Shane, I said, look, dude, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna call you and you're gonna come on the show. You can tell it because they open like today. Yeah, no, he's busy. So this is like a whole thing. So I said, hey, I wonder if he'll answer if I call him right now. Let's see what's going on here. Let me find this number. Yeah, I want to hear it from him. Let's call him. Let's just get him on the show right now. It's early in the morning, but hey, he'll be down. All right, ready? Hold on. Is it gonna? Oh, there we go. It's ringing. That's a real phone call. Hello, sir. Shane Nasby. How you doing, man? I'm good. I'm live on radio right now. You're live on radio. Hi, Shane, it's Crystal. You have Crystal and I live. I was just telling her we're doing an intro for the show and I said, man, I went to Jambox last night and it was so cool. I was asking about it and he's like, let's just call Shane. And I was like, awesome. So here we are.

11:18You're doing your big opening today. What's your day look like today? Well, today is kind of a family, friends practice day. And so last night we had our VIP event, which is kind of, you know, you know, samples and stuff. But today we're actually gonna take orders, give the kids a little bit of time to get some practice and some reps in. And, you know, and then tomorrow we're actually open to the public tomorrow, which is Wednesday. So yeah, today's gonna be a big practice day and making sure, you know, the KDS works in the kitchen and the other, you know, our folks up front and we'll, you know, answer all the questions for modifications and all that stuff. It's all about reps today. Well, I wanna have you in studio because there's so much we need to talk to you about, but how did this whole thing happen? I mean, Fatal Force is a really neat brewery and Parker's an amazing guy, but how did it happen? How did you get in that space? Well, so Fatal Force has always been our pregame hangout before, you know, the National Soccer Club games.

12:23Oh, okay. You know, we went there all last year and it's just absolutely packed before games. And we love it. It's just a hangout, you know, you can go to hangout, then you can kind of walk through the stadium. And so we've always met several of our friends there all the time and I got to know Parker and Zach, the owners there, and then when it real complete is, I started having them bring their beer over. And so we had their beer on tap. So I got to know Parker really well. And it was just kind of a, what was it? Maybe six months ago. It's like, man, you need to figure out your food game, man, because a lot of times people would have to go there and then they would have to leave to go eat before they go to the game, or they would try to order pizza from next door. And like, and that was, sometimes that could be challenging or if you weren't filling pizza. So he was like, man, he goes, I don't do food. And I was like, you direct. And he was like, talk about this. And I was like, well, I had just, we just announced that we're opening Cletus Bellevue. So I was like, I don't know that I have the bandwidth to do this.

13:27I saw that. I was like, he announced Cletus Bellevue, which is amazing, because that's my hood. And then like the next day I'm like, Andrew doing Jambox, and I was like, what? Well, here's the only way that we could, the only way that I could make this happen from like an operating standpoint is to have, bring in someone who, I don't have to bear the load of it necessarily. But, and so I have my guide, Tim Halterman, but I also, I was like, man, I need someone who can specifically take Jambox, operate this thing and grow it. So I reached out to my longtime friend, Tyler Latanski, he was the GM at the Cool Springs, the Alexander's for the last 12 years. Wow. He understands OEMs. He understands X1s and he was my neighbor for a long time and we're really good friends. And I was like, I just caught him at the right time.

14:27I just got through it out there. Just got a little whim. And as it's like, hey man, let's think about this. I'd love to bring you in as a partner. You know, you operate this thing. Let's take it, let's grow it. Let's do something. I really believe in the concept. And he called me two days later and I thought it was gonna be the phone call that was like, hey, I talked to my wife about it. You know, for, you know, cause it's a big risk, you know, to go from, you know, the health insurance and all the things that you get whenever you're not well-employed. No, but he called me and said, he said, I'm in. And I was like, okay, let's do this. So that actually made this whole thing like a way, way easier to actually, so kudos to him for sure. Awesome. So talk to me, like, what's the best thing that you, what's the thing you're most proud of on the menu right now? Like, what is the thing that I have to try first? Oh man. So this thing, we came together real quick and that was the fun part.

15:30It's just like, what's the craziest sandwich that we can build with each of them featuring a signature jam. I love that. And so. So yeah, they're all jam. So I wasn't sure. I was like, is this a jam? Like you're just talking about jams or, but it's actual jam, which I love the salty sweet thing. Yeah. So we have a couple of burgers on our menu at Cletus that have, one has strawberry jalapeno jam on it. We got another one with peach jam on it and of course other toppings. So those are a really big hit. And I was just like, man, we could make some really great sandwiches and they all feature a different jam. And so that's kind of the play on words with the jam box. And then we all, we named them all after like old school, 80s and 90s, either bands or music, a lot of music references in there. So that's kind of the brand that we went with. But to answer your question, I think, man, I don't know. There's the, I think the one, the big hit that kind of went over last night. We have a cool moji, which is like a, it's got black forest ham.

16:34I think it's pepper jack cheese, bacon. It's got a jalapeno mint wall. And then it has an apple bourbon jam on it. So like, that's a fun one. So that one was a big hit last night, along with several of the other ones. So that's the one. Brandon went. So what did you, what did you think, Brandon? I love the pimento cheese. Oh, okay. That's not even a sandwich. That's not a sandwich. But the pimento cheese was delicious and it's just Ritz crackers. I like, there was like a Humpty dance sandwich. Am I wrong? Like Digital Underground? What was the, that has like an egg salad. I was gonna say, is there eggs in it? That's a great name. So yeah, so it's scrambled egg salad. So it's kind of like a traditional egg salad, except we use scrambled eggs instead of hard boiled. So it also has ham and some other stuff on it. That was delicious. There was a peach one and then the Caprese sandwich was out of control.

17:35Really? There's so many, every sandwich was delicious. It was hard to like pick one. I love sandwiches. Yeah. It was really good. We can't have enough. Thank you for opening another sandwich shop. We need them. We need them all. And the beer though, I was sitting there too and I was like, man, I'm really, I was really sad last night. Like it was really hard for me last night to sit there. We sat, like it was so busy. I had to sit like at the bar and looking at all of the delicious beers. I was like, I wanted a beer last night. And I had a West Coast IPA, like a Untold Art, the non-alcoholic one. But I'm looking at all the choices at Fait La Force and they have so many that I was like, oh my God, I want that, I want that. Hey, we have somebody at the door. Shane, we are going to, we're gonna let you go, man. We got a new guest in the building. You're busy too. You gotta open that restaurant. Thank you all, come see us. We'll see you soon. All right, buddy. Bye. Okay, so we are back. And now we have fast forwarded an hour and a half of our life.

18:37We just did an interview. There's some magic here. Okay, so there's some editing that happens in this world, right? We record, let's let the cat out of the bag. I mean, you don't think people know this already that there's editing that's happening? We record episodes, typically on Tuesdays, in the mornings. This is the last time for everyone. For everyone. Sometimes we record one or two episodes, but we're like a week ahead. So sometimes we're recording an intro for the actual week. So we do the intro the week of, so it's all real content. But sometimes the interview was done earlier. So that interview, we just were in the middle of the intro and Alexis Saler showed up and we did the interview. And now we're after that interview. That one is gonna come out next week. Can't wait. It's gonna be awesome. Yeah. That was so much fun. She's got a lot going on. She's so interesting. So interesting. Like, I'm excited. I've never met her before. Like, she's so cool. I wanna hang out with her now. We're gonna sandwich queen together. And you know what was really fun is that you got to talk about your new thing.

19:38I did. It was the first person. Okay, she's such a like, supporter because her face was so genuinely like, excited for me. I know. She was so excited. I mean, I often have that face too for people when I'm like, tell me about it. Like, I love hearing about, and then you just feel their joy and their anxiety and all the feelings, you know? We did all that. And we learned a lot about her too. So that was really fun. Today, so just to let you know, we have that episode coming up next week. And then we're gonna be doing Atlanta Restaurant Radio for the month of July. So excited. Yes, lots of fun things happening in July. We're launching Atlanta Restaurant Radio next month. And today we have Daniel Frazier and he is the Pharmacy Burger General Manager and he is the Director of Operations. Yeah. I get to geek out a little bit with this interview. I know, total geek out. A little bit of a bromance happening there. I got to say things too. You did. But it was a lot of a rowing out, you know?

20:42Well, the previous episode. Dowing out. You got. Director of Operations. For Dowing Out. Well, you got to do so much with Michael Hanna and you kind of, that was like your interview. It was great. I loved it. He's so great. So this one was like, and that was the same day, like Michael, and then it was like, we're gonna do Daniel Frazier. Yeah, so you're like, it's my turn. My turn, damn it. Scoot over. You turned my mic off. You didn't. You wanted to. So, cats out of the bag. Today is the day before Juneteenth. Tomorrow is Juneteenth. When this comes out, Juneteenth will be yesterday. Okay. And we are doing this thing where we like to let you guys know what's happening in Nashville. And are there any cool. So much. Let's talk about the things. Okay. We just got done talking about Jambox. We had Shane Nasby come on and tell us all about his new place, Jambox. He's opening, like when this is aired, he would have opened already. Juneteenth, he opens on Juneteenth. He opens on Juneteenth, yeah. Which is June 19th.

21:42June 19th, yes. For everybody out there. So big week in Nashville, Juneteenth. There's a lot of awesome events that are happening in town. We can start talking about those. And it's also Pride Weekend. Hell yeah. At Bicentennial State Park. Pride is happening Saturday and Sunday. It is such a safe, awesome family event. The Grill, Cheesery, Food Truck will be there, of course, along with a lot of other trucks serving up all the yummy Food Truck food. There's a lot of like music. There's vendors. Like it's just gonna be so much fun. So I hope you guys enjoy that. But what else is happening? You know, everything's happening like on, actually like on Juneteenth. So we won't. It'll be like. It'll be after the fact. But I will tell you that something that I haven't done yet that I really want to do, the Black Music Month at the National Museum of African American Music, which is downtown at Fifth and Broad. Like right there on the corner. Right there. Right by the Apple Store, right above it.

22:44Like right there, you can enter through there. So here's what's happening at the NMAAM, Saturday through Sunday, June 1st through the 30th. So the entire month of June, they're doing a month long celebration of black music featuring live performances, guests, and special appearances. Price is very, go check them out. Go online and find out when you can go. But this is a great opportunity to go check out the National Museum of African American Music. It's a good excuse if you haven't gotten down there because it's such a cool thing that we have down there. And then you can go to Slim and Huskies, which is right next door, and support a HB, what is it? Historically black business owned business like Slim and Huskies when you're going downtown because it's very legendary that they have a spa on Broadway. Definitely. Or you could go to like Germantown Pub before you go downtown, which is another black owned business. My good friend Naima runs that place, and she owns it. And Cupcake Collection, which is right across the street from that. Yes. In Germantown.

23:44Is. I love the Cupcake Collection. Just naming off all of our favorites. Just all of them. Yes. So let's see what else is happening in town. Anything fun going on? Cirque de Soleil is coming to town. Fancy. I wanna go do it because they've been so- You wanna do the Cirque de Soleil? Like you wanna be in the show? Well, I will tell you, I've met all the performers. What? I get to meet all the people that perform in the show. You may have too. You may not have known it. What do you mean? They have been rehearsing for their big show at the Curb Event Center directly across the street from Chagos. So every single day, they all come and eat at Chagos every day. They must be so hungry. All the performers. I get to meet all the performers and I talk to them and they're really nice people. And they all have like their shaved head, like the sides of their heads are all shaved and they have long hair. And you can tell who the performers are. Why? I feel like they're all like Eastern European people. You would probably, like you probably don't know that they've probably been coming into the grilled cheeseery a lot. Because they're just in our hood. They're just every day practicing.

24:46Like 12 hours a day. They're just amongst us. They're just amongst us. But then you can tell that all the grips and all of the people, the behind the scenes people that they're too. But they've all been dining there. So I will say again, Matt left and did he send you a note? He did. He was like hilarious. So well, first of all, it was like, he's like, why did you tag me in this episode? I'm like, did you listen to it? And he's like, oh, okay. I'm like, we basically talked about you most of the time. Well, we talk and we talk about THC brands in the Alexis interview, the green note, the THC pop-up bar. If you're curious, if you want to learn, if you want to try, if you want to sample June 20th through the 23rd in Marathon Village, this weekend you can go and sample different. Like if you're like a weed connoisseur, you like to get higher. If you, I think it'd be really cool if you showed up in a lab coat and you were like, I'm just here to experiment. Because that's what he says. I'm experimenting. Show up in a lab coat with like a beaker.

25:48That's cheesy. That's even too cheesy for me. I'm going to show up in a lab coat. Guess what Sunday is. Sunday. Well, there's the Nashville pride festival parade. Yeah. But guess whose birthday it is. Yours? It's my 40th birthday. Holy shit. This weekend is your 40th birthday? It kind of just creeped up. What are you doing? I don't, nothing. I'm opening a restaurant. I am. So, you know, there were all these lavish ideas and, but most of them involve like leaving, you know? And so that's just not an option right now. So my sister is about to have a baby any moment. And so is my general manager. So I've got to stay here. So it'll, I can't go anywhere. I'll probably get a massage or something, something relaxing, you know? But yeah, I'll probably eat like a cake and, but nothing, nothing too crazy. But yeah, I know. I feel a lot of pressure. People are like 40, you know? What are you going to do? I don't know. I don't know. So are you, I love that you're just like open saying 40, this is my thing.

26:51Like I'm 40, happy, are you proud of it? Yeah, I have pride. I have pride. I know the thing about too, that I always usually like to do, we like to do like a staycation before we had Luna. We do a staycation downtown and then we go to pride because it was just such a like great vibe. I love that my birthday is usually always falling on the pride weekend. Like it just feels very celebratory. Everyone's wearing these awesome outfits, you know? It's- They're doing it for you. And it really is, feels like for me. Yeah. Yeah, we, I don't know, I'm not a, you know, I do events for a living, you know? Like I feel like I kind of just like to be low key. But yeah, if you want to find me- 40 was like my favorite birthday. You can buy me cakes. It's your, that was your favorite birthday? I was the most excited about 40. Really? Yeah, because I think your whole life, you're just searching. You have been searching, searching, searching, hustling, working your ass off. You don't have enough money. You're trying to do all this stuff.

27:52And finally, like I was 40, I had two kids. I had just got like my dream house, like the house I've been working towards like my whole life. And I was like, dude, I'm finally like fucking at a place where I'm okay with like who I am, what I'm doing. Yeah, like I'm excited for what this decade's going to bring me. Like kids are going to be growing up. My kids will start driving all of these little things. I'm like, all this stuff in your forties. And I was like, this is going to be the best decade ever. And then like right when I turned 40, like I guess six months after I turned 40, I stopped drinking. And again, like it was like a whole new, and then there was a pandemic. And like, cause I turned, I turned 40 in 2020. I think, I think that my, no, I turned 41. 41, my 41st birthday was March 8th, 2020. Oh my God. So like the week before the whole world shut down, I got to have like the last birthday party of anything. Well that's nice. So 2019. You got to have the last, you probably super spreaded. It was me, I did that.

28:53You didn't even know. It was super chill. But like, no, I remember thinking like my forties and like, I finally just like enjoy a decade. Never know I'm working more than I ever have in my entire life. But I still, I'm pretty, I'm pretty cool with it. I love it. I'm loving my forties. I don't, I've never been like an age, like a, I don't say my age thing. Cause I started like at my professional career so young. So I've always been that like, oh, she's so young for doing this kind of thing. I couldn't wait to be the old lady in the kitchen. Cause it's just, like that person to me always like garnered the most respect. And I've always been like, cause I look kind of young too. So like people always kind of just like write me off a little bit. I couldn't wait to be like older. It's so funny that we like found each other because I was the exact, I never told anybody my real age until I was 30. Oh, I would totally lie that I was older to people. I was, I was 22 when I was hired as a manager at Amerigo. And I moved to Mississippi and I was a 22 year old manager. People just are like, why are you? And they're like, who, how old are you?

29:53And I'd be like, I'm 25. And they're like, you're still young. You're rich. But I was 22. So I was telling people I was 25. And then when I was like. They still were like this child. I would just like progressively grow up like 23, 24. I was 26, 27. Like I had to keep this lie going. You had to keep your lie going. You don't even know how old you are anymore. I was always in a position that was way like more older people should be. I shouldn't be your boss cause I'm 23. Like, no, you can't do that. So when I finally, when I turned 30, I was like, I'm 30. Which is still so young. But I felt like I was okay to say 30. You can say 30. Now I'm like in your 40s, you're like, I'm finally like, no, I'm cool. I'm cool with 45. This is a good age. I have no problem with it. I have no problem with it. You know, society wants to tell women that they can't do certain things after certain ages. You know, but like, I feel like in my, in our industry and being a business owner, I'm like, I just feel like I am garnering more respect. Just having like eight, like aged. Yeah. I'm like a fine cheese.

30:53You know, I'm getting better with the age. You know, a little sweeter, you know, a little salty. I don't know. I've learned so much. I feel like I've lived a pretty full life. You know, I can be done now. I didn't know this was like your birthday show. This is so exciting. I didn't, see, that's how much I don't really, that's how much I didn't really even think about it. I just am telling you now. My birthday's in a few days. The year before last, we interviewed Will Gadara on my birthday. So cool. And when we showed up to the studio, see that sash right there? This dude knocked on, this dude knocked on the door and I was like, he's like, are you Brandon? I'm like, yes. He's like, holy shit. I finally found you. I was like, okay. And he was dressed like Elvis. Oh. And Sherry from the Green Hills Grill, one of our managers there. Oh, they sent you like a singing telegram? Hired an Elvis impersonator to come sing happy birthday to me. That's kind of awesome. And he gave me the little purple sash. So I keep it there. Oh, that's hilarious. So in the studio, this Elvis impersonator came in and was like, honk, honk, happy birthday, man.

31:57You know, whatever it was. It was great. My God, we need to save that. We need to add that to the video when we start video podcasts. I have the video. It's pretty good. All right. So I hope we're still recording because we're just been chatting here. Hey, do you want to go ahead and jump in with Daniel Frazier? And then maybe we can catch up and we'll talk about it after the episode. Yeah, let's get to it. All right, here we go. Daniel Frazier from the Pharmacy Burger. Bro, imagine the raddest blend of berries and ginger hitting you in your taste buds like a wave of flavor from the future. This gen-less fizz smacks you right in the mouth field, neutralizing your tongue while delivering that light refreshing euphoria in every sip. The floral aroma, unique flavors, and THC infusion of our berry ginger fizz makes you feel like someone should have thought of this before, right? Right? Right. Like, nobody's thought of this before? I can hardly believe it.

32:58That's insane. For real. Okay, sorry, sorry. I don't want to interrupt. That's awesome. Go get a Cali Sober Berry Ginger Fizz right now. You can find Cali Sober at the finest liquor stores or place your order today through Lipman Brothers. I am so excited today to introduce all of y'all to a brand new linen option here in Nashville. Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Tri-Tex Services. They opened in 1989 as an independently owned and operated textile linen service company serving Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville are their key markets that they are in. That is what is in luck for you because they service multiple industries, including food and beverage, medical and industrial. They supply a wide variety of products. We got restroom supplies, all types of mats, matting, wet mops, dust mops, towels, aprons, uniforms, table linens, first aid, just to name a few.

33:59I mean, their goal at Tri-Tex Services is to combine customer service with a quality product at competitive pricing and exceed our customer's expectations every single day. That's not something you hear from a linen company. They're trying to exceed your expectations every day. And I love that. Their company slogan is the difference is our service because they take pride in customer service. They know that's what they're known for. So go to tritexservices.com and get a free quote right there in the center of the page. Click it, click to get a free quote or give them a call 888-761-3238. We are supported by Robins Insurance, a local insurance agency providing customized insurance policies, sound guidance and attentive service. Robins Insurance is the go-to agency for hospitality professionals in Nashville. Listen, Robins knows how hard industry professionals work every single day. They also know how devastating accidents can be. Be it a grease fire that damages the kitchen, a severe storm that cuts off power or a customer slip and fall incident.

35:02Both the extensive experience and the savvy to create a policy that protects your business from accidents like those, you can rest easy knowing that the work you've put in will not be for nothing. Visit Robins website at robinsins.com to request a consultation or call Matthew Clements directly. His number is 863-409-9372. Protection you can trust, that's Robins. Yeah, we're super excited today to welcome in Daniel Frazier. Daniel is the general manager and director of operations for the Pharmacy Burger Parlor and Beer Garden. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, Daniel. Hey, it's great to be here. Super excited also to welcome in Crystal DeLuna-Bogan. I'm here too, I wait for my intro. Yes, you do, you just gotta jump in here. I know, I'm learning to do the intro for you. I'm gonna do an intro for you and we have Brandon still here, our amazing co-host and- Director of operations. Director of operations. That's what I see. This was funny, cause I was excited you're coming in cause you have the same title as me.

36:06All these chefs and people, she gets it. Now I'm like, I get it, I could do this. I'm gonna make him talk about food. That's funny. What do you mean? He's gonna talk about food. We're not talking about food, we're talking about operations. I know, right? Yeah, yeah. We're talking about numbers today. I looked through, I was looking through a lot of the episodes and I was like, man, not a lot of managers, not a lot of operators on here. We need a lot of owners, a lot of chefs. We need some representation. That's right. Wow, you poor thing. Well, there's a lot of operators, not a lot of directors of operators. You poor things over here. That's a good point, that's a great point. So it's a thing, you know, these are, I've always said that I'm a luxury position for a small restaurant. Oh, for sure. To be a director of operations. Like I have general managers at all the restaurants, but me, like, what do I do? I get to do all the fun stuff and it's, you know. Oh, you get to do all the fun stuff? Do you really? Not really. You get all the like, my general manager can't figure this out. Let's hand it off to Brandon. 100%. So what I get to do is I tell people, I say, I get to remove all roadblocks from you.

37:06You, here's what your job, the general manager, this is what I expect of you. But when you can't do it, I do it. I'm a roadblock moving motherfucker. That's what I am. So what do you need, what do you need? I have the time and energy to dig into the things you can't get through. Is that true for you too? Are you the roadblock? I try to be, yeah, definitely for sure. Moving motherfucker. Well, so we have a general manager for our food hall location. But then I am still the general manager of the East Nashville location. So the director. So the Pharmacy Burger has two locations and then a third location in the airport. Yes. So original location is in East Nashville. Absolutely, that's our flagship and still full service. We kind of changed our model during the COVID years and did a sort of QSR counter service thing. But yeah, we're still doing that. We love our big, beautiful beer garden space. And then in 2021, we opened the two stalls in the assembly food hall that we've really enjoyed. We've really enjoyed running and it's been a great, I think it's been a nice addition to the city, especially for events and to have more real food options downtown, there are lots of great options, but not a ton on Broadway.

38:16Not to besmirch anything else going on there. And then beyond that, No, please besmirch. I know right. It might be the first time besmirch has been used on the show. I like that word. Can you tell that I've never said that word? I want to say it immediately. I felt- Besmirched. Yeah, I felt, it felt like it was genuine to you, so yeah, use it more. I think we should have, I think we should have a word of the day. Besmirched is the word of the day. We should teach people, what does besmirch mean? means shoot he doesn't know no no I do but I haven't I didn't know it would be don't touch your phone it would be slander or but not but yes slander slander implies that it's not accurate where besmirch would be just to to cast aspersions on maybe you know not to use another big word you're gonna have to you're gonna have to start defining all of your nose yeah sorry but yeah no it would just be to put a negative light to you like to know the definition smirk besmirch is a past tense to be besmirched yeah to damage the reputation of someone or something in the opinion of others he had besmirched the good name of his family perfect use of the word that you just used that was a great yeah this is a hard-hitting journalism you're getting on this this is important stuff so you have a double stall assembly food hall that's awesome so how have you seen the business there so it's grown a lot it's grown a lot the first year was was solid but people didn't know where it was and and again it was 2021 and it opened in May and people were still sort of hesitantly doing things in real life we had a really solid 2022 as things improved Vince could get really going back people were back in the routine of things and then last year 2023 was really strong we felt really good about it you see a huge disparity in the amount of business when there's like a

40:21Preds game or there's a there's a concert the bridge John it's very event-based but then there's a really solid lunch crowd there's a lot of people there when there's a preds game absolutely oh my gosh yeah so it's not like people are eating inside the arena they're definitely they are now they are coming down they come in and they make a they make a whole event of it you'll literally see in the two hours hour and a half before a game it's just like full of Predsters he's full of people they swarm in they get a bunch of food then they get out of there and the best thing about because I love doing that myself like if I go to like even a Titans game or a Preds game anything I have to go down town but if I bring my children yeah this assembly food house perfect because you can take kids up there there's an option for everybody but also it's family-friendly it's not you're going into tootsies or something and oh very friendly yeah there's no real places like music they have like double live music so like in each each in each half of it yeah whatever that's called like different yeah so there's the North Hall in the South Hall North Hall and South Hall yeah I mean there was this one girl I mean everybody that does these these open like Mike kind of you know plays they're incredible musicians like it's the same how talented people are that are just playing on like Tuesday at five o'clock you know and this one girl she was taking requests and my daughter was just up there requesting Taylor Swift songs that she knew she's like shake it off shake it up and she said she was playing them for all the little kids that were like requesting songs and it was the best experience and she got a cotton candy ice cream thing that was like massive I mean yeah it's it's a cool experience for families for sure it's it's great we've been really we've been really happy with it and the food hall is a general concept is a thing that's really growing and it's nice to be in one where there's there's a there's gonna be a lot of people around there's like we said with the events there's there's also a lot of people working in the area so it's just nice people know to come down grab lunch we've got a really good lunch business down there that we feel really good about so it's it's been really it's been really fun and it's with it being small enough it's

42:24it's relatively easy none of this stuff is easy but once you get once we got in really good routines and habits it's just kind of it's just kind of do the thing and it's easier the busier it is obviously there's a certain threshold of people that makes it challenging but it's the worst thing is on the slower days and people just get bored yeah it's the how do you feel staffing is staffing that that downtown location I know that's really hard because there's so many people that need staff downtown and yeah it's hard to get down there sometimes so it's it's it's challenging at times but we have a lot of staff that that we hired pretty early opening in 2021 that are still with us so we've got some some people that are tenured several years now and overall it's been a pretty positive positive experience we've got people that really you know love love coming to work love working with us there so that's been good sometimes finding finding new employees when you need some when you need some fresh faces and things has sometimes it it usually takes five hires to make one you feel great about but that's that's not I've found that to be kind of typical in general at times so so that's okay but uh but building a team and investing in them so because we're doing a whole house tip share there so it's it's easier to do it's easier to to beat wages on some other positions some other comparable positions and then we do a lot we've got a parking setup down there so we do we've got him like employee tickets to get some discounted parking so it makes it a little easier for that helps for sure yeah you say whole house tipping is that front house back of the house yeah basically you know you you pay above that minimum wage threshold which we're well above that but and then uh we basically just share them for the week it's just everybody's in the pot and we just for the whole week for the whole week we do the same thing yeah that's very cool yeah so how long have you been at the pharmacy 10 just over 10 years now wow and how long is the pharmacy existed 12 years now wow so you were there OG like when Holland house was next door I was yeah what a

44:28great place that was too because it was like the way to like get cocktails then your burger and the beer garden you guys were kind of the OG in town for Kraft burgers I mean now yeah burgers are kind of having a moment they are with smash burgers yeah the smash and we it's funny because we do smash burgers but we don't do what people think of as smash burgers because it's like a it's a large seven ounce patty we're like you get a smash burger most places it's like it's two ounces and they're smearing that thing on the yeah on the grill like you can't get a temp on it even if you like if you wanted it more than anything in the world you couldn't get a temp on that thing ours are not the easiest attempt because we do make we still smash them pretty thin but you can do it because it's not it's not a two but they literally do just really pound the pound the crap out of those things but uh but no you're right burgers are having a moment but it's the vogue now is the small eat it with one hand I'm gonna want to eat too and maybe I maybe I shouldn't but I'm gonna but two gets at me to kind of know what we're doing with with my burger and I guess we've we've been eating I've been eating pharmacy burgers for so long now that's that's that's that's my threshold for burger would you say that's your favorite burger or do you recommend another burger that you also like in town yeah so oh the bad luck burger club they're there they're they can't see what you're doing they're on the podcast he's pointing to the wall the bad luck burger guys are great um they do a great burger I like theirs um I really like the cabin addict burger for the pop-up if I'm for talking pop-up don't have a brick-and-mortar they're my favorite they're very good they also will do mobile fryers and fries and their fries are very good very thick almost wedges but they were they're they're fun but you know I I love the red-headed stranger burger it's great you know I'm a burger aficionado I often like burgers at places that the burgers not their thing maybe the burger kind of becomes their thing have you had the squeeze of I have had the suiza burger it's very good I usually get that and a side of tacos or something but the suiza burgers very

46:32good it reminds me a little bit of different than the red-headed stranger stranger burger but it's it's in a there of a where is change of a green chili cheeseburger yes yeah and it's my favorite hamburger in the city oh hands down well yeah it's my I won't take offense to that well I mean I used to eat that comment for later well I used to eat at the pharmacy like a long time ago I don't make it like I love your Lyra next door is it yeah I say Lyra yeah so good yeah one of those place you go and you're like let's just check it out and they're like holy shit this is so but the pharmacies it's always been a really good solid consistent burger but I haven't been there in a couple years yeah we'll come back and see you soon but I need to yeah I need to pick a nice why should I come back are you doing like some kind of like special drive-thru series or something you know what we are nice plug are you like yeah about it we we we've actually historically not done many specials we'll like do stuff to have fun and we honestly used to basically do specials for the staff to eat because they they're not bored of the food but it's like they just wanted something new but they've just we've never sold sold well and I think it's a combination of not advertising them right or not I don't know not communicate them at the table but also people know what they want when they come to us yeah because they like oh there's a wait so they look at the menu ahead of time so cuz like we get a lot of people sit down they're like we're ready to order and you so like there's not there wasn't much time for the server to do the whole hey we've got this special thing so tell you oh yeah so last year we did a we did a our Nashville burger time machine and did a series of burgers from around the city or inspired by places around the city that have closed and then we wanted to do something similar so we did a drive-thru series so it's all uh you know fast-food inspired burgers so they're they're half knockoffs half ripoffs but it's it's just something to have fun the one we're doing right now is a we call it the bacon eight err so it's eight strips of bacon on a burger with a bacon yoli strips of bacon eight strips of bacon I would just like to say I wasn't a couple weeks ago okay I'm talking to management now okay I was not told about

48:34the series I only saw it on the on the board board okay and that was because I was sitting next to the chalkboard okay well what did your server look like and I'll let me I'm gonna give you the full information cuz she was great I mean she was great I also was with a five-year-old so we were you know but I like to order the special because somebody is doing something exciting back there and the kitchen's excited about making it well we didn't have a burger special last month so it was just we did rx fries so it was a you know cheddar cheese and onions okay maybe I was in last I was in an MA yeah so they still didn't mention it but it was that in a dr. pepper shake so they should have talked about both yeah I liked the dr. pepper shake I got that okay so you did get the special I can read I read it on the chalkboard I put it on a chalkboard yeah my yeah I have a manager that's got very very art forward but if I was sitting on the patio or you wouldn't have seen it that's very fair so I will lambast my staff as a director of operations slash general manager right does that make you feel because you put I know I put a lot of effort into creating things and helping execute things and communicating things to people and then when you spend all this time and ideas and there's meetings that go on that say we should do something cool hey marketing you brainstorm you put it on a board and then you you pick out the best things you go oh we did eight strips of bacon and this aioli and we made this burger we do a drive-thru series and you get real excited about it right you have to create all these dishes then you put it in action and then you hear somebody say yeah they never told us about you like yeah how does that make you feel they hear that so it is it is it is frustrating and that's just but but I well it's also part of the game it is part of it life part of it and I will say that's the reality right no it is the reality where you know you do you do so much work like you said to set your kitchen up for success to pump out the food we have a

50:36very small kitchen and we're very busy so it's like it's it is a challenge to get that food out you know tasting great and in a timely manner but it's also you know you know we're loading up our tables they want to be busy they want you know for our servers I mean and then you get them to the table and it's like they don't do the things you want them to do that being said we have a great server staff that I that I do but I will say I do trust obviously I wish they would have communicated to you I try to trust our servers we try to train and we try to trust them and it's like hey you know use I want them to use their people skills to communicate at the time what they feel like the guest needs to hear I don't we don't have we have to read the table they do they have to and not everything is worth mentioning to every guest now again you want to you want a baseline of like hey make sure we're mentioning this stuff because clearly you would have liked to hear about it I was giving I don't care face I don't know I don't know I was like this I was like wait wait hold on a second let's do this here she was watching iPad and I was like yeah I don't know um no I I also maybe she didn't like kids and she was like you know I don't want to there is this you know taking a wrong turn we had a great experience she was very okay good I'm kind it was it was not that and you guys are also very very busy okay yeah you shouldn't have come here Brandon doesn't even that's not even favorite burger I look you know what here's here's love pharmacy burger let's just take let's just turn it around this is one of the reasons why and I'll tell you this and I'm guilty of it right now if you guys were to announce that you're closing next week yeah a million people would come out and say what was the last time you were there Brandon I would go that has been a couple years and they go yeah you need to go there because I've had

52:36all the new stuff and I'm one of these people that is is is so adamant that like yeah new stuff's great it's gonna be there for a while yeah go visit the places the OG places that were they need your business no absolutely in the pharmacy is such a staple of that community I mean that little corner there with moss tacos and pharmacy like but people were going there for years that goes away that's a part of the community that disappears and so I think it's important to have these conversations and talk about why you need to be going to the pharmacy no and that's why we're doing some of these series and trying to have fun and and doing some we're doing more marketing than we used to do we're doing some some more intentional PR than we used to do because the business is not suffering we're doing we're doing well we're really happy with the way things are but we've definitely I hear from people so often that oh I love the pharmacy oh I have exactly what you said oh you guys are so busy and oh I have to wait it's like and then you get to the point where we've worked on being efficient with guests so we can get people in and out really quickly as quickly as they like we don't run you don't tell them about what yeah yeah yeah so we don't we tell them don't mention anything to the turn and burn yeah no we don't turn and burns not the word we use but kids let's get them out if we can get them out yeah please know we're totally tongue-in-cheek laughing no of course I've had a million great experiences I'm not stressed I find it quite funny okay we just know we're totally I have something to say to you about please oh farmers burgers always so busy okay have you ever if you've been inside the host stand is right there yes by the door you can't wait inside no so you're seeing people sitting out there because it does always look so packed yes you're seeing people waiting for their table but it looks like people could be waiting inside too they're not it's just the host and maybe a few seats so it looks intimidating but I did not wait that long no no and it was kind of I think it's like a Friday or something like it was we have worked really hard to get wait times down and and and to keep it

54:39manageable for people and because we know like when it with so many great options in the city it wasn't even quite like this when we opened in our first year in 2012 open very very end of 2011 but we were busy from jump but uh but it it's different when you've got so many options when it you didn't used to be able to walk in say hey it's an hour wait and you're like well I can get food in 15 minutes and but walking from here that wasn't the choice there were other places but it was not many oh wait but they were also busy it was still a 30 minute wait for them so it was like that but it's just not like that anymore there's so many options people just aren't comfortable waiting so we've actually added minimal reservations now we use talk for for table management and seating so we do reservations ahead of time you do that on your website we do that through our website yeah we started it last July so I guess was that your decision it was so we why'd you decide to do that well I wanted we would we would so it started mostly because we were taking in a lot of large parties so we were getting I had a manager who was overseeing this and they were they were they would like Nick we would negotiate with people a lot like oh we've got 30 coming and we want to see so it was like we well we don't take reservations but you it's really hard to seat 30 people without a plan so I was like well we'll do it and then we had this thing where you had like a table holding fee and this whole shenanigans but then they were they would exchange ten emails back and forth so it's like we just need to standardize this so she developed some like packages for super large parties and some other things but then out but even from there she did a great job with it but even then it was still the back and forth of we do this and then which one do you want it was like with a with a really large group there's gonna be some of that but then using talk we could just build a page and it's like submit your request here then it's us confirm it then we submit payment and then we're done it was just so much back and forth that it was it but we wanted to accommodate people a lot of places can't even take in 30 to 40 to 50 we have we have semi-regularly groups of 60

56:40that come in and take care of them so yeah it's a lot of people for a burger plate me for a place that how many seats do you have we have 400 with the beer garden open Wow so it's pretty big picnic tables yeah I had no idea you do that many people it's only 127 inside which is not small but isn't big no but then yeah with the beer garden it's it's it's it's 400 that's crazy I didn't know it was that many remember is the beer garden covered we have a new covered area to the side we in 2021 we built a deck so we had the beer garden bar area that had a roof we extended that roof down and built a four seat four table seated section that's like back behind the fence so now we have options on weekends we can do a little extra outdoor but indoor seating and then we can also use that space for private events as well even when the beer gardens open so I mean that's one thing we're doing so hey can we pivot to your job like what you actually do every day doesn't want me to talk about anything anymore I'm looking for ideas as to what I could be doing better sure really self-serving for him walk me through what do you do in a day what does your day look like it depends greatly on the day um how do you start your day what time do you get up in the morning so I my wife and I had a baby last year congratulations so that has also the time I wake up over the past year and a half is much earlier isn't it well well yes and no so it was it's it there've been points where it was later than it used to be because I used to be I used to really like to get up six six thirty and then it got to where again you were sleeping so poorly that it was like you'd push it to seven and you'd accidentally sleep till eight every once in a while I know right I wake up in a panic what happened but um so right now I get up seven ish it depends I it's

58:40funny I'm gonna have to start using an alarm soon because I got myself in such a rhythm that I really love waking up without an alarm and I was waking up in time so often like when I to continue my day but right now it's like again with a baby it's just it's just it's just weird enough to where I need to I need to be more like disciplined and hopefully it'll get it'll not disciplines not the right way to say yeah I need help I wake up I don't use an alarm if I have to give it like four o'clock in the morning catch a flight I'll use an alarm but otherwise I'm up every five o'clock I just my eyes open I got into a habit of waking up at five and feeling great and and I again not without an alarm but it's again baby just like totally totally wrecked that so he's wrecked everything can you give us one piece of unsolicited advice for anybody out there who's about to have a child from somebody who's has like a one-year-old yeah so for just parents in general for dads or for moms it's dad's dad's dad so yeah let's go dad's good dad yeah so if you're about to have a child that's his experience yeah my GM's about to have a child so if you're about to have a child The biggest thing to do just before baby comes and after is and everybody's situation is different but be there for mom yes be there for the baby and love on the baby and help with the baby helping with the baby is being there for mom but the number one thing you can do is find it you know whether it's make breakfast make dinner clean up around the house whatever you know whatever you know find ways that she's gonna feel supported because it also depends on your situation but let's say you know if moms at least got a nice maternity leave or gonna be staying at home then mom just needs love and support and honestly if you're doing especially if you're gonna be breastfeeding and all this stuff there's like not much for you to do to be to be straight up it's just be there for mom so and you know mom is there it's like it's like a little thing is like mom is there for baby you are there for mom and then everybody will feel good correct answer that is that is the only answer I'd like to say well

01:00:40and you can be and I could be more specific in ways to support I'd like I think making breakfast is a great way to do that start your day you know get everybody kind of going in a great direction but that being said it just depends on like I don't know your wife you know so like find the way to support your wife the way she would like to be supported yeah I mean a breastfeeding mom needs so many calories absolutely so that is true I mean I wasn't eating enough and I was like it makes it deflated it makes it way harder human being most of the time absolutely yeah a happy mom yeah what you need to and it's it's a mom's or so they have to breastfeed to get the meal a night and the level of exhaustion I think people don't understand how yeah how like how sleep deprivation is real it's a form of torture it is like yeah I don't even know how I'm fucking like doing what's going on I don't know know what day it is like it's a thing okay thank you it's for it for saying that because I wanted something for people out there so you get up in the morning it's a little different now what's the first thing you do you start working do you meditate do you go to the gym yes you look at your phone first thing what do you do so what reports do you look at yeah so I I will I will look at my phone sometimes it's just goofing off but eventually pretty quickly in the day I'm checking I'll check my email make sure there's nothing pressing check what's going on delete the spam and whatever stuff that I've not unsubscribe from that I don't need everything if everything's good they're checking on the sales last night look at how we did at both locations we have a whatsapp group that the managers talk in make sure there was nothing pressing there assuming everything's just like running like normal you know that'll be then so my week we do payroll weekly and I run payroll so Monday is payroll day and typically I try to get up you know other accounting why do you do it weekly stuff well we started doing that during COVID because we pay all our tips on payroll okay she's gonna get their money fast we want to get people their money and the servers were used to getting it after their shift so we were

01:02:41like wait a week I think in an ideal world we'd get back to it and we've talked about it we get back to two weeks but also it would be like a going quicker is easy going longer is hard so you know but um it's it's not double the work because thankfully we've got a I've got a pretty good payroll system where the actual process of running payroll is very easy he has used paychecks paychecks yeah okay we made the switch from ADP two years ago and it's going pretty well so jealous yeah yeah yeah we use ADP and it's a nightmare yeah they want us back really bad so I've got a guy who who's like we he acts like he's my buddy but he's trying to yeah if he listens to this I'd feel so bad but he's Ricky you're the great you're great you're not really his buddy Ricky Ricky's a really nice guy he really wants me to switch back to ADP but that but we were on an old system and their customer service was really really bad all the different not to also besmirch ADP but you could get anyone on a phone without being on hold for an hour that's unacceptable it was insane so we we switched to ADP last year yeah and our rep guy is amazing okay Shaddy is his name and he's the reason why I won with ADP everything and from what I've understood now like the onboarding is such an absolute pain in the ass it is a nightmare it is a it has been so I've all three of my GM's have probably spent a hundred man hours on trying to set everything up and then they screwed this up and then they screwed this up and then our people aren't getting paid right and then you know it's just it's it's a lot of BS and I'm just and they apparently they do this so that you never leave because your experience is so bad setting it up that they're like yeah I don't want to do this again like there's PTA I'm never doing that I'm just gonna stay with we've got it all done now I'm never leaving again it's just like oh so my my frustration with a lot of these teams is that because sales is such a big part of it they want to get you want to get you stuck I will say I'm like having four thoughts at once Paychex is onboarding they made it really easy on us I will say it was

01:04:43still a lot of work and it was still a grind but they like I I found that really amenable overall but I have found that at all of these companies the most talented people that you will work with with them are the sales reps they are conscientious they get back to you on in a timely manner they have solutions for everything and then guess what they give you the feeling that and I'm the person you're gonna be working with for all the time and you're like and then they're fucking Kaiser Solze they disappear being said my paycheck sales rep we kept a really good relationship and she helps us from time to time that being said that's not her job so we have other people that I don't hear from is regularly with them but if I really need something I know to just CC her on an email and then like we'll get it done it's like so but I try to go the correct route I love that I love CCing the bots to be like watch them what they need watch this interaction yeah absolutely so so Shelby thank you you're the best so yeah Shelby Shelby with paychecks so you do payroll on Mondays I do payroll on Mondays see so we do we just drill in little areas then we jump back to the original timeline and we do catch back touch back so payroll I'll run that for both run that for both locations process and tips on payroll and all the good stuff so importing you know I've got managers there that audit most the information but then you got a audit to get information that they are managers do you have so there's one there's a GM at the food hall location and that's the only manager we have other than that we have some supervisors a key employee kind of thing yeah hourly managers yes okay yeah and then um at the East Nashville location I have a kitchen manager so then there's also a above the the single-store level there's a we have we call her the culinary director so she helps back a house all three her name is Leslie Clem I don't know Leslie do you know Leslie? Leslie Clem. Leslie is great. Leslie should have come in with you and then I can talk to Leslie and we can have a conversation and she can talk to Leslie yeah I know but she's

01:06:44actually training the new GM for the food hall location we just had a transfer there so she's that she's doing that today so okay yeah go Leslie I know no Leslie's great shout out to Leslie so then from there I've got a bar manager a kitchen manager a social media and events manager that she's also taken on a hospitality service role as well so she's doing the server schedule now at at East and then there's a there's a prep manager as well so there's there's four of them there. Nice. So you have a good supporting team. We have a good supporting team. Yeah. The food hall is kind of grip and rip it. It is. Because there's not as much space it's more like show kitchen. And that's fine. It's intentional. Absolutely no and it there's there's not an office there they just have to like they just usually sit in the hall when they're working and then if it's busy enough they just kind of got to get out of there but they could either run down to a coffee shop downstairs if they need to but there's there's no like workspace in the back. Set your laptop on a shelf and just kind of do some do stuff if you need to. What time do you get to work? What kind of shifts do you work? So lately I have not done any shift managing. That's just changing because the GM that was running the food hall for the last like 15 months left we're transitioning we were transitioning a full-time manager from East to to the food hall so we're going down one and right now we're not planning to make a new hire so I'm gonna get back into this shift managing.

01:08:00Congratulations. Yeah I know. So fun. So fun. So is that that's like not ideal? Um. Because then now you're not that person that can float. Yeah so it'll be a transition and the the goal will be to just be really good at our jobs and make it make it work but um yeah no it's it's uh. Yeah look at them in. Yeah. So I will now be doing shift work and I will be not doing the job they pay me to do so I'll now have to do that at eight o'clock at night when my wife goes to bed and she's feeding then I get to get on my computer and do the job I'm paid to do versus the shift work. Basically. I'm here yeah. Yeah um yeah you know your your words not mine uh but uh yeah that's yeah. There's a lot I can get done throughout the shift cuz you know thankfully we've got a staff that that doesn't need a bunch of babysitting depending on the day but uh so I'll be able to get some things done. Then it starts with oh you're always on your computer. No I know. You're not even out here. You're just on your computer. We're the ones who do it's like I know. I know. I know right. No I know. So it's so yeah so that'll be so we'll see that it that'll that'll probably be three to four days a week and then I'll do payroll the other day and then I'll I have it honestly this just happened so I'm I don't I don't really know what it looks like but I'll get in between 730 and 830 most mornings uh depending on Yeah but uh before I would usually get there 10 10 30 um sometimes later cuz a lot of the a lot of the stuff I could do in the computer.

01:09:28That's more Brandon's looking at me. Yeah there we go. Now you're talking about my schedule. Yeah I know. I got today like I have to hire I've got four interviews day for executive chefs but they start at 12 30 so I was able to come here and do do this before interviews and then I gotta go be there all day and all night. Yeah I mean right. But I'm not I don't have responsibility during the shift. Right same. Absolutely that was the thing I you know a lot of times you're there's not a lot going on you're just you're just there to be available to people if you've got time in your schedule just hey let's just like mingle chit-chat see what's going on. Let's see what I can make better. What's your thing like when you when you walk into a restaurant what's the thing that you look for that tells you whether or not the shift is operating appropriately. That's a great question. That is a fantastic question. I'll tell you what mine is. Please. Sugar packets. I'll tell you. At Meribowl we do not put sugar packets like the little caddies on the tables. Right they go underneath the service station and then somebody orders a tea. We bring them a fresh sugar caddy and every time I walk in no matter what time it is there's usually 10 or 15 sugar caddies underneath the service station. If they're not completely full it drives me insane because that means somebody did not do their side work and that means that somebody inevitably will have to go somebody will order a coffee and they'll go would you like cream and sugar and then that always happens when it's super busy then they go over there and they're not prepared then they have to find it yeah it's like nobody has shit just do your job and that's one of those little things that I want the managers to see and recognize yeah and it's just a tiny little thing that when I walk in yeah I walk straight to each of the service stations and see how well stocked they are and see if they are ready for the shift and if they're a complete mess I go immediately manager I go hey walk with me I'll show you some things and I but it's like it's that one little thing when I walk in that gives that indicator yeah how's this running yeah you know I'm gonna walk you got my husband in here he would he would be like I walked to the exact exact same look every day when I walk in I need to I do too so what are you looking for so

01:11:31I first check for trash around the outside of the building I'll circle the entire hundred yep and then you have also often depending on the time if we're not open I'll come in through the back I don't know I won't unlock the front door but if the front door is open then yeah you come in through the front door and then you just is the host are they prepared alert and they're like oh hey you know that a lot they always make a table for two every time every time no joke no it's every time it's the same hello sir table for two yeah my job but no that's it that's a great way to see if they're if they're on their in on their game or not but um see that now you're dead you should that should be you know it is no today it's for you're fired I love that you know for us because we greet with waters when I walk to the service station if the waters aren't stocked I just know people aren't thinking at a time because again you let the take cups get down so I gotta open the cups and you gotta reach up and they're up real high and it's it's that exact same thing but it's mostly for us it's just the cups at the food hall it's the it is the it's the condiment packets and straws that that's there yes if that's disorganized you know it's you know people aren't and they're not stocked when we open which means they didn't do it last night last night work and nobody did it in the morning like there's two shifts of people that didn't do it yeah like my whole theory is so simple when it comes to like success in a shift and I'm like look between 330 and 5 o'clock yeah we're not slammed there's time to do stuff do all of the things between 330 and 5 o'clock prepare for everything of us we can that you can't do at 630 to 7 because you're slammed and it never fails when I do this and then every ship that I walk in somebody walk out next me go excuse me and they'll tell me I go there's no paper towel on them and you just go why and be hell at 7 o'clock are we doing this when you could have done that at 4 just replace the whole damn thing and I'm like now I've got to go down in the basement I gotta get paper towels I gotta walk back up I gotta go to the

01:13:31host and get the damn key for the thing and it's like it's a pain in the ass at 630 one for the whole building everyone loses them I'm gonna steal yours this guy has the key on his keychain that's a baller move right there so to tips on that one if your rep will just give you a mountain of keys and you just shove them in a drawer to hide okay get a zip tie and a ketchup I want your rip your wrap Jeremy Wells Jeremy well so paper paper paper goods and bathroom supplies and mats and all those yeah no I mean we have sponsors on this program and so they're not one and me and Brandon looking at each other oh yeah oh am I in trouble you're not in trouble whatsoever but we prefer to talk about about Tri-Tex Tri-Tex is a wonderful company that provides all of these they will give you as many keys as you want also with a smile okay he had to do the plug that's great I mean it's in my contract I wrote with myself I'm not familiar I'm not familiar with them and I will have to brand new well then there you go is what we're doing it's all about sin toss bought a company called oh yes and so funny story my the owner's funny stories the owner saw an ad for sitex sent me an email said hey I just hearted these guys you know we we occasionally compare pricing he said will you you know send him an email and just you know so I was like okay check the website out hey you know we work with you know we just want us well I will say that if it's true but I'm saying hey no we would love to see what you have to offer in this whole thing and then I get I get an email I get an email from the the sin toss like account manager whose name I'd have to check my email because it's not a guy I talk with regularly but he's like hey I just we just bought this company and we would love to our pricing is the best our pricing is the best and you know and then he gave me the not to again not to be a whole way but he gave me the you know we

01:15:36try to make our business about relationships not you know we're trying to be partners here again and again you know I don't want to do everybody says that was like you know what actually I would like to spend the least money as possible for the highest quality goods as possible and if you do that then we have a partnership and that's your job what is the if in a in a relationship like this now that being said I'm down for goodwill and for trust because when you've got a long relationship but it's like what am I getting out of us being buddies if it's not you making more money like unless it's me making less more money like what are we doing okay so I'm I can't answer that please because I think there is an answer to okay well fair let's so many people do not trust their vendors that's fair that is very people do not trust their vendors so you do is you get people buying on price if it's a commodity it's the same thing apples apples I get it no that's very fair but let me tell you I've ran out of linens before yeah I have a party of 60 that walks in and you were running low yeah and when you pick up the phone person and he goes we have a good relationship then all of a sudden 20 minutes later dude walks in with four no that's from the back of his car yeah your linens you're like but when when you buy from three different companies and you're taking them apart you call that guy and you have a lot of linens he goes call one of your other people do I'm in Chattanooga right now and so those relate and especially I believe this with all of my heart with broad line vendors like the big vendors people that buy from four or five companies like pick the one lean into them yeah use them on that partnership now yeah I think contractually these companies offer you contracts I think I think when those contracts come up you need to bid them across cost or yeah I have you for three years hey I'm gonna put my notice in I'm leaving mm-hmm at the end of these 60 days and then you create an RFP and you send it out to every linen company and let them all fight for it then you sign a three-year deal with all of them and start a relationship with that person yeah and that's as far as the relationship goes no sometimes you

01:17:40become friends and when they have babies you send them gifts and like they're really good people yeah those are really awesome moments and I had a lot of those when I was a rep or whenever I did this stuff and it meant something to me yeah meant something to me but a lot of times it doesn't yeah no that's a good point I will say with yeah with with with linens and you know bathroom services and all those things we we have worked with we've worked with since us long time we only have one we're not gonna we're not gonna shop around with that with food we've actually we have a few small local vendors and then the way we usually do it is we have an agreement with we use US foods as our primary and then we have Gordon as our backup nice so the way we that's the way we've done it where and we actually have a contract where we're obligated to bring in so much from US as our primary yes you have an MDA we have an MDA yeah and then we but then we use a we use a backup supplier and honestly we started we've done the one supplier for well and that being said we've we've used frothy monkey that bakes our bread and we use uh I noticed that you guys switched we did well well yes we love sharpies over here we love sharpies don't disparage them no I won't we love sharpies too honestly the switch happened because they went to baking one day a week during kovat and we were so interesting and so we just switched we saw he made a huge push during the pandemic they were really great over there I really love we were originally with Provence and frothy actually had the one of the bakers from Provence who was familiar with eating our but yep yep yep yep and then who's not there anymore that is correct yes but sharpies was doing it we several issues that we've actually we frothy lost power during one of the storms a few years back and sharp years made us bread for a few days so we've maintained a good relationship with them and they I think that you know we've we've talked they'd love to have our business back but you know once when we're when we're working with a partner we don't typically switch when things are good unleash the wolf with Campo Bravo tequila Campo Bravo is a 100%

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01:21:47from local to global and from staple items to gourmet rarities they have the variety of products to cover all of your needs produce seafood meats gourmet staples to go and dairy 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 what chefs want calm or give them a call at 800-600-8510 I think in that world and she uses a different bread baker also who's the hers user Bobby John Henry and Bobby yeah I will I'm very loyal yeah we've got samples from them the bread world if you're doing a sandwich place like you long as you are buying a local fresh bread from a local company that's delicious I think nobody I think sharpies would be like dude go for it that's great yeah you should if you said I'm buying frozen burger buns from US foods they would they would be like dude why are you not you're supporting a local company that is supporting another local company that's good that's what we need to be overall that's what we need to be doing I agree yeah it's a big deal to get the pharmacy account you know like it's a lot of bread and especially between both ground beef yeah a lot and it is a lot of ground beef and in festival season for us like we're ordering hundreds and hundreds of loaves every every you know couple days and so that's a huge account to get to lose to and that's a responsibility that we take very seriously you know that we aren't just gonna I mean when we open another new locations they hire someone they are like how many okay one person one new person because it's like building their business too that's great and so it's a

01:23:52big deal you know when we choose these vendors and as someone who's a pastry chef like bread baker by like what I've done it is it is such an art to do this kind of bread making the to get the product consistent the way that we need it because if it comes too small then it looks like you're you're sliding your customers you know and it comes you know overproofed and there's a lot of it's a really important to our sandwich shop to have a really consistent bread company yeah no he's a hundred percent hundred percent you can't but like even with products that we get from US foods unless it's like they're which we don't use a lot of the generic mainline stuff if there's something we want we have to tell them months in advance a lot of time so that they can just acquire enough of it to make sure we can get it you know it obviously depends on what it is but who's your rep is a JPEG no it's a Vic Nielsen you know Vic I used to be district salesman he's a great guy because a legend really Wow oh my god he's the number one rep at US Foods him and James Todd I think were the top two but Vic is and then Buffalo Bills Nation yeah yeah overcame cancer you know was on ESPN tables yeah yeah no we love Vic Vic's the best Vic is probably the best salesman best food salesman hop top two top three I've ever I've ever seen yeah that tracks his he's confident he's knowledgeable he hustles he cares like he does all the things yeah he's a badass he's bought me food at restaurant depot before he's just like I can't get you this you'll just like go to restaurant depot and he's like you need a thing of salmon like okay you know I can't get it to you faster this is the this is the fastest way I can get it for you he's like the nicest guy you ever hang out things like the nicest guy you know he was when I was first starting there he was really kind of young guy he's not like an old he's a younger guy yeah he was super kind to me but man if you get in his way he goes from like he's a fun guy Vic to like you

01:25:57will bring my chicken and he'll like inner company inner company like fighting to make sure you have no shorts or any outs I've seen this guy just on his computer one throw in something like yeah this guy's passionate yeah in a good way awesome not a negative thing like fighting for his customers to get his stuff it's pretty neat yeah he's a sorry Gordon foods are our title sponsor and we love them we're gonna get you guys you guys are on the wrong good good good they're the backup they are they are they are a backup when we get a few key items from them and that but that's a recent change we did we started that last year we were with Cisco was our backup after being our primary for many years and then that but why'd you make that change well again that started and this is part of the reason we've been only Cisco before we've been only US foods and then I've found a backup is good just to we want to be dedicated to our partners and be consistent with them but also keeps everybody on their toes just slightly which I you've mentioned the struggles with that but that's the point where we also want to we we we want to be very consistent with them but the big reason I do it is because of the Cisco warehouse being destroyed in a tornado yeah they just opened it though and they're back now which is great years ago yeah yeah and then you know I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty details of other things switching but we literally had to buy other things because of that there also but also like I was like I can't I have to run my business whether your warehouse gets destroyed by the tornado so I have to have relationships with like just things happen we lost power for three days during the during the 2020 tornado so it's like there's you know so we've we've got generators and not not fully set up but we've got ways to keep things you know running and operating to some degree in the event of crazy things happening but point being we like I I can't you know if act of God happens like I've got to have a foot in the door to have solutions you know when when I was at fresh point I did fresh point for seven years that that company pivots so damn fast but tomatoes so they have fresh point tomato they sell all fresh

01:28:02point does all the tomatoes for all the Cisco's in the whole southeast right and they have to buy tomatoes from there's like a hundred and ten different farmers that they buy from not because it's the best price or whatever it is but because availability if anything happens they have to maintain relationships with so many farmers they just buy yeah all over so that if there's a salmonella outbreak or something here they can they can pivot to this area and it's like so interesting these little behind-the-scenes things like well why would you just buy one farm and buy everything from them and then like well if something happens with them we're screwed so they have all these plans and how they purchase and who they purchase from it's really fascinating yep no it really is and people have no idea this is like oh my tomato is different today it's like yeah there was so much that went into the reason why it's regionally seasonally they can buy a majority from one place but they do maintain relationships if there's a high quality place they can get a good deal then I would say there's like this is really interesting because this is more my lane like you know consistency a product you know because the type of tomato slicer we use if the tomatoes too ripe it's gonna smash it you know like there's all these different nuances to doing a QSR and pharmacy isn't a QSR but we are at the food hall yeah you are at the food hall so it acts that way and that you're doing one thing really well and you're trying to give people full you know like a consistent service that's quick and you know your takeout and I would say but like a restaurant like a you know the st. Vito's focaccia like he's not worried about those things like he's like I'm gonna get two pounds of these really special green almonds and make this special with them or you know like it's a totally different type of problem that we're trying to solve on a consistent basis and it's all about consistency absolutely like the the main thing is people going in and if you change your bread like oh man I I don't like this I don't like that it's like and we're always trying

01:30:02to fix the problem right and there's real reasons why we have to change because people go out of business or whatever you know and or yeah they can't where they can't you know these are really these are problems that you are solving places that are high volume too so it's like the the busier you are the harder consistency is how many guests are you doing a week say it again how many guests are you serving in a week um man between both locations just at East just at East so it's usually about a thousand on Saturdays I should have this number off the top of my head I know it's so hard to remember all the numbers yes so many but um it's usually about three thousand in a weekend give or take and then another between five and six thousand a week yeah somewhere right now so it's a lot of people a lot of volume that's a lot of volume that's a we're doing roughly that at Greenhouse Grill and it's it's a yeah that's a big volume you open the door and here they come yeah that's awesome it's fun it is a lot of fun and I'd rather I'd rather be busy than than slow obviously it's managing volume is a lot more fun than trying to generate it how would you say your quarter has been this year because we were just talking about this we all feel like everyone's kind of down a little bit we are I believe we are slightly down at both locations but not but not not not not majorly though right I think the average thing is like seven or eight percent yeah right now yeah and it's it's it's it's not enough to be like whoa what's going on but it's like we're all kind of down and I that we're hearing that from a lot of chefs tweak a couple things to make you know staffing wise no it makes it you need it makes a huge difference especially when well and we already with the large outdoor space you know as operationally we run a really high labor through the winter a labor that makes me very uncomfortable because for that oh my god yes because you need staff for the busy season and things feel really good and

01:32:03they feel like they're supposed to but I get so anxious even though I do it every year I get so anxious every winter just like the numbers aren't right but then again we I just have to learn to like just not think about it because I don't want to rehire especially not in the kitchen you can't rehire new kitchen employees every every spring you're gonna have to you're gonna have to find a few but like once you've got people that are doing the job for you it's just like take care of them keep them in there and just do it and you just try to you know you try to reduce and make things make sense and you know take on little projects and we're gonna clean this area and do that you know we do as many things as we can but it's it's like I get it it bothers me so much how anxious I get well that's about July is my slowest month okay like Mayor Bowl yeah my slowest month at Mayor Bowl the holidays yeah change the name to Mary Bowl and we do twice the business we know it's our busiest time of year so this time of year it's like oh we didn't do like we did half what we normally do and you start you start going like you start thinking like who's gonna be like dude I can't do this anymore and they go like no not you and I mean it's a whole there's an anxiety around it for sure well it's funny too and I talked to the owner about it too because but we've all been through this enough to where it's like we all get it but it still just doesn't feel good but it's like you know the level of business we do over December and January is still like a it's very healthy if you were doing it all the time and it's like just the operation would look very different you know there'd be like not half the amount of people but something like that and it's and we would all feel great about it no one would even think but it's like we need twice that many the rest of the year so just it doesn't makes it like the seasonal thing unless you like for servers you can hire seasonal servers and it can be okay I still don't like doing that like I just don't I don't like bringing in people and saying hey you're gonna be here for six months and then move on it's just like it's really hard to find the quality of person you want you know representing your company doing that yeah I mean same with the food truck like we know every year like after a certain point in December it we used to shut down like we used to shut

01:34:05down from December till April like that was and we would only take like private events and when we were in a restaurant and but now we have a food truck manager we have a team that's been together for six years on the food truck we cannot we don't lose them so we basically just do enough events to break even and we just know that the food truck is operating at a break even yeah in the offseason yeah we should be closed yeah that's basically our goal to you usually ends up being a loss just because of course it is so but then I think if we were like the staunch business owners that we probably should be we'd be like it's shut down because it's also wear on the truck yeah you know it's cold it's not you know the vents aren't the quality we want them to be and what we're expected to be it's it the seasonal business thing is really hard no it is it is it really is and it's um but we've made it work by having really good months and really strong months in those in those warmer seasons so it's really like it's it's eight months out of the year that are really good and then there's two that are lesser and then two really terrible ones so if you're local what months when it gets cold outside yeah there's too busy it's not too busy in December yeah go eat go eat your hamburgers especially went Monday through Wednesday you know come come grab a burger Daniel yeah I I don't know if anybody out there listens to this and it's like yeah yeah I get it I think this is inside baseball I have loved this I have much fun I myself have had so much fun time I've had a great time honestly when do you get to just sit and geek out and I like hearing you guys talk about DM geeky DM stuff yeah go probably for hours I could do this for a very long time what honestly is I don't

01:36:06and I don't know you seem to know what doing this you're gonna meet a lot of people in the industry I don't know a lot of people in the industry so I used to be the beer buyer at the pharmacy which I loved doing I did that for about four and a half years and I got to meet lots of at least the beer people and doing that I got to meet people doing other restaurant things which is really fun but doing what I'm doing like I'm too busy to meet people especially not having a baby it's like I don't know I'm having a baby you're not gonna have no I don't know anybody and and I've been at the pharmacy for 10 years so I haven't like be bopped around restaurants which is all good but it's very validating when you're like this is what it's like yeah that's what yeah exactly it's like but I don't know anyone else that like and I but I didn't I'm the first director of operations we ever had so like I have kind of developed my role but it's it's nice to hear it's like oh hey that's exactly what I do maybe not not really anymore but I think we should I'll get your number for you we gotta compare notes on what reports you look at my favorite pastimes is figuring out crazy reports and how I can like my most recent one was average average beverage per person number you take your total guest count divide that by your non-alcoholic your liquor beer and wine you take those numbers you divide that by your guest count and you get an average per person beverage number I'm annoyed I didn't have that and I said something I've wanted for so long it's it's I said it at each restaurant a number and then there's a we don't do bonuses we do something called performance-based compensation so when you perform in different areas then we share profits right so fun concept but the beverage per person is what I call it my employee engagement number because if your employees are actively selling beverages it's not just what do you guys want to drink water drink yeah if you're actively selling something or if you're creating specials around your drink menu you can see that number climb up and if you're doing 5,000 guests a week and that number climbs up 20 cents it's a huge deal that's a big deal but also if I'm a leader in that building and I want that number to go up my brain now start

01:38:06working what do I need to do to build that engagement and then I'm starting to look at my non-alcoholic beverage numbers and you look and you go we had 5,000 guests we sold 127 Cokes yeah no people are ringing shit in yeah and all of a sudden you start looking at it you start auditing tables and you start talking about in lineups and be like absolutely when you measure what matters all of a sudden you start getting more results and that's just one of those little things I just like beverage employee engagement how do I identify what I want to get with you go what numbers do you look at I love comparing notes on when I when I was the beverage director to the one I always wanted that nobody could give me was I because this was more for beverage selection when I was when I was picking the the list of beers I always wanted to know when I sold a beer I wanted to see the ratio of them ordering a second one of that beer or another drink altogether not as much from the same the server sales but like where they're where the guests enjoying the beer but they're like I don't want another one I always want to know what beer would I sell three of we're like maybe they get an IPA and they're like that's bitter and I don't only get one I just what Bickey Bickey B-I-K-K-I okay is do you use toast we do yeah look up Bickey okay this is this is a system we use but it will tell me when my first guests are who my first guests are okay what first guests order I have a data at the grill I can tell you what the item is that first time guests order that bring them back the fastest okay yeah I need to do that and it's the it's the Green Hills Grill hamburger okay the item that people don't come back the fastest is the whatever we know that too so if you're a server and we're talking about how they sell your first time guess you need to have the hamburger we know that we can actively sell the hamburger to first time guests because that's the data you can intentionally know Bickey can give you there's three million different sets so I love we use compete data use Vita I'm sorry these are accounting margin-edge compete okay and so all these

01:40:08different things combined I just sit and I play with what report can I run to identify and I just that that's the luxury of what my job is I have time to do that yeah you know it's like most people like I didn't have time to go that's what I do yeah I know right but I could that translates into profits it translates very quickly into being intentional with what you sell how you sell and how you interact with your guests okay we could do this again for hours we can have fun with this stuff we're at our we are at our time this is the tastiest hour of talk in music yeah not two hours not two hours so one thing that we do here is our final thought the final thought is our Gordon food service final thought our amazing title sponsors that need to be the primary not backup yes they would love you I love you if I give Vic a good shout out yeah yeah but also GFS you know sponsors do you guys do THC beverages yet of a GF GF THC beverages like this Cali sober up here no we don't do that dude we're gonna send you home with some and that this is the next thing this is the next thing okay guests coming in especially he's national ordering a five milligram THC soda charge like 850 form and wait like actual psychoactive actual THC it's legal due to the 2018 farm bill so you can get THC sparkling sodas they have this ginger berry is the paloma right up your East Nashville alley and it's a non-alcoholic option all the non-alcoholics going crazy right now it's a non-alcoholic option yeah that also gives you kind of a buzz so it's kind of okay yeah I'll send you almost some sample thank you it's good stuff but the last thing we do is the Gordon food source final thought you get to say whatever you want to say to take us out the mic is yours you're speaking to everybody this is where you can give unsolicited dad advice yeah restaurant advice or you could tell people to vote for or whatever you want to do I mean I don't recommend that but whatever yeah so okay if we're just I mean we'll keep it restaurant focused I think the number one thing I've learned especially since

01:42:10being I've been the director operations now coming it's almost two years in July and then I was the GM for a year before that in the agent before that the number one thing I've learned is the most important thing is hiring the right people especially for leadership roles and that bad or hiring the wrong person even if they're you know not to again to disparage anyone but hiring the right person sets the wrong person sets you back so much further that take your time it's better to even run with fewer people than you need than to hire the wrong person into a leadership role have too many interviews vet them I'm not resumes or it's really important to study a resume but also like previous experience honestly is something that's mattered less to me over time although depending on the person it can be very valuable but find the person that's the right culture fit for your organization if you're if you're like we are and you're a mom and pop and you don't want to be you know overbearing with your with your leaders and you want them to kind of flourish you've got to find stealth self starters you got to find people that want to to own and grow with you obviously you're gonna direct them and coach them up but then also but if you come if you're a little more corporate you got a little more rules and regulations you've got to find someone that's gonna be really happy and content having a list and completing that list and so just it depends on your organization but hiring correctly from the get-go is I have just found that surrounding yourself with good people is like almost the only thing and if you get that right you'll be fine Jim Collins good to great yeah right people right seats get them on the bus absolutely thank you so much for joining us yeah I have thoroughly enjoyed this I had a great time you got to come here to okay this again some this was not as yummy as I thought it would be okay okay D OE D OE D OE is a new world is wonderful she would love

01:44:11to come that would be great and we'll come visit you please bring my kids in and we'll come say hi again a family day would just wow like ten people and see if they got space well and you get my number let me know and I go to talk I can help smooth yeah exactly great Daniel thank you for joining us today have a wonderful rest of your day and we'll talk to you soon thank you all right there it is Daniel Frazier director of operations and general manager from the pharmacy burger parlor you know it's interesting you know director of operations they wear so many different hats Brandon what do you what is the hat you're you're wearing during the day like what is your daily really you know it's interesting because I I don't have a specific role in any restaurant really so all of the restaurants function without me I don't have to be in there however I have to be in there to learn what's going on and how it's going and I have to use my 30 years of experience walking in to identify areas of opportunity what so my job was very weird because I do all the negotiations I negotiate every every line item there's there's a P&L and there's food cost there's liquor beer wine and then there's labor and then there's all the controllables right I manage a lot of the controllables all the different dish machine chemical linen food for all intents purposes I maintain those relationships and negotiate those for three different restaurants it's nice when you have three because you have a little leverage and you can get stuff done and so that is a major portion of what I do but then also I manage the general managers right so I don't have I don't manage hourly staff really at all I do my absolute best not to sometimes there's a scenario this past week there's a couple scenarios where you know I have a bar manager and there's a bartender and they're kind of back and forth about some things and I get in the middle of that because I'm a really nice calming hey let's talk about these things and I'm good to have that I over like I'm

01:46:11also the boss so you know I try and be curious I mean that's the main thing is I walk in the door and I try and find I tend to tell myself a story about what's happening when I read manager notes or and sometimes that story isn't real you know I'll tell my story they did that because they're this it's like hey that's not the right way to think about this I'm gonna go in and seek to understand so my whole job is seeking understand and then finding a solution I'm like I talked about this thing in the minutes I'm a roadblock moving motherfucker right that's the thing I want the general managers to have their job this is their restaurant they manage it and when they get stuck they have me they don't have to figure it out they can call me and go hey I'm stuck this is what I need but I also give all of them direction every week we meet every Monday we go over what their week looks like what they need and it's kind of a what do you need hey I'd like you to focus on this and we do those things the busiest day of my week is Monday yeah Monday I do 80% of my work on Monday and then the rest of the week is me figuring out what to do the next Monday what direction we need to go in and how we're gonna go there and I meet with the owner and I'm in the restaurants walking around bus and tables saying hi to people just talking but it's really difficult because you it's really easy to find what's wrong and so I'm really focusing on being curious and finding what they're doing right and I like to talk to people and learn about them and their families and what do you do and just connect and identify where we need to go and Steve and our visionary it is a great job at we want to go here and then I a lot of times capture we have a lot of meetings roadmap it when he when he has 20 ideas I have to kind of disseminate which ones of those ideas we can actually do and I'll pull those out and go hey let's focus on these three and then I have to put a plan together and then you have to I mean there's so much like I said it's a luxury position to have in a restaurant to have somebody who's focusing on those things is most time it's between an owner and a general

01:48:11manager that they're trying to do that and we want our general managers focusing on making every guest repeat guest 100% time all the time so that's a that's a great explanation of like what you do but that's like something you've just kind of garnered over how many years in the industry you know because that is 29 I've had to write a job description for that position because I've hired the director of operations position two or three times over and it is really hard because you have to be very self-motivated and it does often look like what is that person doing and if that if that restaurant is struggling with X Y or Z especially with staffing you know and and that general manager I mean that director of operations has to come in and kind of like basically they get all the problems that like the general manager cannot fix and it is like a roadblock thing and the good thing is the perspective like that's how I feel now because I'm out of my restaurants I get to have perspective coming in and it's a lot of like why or an understanding okay you 86 this but what was the solution how did we get there you know that I feel like that's probably once we grow a little bit more in restaurants like what I will feel like I now know how to hire that position which I probably didn't before it's it's it's very important and thank you it is important and a lot of it is not being too emotionally invested because I'm not in that restaurant 50 hours a week I don't know all of the tiny storylines around it so I'd not clouded by we need to make a decision for the business but there's much emotion wrapped around this thing I can come in with a clear head and go well let's think about this logically and what we need to do here and like but that's gonna make this this it's like I understand that too but also for the greater good of business what we need to do there's a side of that that I can come in and do those things but the worst part about it is the guilt I live

01:50:15in guilt and that I'm not in the building anytime anything does happen I take it as though it's my fault right so if something happens in the restaurant ship yeah when I'm not there I go damn it if I was just there I could have fixed it and I and the separation of it's okay when things happen I will then go and we can respond really well moment right like as long as it's it's teachable actionable like let's okay let's use this as an example let's never do this again you know yeah that's the only way I can sit okay with those things because I also feel it and I'm sure you feel it too but as I can owner I feel the financial loss you know when things like that happen for sure and it just like oh like the crushingness of like losing so much money at certain points for whatever reasons I feel like the director operate of operations helps prevent that loss we try to so it feels like it is worth its weight you know what we want to do is we want to be intentional about every single thing that we do right and when you're intentional and somebody that they said what's if I was to hire a drill manager what's the number one thing this is my business coach I have a coach I work with she said what's the thing that you would want to say what are you hiring for and I would say the general manager has to make sure we're ready and she goes what I go the whole job is to make sure we're ready it's somebody thinking about the next thing every single day showing up to work and responding to what's happening means you're chasing your tail but if you're constant if somebody's thinking about hey tomorrow we have that party at three do we have these five things do we have this this what can we do between two and four that's gonna make sure that at 530 or 6 o'clock when we're busy we don't have like are you ready are you thinking about what's gonna happen the next day every single day you're proactive you're

01:52:16not retroactive that's the thing in a general manager and that's what I have to do also I have to think about what's gonna happen and make sure that the general managers have everything they need when those things happen so that they can take care of their team in a safe way and that every guest can be taken care of and a lot of times that's looking an open table and seeing that somebody has an anniversary who's a regular and sending a note saying hey dr. Johnson's coming in it's in twice 25th anniversary go buy flowers or go do this go do that and then they go oh it's a good call and they'll hospitality right there but we it's so cool that's the fun stuff I get to do and then I get to come in and just shake their hand and tell them happy anniversary for me being in the restaurant is the funnest thing I call it playing restaurant because I don't have an actual role no same look at eyeballs I look for I just look for service and I just walk over and I see regular faces and I go an open table and I see how many times everybody's visited and I go by and visit specific tables and say hi and and then I if somebody orders any kind of intense me orders a special I go to the table hey our chef created this today what do you think and there's an art to a table visit you mean to tell you one of the things I tell the managers all the time so if you're gonna do table visits the number one thing you don't say is how is everything yeah never walk up a common thing to say right well but you should anybody walks up to a table and you go hey folks how is everything today how are we doing today is a very general question that people will say we're fine thank you yeah right so that's an easy go away when you want to connect with you want to so being personable and learning their names and what they order like that remember me kind of a thing you have to get past the hey folks how is everything today okay good thanks for coming by like that's the generic manager visit that literally checks the box of I visited that table but if you go by and you go hey I see you guys ordered the scallops tonight how are those scallops cooked for you like those yeah now all of a sudden somebody's gonna say oh they're really good they

01:54:19cooked them perfectly tonight I really like the way that the asparagus matches with it they're gonna give you a real answer so being specific hey I saw that you guys ordered our featured wine what do you think of the featured wine is it the way that they described it yeah you're bringing them into the fold they feel like they're helping you a specific question and I always like to compliment people's clothes that's a good one too I love those shoes all those Jordans I like those are they got that jacket it's really cool you're you're you're also pointing out a per you're being personable with them like you know you're I don't know there's something to that like it feels good to there's an art there is an art to doing a table visit and every time in restaurant somebody who a manager walks by and they'll literally touch your table they'll lean by they'll touch the corner don't go hey folks that was everything today and you go that's great and they go okay wonderful and they walk away and you go basically they're not listening that was the most generic manager visit but if somebody walks by and says hey hey I see you're wearing Jordans I like those Jordans are those ones and you're like yeah they're low tops I like those like yeah man those are really cool hey how was your steak was it cooked the way you like it you're like no man it's perfect I really like is this a choice steak or is this a problem this is prime this is really good or whatever it just opens that conversation and those are the things that I love to do the most just connect with people when they're dining that is everything the other thing that is the magic especially a mirror bowl it works but every time I do a table visit I always ask people if they like me to take a picture of them right so if you're a manager and you're walking by a table I always like to say hey if this husband wife whatever if it's a family a hundred right see what I go and this is random but would you take a picture of you with your camera and they go yes thank you how often do you get pictures of your entire family when they're together and if you're dining like to ask somebody to take a picture if he's coming I don't want comfortable like people yeah all right that if you're a manager and you're walking by table even if you're a server I would drop the check every single time and say here's your check folks thanks for coming out tonight hey would you like me to take a picture of y'all before you leave yeah and every time I guarantee you take that picture you say hey tag us if you put

01:56:19that on Instagram yeah we've noticed that when I do that our pictures are posts people that tag us online like triple that's Father's Day Mother's Day any of those days I just walk around and take pictures of guests when they're in the building that's all I feel that like tonight like oh they want their see I don't know well you can have a celebratory too if they're at mirror bowl too you know they feel like they're gone out they're dressed up it's a whole thing I love it because I'll take a picture of a family and then I'll turn around and I see through the tables like with their phones in their hands like you guys want and I'll just walk around and like take photos for everyone and people are like this is amazing is the easiest thing in the world to do but it's genuinely free now now you get a photo of your family at our restaurant dining and now you're gonna share with the world that you were dining in our restaurant and then people see that like we got to go there priceless and it's getting right there free free and it's anytime you want to do it your time yeah so be specific at the table with what you're asking about compliment clothes and take pictures those are my three if you want to do a really good table visit be present and genuinely care like genuinely care that their guests are there learn their names ask them their names while they're there hey what are your names I've seen you before I'm Brandon I'm and oh yeah people love that yeah it's really fun of that and then I of course tell about the podcast and you to listen I'm just kidding I don't do that sometimes throw in your sponsorships when you're talking to me oh I don't ever talk about the podcast but people will recognize like oh no we listen or they'll say something like are you Brandon and I'm like voice so recognizable too I don't know it's a it's fun it's one of my favorite things and people do that cuz like oh you know about this other side of my life well and if they listen they probably know a lot about you they do cuz I don't know I don't pull but I just talk about yeah all the stuff in my life the most awkward thing and you'll deal with this you'll have this experience one time when you're somewhere and somebody says oh yeah no I love I listen all the time and you're like oh no but you feel naked

01:58:26oh you feel exposed because I know I don't even know your name and you probably know all about me and I don't know it's just it's a weird kind of a moment where you're like okay I feel I feel like very vulnerable right now yeah I feel like I've felt that way since I started my business though because yeah being so active on social media putting my life out there there are people that just know parts of me that I just wouldn't you know like I'm very social so I would probably tell them that anyways but if they come to you with that information it feels intrusive for some reason you know so I don't know it's it's a weird thing to get used to you know of people knowing things about you and you're like oh yeah you just ate there and you're like how did you know that yeah it's like okay like it's such a weird like thing yeah your public out there and I like it and I'm not saying I'm not saying I don't like this at all you have to get used to that it's just the first time it ever happens the the other thing and if you've listened to this long you're gonna get the you're gonna get the nugget the other thing that you'll experience is this as a co-host on the show is the one-night stand experience she's like I don't want any harder the best way I can describe it if you've ever had a one-night stand and I have had a one-night stand before I've always been married over 20 years ago you'll sit in this room and in here we have these amazing conversations we just had an hour and 20 minute conversation with Alexis Saler right you may not see her again for a year okay just because yeah just life your life and whatever but you'll be at a function and you'll run into her and you'll go hey remember that time a year ago when we sat in a room and had a really good hour and 20 minute intense conversation about our lives like intimate thing and then you're like I haven't talked to you again for a year and how are you oh I see

02:00:28how you're referencing it's that moment of running into somebody after you have a really intimate long hour long conversation where you really connect and we in this studio like this is no bullshit like in these interviews we really connect it's a moment really open it's really fun and it's everything to connect with these people that are in the studio but then life happens and I've got all the stuff you've got going on and then you don't see them for another year and you see them in a year and you're like I remember that time we had that really special moment in that studio it's like a one-night stand that's the best way I can describe it and then and then it's like it's like you'll probably never have a moment like that again with them because it's such a time like we said like no phones there's no other people around you're kind of in conversation I'd like to say like I've I've had awesome text exchange with some path of the guests we've interviewed and it's not always that way it's not always that way a lot of times you can't so I have like a handful of shows on my you've had over how many shows like they were 385 yeah so you can't really connect with every single I know some people are double guests but you know you can't really stay in touch with that many people look I think that guests that come in sometimes you connect to people genuinely and you're like wow I really like when you were in here I really felt like wow she's amazing I love talking to her like I would like to continue to now here you are we're at we see each other back every week we see you here a lot now which is good my show too but sometimes it is but sometimes you do you know somebody and they're in a different part of town your circles just don't just something they have to do probably to get whatever you know they want to get information and they want people to recognize them for whatever and then yeah that's all so useful and that's fine a hundred percent sometimes you see like Shane Nasby lives in Bellevue and I see him and his wife Angela and like we stay in touch and there's people I mean there's a lot of people that we like you said

02:02:29you text with or you talk with or you a lot of you will call me like on a regular basis go hey I have a question about this because that's what I do operations right and I also own I also own a consulting company right so I do consulting for restaurants I never charge people this is like after those conversations you just Venmo request them you're like hey yeah yeah that was 20 minutes no we I genuinely love helping people it's a thing if I can I'm not saying I have all the answers but like a lot of times after the show we'll talk hey what do you think about operations is that and then they'll call me after the show I feel like there's a lot of like okay let's touch base on that like there is a lot of helping and connecting after the show which I really appreciate and maybe we need to include there's some you know sometimes there's sensitive information that is about their business that they don't want to share on a show and I understand that but hey what do you do for this a lot of people are interested in the sponsors you know hey who's tell me more about Callie sober I want to learn more about so tell me about Gordon food service like why are they really your sponsor and I go yeah no and we talk about how they can help or insurance or number one is super source people come in here all the time and that's easy they see the they see the thing and they go oh dude I love that guy super source is the best I'm about to put them on to our new space yeah I mean and sharpies is another one I was at Jambox last night and he was telling me he said hey look you know we were the bread is amazing because we were going to we bought this bread from Cisco and it had this this and this he was but then I talked to sharpies and they were able to make a better bread and it was half the price of the frozen bread Cisco was like so we have fresh bread delivered daily for Jambox from sharpies and I was like dude that's amazing he's like and I wouldn't have known about him unless I you know sharpies I'd learned about them from your podcast and they do the bread for Cletus and all that the potato bun on this then I go well that to me is so helpful well like that's it like that's the reason why I want to do this is

02:04:33because how do you learn about people like sharpies if they're not like knocking on your door but like they're not because they don't have time they're not that big of an op they're not that kind of operation where they have those marketing dollars like that no I mean I'm not it's not like expensive to advertise on the show but like I and I tell people know all the time that's the thing I don't think people think is like I have a lot of people reach out for sponsorships I'm like I don't believe in your brand like if you're a sponsor probably apply to anybody wanting to know about that yeah you're like I get it well I think people like oh look I need to get in front of restaurants here's this product I'm like tell me what your product I'm like if I don't believe if I'm not like oh that's amazing like that's really yeah then I'm not gonna talk I'm not gonna stand up like you should use this thing and it's like then it's disingenuous and I don't want somebody to use something you're like dude that was total shit yeah why did you tell me I should use that and like oh how people like I want to give people the best references no matter what it depending on what they need right I mean somebody who's been food trucking for 14 years and running restaurants in a specific way I'm gonna give people information and pricing and like I mean why not share that stuff you know like let's all help each other get better and like people have done that for me like I've often I have so many awesome relationships with other restaurant tours that I'm like I can text like I'm borrowing three hot boxes from Biscuit Love today like that's like gonna save me hundreds of dollars yeah like why am I just like these relationships are so important these connections like we not just helping each other and like whatever but you never know you know maybe you get yourself into or maybe you're having growing pains and you need somebody who's been there done that you know just to let you know it's gonna be okay or I mean you know we all kind of need that sometimes or we don't you know and and we should be someone who's helping someone else to have that accessible to you to know to have like that network of people that are willing to help you I mean that's been one of the main things through the show is

02:06:33honestly been connecting other people hey I see that you had this guy can you help me I want to meet them or I want to meet this person it's like totally sure and I'll call people hey can I introduce you to this person this person this person and the amount of connections we've been able to make through the show has been incredible and then with the vendors meeting all these vendors and like people that genuinely want to help restaurants and how we're doing it I think it's been as the director of operations that we started this conversation side of what I do working with all these vendors I get to and I take every call all the people that spam you are like hey we have this new technology I'm like fuck it let's go call me and I want to learn about a chef like chefs get the food stuff you know like you get all of the stuff like like some of the stuff you're talking about like when I worked in restaurants as chef like I would never have been even thinking about some of this stuff you know like so I think director of operations you guys are screening you know screening stuff to bring it before the chef and before the general manager to be like hey guys we're switching to this it's cheaper it's better the customer service is better you know or I've been able you know negotiation is a skill right if you go by everybody has this if you go buy a car right just for instance and I did a full negotiation episode right there's a skill help someone buy a car I've helped a lot of people buy cars that's the thing I also do is I will go and they get paid for it yeah but this is the thing but like I go to the car dealership and what they want you to do is they want you to sit there for as long as you want I know and it's like they they are skilled in negotiation you come in if you're not skilled in negotiation they will own they're gonna crush you and they see you coming a mile away and their entire goal is to crush you and then make you feel like you got a deal talk to anybody who's ever bought a car and say hey did you get that car oh yeah I got the best deal on it yeah have you ever heard somebody say I got fucked man no they get they rake me over the coals on this one but I bought it anyway have you ever heard anybody say that remember

02:08:36when you're talking to my husband and he was like I would pay more just to be able to leave there that's a thing he literally was joking with you because he was like my personality is so not what you're saying like the one that would pay more just so I can leave and get out of there salespeople get trained in negotiations and what is gonna make you emotionally make a decision they want you to emotionally invest they let you drive the car to lunch no hey drive the car to lunch so they want you to have a real-life scenario in that car as if it's yours and then you drive it back you've already formed a bond with it they own you at that point oh yeah so when I negotiate a car deal for somebody else you're like I don't I don't give a shit about the car relationship I'm here to get the better deal for this person and I got all fucking day and you go I get all great by the hour I'm getting more money if I just sit here yeah they don't they don't there's no well I mean I well you know you can do like a flat rate but like nevertheless there's no rules in negotiating but if I save you five thousand dollars on a car and you give me a thousand for it it's like I just made you four thousand dollars off a car that in and six hours of your time it's one of those things I like doing because it's just a fun thing but food vendors liquor beer wine idea right all of these people are skilled in negotiating and you're a chef and what I do is I make really good food and I have to schedule people and this guy didn't show up and this burner just broke in the microwave doesn't work for this yeah you're gonna walk in and be like hey let me tell you what I can do for you or they bring you in some sexy food and you're like oh I want that let me tell you how you get this you got to sign it you got to do it and it's like like negotiate that stuff take your time and that's where I say I'm a luxury position I have the time to say hey let's meet and let's talk about it and let's go over these things let me learn every single aspect about what you're doing and then you know if you know talk about

02:10:37it yeah like what a nibble is and like these little there's like little terms that you have to know and then they realize who they're talking to and they're like oh shit yeah isn't gonna buy it you know like he's not gonna go for my tricks because you kind of it cuts through a lot of the bullshit yeah it cuts through a lot of the stuff and people go okay well here's what I can do you just can't brass tacks what are we looking at and when you do it a lot you know what everybody else is but you know what they can do so they can't be like man that's all you do I'm like no I know you can do more I know what I know this guy does this yeah okay that's what I love about GFS is that they are the people that come in and do what they say they're gonna do because they're a family-owned company they're not a public company and they don't have stock shareholders who are saying you need to push margin margin margin you need to figure out how to make the most money possible because we as shareholders want you to be profitable GFS is a family-owned business so they they're genuinely a hey let's help you succeed what we have to do and if the margin isn't there they don't have shareholders who it's broadcasted on because they have to have shareholder when you release your EPS score and your results they have to do that live the whole it's public knowledge and they have to like everybody wants a certain thing and so GFS is just a different company that they do things completely differently and I just I love that about them and they're very straightforward and they do what they say they're gonna do so that's why they're one of the main that's why they're the title sponsor probably have any of the food vendors like the broadliners be a sponsor I'm sure any of them would but you picked GFS yeah I did honestly because they're my they're my favorite and they're they're really good people honestly they're just good people and I like when people do what they say they're gonna do that's awesome it's my favorite thing and life if you do what you're gonna do this is a good life thing too yeah well I mean today I'm not gonna say who it was but we had an interview scheduled for today and the person just ghost it's the first time 382 episodes I had somebody ghost us didn't show up just

02:12:38didn't show up I usually choose who's on the show like people that I see that I think are really interesting I'm like I want to learn more about that person you want to know more so probably so does everyone else and so I'm just genuinely curious I'm the message I'm like hey you want to be on the show and learn more I'm interested in what you're doing and so yeah there's a lot of PR companies that reach out and say hey we have this person like to get him on the show and so that that is a thing and 99.9999% of the time it works out really well maybe it's like oh I would have never thought of this person they are doing something cool or whatever but well Alexis was brought to us by bread and butter hospitality and I don't and this they're amazing but like she that was a fantastic I'm so glad and she has so much going on she's she has more things coming up that Daniel today was that was a that was a PR company sent us him to I mean there's a lot of different it's very helpful when you're as busy as you are to have people send you yeah I guess yes they also want to do it so it's very symbiotic right how many people I want to if you live you're listening this far send me a message and go dude I was listening tacos at tacos for real right all right um happy birthday thank you I hope you have the most amazing weekend and pride and Juneteenth and a lot of things happening this week for me to have a birthday great week for you to have a birthday the things I love to celebrate in one week that's amazing I love it and me too I'm loving to celebrate you oh thank you we'll be back 40 I like those shoes by those are really cool they're sock boots yeah I dig them I don't get to wear them in the kitchen because they're not non slips shoes so I save them for my podcast days they're really cool thank you and when we come back so next next week we'll talk about our month of July yeah what we're doing but thanks for listening and thanks for checking us out and we hope that you guys are being safe out there stay cheesy Nashville love you guys bye