David Andrews

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello, Music City, and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host and we are up and running. It's Metro Nashville. How's it going? We've got a bunch of restaurants that are going or rocking and rolling and I am just dying to hear more about what's going on. Our guest today, his name is David Andrews and he owns D Andrews Bakery and Cafe. It's downtown and he's gonna be opening his doors tomorrow and I know that he is ready. I know that he's got all the right stuff down and he is he's ready to rock and roll and I hope you are too. Are you talking, I know one of the things you hear me talking about at the beginning of my shows is Kurt's hospitality. Janet Kurtz, you've heard her on our show. She's amazing. She's coming up with ideas every day, her and her team and they're trying to figure out ways to get the people back into your door safely. What are you doing out there to make a difference? She can help you put a plan together to make sure that your business is ready to go at this thing full-on. So give her a call.

01:29Check her out at KurtzHospitality.com. That's K-U-R-T-Z-Hospitality.com and her phone number is, let me look it up here, her number is 615-456-3953 and she's waiting for your call. So let her know you heard about her here on National Restaurant Radio and let's keep going with some housekeeping here. So again, if you like this podcast, I would love it if you would click the subscribe button. We are constantly coming up with new things. I've been testing this out so I've been releasing episodes the night before and all my subscribers are getting it in their inbox and the next day we're blasting it. So if you want to be one of the people that gets this podcast as soon as I hit go, click subscribe. There's a couple special things for you subscribers that I'm trying to do. So let's get into today's episode. David Andrews is, he's a, he's a native son. He is a guy that has lived in Nashville the majority of his life, grew up here, families from here, came back home and his story is just really cool. I really enjoyed talking to him and I hope you enjoy listening to him. So without further ado, let's jump in with Mr. David Andrews. Welcome in to the show. David Andrews, he is the owner of D. Andrews Bakery and Cafe in downtown Nashville.

02:55David Andrews, welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Thank you Brandon. I appreciate you having me on this morning. It's a pleasure to be here. Well, I am so excited just to talk to you. Your story is so interesting as being a native son and owning a restaurant downtown, just kind of how you got there, I thought was pretty cool. Being a guy who's lived in Nashville for 30 plus years myself, I like to talk to people like you and tell your story. So let's just jump right in if that's okay with you. Yeah. So your family owned McClure's Department Stores. Yeah, so my family owned McClure's Department Store, which was in, had a store in Belle Meade. So it was really great as a child to go in there and for people who don't know what it was, just think it's like a family-owned local Nordstrom. That's probably the biggest comp and we just had an amazing Christmas shop, amazing high-end clothing from Armani and St.

03:59John and then we went down to more ready-to-wear and had children's clothes and a great gift department. It was just an amazing place to grow up and famous for our bunnies during the Easter time. I have pictures of my siblings and I playing in the bunny cage and it was just a wonderful place to grow up and be. So you guys had bunnies? Yeah, so they're actually at Phillips Toy Mart now. We would have bunnies during the Easter season and people would come in on Saturdays with their kids and could pet the bunnies. I guess you could do it back in those days and not get in trouble. But it was really fun and on Sunday mornings when the store wasn't open, my parents would take us over there and we'd just get in the cage and play around with the bunnies. So fond memories. You guys were right there in Belle Meade. What year, when did McClure's like close? It closed in 2002-2003 was the was the final time period and yeah it was just it had a great run. It was in business for over 80 years and it gave me a perspective on small businesses. I think it's been very helpful for for what I'm doing now in my own bakery and yeah it had a great run, a great time, fond memories. It's just time to move on. Did you work there? I did. After college I worked there for about two years. I was actually the ladies lingerie buyer which was pretty funny and the ladies high-end dresses. So yeah it was great. I got to go to New York and it exposed me to some great restaurants in New York because we would always go out after viewing the shows and so that was a definitely an added plus and again it helped me later in life. So I'm gonna get back to the ladies lingerie buyer. Just because I'm curious how one, so your parents own the thing and you get in you work there but why ladies lingerie? Like how did you get into being a lady? I'm just curious now. Well I think the reasoning is A, it was the one

06:04buyer that was open so that they put me there because everything else was filled. Another reason it was, weirdly enough ladies lingerie was my grandmother's favorite department so I think it was a opportunity for her to shepherd me in the way she believed the business should be run and how everything should be done properly. So I think it's a combination of those and I was very close with my grandmother so I think that had a lot to do with it. Yeah learning how to buy ladies lingerie from my grandmother was an interesting dynamic of business. Well she I would always, I love the color purple and she would never let me buy purple lingerie because she always said that was the color of death. So that's my biggest takeaway from the color of death. That's what she said. She said that's what they line the caskets with. She would always say every time a purple or lilac lingerie came out. I was like one of these days I'm gonna do it and funny enough when she passed away I made sure she was buried in her purple St. John's suit. So it all comes full circle. So where did your love of cooking come from? So you worked there for the last two years and after that you just go to New York? After that I was about 26 and I always loved pastries. I always would bake pecan pies in my mom's kitchen. She would always get mad at me because there was flour on the floor. So just it was just a natural transition for me to when that door closed just to follow my passion. So I made the leap and went to New York and started at ICE which is a basically career changer culinary school and it was a great experience. So since 2003 what's the number one thing you learned in culinary school? Oh my goodness. If I was a kid out there and I was thinking I need to go to culinary school what's an argument for going to culinary school?

07:59Maybe give me an argument against going to culinary school. My opinion on culinary school is don't waste your money. It's a very rare exception that I recommend culinary school. I think that right now when I went it was $15,000. For me I think it was okay because I just I was so not shell-shocked from the store closing but I just I wasn't acclimated to the restaurant world especially in New York so it was a good transition. But now culinary schools are $30,000 and I would just tell somebody go to your favorite restaurant in Nashville or go to your favorite bakery and say hey I'm gonna wash your dishes for two weeks and if you show up every day on time and you do a good job and people like you their next business is going to be open they're gonna hire you. So I think I truly believe from everybody I've seen in the restaurant world it's better to work your way up because if you come in and say hey I want to culinary school the average chef will be that's nice. Just save your money. The same is like bartending school you get somebody come in and they'll apply for a job and say I'd like to be your bartender and you go we kind of promote to that and they go no I went to bartending school you go yeah that that's not really what bartending like there's a lot of variables when it comes to bartending I used to say that you could you could teach a monkey how to make a Jack and Coke but you can't teach a monkey trust. I know that's why I always say it's like I can teach anybody to do anything I just need you to prove yourself that you're you're you're a hard worker I mean hard work is number one in my book. And you know what it takes a lot of time and energy to train somebody properly and if I'm gonna take that time and energy because I care and I want you to be great and I want to set you up for success in your future I want to make sure you're in you know I want to make sure that you're the kind of person that I want to take that time and energy to do that with. Yeah absolutely I think I mean I think well I don't want to completely bash culinary school so there are good parts of them but I find

10:00so many times at the bakery somebody will come in and they'll have their own opinions and say well we did this this way at culinary school and I was like that's nice but this is the way we're gonna do it in my bakery and I think that it happens all the time so give me somebody I can mold somebody who works hard so I can trust somebody who I can be loyal to and they can be loyal to me and I think that's what makes a great cook and then ultimately a great chef. So in New York you graduate you graduate culinary school I assumed you worked around New York in different places? Yeah my first job I my first job was at Gotham Bar and Grill which is it actually just actually just closed it had a great run too so yeah it was a three-star restaurant it was I call it a rock star of a restaurant we would do 400 covers on a Saturday night and back then we were doing five days on six days on so we were doing 60-70 hours a week and I know it sounds like a lot and it was a lot it was the greatest training experience I could ever hope for I loved it I learned flavor I learned how to be around the kitchen and it definitely I definitely needed those three years to learn the ins and outs of kitchen and it was just a spectacular education I love the people who were there I love my bosses but yeah it was hard work and definitely after three years you you definitely have a big breakdown everybody does and so I'm very grateful for for everybody there. What was the so when you're going through you kind of get out of culinary school what's the biggest transition moving from culinary school to Gotham what's the what's some of the stuff you learn there you have any good stories? I think the one thing that the one of the most important skills at Gotham is cannelling which is basically the beautification that you do when you scoop ice cream and make that sort of what is it an oblong circle just has points on one end and then round in the middle and the ports on the other end and you just do it with a spoon and they basically didn't even teach you to culinary school how to do it but first

12:04they at Gotham they just have you work in your canal and try to make perfect your ice cream and plating so just skills like that that you just have to work at work at work and then eventually you'll master. That's amazing that sometimes people forget that like there are such details that go into every single dish and just the way that you scoop ice cream can be something you have to train somebody that level of detail is just amazing to me. Yeah and when you master it, I was just so proud. I mean my canal game back in the day was strong but yeah those were fun times. I remember walking to the kitchen they had a little jar of Q-tips in the middle of the table and I was like what is that for and then I eventually stayed for the night service and they were plating and if they put down the sauce and the dessert plate and it was it was bad they would take the Q-tip and just run it across and make it perfect so that level of detail is it's what gives you three and four stars in New York and it was a great training ground and I'm forever grateful to Alfred and Deborah and everybody who there who helped train me. Anywhere else you worked in New York? Yeah there was two others well there's four stops after my little three years of Gotham I wound up at Mercado 55 which was Marcus Danielson's take on Ethiopian cuisine. It was short-lived. That's another podcast if you want the stories on that one. After that we I went to Cheche which was a sandwich shop in the Chelsea area. Good experience. That's where I saw it started to translate from culinary I mean sorry from pastry to culinary and again that lasts about a year and then after that I wound up at the Kimberly Hotel where I was the executive chef for six years. I started there as the executive pastry chef and and within six months I was the executive chef so I was there for six

14:06years in that job and that was awesome. It was sort of the polar opposite of Gotham. At Gotham I learned flavor and at the Kimberly Hotel I learned management and how to deal with people and how to babysit and how to deal with the owners and which were great they are great but you know there's a lot of people in hotel that you have to please and it was just an amazing experience. Wow okay so you said another podcast I'm gonna jump back to the Marcus Samuelson place. You don't have to tell me any crazy tales but let's get let's let's I want to hear one story. Why'd you leave there? Is there a good exit story? Well Marcus had exited first. He wasn't even there the opening night so that tells you how invested he was in and to say say Marcus was flavor wise Marcus was one of the most talented men I've ever worked for and I have enough I'll say good things about he's a very nice man very always very nice to me. He seems like an amazing guy. He was a big yeah he's very amazing and he's he's one of those people when you I remember the first time he walked in he just has this charisma he's just one of those people where he walks in the room and everybody looks and he's he gravitas exactly he's like gravitas like people say like Bill Clinton's the same way or Michael Jordan like Marcus Samuelson when he walks in the room all eyes are on him but yeah he it was just owner situation everything wasn't going right it was during the 2008-2009 recession it just didn't work and then they tried this brunch series where they would bring in all these tastemakers for a Saturday brunch and have champagne bottles on the table and they brought in these two hotshot kid promoters it was just it was just a lot and people were just going crazy they eventually had this little bar in the bottle next to the pastry kitchen in the in the basement called Bijou and it was just it was just a spectacular failure where yeah just a

16:10lot of money when people just saw it as well as meat pasturing district in New York let's put more money more money and it just it just failed it just just sometimes it's not the right place right time and that wasn't that all right so we will do that on another podcast all of that and seriously we'll spend like 20 minutes I want to know the whole story how that thing went down so there's a little teaser for the rest of you we're gonna do that we'll do that another time but let's you know there's something really cool that I learned today at noon there's gonna be a Blue Angel flyover in downtown Nashville which to whatever debate that's the way the government spends the money I don't care but I think that's pretty cool and I learned something interesting about you that your great uncle is the Andrews from that they named Andrews Air Force Base after yeah my great uncle is Frank Maxwell Andrews he was a general in World War two his plane when he was actually coming back he was a director of European operations and that I think was probably 1943 he was 42 43 he was flying back to meet FDR and he was going to take over as the supreme Allied commander unfortunately for him when he got to Iceland they stopped to refuel and as I suppose Iceland has there was some terrible weather and his plane went down and he was killed so he's finally remembered as one of the founders of the Air Force and after the war they decided to name the newly National Air Base in Washington DC as Andrews Air Force Base and today is called Joint Base Andrews they merged it with another Air Base and my family is just extremely proud to have that our name on such an institution we're always proud and when dignitaries fly into the country we always hear our name and it really brings a smile to our face so I'm very happy about that and one for me

18:12sorry so I did go there a couple years ago and we we walked through the gate and we came upon the film crew and I was like what are these people doing here is there somebody else coming and then I realized they're here for us and so it was pretty cool they were interviewed us and kind of treated us very special and it made us proud that's that's a cool story man wow that's that's some pretty cool lineage and the best the best part was actually they have a golf course so we went to the pro shop at the golf course and it was really cool to see Andrews on all the on all the golf balls and all the golf t-shirts and all the paraphernalia so we definitely we definitely spent some money that day and really special day every everybody and that Christmas got Andrews Andrews Air Force baseball balls that's hilarious all right so back to our story I'm sorry a little detour I thought that was a really cool note that I wanted to get a little more details on so you're in New York you spent all this time there when did you come back to Nashville so came I so year 13 I was I always told people whenever I lose my twang or my sensibility it was time to come home so yeah 13 year 13 was it for me usually it's around year 10 people start to move out in New York but you're 13 I came home I I knew I wanted to open a bakery I had been thinking about for years and years and I just didn't there's some definitely some fine bakeries in Nashville I just didn't see anything that I sort of bridged the gap between that a patisserie you would find in New York in a boulangerie plus more of a cafe where you would serve sandwiches and salads so I saw a need for what I do and I just I went for it so we moved back in in 2017 like 2017 started searching for a space I knew I wanted to be downtown because I knew I needed that foot traffic that would be key to what I was doing and we found a great space right next to the library on church and church

20:14and fifth and church six and I love it so it took about a year and a half to to make it happen when did you actually open the the cafe yeah we opened in the summer of was it back in summer 2018 July 2018 and so we've been doing this for almost two years now and how was business it's been fantastic pre-covid it was yeah yeah that's what I mean yeah yeah it was it was fantastic it was it was we were growing literally every month we grew and people were getting to know us we saw so many regulars coming back and then we saw more tourists coming to the shop as our image grew and and I loved every second of it I'm so proud of my bakery I'm so proud of my team it's just and it's fun I always I love it I think it's interesting just how people get where they are and I like to tell the story of people following their dreams and hopefully their dreams come into reality so you started Nashville your parents have this department store you work there you're a women's lingerie buyer you moved to New York you you go to culinary school you've worked for some great places you gain lots of experience are you married did you are you have children yeah no I found my husband Matt in New York and we've been together for about 14 years we've been married for I guess four years now that's awesome nice yeah and he was he's a huge part of the story and I've always been I've been planting the seed for for certainly ten years that needed to come home to Nashville and he just just he he said yes when I said does he like it he he puts it he likes New York he loves me that's the way he puts it he yes the answer is yes he really likes Nashville it's it's a little slower pace than you are but still has all the it has many of the advantages that a big city does I always

22:17I always tell them I'm lucky I'm not from actually disparaged another city but I'm lucky I'm not from somewhere else I'm looking I'm looking I'm very lucky I'm from a very hot city as in yes popular city so that definitely made it easier to convince him to come back and yeah he's been great what does he do so he is actually a producer for Lonely Planet so he'll produce their web content and that's it's almost an ideal job for him he loves to travel he he he has a background from MTV he worked for MTV he worked for VH1 work for logo he worked for NBC News so he has this production background but he always had this love of travel and wanted to sort of parlay that into a job and he did I'm so proud of him and he's just he's the best that's awesome man well I'd love to hear that so you guys move back here you open the place it's going wonderfully and like I said I like to chronicle kind of everybody has a different story right now and I could talk to ten people and six of maybe the same but former completely different and COVID-19 kind of first we had a tornado and then COVID-19 hits you made the tough decision to close the restaurant not doing to go in delivery what was that like yes I was so for me the tornado was actually for me the tornado was just didn't affect me that much actually actually the morning of the tornado was actually one of my weirdly enough it was one of my favorite days ever at the bakery because I saw all my regulars coming in and they were just they all came in at once and they were just there for comfort and they were there because they wanted their bacon egg and cheese sandwich they wanted to be around people they were familiar and family so that morning I'll always weirdly hold a special place in my heart because it was just so familiar so community oriented I loved it so two weeks later are when the covids are really hitting the week before our sales were down 30% and then

24:19I think was what it was it March 16th was a Monday and our sales were down 60% that day and then the next day just the writing was on the wall we so we shut down March 17th just because because we're downtown because people have the stigma of coming downtown for delivery and for a pickup I made a decision we're just gonna close it all I didn't want to do a half-assed job of trying to do take out and not having our same quality and there's also there's there's also just psychological it just safety safety and and it just it just we I just determined that people I respected like Joanne Chang who owns Flower in Boston and she just closed everything down she said this is best for our employees it's best for our customers it's the best for the business and I really it's a tough decision everybody always says it was the toughest day of their life I've heard Danny Meyer say that I've heard Joanne Chang say that I said heard every chef say that whatever it was March 16 17 for that chef it was just the toughest day of their life was because employees are a family and we love our employees and I just it was just was it was tough absolutely so during quarantine as as has been I'm still in quarantine I'm kind of one of those health risk people have learned so I'm not necessarily going out yet but the mayor has opened up to phase one which is 50% capacity you're able to open and you are not currently open but you are opening tomorrow yes we are opening tomorrow so let's I love to walk through that decision where did that come from and what are some of the things that you thought about and what are you most excited about I would say the decision was a couple of prongs one is truthfully our PPP money came through so we had a we have a cushion to go through the lean times and I have said before I thought

26:23it would be irresponsible for me to open up without that cushion so yeah money was definitely an issue and also as far as the mayor's phase one there really aren't too many food options downtown so I do kind of feel a responsibility to my customers again that familiar familiarity that we have with them that that it just brings comfort even me walking down the street downtown I'll see a regular one of our regular customers and they just smile when they see me so and I know what that's about and I smile why I see them because we care about each other and love each other and so I do believe there is a place for community and my decision to reopen my employees are ready to come I was ready to go back it's kind of you know working for 14 years straight in restaurants to have two months off it's just unheard of so we definitely had to get back to work what are some of the things you're doing differently when you reopen we are certainly paying a hundred percent attention to what the Nashville Health Department saying we have stanchions in the bakery now we'll have lines there's and we have marked positions that are 60 between each one we today we reduced our numbers our occupancy is 48 so now we were allowed 24 people so we make sure our chairs are positioned we'll all be wearing masks we all you know take our temperature we're just just everything we can do to ensure the safety of our our staff and our customer will do and we're all about that so you're taking the temperature of your staff when they arrive for work yes we will be taking temperature if for some reason I'm not there because the first person gets her there at 3 a.m. so in some instances like the mayor says we'll have an order system if I'm not there or for some reason somebody else not there to take your temperature but yeah we will we will monitor that and we will log it so what is your staff telling you are

28:25they ready to come back to work are they ready to roll or are they nervous are they scared I would say 80% of my staff were ready to roll they were they were great they want to get back to work they love what they do they they they are proud of what they do I'm proud of what we do so I think most of my staff was was in that and again being restaurant people we we probably are a little bit more cavalier a little bit more just we want to be out there and that's just our nature and I think that's great I love that that's what I love about the business a few of my employees one of it has pre-existing conditions and and didn't feel like she wanted to come back and I hundred percent understand that I I completely understand that I love these people so we will we will continue on and welcome them back when when they feel comfortable you know you just touched on something you said a phrase that I love you said we're restaurant people and that's something that I don't think other people recognize that restaurant people are that this is in their soul this is in their blood and you know who I'm talking about the people they aren't gonna they're gonna do anything else in their life they want to work in restaurants they have that spirit of service and this is what they want to do because they miss saying hi to people in the morning the regulars they miss that interaction they need that they want to make others feel good and restaurant people do that I had a old boss say restaurant people are the ones who tell their parents they're gonna work in restaurants and they're okay with it they don't have to explain well I'm also gonna do this and they can say no this is what I'm gonna be a chef or I'm gonna be a career bartender or server because there's real money that's made there and I think that there's a lot of people that are just people that get a paycheck that also work in restaurants and restaurant people are different do you know what I'm saying oh I could write a book on it I it's

30:27funny because most of the people who come through my bakery and workers are restaurant people they love it they love the adrenaline and I reference those 400 covers we used to do a Gotham Bar and Grill those are grueling just gut-punch nights but it is man it's just the adrenaline that you feel but the rush just the the excitement of a kitchen and it's just like a drug it's just you just you love it and you love you just you love the challenge that's for me what I love most is I like to be challenged I like to push myself and I think that's what being a restaurant person is it's somebody who wants to better themselves wants to make everything better but also loves the fact that yeah I've canel a hundred scoops of vanilla ice cream tonight but you know what the hundred want is gonna be the best one yet and we love to challenge ourselves and we love to have that community and just to to rib each other as unlike you know playing jokes on each other not because we making fun each other but because we love each other and we have to push others each other's buttons and it's just this almost gamesmanship that is addicting and we love it I you know if you could see me which we can't because we're not doing this over zoom I'm just smiling ear to ear because you just described the atmosphere that I love the most you know you just described just that there's a playful nature of working in a restaurant that is that's so detailed and so stressful but it's like I think Jay Alexander's calls it organized chaos but there's a fun of that way it's almost like a battle mentality that once you've gone through a 400 cover night and you you make it through at the end of the night there's a we did this together as a team and it brings you close there's a closeness that you feel I think a lot of people are really missing right now yeah I remember those again those 400 covers of Gotham Bar Grill we didn't at 1230 one o'clock and and strangely enough we'd all go to the

32:29little bar across the street and all have a shot of tequila and and and and dance and because you just these are the people you grow up with these people you people that yeah you've been working for 12 hours with them and any other time you'd be sick of them but just that rush it's probably what I would imagine like what a band goes through playing a show they get done it with her set at 12 o'clock and that adrenaline is just still pumping and you know you all your other friends who are bankers and lawyers they're asleep so you hang out with your own kind and it's just a great community so you mentioned a band and this is something I wanted to ask you so during a concert Eddie Vedder always stops and says my big Pearl Jam fan he says ladies and gentlemen this is Mike McCready on the guitar and this is Stone Gossard and he goes through all of the band members who are the people in your band that that help you on a daily basis that that are those people give them some shoutouts here yeah so Dean Gallagher's is my pastry chef and he I say he's the most talented pastry chef in Nashville I am so fortunate to have him I love Dean he's he's he's he's an amazing person and I'm very fortunate he used to work at a Prima and Geist and his talent is world-class then we have Rachel who does her cage I was worried and she's just again a world-class cake decorator and I love her and even and she's lately just stepped up and wants to try her hand at more culinary more savory and she really impressed that she brought me a tears a couple of months ago she did such an amazing job and I compliment her and then Jerry Britt is my my savory chef and he's his his palate is impeccable he's such a hard worker he he brings to the bakery ideas and ways of doing things that I may not

34:30he's very in touch with local farmers and so he brings that aspect to the bakery that I probably need help with and he's just ultra talented and so yeah that's that's the backbone backbone of my bakery or the four of us and we make a great team and I'll on a little side tangent I'll always remember on Monday morning when we turned back on the ovens and said hey we're gonna open this Friday those three people were there with me and that's something that I get choked up about and just it's just the emotion of seeing their faces seeing their trust seeing their love and they're there morning number one and that's something I'll always cherish I'll always be loyal to them I'll always love them and that's my story that's what I'm talking about I love that I love that man amen okay so I'm excited for you I know you've got a lot going on your opening tomorrow and I have one more thing I want to ask you about then I want to get all the information give me all the details about your opening when people can come in what they can do all of that good stuff but you do a thing called D Andrews after dark exactly and is that something that like people know about or is that like an underground thing I think it's a downtown underground thing and the the genesis of the idea was that Jeremy Dean myself we're all restaurant people and we love the bakery because we still have that desire for that rush of those 400 people but at the same time we're at that point when you're in your late 30s and early 40s you you just it's just not practical to be at the restaurant until 11 p.m. every night so that's what we love about the bakery is we can work a 6 to 3 shift or a 7 to 4 shift and do all

36:30the same things that we do at Gotham Bar and Grill or Adele's or any fine restaurant Nashville we use those same ingredients and it still satisfies us and we see our customers but we don't have to be up to 11 however there are there's still that rush you get for dinner so we created this dinner series that satisfies that so once every six weeks we'll announce on our website or through our newsletter and it's about 18 people we'll close we we rearrange the bakery into a big chef's table and we'll serve six seven eight course meals that I think rival anything you'll find in town and we just try to be creative we try to you know we are charging a premium so we're able to get nice ingredients we've done braised rabbit we've done made our own pasta with and had scallops and Dean made this incredible decomposed German chocolate cake last time and it's just something deconstructed yes deconstructed I know it was amazing and had all this beautiful tempered chocolate on it and it's just these are just desserts that obviously we can't sell every single day of the bakery and may not even want to attempt to do every single day of the bakery because it's so labor-intensive but we still have that yearning to achieve greatness and to experiment and to push ourselves and I think that's what this dinner this it just it just allows us to stretch ourselves a couple of times once a month and we love it well I'm probably not alone listening to this thinking I want to go to that how do I sign up for that newsletter yeah I'd be in the know what do I need to do so you can either ideally you ideally you would come to the bakery and have breakfast or lunch or some takeaway goods and then

38:31you can give us our email it'll ask you on our POS computer screen if you want to give us your email and if you put your email down then you're in our system and we'll send you those those new letters we also send out recipes of the month we send out special specials we're doing it's just a great way to connect to our customer or you can go to our website there's there'll be a pop-up menu pop-up box and you just put in your email and we'll record it that way and we'll send you newsletters or just follow us on Instagram the Andrews bakery follow us on Facebook we're always posting and telling you what we're up to so we definitely I think we do a very good job of staying connected with our customers and yeah so if you guys don't know about them D Andrews bakery follow them on Facebook follow my Instagram go to D Andrews bakery get you some breakfast get you some lunch and sign up to be on their newsletter let me ask you one more thing do you sell any of your baked goods to any other local restaurants if I have a say I want to open up a coffee shop but I don't do food can I buy your stuff and do you deliver do you do that around town at all yeah so we we are we sell to Andy blue which is in Bellamead on Harding there's a it's a great a great spot and that's about it right now we're in talks with a couple other I think that'll that's something that we were just starting to expand to we really want to hone in on on in bakery sales before we tackled wholesale but I think especially in this new environment that we're in we certainly need every single source of revenue we can get and so I think that's you'll be seeing those popping up more so yeah and then as far as delivery we offer we're through ubereats you can offer it through there and then if you want to we're actually doing a pastry box for this coming Saturday and hopefully every Saturday after that and you can just go to the website and

40:34tomorrow or Friday morning sorry Friday morning and then just say hey I want this pastry box and it will get delivered to you we're partnering with a great new partner partner joy drive that does delivery I think there's so there's many ways you can get our pastry or just come downtown I think people are intimidated about town downtown and you really shouldn't be especially especially weirdly right now because there's there's nobody down there there's plenty of parking there's you can park at the library right next to us maybe not in the parking lot across the street because it's very expensive but there's plenty of street parking you just have to drive around once or twice and you'll find it and it's just a it's it's it's such a it's like I guess I'm biased I just think it's a it's a magical place I smile every day I go in good man well I love I love your energy I love you have such a positive outlook on things and I can I can tell from your food I mean it's just beautiful and if you're out there and you own a coffee shop and you needs me to do kind of what he's doing give him a call check him out I think that you that would be a great another opportunity for you maybe for you if you own a coffee shop or whatever and if you're a listener and you want to go find a great new place go check out D Andrews Bakery it is downtown off Church and fifth you said Church fifth sixth yes sir between and Church Street right next to the library and and we do a lot and we my favorite famous tagline is we're actually a restaurant masquerading as a bakery because we serve so much so many sandwiches so many salads a lot of soups so we definitely have a lunches is plentiful and we're actually just today Jeremiah we're working on a on a smash burger so we got some some ground beef from a Bear Creek barn with Bear Creek farms and then we're making our own brioche bun and there's spectacular so I think that's a little little tidbit of things to come just just and it's spectacular all right I guess I will see you tomorrow that's gonna happen thank you so much for

42:38taking time today I know you're a busy guy getting set up for tomorrow but we're just excited you came here on Nashville restaurant radio and nothing but the best of luck to you mr. David Andrews all right thanks Brandon I really appreciate the time today thanks again to mr. David Andrews for joining us here on Nashville restaurant radio and thank you the listener for stopping by we always enjoy it when you hang out through the entire episode so much so that if you go to the anchor FM site right now and you favorite this podcast the first person to go in and favorite this podcast will get a free hat I've got some brand new Nashville restaurant radio trucker hats that are just arrived and they are awesome so the first person to go favorite it I will get in touch with you and hook you up with a brand new Nashville restaurant radio hat so I hope you guys are doing well out there stay safe stay sane love you guys bye bye