Gerard Craft and Evelynn Hadsell

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. I am so excited coming at you on a Monday with James Beard award-winning chef Gerard Kraft and Evelyn Hadsell. She is the executive chef at Posteria here in Nashville. Super excited to tell you all about this episode, but I want to give you an announcement. We got something really cool coming up. We all know that the non-alcoholic and zero proof is all the rage right now.

01:02And if you just can't do it, you're trying to figure it out, relief is here. Tuesday, October the 10th at 6 p.m., there is a non-alcoholic 101 class. It is going to be held at Killjoy. Killjoy is a non-alcoholic bottle shop right off of Wedgwood and it is owned by my sister. So very, very cool. You can follow them at Killjoy underscore Nash and you can find out all of the details on how you can go and learn all about non-alcoholic culture and cocktails. So it's a non-alcoholic cocktail class. This episode today is a very interesting episode. First of all, I will tell you that we did this via StreamYard, which is like our version of Zoom, and the internet did not want this episode to happen, it just did not want this episode to happen. It was very difficult to start day one.

02:02Sound was not amazing and it was just a tough one. So I apologize about the sound, but I really enjoyed talking to them and I will tell you this is a two-parter because the first interview happened at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, I believe, and my phone started blowing up in the middle of the interview and one of my restaurants had a situation. I left it in there. I left the phone call and everything in the interview because I just, this is what happens in restaurants. We talk about the bear and is it really that stressful? Does that stuff really happen? This kind of stuff happens every single day, it seems like, but not in this particular situation, but I had to leave the interview mid-interview, 30 minutes in or 20 minutes in or something, and I had to go, and everybody understood, and then we picked it back up the next day, and then the next day is the rest of the interview, and I thought it was really interesting, and so I kept all that in. In this interview, we are going to talk about leadership, we're going to talk about what Chef Gerard and Chef Evelyn are seeing out there, what, how they execute their business at Posteria, what are their threats that they're seeing, what good books have they read?

03:17We talk about tipping because I cannot get enough about talking about tipping. It's one of those things that, I don't know, I think I'm going to be the champion for tipping people that deserve it. I think that that is a main, that is a focus for me, and I've talked about this a long time ago, but this was a great interview, and I loved talking with both of them. Evelyn is really amazing, and she's doing such just really cool things over there at Posteria, and Chef Gerard obviously is an innovator, he's a visionary, won a James Beard in 2015, best chef Midwest, he is the CEO of Niche Food Group, and it was an honor to have them both on the show, and it just was so much fun, and we are going to jump into that in just a second, but I need to tell you about Cytex because I am such a fan of this linen and uniform company, they do first aid kits. They do it all, and if you are looking for a linen company that you can trust, that's going to care about your business as much as you care about your business, then this is your company.

04:27They're based right, they have a facility right here in Nashville, they're based in Kentucky, so it's regional, local regional, it is not a big national brand that you'll never see, like the CEO has been in our building, he's amazing, and we're just honored to work with them. Give Ross Chandler a call, if you want to work with a company like this, his number is 270-823-2468, I absolutely vouch for them, they are awesome, and that is Cytex, and let's jump in right now with Gerard Kraft and Evelyn Hadsall. Okay, super excited today, finally, to have Gerard Kraft, who's the CEO of Niche Food Group and James Beard award winning chef, best chef Midwest 2015, she loved when I added that in there, he's just like, okay man, and Evelyn Hadsall, she is the executive chef at Posteria Nashville, welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio.

05:35Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. What everybody doesn't know is that the robots in the internet world and everywhere else are trying to prohibit this conversation from happening. Chef, where are you located right now, Gerard? I am in the middle of the woods in St. Louis, Missouri, or outside of St. Louis, Missouri. Where are you? Are you in Nashville? I'm outside of Nashville, I'm in Greenbrier, Tennessee. Greenbrier, Tennessee, and that's where you live? Where is Greenbrier? Greenbrier is about 40 minutes north of Nashville. Wow, so that's quite the commute that you have every day. A little bit, yeah. Too bad. Well, thank you guys for joining us, typically we have Caroline here, she is under the weather, I had COVID last week, so I canceled on her, and now this week she's canceling on me. Chef, have you had COVID yet, Chef Gerard?

06:37You know, somehow I've only had it once, and it was kind of like pre-vaccine, and you talk about internet stuff, I got it, and I was feeling pretty sick, pretty worn down, and I had a charity benefit, there was like some live stream thing, we had to put together all these packages, you know, hey, guys, I have COVID, you know, I can't do this, oh, that's fine, we'll just drop all the video equipment off at your back door, and so I video equipment through my house, like, taking breaks every two minutes, I was like, oh my God, so yes, I've had it, but somehow, not in a while, so I'm sure my time's coming again, I need to get that new booster.

07:38Yeah, Evelyn, you said you've had it one time? Yes. Tough experience? Yeah, not a great time, but got through it. I tell this story, I ask you this question, because I was telling Evelyn before we started, I said, I had it, and it was terrible this past week, but it was also very magical. I loved it, like, it was great. Just because you got a week off. Yes. Yeah. I have three restaurants, a podcast, two kids, a wife, two dogs, a cat, you know, I mean, I stay very busy, and it's about the only thing out there that I can say, hey, I'm going to lock myself in a room, don't bother me, and I don't catch shit for. Yeah. And it was nice. You know, Chef, you've got Posteria Nashville, you've got Posteria St. Louis, I have a list of all of your restaurants, and you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, you have what, nine restaurants?

08:43Yeah. How do you find, relax, like, what do you do? Do you get them? Great. That is a great question. Yeah. What do I do? I mean, I mountain bike, and I love, and in fact, you know, I said, in the middle of the woods, I moved out to pretty much my favorite mountain bike trails, and so I do that, you know, to get some kind of clarity, and, you know, I do find a lot of enjoyment in my work, which is really helpful, so it doesn't, you know, I feel like I'm always something cool, fun, unique, you know, I'm very, you know, ADD, and so I love to constantly be busy and learning and researching and reading, so.

09:44Do you think that ADD is a prerequisite to be successful in the restaurant? I've heard it's kind of prerequisite to be an entrepreneur, at least. I don't know if, you know, if you're in the restaurant business, I don't think it's always actually a good trait to have, you know, I think, you know, because there's so much monotony in running a restaurant every single day, that, you know, some type A people are way better at running a restaurant than the kind of ADD scatterbrain. I've just always thought you're doing so many different things every minute, and things change by the second, and it's okay, because you're like, oh, look, a squirrel, good, I'll get that squirrel some water, oh, this, I mean, like, you constantly are moving, and I think it's helpful, I think it would drive people who need to be focused on one task absolutely crazy, because, excuse me, can I, you forgot this, hey, excuse me, and it's like, you're just moving around, or even behind the line, where you're just cooking tickets coming out, and you drop a dish, or something happened, I mean, you just constantly are pivoting. Evelyn, do you have any of that? Do you have any ADD tendencies?

10:58I think you have to have a little bit, like you said, there's always someone kind of pulling you in one direction or another with questions and stuff. So you have to, you have to be flexible, and, you know, have ADHD, and just kind of bounce around, answer all the questions, do all the things, multitask. Evelyn, you come from, what, the Northeast? Do I see Massachusetts? Yeah, yep. I'm from Western Mass. Western Mass, moved to Nashville, what, seven years ago? Yeah, I think it's been about eight now. Yeah. Eight years now? What do you think about Nashville? What's your experience been like so far here? I love it. I think it's great. I think Nashville's incredible. It's why I've stayed so long. It wasn't, it wasn't a long term plan, but it became one. So. Nice. So you came here, you got a job working at, what, Fleming's? Yeah, yep. And you were, were you line cooking? Were you a sous chef there, a chef? Then you went to Bob's Steakhouse? Yeah, I was line cooking at Fleming's. Met a very good friend of mine there. He went to Bob's and called me up and he's like, you got to come over here. They need a good sous and you know, they got a lot of cool stuff going on. So went over there for a few years and was a sous chef there for two and a half years. That was a lot of fun. Met a lot of great people there.

12:24Very nice. Did you meet Chef Gerard to get to start working at Posteria? How did you get this position and what are you doing? How is everything going at Posteria? Posteria is great. I absolutely love it. I actually met one of our chefs, our pastry chef, Jordan, Jordan Brown at Rosie's out in Hendersonville. And, you know, he started telling me all these stories of Posteria and all the stories behind the pasta shapes and just teaching me so much about pasta. And when he left Rosie's and went back to Posteria, I was like, I've got to go there. I just need more knowledge about pasta. Like, I can't that can't be it. I was like, you know, he just spoke so highly of Posteria all the time and so much, you know, so much to learn there about the history of everything. And I was like, yeah, I just I got to get over there. And so I called him up and I was like, hey, you guys need help over there. And Chef Zane was the executive chef at the time. And he was incredible to learn from as well. And then I think the first time I met Chef Gerard was around, like, Christmas time when he came in with all those books. It's absolutely incredible. Santa Claus. You came this time you come in with lots of books.

13:41Yeah, so one of my favorite things every single year is I as I buy books for all the cooks and chefs in the company, try to try my best to kind of individualize it and pick books I think are going to kind of speak to people in in different restaurants. I'm cookbook obsessed myself. So are these books or leadership books or, you know, cookbooks, always cookbooks. I mean, I buy leadership books for everybody differently, you know, different times. But but Christmas is about the cookbooks. Evelyn, will you spend some knowledge on pasta for me? Because you just got me going there. You said you're talking to this guy at Rosie's. He starts telling you about pasta shapes. You're like, holy shit, I need to learn more about pasta shapes. So much so that he goes to Posteria. You wanted to change jobs. You want to go just be immersed in all of this knowledge. Will you spit some of that knowledge at us right now?

14:44Sure. I think the selling moment in this conversation was he says to me, you know, have you ever heard of strata Freddie? And I'm like, no strata Freddie. OK, I'm sure I'm mispronouncing probably killing chef Gerard right now. And I was like, no, I've never heard of this noodle shape or seen it. And so, you know, I pull up a picture of it on Google and he's like, would you know why they call it that? Right. And it's it translates to the priest strangler. And I'm like, what? I'm like, no, you're right. Yeah, you're pulling my leg. I'm like, they did not name a pasta shape this. I'm like, you're pulling my leg. There's no way that's too funny. And so he was you know, that's honestly what sold me right there. I was like, that is just amazing. And I'm sure that Chef Gerard could tell the story behind it much better than I could. Was it more of the wrangling of the priest or the pasta? I think, you know, priest strangler, both wonderful, yeah, yeah, it's honestly, it's my favorite noodle because of its name and what it means. It's just it's too funny.

15:51No, go ahead. No, no, you should. Absolutely. No, no, no. You tell the story. Well, I think, you know, there's there's a lot of I think, you know, legend to to the strotsapreti. But, you know, one of the things, it's a it's a it's a short noodle. And, you know, the priest used to own everybody's land back in the day, and they would come around to collect rents. And when they'd come around to collect rent, they expected a meal cooked for them. And they would come around to collect rents. And when they would come around to collect rents, they expected a meal cooked for them. And so, you know, the the legend has it that people would make these short noodles hoping that they would choke on their pasta and die when they came over. So priest strangler. That's awesome. I now want to come eat that pasta.

16:53What is the story? Very nice. Yeah, you know, who knows where we're really getting from? I would like to say, I want to ask you, chef, getting back to the books. I am a nerd when it comes to reading books. I read three books last week. Well, well, just COVID. Yeah. I listen to books. I like to listen to them. And I take notes. I take notes on my phone. And it's a whole thing. And I'm constantly thinking about my restaurants. And who will this apply to? Can I internalize it? Leadership books, cookbooks, whatever. What's one you've read that is what is your do you have an absolute favorite? What's your favorite one to share? Do you have one that you give your general managers versus assistant managers versus sous chefs? Is there like a hierarchy that you grab? Is there the one that like, a prerequisite to work here is you have to read this book, but then you kind of move up? Like, how does it work? Because I'm, I need, I need some new books.

17:59So it's tough, because I think, you know, all books speak to different people in different ways at different times in their lives. And, you know, the two books that really changed my life at a time when I really, really needed it to was one book was Delivering Happiness. And then that led me to a book called Travel Leadership. And, you know, it was at a time in my career when I was very frustrated, you know, just pretty, pretty unhappy with how everything was going. We had just opened our fourth restaurant, you know, seemed like everything was going wrong all the time. And, you know, I think I was always mad at somebody. And, you know, I think that reading these books, all of a sudden, I was like, Oh, I'm the problem. Wow, lead people, you know, I really thought I knew how to manage.

19:06But, you know, I think when you when you expand, one thing's clear is that you can't micro manage anymore. So all the flaws in your management style are now shown. Because you really didn't know how to manage before you were just trying to do everything yourself. And once you can't do that once you can't do that anymore, then you have to learn how to actually teach. And I didn't know how to. I'm going to pause you right there. Yeah. And my next question is going to be you can't do it all yourself. You had four restaurants you're running around to get to 910 where you want to be what? What about that? What leadership style? I want to get into that. I have to call my restaurant right now. Go for it. Do it on my watch because you're on my phone. And hopefully you guys can hear what's going on. Hold on a second. Yeah, I want to know. I'm so sorry, guys. It's never happened before. Hey, what's going on?

20:22Okay, so this gentleman reached out to book a party and then never followed up, never signed the contract or anything. Okay. So it's on him. He admits it's on him. But he has people flying in from the Federal Reserve. It's the top three letters in Nashville and 65 people have RSVP for today. 65 people RSVP for today. What time? 10 o'clock. 10 o'clock. That's coming in early. He's sending four of his own people to come help us set up. We're going to set up the indoor patio we've already worn. It's going to feel a little understaffed. It's going to feel a little squished. We don't actually have the space for 65 in there. And he's okay with that. And he knows that we're just doing whatever we can do. We're going to make it happen. Jay's in the kitchen and he's already working on we're doing rib rolls or chicken salad sandwiches and starting with soup. Okay. Oh, I will be there before 10. Okay. On my way. Yeah, we're gonna just bust it out and get it set up. You rule. Even though it's a 10 o'clock reservation, you know, he was expecting 10 that it'll be probably 1030 before the ribs fully set up and everything. Okay. No problem. Yeah.

21:38Thanks, Meg. Bye. I'm not able to focus right now. Like I'm, I know I'm my team at my restaurants on fire right now and I'm like, I'm in that moment. Is there, do you guys have time later today? Can we hop back on or is there a time or the rest of the week? Anytime we can do this and maybe I can get. So this is real life folks. This is exactly what happens in this industry. We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and come back with part two of this interview. Hey guys, we are supported by Sharpier's bakery and we've been supported by Sharpier's bakery for the last year. And I tell you, I couldn't be more proud of this partnership guys. They're a locally owned and operated bakery right here in Nashville for the last 36 years. Yes. They deliver fresh baked bread daily to your restaurant's back door. And man, is it good. You want to know what kind of bread they make? Go check them out at Sharpier's bakery.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S bakery.com. So they have over 200 types of bread. And if you're wondering, well, hey, look, it's a special recipe that I like to use that, you know, we bake it in our house and it's just, it's a kind of a pain, but we, we like to do it. They can take your recipe and make that bread for you without any of the hassle, the mess, the labor. They'll just deliver it right to your door every single day. It is freshly baked. They'd love to give you a tour of their facility. Give Erin Mosso a call.

23:08Her number is 615-319-6453. You should do it now. Hey, this is Jason Ellis with Nashville Super Source. We're so proud to be a sponsor for Nashville Restaurant Radio. We would love the opportunity to discuss your chemical and dish machine program with you. If you have any needs or any questions about your current program, opening a new restaurant, or just need a double set of eyes on that, we'd love the opportunity to help you with that. My number is 770-337-1143. We don't do any contracts, no minimums, weekly service to make sure that all your equipment is functioning properly. Make sure you have everything that you need. Again, my name is Jason Ellis, 770-337-1143. We are supported by Robbins Insurance, a local insurance agency providing customized insurance policies, sound guidance, and attentive service. Robbins Insurance is the go-to agency for hospitality professionals in Nashville. Listen, Robbins knows how hard industry professionals work every single day. They also know how devastating accidents can be. Be it a grease fire that damages the kitchen, a severe storm that cuts off power, or a customer slip and fall incident. Both the extensive experience and the savvy to create a policy that protects your business from accidents like those, you can rest easy knowing that the work you've put in will not be for nothing. Visit Robbins' website at RobbinsINS.com to request a consultation or call Matthew Clements directly. His number is 863-409-9372. Protection you can trust. That's Robbins.

24:50What a crazy day yesterday was. And I'm gonna, everybody coming back from that commercial break, which was, we're another day now. Now we're into the next day. I had to leave yesterday because we had a crazy scenario at our restaurant and I had to jump. Thank you guys for your understanding. Of course. And thank you for coming back the next day. Everything worked out fine. My team jumped in and executed wonderfully. I got there, helped set up the restaurant, made tea, you know, all the stuff that you gotta do to get ready for lunch. But an impromptu 65 top at 10 o'clock when your staff arrives at 10 o'clock was definitely a all hands on deck, let's go kind of a moment. So thank you guys for letting me jump away to do that. Oh, the restaurant industry is unpredictable. And most certainly is. I think we were talking about books. We're talking about, you give everybody cookbooks and I said, what leadership books, was that where we were? I did not go back and listen. I don't remember, to be honest. Well, let's jump back in. Let's jump back in right there because I loved where we were going. We were talking about core values. We were talking about hospitality and you said that you love to bring Christmas time. You give everybody books. I said, what books? And I think I said, what's your favorite book about leadership?

26:17Is that about where we were? You know, we were talking about tribal leadership. Being a book, they kind of changed my life and, you know, I have to kind of lead in a different way and do a lot more self-evaluation and to, you know, distill core values and to be able to kind of teach through that lens as opposed to just, you know, micromanaging everything. I think I was telling you that Zingerman does a lot of our training. And, you know, their books have always been super inspirational. I think Ari and his team have just created such a magical both restaurant group and then what they use is Zingtrain, which is a training group that really kind of teaches different elements of, you know, whether it's restaurant management or just, you know, corporate management altogether.

27:24I love that. How does that translate to what Evelyn does every day? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, one of the, we just talked a lot about, you know, how we talk to each other and how to lead and, you know, getting away from the kind of yelling of the, you know, kitchens into the more teaching and the constant general pressure approach that is a little bit harder to do but has longer lasting value. Evelyn, I'll let you kind of touch in on some of that. So, yeah, I mean, one of the things I absolutely love about being here is the management style and having those honest conversations that aren't just harsh and we're not just yelling and screaming. You know, we are hospitable with our teammates and everything like that. And we're constantly talking about that, you know, talking about it in line up with front of the house and talking about it in line up with back of the house. Talking about what hospitality means and just always checking each other and how we communicate with each other and our tone and everything. I just did this five-hour kind of introduction to this new system and one of the questions, one of the questions that, and I'll give the heads up here as we're hearing sounds like, Evelyn is at Posteria right now working on the line. She's running around. So if you hear some background noise, she's actually at the restaurant we're doing this day. She's actually back there cooking, getting ready for tonight and all that good stuff. So short term issues. One of the things I just had to answer is what are five short term concerns that I have for my business? What are some things right now that you're working on? What are some concerns you have? Maybe it's for the market.

29:25Maybe it's for your restaurants. What are you guys working on right now? Well, I will let Evelyn speak to her, you know, Posteria Nashville. I think short term issues right now that we're looking at, you know, you have this midweek slump. You know, nobody's really going out on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. To combat that, we started doing Roman pizza and pints on Wednesday nights. So you get a quarter pan sized Roman style pizza. We have a vegetarian as well as a meat option every week. You get this with two pints of Peroni or if you're sober we have, or if not in the mood to drink because maybe you're driving somewhere afterwards. We have an Italian non-alcoholic pills in there that's absolutely incredible. I'm absolutely in love with it. Is that the untitled art? Yes. The Italian pills. I had that at your place two weeks ago. Yeah, it's great. It's one of my favorite, all-time favorites. And so yeah, we're doing pizza and pints on Wednesdays in order to kind of beat that Wednesday slump.

30:49What is a Roman style pizza? I've heard of Napolitano, Chicago, Detroit, Deep Dish. Then what is a Roman style pizza? Sure. Well, there's two types of pizzas in Rome. There's that very thin and then this Roman style that we're working with is when we talk about it with our staff, we compare it to focaccia, which I think doesn't exactly say as much about it as it should. But you're talking about this wonderful chew, this beautiful crumb on the inside, crispy outside. I think people do think of focaccia or think of, you know, deep dish kind of when they're thinking of it and down that vein would be right, but I think Chef Gerard would probably describe it even better. Is it like a spenzione? So there are some similarities. Spenzione is like a little bit thicker, whereas this is, I don't know, a half inch thick in the goal. And so the two types, I think it's probably derived from spenzione, to be honest. But there's two types of pizza in Rome. One is Honda, which is like a very thin, almost still wood fired, but like not like Neapolitan and very like a little more crispy and thin like that. And then there's pizza al palio, which is what they usually is like the by the slice of Rome. So if you've ever been in Rome and gotten kind of just you'll kind of like show them how much you want cut off, and then they'll weigh it and they kind of charge you by the gram for that pizza. And that's pizza al palio. And now for these nights, we're just doing like a full quarter sheet. But usually in Rome, they'll bake these off on very

32:55long sheets and then just kind of top them after the bake and just kind of warm them up lightly and crisp up the bottom. So also a little bit more of a crispy bottom than a spenzione. Chef Giroir, would you say that you are the visionary for your company? Yeah. What do you think one of my other questions today was, what are some long term concerns that you're working on right now? And maybe that's overall in the industry, but you've got multiple locations over multiple states, a couple states. What is your, what are some long term concerns that you are looking at right now? You know, I think one big thing is communication. No, I think the, and this ties into, you know, when we changed the culture of our restaurant group, you know, back in 2012, you know, a lot of it was because of a breakdown in communication and being unable to communicate effectively. And, you know, so we have all these different, you know, parts of our business and how do you make them all feel connected, right? How do you kind of bring everybody together in a way when they actually don't really ever see each other, right? So we have two posturias. So I'll use that as the example. We have a posturia in Nashville and a posturia in St. Louis. So, you know, one of the big things that I'm doing right now is we have a call every other week where we can all kind of just talk about food together, right? And talk about regional Italian cuisine and, you know, maybe talk about, you know, the specials that we're doing. We might talk about systems that each one has or, you know, something that one kitchen's innovating that the other kitchen hasn't and just kind of trying to keep that communication going so that we can still be a restaurant group

35:01that is evolving and innovating a little, but not necessarily like have two totally separate restaurants by the end of the day. That makes sense. Yeah, I know it completely makes sense. So that in reference to posturia is something, but when you have all these other locations, does a difference in concepts for your other locations, do you have to manage everybody differently or are your core values able to create the foundation between all of your locations to where you can kind of lead to that or do you have to lead each one completely differently? Well, you know, I think, you know, restaurants are all different. I think the values are all the same, right? You know, our values are honesty, sorry, hospitality, honesty, failure, innovation and legacy, right? And I think those things, those things pretty much work with whatever you're doing. And, you know, if we started a shoe company tomorrow, I think we could lead off of those same values. But, you know, I think that any good leader will know is that everybody's different. Every culture is different. Every tribe especially is different and you really need to kind of approach all of those tribes in a different way because everybody's kind of, even if you're the same company, no matter what, every tribe's kind of at a different level any given time and you need to know kind of how to approach them, where they're at, and to help build that team from where they're at, as opposed to kind of just putting the same expectations across the board from every restaurant. And that's why I really like trying to create some of these kind of these channels to where we can kind of

37:03have a little more interaction because I think everybody's got so much to learn from each other and, you know, the more that you can connect everybody in the company, you know, the better chance you have is everybody really taking advantage of all the great talent around the company and all the innovation that's happening in other restaurants. So does that coincide with leadership development? I mean you're taking other leaders, you're sharing each other's expertise. Evelyn, do you feel that way? Do you feel like you are able to develop more as a leader due to this effective communication? Absolutely, yeah. At any point in time I know, you know, I can call Chef, or I can reach out to Chef Greg at Pulsary St. Louis, or Chef Zane at Bowood, and be like, hey, you know, this is what I'm up to. You know, maybe I've hit a roadblock and an idea or something, and I can collaborate with them and vice versa. You know, they can call right we're in the middle of not being able to find kosher salt, right? I can just call up anyone in the company and be like, hey, you know, what are you doing for this? And seeing their successes motivates me, you know, and seeing their beautiful food motivates me, and talking to them about what's on their mind, and you know, what season they're excited about, and just it's very inspiring, and it's one of the best parts about working for this company, absolutely.

38:28Well, that's a good segue into my next question. What are the things that you guys do really well? Like if somebody said, if you had three uniques that are just like, this is what we absolutely freaking crush, what are the things at Postria Nashville that you guys just do so well? I absolutely love our culture here. I would say culture. From the minute I walked in the door here, I was like, yeah, this is it. It's something that I haven't found in any other restaurant. Um, and 12, 13 years working in restaurants, it's just this culture of just positivity that, you know, it's not that toxic positivity, it's like genuine, like you just have genuine peers around you that want to see you succeed, and they want to succeed, and everybody's just climbing that ladder and helping the next person up, and it's incredible to be surrounded by people like that. I love that. What, um, what do you think, Chef? Chef, I'm calling you Chef, because Chef Gerard, Chef, I could easily call you Evelyn. I'll just call you Evelyn and Gerard. I'm a default to these things. I'll call you Chef Evelyn. Sorry about that. I'm not trying to be disrespectful here.

39:51Chef, what's the one thing across from your perspective? Because I know that we're talking about two different perspectives over nine locations. What's something you do really well at Niche? Like as a company, what is the thing that you guys just crush? It could be culture, also people. Yeah, I mean, I think culture, you know, I think, uh, in 2012, I had, uh, had a pretty big personal breakdown where I just didn't, you know, I just couldn't figure anything out. And the world felt like it was just kind of collapsing around me and it's taking, fitting off too much. And, you know, so really starting to pay attention to the people and people's growth. And, um, you know, I think that that's led to something, you know, it's taken a long time and you see it evolve over the years, but, uh, you know, to a place where, where people want, want to work and, uh, you know, feel good at work. They feel seen, they feel valued. You know, I think that's, I think that's really huge. We're, we're constantly pushing for, you know, new benefits across the board, which we've been doing since, you know, yeah, since, you know, our company started in 2005, it's been, you know, like, you know, push after push after, you know, how we take care of people, you know, we give, you know, we wanted to make sure that all the, you know, uh, you know, people who wanted to become parents, you know, had, you know, a month of paid leave. And, uh, you know, we just, we, we just keep trying to build with our focus on being a people first organization. Um, you know, and I think that that helps on the other side of creating great products, right? I think, you know, if you have great people, you have people that feel valued. Um, and, you know, I think like Evelyn says, you know, we don't want this to be some sort of toxic positivity. And we, you know, we talk about that a lot where, you know, you'll, you kind of like go to a place where everybody's

41:54patting each other on, you know, a bunch of bros patting each other on the back. Yeah. That's awesome, man. That's so cool. You know, when you're like, oh yeah, it's actually not very good. You know, we, we have those conversations, you know, we're honest with, with each other and, you know, we're honest with, we try to be honest with ourselves about, you know, where we're at, what we're doing well, what we're not doing well. And, uh, and I just, I just think that leads to a group of people that want to push to do better things on a regular basis. It sounds like, have you read Patrick Lencioni's five dysfunctions of a team? No, that sounds good though. Definitely a, a, a, definitely you should read it. It's amazing. But one of the things he talks about is trust and that you have to, one of the dysfunctions is lack of trust. That if you don't trust that the people are with you, that they're all focused on the same thing, you know, in a leadership meeting, if you don't fight during your leadership meetings, they're saying that that's not a good meeting. That is not, not fighting as in like, I don't like your smug face, but if I trust everybody in my meeting is here because in our mission is making every guest to repeat guests while nourishing our community, right? That is the, that is our mission for our restaurants.

43:08And if I don't trust that there's somebody in this meeting who's, who's here to make every guest or repeat guests while nourishing our community, then that erodes. And now I'm wondering why you're saying the things that you're saying. But if I trust that everybody in this meeting is only here to make every guest or repeat guests, then I'm willing. I want to fight. I want you to tell me where you don't think that this plan will work and what your solution might be. But if I'm able to fight with you and argue with the guest experience as our cat, we're fighting to have the best guest experience. That's something that you should be able to do when you trust everybody in the room. And it sounds like what you're saying is we're not just glad handing everybody going, great job. Hey, look, let's be real. And let's talk about where our shortcomings are and where sometimes healthy, we call it healthy conflict, that you're having healthy conflict amongst your, your, your team. It's so important. I mean, I think, yeah, I think it takes people a long time with me to, you know, over the years as they grow in the company to realize that I want people to argue with me. You know, you can tell people a million times, but you know, you're the CEO and some people are still sometimes nervous to argue with you. I love being argued with, you know, I want, I want you to feel strongly about your, your opinion.

44:39Yeah. And I do listen, you know, and I may not always agree, um, but I love the debate. I love, you know, that thought process and bringing in other people's thought processes because it's so important to, to getting to the next level. You know, you, I kind of laughed when you asked if I was the visionary and, you know, I do think that that's, you know, kind of my role, the CEO, you know, I'm, you know, kind of trying to steer the ship and, and look to the future at what's next and, you know, what projects really make sense for us. That being said, you know, it's, it's a huge, especially on the, you know, upper management side, a huge group of people that are really kind of like making those decisions and, you know, arguing with me or agreeing with me, you know, to, to come to what that vision actually is. So, so yeah, technically I'm the visionary, uh, but, but it's through so many other people, uh, you know, helping shape that vision. Well, and I say I'm the integrator. There's a, there's, I'm one of those random, there's like 2% of people out there who are, who have both visionary and integrator sides are in our visionary and our company is, is our owner and he's a straight visionary. And I, I'm one of those weird two side people. I get to flex my visionary side through the podcast, but in our company, I'm the integrator. And so the visionary typically has 10 ideas a day and they're constantly just coming with ideas and their brains kind of scatter brain. They're just kind of all over the place because they're just doing so many things.

46:20And it's my job to capture those things and then bring them down, argue with him and kind of go, okay, we can, I think we can do this. I think we can do that or listening to what he's directly telling me to do. And then I'm the one who goes out and makes stuff happen. I'm the one who goes to the general managers and says, this is what I need to happen during this time. Or if it is a debate, we're going to talk about it. What do you guys think about how we're going to execute these things? But he's the visionary. He is constantly looking at what's next, how we can make things better, but thinking about the future. And so when I asked, you know, the question of what are you doing well or what are your opportunities? What do you see as a, what was the quote, the short-term concerns? What are you seeing out there? I think kind of in a general idea of the market and what you're seeing coming over the horizon that might be a concern for you that you're looking at as a visionary. What could I possibly, what am I working on six months from now? Do you know right now, six months from now, what you're going to be working on, what your concerns are? And I'm sorry, Evelyn, we'll get back to you. I just, I'm curious about this stuff. We're definitely, you know, kind of working three years out at least right now.

47:38Yeah. I mean, you know, in the next six months, we actually have, we have two major projects coming up that, you know, we're not supposed to be side by side, but somehow that always, always happened that way. You know, construction delays on one, but not another. So we'll see. But, you know, we are opening the biggest restaurant we've ever opened in six months called Expat Barbecue. Is that in St. Louis? In St. Louis. And that is an American style barbecue, but through the lens of somebody who's living somewhere, an American who's living somewhere else. So, you know, if an American was living in Japan and, you know, only had access to Japanese, you know, ingredients and spices, you know, but still only knew how to make traditional American barbecue, what would that taste like? Not Japanese barbecue, but American barbecue. How did you come up with that concept?

48:47Something we've been playing around with for so long and you're starting to kind of see it pop up actually. But, you know, like I've always loved kind of playing with, you know, things like taking African spices and stuff like that and making ribs, you know, American style St. Louis ribs and, you know, things like that. Just kind of playing a little bit outside of the box with things. That was kind of always my cooking style. So, you know, we have a huge restaurant, you know, you have growing concerns of, you know, financial turmoil out there, you know, and, you know, I talk to economists every day and I'm like, oh, you know, how are you feeling today? It's a thing. Because I feel like it changes pretty, pretty quick, you know, you watch the stock market going crazy and, you know, so I think finance, there's a lot of blooming concerns out there, commercial real estate is way heavy, but, you know, we're also opening a fast casual brand called Ferrano, which we had opened actually five years ago. And it was just in the wrong neighborhood, wrong time, seven years ago. Opened in the wrong time, wrong neighborhood, that we're just kind of bringing back with a new group of investors. And that's kind of a fast casual, fresh pasta, you know, great build your own salads and, you know, it's a place where you can kind of be gluttonous or be super healthy at the same time.

50:34So we also hope that that will, you know, be a soft landing if there is a recession coming out there. Uh, that's really interesting. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. If you look at my, I'll show you because you will see it. This is my long-term concerns. I have number one market and recession because if you do a SWOT analysis, that's the one thing that we really don't have a lot of control over. And how do you prepare for something like that? I mean, you know, did you pull back? Do you lean up? What do you do? And we just opened a new restaurant 10 days ago. So I mean, we're, that's one of those things that's just sitting out there that I'm just kind of, how do you prepare for that? What do you do? I'm just curious because your perspective from a different city with so many locations is not, you know, something that I necessarily have a view of every single day. So thank you for sharing kind of what you're, what you're working on. Evelyn, you still there? Yes. What are you on a daily basis? Like what, what kind of autonomy do you have? Do you change menu items? Can you create specials? What are you, what are you doing on a daily basis there as the executive chef at Posteria? She's going to answer that question right after these words from our sponsors. What chefs want story is incredibly unique. The owner Ron Trenier met with a bunch of chefs in Louisville back in the early 2000s and asked them one simple question.

52:04What do you want? And the chefs, they responded emphatically. We want deliveries on Sunday. We want to be able to split any item that you sell. We want a frictionless experience where we feel like we're being served. And so you know what he did? Something crazy. He did just that. So what chefs want is not only a company that's delivering fresh produce, fresh seafood, fresh custom cut meats, specialty items, dairy, gourmet, all of that seven days a week. They also offer 24 seven customer support. You want to call, you want to text, you want to email, you can talk to somebody 24 seven. Get your delivery seven days a week, an amazing selection of products. That is what chefs want. So if you ever wonder why do they call it that? That's your reason. Check them out at whatchefswant.com. What are you, what are you doing on a daily basis there as the executive chef at Posteria?

53:06Uh yeah we change a couple of dishes, a couple appetizers I think with the season. And you know we just put on some squash dishes. We just kind of move more to our fall. Obviously there are staples on the menu that don't go anywhere and they shouldn't ever obviously. I mean to stay sort of close to Italy right and to stay in line with chef's art. And I mean they're just incredible. You know there's there's pasta dishes that should never ever leave the menu. But you have some freedom with appetizers and seasonal salads and stuff like that and you know the ability to use fresh local produce. And I have you know fortunate enough to have the time to go to the farmers market three or four days a week and kind of see what's fresh and what's happening and use that in specials. We like to do you know special cards on the weekends and run at least two or three specials for that. You know a dessert, an appetizer, and an entree.

54:10And then we have a wonderful bar program that they'll run drink specials with us on the weekends as well. And so definitely have creative freedom in that sense. I'm very thankful for that. How well do you work with the front of the house team? Do you ever come in the front of the house? Is it front of the house? Back of the house? Do you have a divide there? I mean I know that the standard answer is no. We're all one team. But I mean do you have silos? Does that happen? And if it does, how do you overcome those? Actually I work very closely with the front of the house team every single day. And that's one of the reasons I absolutely love this place. When I say that the culture here is great, I mean that because the front of the house and the back of the house work so well together. You know every single day I'm chatting with the AGM and the GM and the bar manager. And you know like oh hey I found this really great cider that's local. You know I think you guys should do a fall cider. And like oh my god I would absolutely love to make that the punch of the month for the bar. And that's so great. Thanks for grabbing that. Hey can you get us apples from the local vendor? And you know collaborating with the AGM about you know baskets and all these different fun holiday specials that we're going to do. And constantly talking about you know I've noticed this is kind of happening. How do we address that with the staff? And we have daily meetings before we have our lineup with front and back of the house about what we're going to talk about. And how we're going to keep this culture going.

55:33And how we're going to keep it alive. And we're always collaborating. And there is no divide. And we can have debates about how we're going to achieve the same goal. But at the end of the day we're all adults and we all speak to each other with you know respect. And that's what is so wonderful about this place. Do you guys work on a tip pool there? Or is it individual tips? It's individual. Do you do a tip pool anywhere in your company Gerard? Yep. So you don't do it across the board. But in some places you do some places you don't. Why is that? You know I think we've always left it up to the general manager to make those calls. And you know we know every situation is different. Every you know restaurant operates with kind of different hours. So you know it can kind of make some of those things you know a little more different. You know some restaurants are lunch and dinner. And you know you have those weird awkward mid days. And you know I don't know I think just every every circumstance is just a little bit different. And then anytime we've tried to just say we're standardizing something across the board just to make it easier on ourselves and our payroll. That doesn't usually go well.

56:57Around tipping we've done two episodes recently on tipping. We've had brought in a couple different chefs and we've talked about tip flation and tip fatigue. Do either of you feel that at all right now? And every time you go somewhere they turn the iPad around and they say they're going to ask you a few questions and you turn around. Do you think that our country's too much in tipping? Do you think we've lost our way? What is your perception of tipping right now? I'll start with you Evelyn. Oh I was really hoping to go second here. Tipping. I just really try to stay in my own lane and just worry about what I'm doing for tipping because I find that sometimes when I talk to others, particularly peers of mine that aren't in the industry, we do not feel the same about tipping. For me personally I was raised to tip very very well. If someone does a great job 20% automatically and then if someone does a phenomenal job it's like 50% in my family. I feel like I have a very skewed vision of tipping.

58:20Chef I think that you would probably speak better to this topic. Well okay so we're talking about traditional sit-down full-service restaurants. Yes tip like crazy but what about let's just say you go to the soccer game right? You guys do food and beverage over there at the at the soccer stadium in St. Louis right? Yeah and that's the big conversation at the stadium. Okay so it's a stadium in Nashville SC. You walk up to the counter and I don't I get Coca-Cola's right and they just give you a souvenir cup and then they have your own machines. You go fill up your own Coke and I'll get some M&Ms or some popcorn or something but literally it's all right in front of me. I just like grab and go but Cokes are like nine dollars so I buy four Cokes for me and my family and then I get three M&Ms and a popcorn which is all pre-made. It's just right there. She puts the stuff in front of me hands me four cups and then it's $47 and then they go yeah it's just gonna ask you do you want to leave a tip and I go I just paid $47 for four Cokes and three bags of M&Ms and you didn't do you just ring it up and I have to yeah I have to go fill my Cokes myself. Do I need to leave her a 15% tip on that? No I don't I don't think that you need to.

59:38You know I think it's I'm an over-tipper personally I'm just like you know whatever like you know like I tip for everything coffee you know you know I get a I get a drip coffee and I you know three dollars and I tip two dollars I just I just I don't know why I'm like that you know I'm probably never gonna be wealthy for that reason but but you know I think it is a big debate when it came up actually in in CitySC it was a big talk about whether whether they could there were some vendors they were kind of flipping it around to the screen and like kind of pressing 20 you could change it but but but you had to you know physically push zero and I don't think you know you guys like no you can't you can't do that and people are people are upset about some of that stuff and I think there are times when it is really annoying you know say and this is a tricky one for instance my own my own deli has sells wine and stuff like that and you know the tip line is going to come up no matter what you know but I just feel guilty and I'll always I'll always just tip but I don't think people should have to tip when they go buy a bottle of wine in fact I think it's you know somewhat of a turn-off for a lot of people and you know so if it's a conversation I have in that aspect where it's like you're just buying groceries like if I started going to my grocery store and they you know had a tip line it would definitely throw me it's the same thing if I put all my groceries on the little the the the little I don't know what they call it the ramp or whatever it is and the the woman or man scans it and they put it in a bag for you that's more service than that's happening for you handing me four cups I mean

01:01:42they're actually taking the product they're scanning it they're putting it in bags they're putting it back in your cart that's an actual service and I would say well thank you for doing that but that's not expected until I mean here's the thing is tipping becoming a way for gigantic corporations to start taxing their guests instead of them paying the livable wage because I had a woman who worked for her dad owned seven subways and she interviewed for a management position for us she's like we're I don't have to do that anymore and I said why she was well well since we've incorporated tipping we're now able to our staff now makes more money and we're our profits are through the roof and I go what do you mean she goes we used to pay people 17 to 23 dollars an hour and now we pay everybody a flat dollar 11 dollar rate and now we've incorporated tipping I'm like so you've if I go to Subway I walk in line I say I want a meatball sub they make the meatball sub and then they put it in a bag and they hand me a cup and I have to go sit down clean up after myself and go get my own drinks and everything but now you're incorporating tipping I'm doing air quotes because I get to pay them less and now the guest will pay my thing for me my stock price goes up two points yeah like I feel like technology is allowing more companies to do that and I think people are getting tired and that affects us in the rest with a full-service restaurant where we're studying wine studying food I'm explaining to you what a roman pizza is I'm explaining to you all of these different things to make you have an experience and so is it affecting the servers who are actually providing a high level of service that is above and beyond what you would get at a soccer match and now people are tired of tipping because everybody else is jumping in this bandwagon hey look we just asked people guilt will they'll pay for our staff so is it affecting the percentages you're going to get in a restaurant for providing exceptional or above exceptional service does it make sense yeah and I think you know there's a dollar factor you know involved in all of those

01:03:47things right you know your fast food meals ten dollars whereas now your fine dining meal is you know 150 dollars you know I think the scariest thing and you talk about things that are like looming in the future and you know things that we worry about is that you know inflation has been obviously you know brutal on restaurants you know that bottom line keeps just diminishing you keep trying to like raise prices you know but we're really hitting like some high levels of prices for for where you know what they shouldn't be and you know and it's still not always enough right and you know so I do think you know in some I've seen I've seen some people do you know tipping across uh you know pay everybody one wage tipping across the board both front and the back of the house we don't have that anywhere in our restaurants but it you know it's starting to kind of talk about models that will be sustainable in the future because my big fear is you know is inflation meets recession right so all of a sudden you know your prices are the highest they've you know ever been and your wages are the highest they've ever been I mean I would say wages in restaurants are the highest they've been in a long time and I would also say that they've gone up over 50 percent in three years which is a pretty massive massive number so you know when these two things meet that's my greatest fear when you have the highest wages you've ever had uh the highest prices you've ever had and then you hit a recession and you're trying to kind of figure out what to do and you know I do think that some some of these people that I know that have those systems where everybody's you know in the tip pool now this is more of a

01:05:53fine dining world I'm talking about or full full service restaurant is that that does kind of spread that money around in a way that makes it sustainable for a lot of these you know cooks and and and so I don't know I don't have the answers or I would have done them you know but this is certainly a conversation that that you know comes up at least once a week in in our company in some fashion but we've certainly had a lot of fun debating it on this show and I'm just curious I mean you know we've debated to agnostic when people are listening that's rolling their eyes like get off the tipping thing dude but I'm just curious in your perspective of it I think it's a it's a very interesting uh topic and I think it affects people in our industry when people are fatigued of tipping everywhere and they go out to restaurant like well shit I tipped this morning at the gas pump I tipped at Kroger and I tipped at Starbucks and now I'm having dinner and this person's provided excellent service but I'm just tired of leaving everybody a tip and so maybe they back off a little bit for providing really great service and that could be an issue over the long term I'll let you guys go here I know we're we're we're getting into the this is going to be a long episode it's a lot of fun over two days first time I've ever done this over two days I'm gonna leave the first part in by the way where I have to go we're gonna make it fun what are some questions that restaurateurs should be asking themselves right now I have five questions we need to be asking maybe I can ask you this what are some questions that you need to be asking yourself or in general restaurateurs should be asking themselves going into the future Oh man that is a that's a big big loaded one one you know do I have a great culture are we working towards you know a great culture and our our restaurants that's going to leave you know leave our industry a better place which is historically been a pretty bad place you know restaurateurs do

01:07:55I understand you know where I'm sitting financially you know if we do hit a hit a recession you know am I going to have what I need to weather the storm or if we hit a recession or we just kind of dead and then you know sometimes is oh this is the time the national alert you know when recording that was the national alert yeah um you know and then is is my concept sustainable I think that that's also you know something when when for perspective restaurants yes you may be a talented chef but is this is this concept uh something that will continue to pay its own bills or is it more of just kind of an an ego project you know how many seats do I have how much how much money do I need to make to pay my staff and and everything and will this small restaurant be able to actually provide that in this model interesting I like that those are those are all good answers I will answer that question I put what and who is in our leadership pipeline what are our severe threats you know re-establishing our our SWAT report and then defining how we make every guest repeat guest because it's different for every single position those are those are a couple of my answers and then what's next no I just we were in this process of doing this thing and I have I have these questions right here and I was like hey these are great questions I'm going to ask him because this is stuff I just answered you know as our leadership team let's see what their answers are see how closely we relate we have all kinds of noises today this is lots of fun

01:10:04yeah Evelyn do you have any uh I would just tack on to what you guys said absolutely I love the thing about uh thinking about threats I think about that on a small scale or uh you know every single day when we were opening up patio or debating opening up patio and it's raining you know like your whole small concept of like stocking the paper towels made me think of this is like well what's rain plan do we have rain plan in order if we open up a patio today in Nashville whether it's being the unpredictable beast that it is you know do we have a plan in order to get all these tables inside and get rid of that that's like yeah yeah we do absolutely we thought about that at 8 a.m and it's five o'clock and we're ready to execute if we need to so definitely anticipating a threat a great thing also for you is do you have enough food I mean am I ordering off the back of the truck every day I mean if I'm waiting for my delivery to get there I can't serve guests then you know I mean am I am I ordering a day ahead of time am I again am I ordering off the back of the truck or am I not because if you're waiting on the truck to arrive to serve food you can't depend on that every day shit happens and that truck might be late and then you're affecting the guest experience I mean that's just a big part of how you order and being organized right well absolutely I mean that was something that we um tackled probably day two me taking over here it's like all right we're not gonna wait on the truck in order to be able to do prep uh we're going to look at the week as a whole and plan things out as a whole um you know and I've taught my sous chef to be able to walk in the walk in and look at it and be like this is this is what our week looks like this is what we're making on Monday and this is what we're making on Tuesday and then lastly like something absolutely crazy happens like this is how this is going to go and this is how we're going to order in order to prepare for this and so um that was actually something I truly enjoyed teaching him who do you guys use for your broad line vendor

01:12:09pardon who's your broad line vendor uh right now our two main vendors are creation and u.s. food but I absolutely love nashville grown and use them every opportunity I have nice we love we're big fans of creation gardens or what chefs want over here at nashville restaurant radio now I I heard you mention something earlier we're talking about a bread and you said we buy the best bread tell me about the bread that you buy this is a self-aggrandizing question by the way yeah uh for our jelly we are using sharpier's uh tuscan baguette as well as their medium muscolada for one of our for a couple of our sandwiches and it's absolutely incredible we have them delivered three times a week um I am in love with their bread I think they're great sharpies bakery delivering bread in nashville for 37 years we're big fans of sharpies bakery over here I just like to hear from an executive chef for a restaurant that's serving their bread how easy it is and how good the quality of bread is like I said this is a they're one of our sponsors so I like to uh I like to get real life endorsements it is a real endorsement for sure good stuff guys we um am I missing anything what is there anything that you want to talk about that I did not talk about I get I get kind of inside baseball and some of this stuff and I'm sorry um most people finish the episode and go that didn't go the way I thought it was going to go that was fun that was different than most interviews that I do um anything I missed that you need to promote you want to give shout outs to anything like that uh not that I can think of sure yeah I mean you could talk about the happy hour and then you know again you talked about roman roman pizza night yeah roman pizza pints pizza and pints on wednesdays uh happy hours is great we have a lot of fun

01:14:15things going on there uh we have bar specials we have a few appetizers we only offer at our bar and we have you know just an incredible uh happy hour menu uh an incredible seasonal menu for our bar our mocktail menu is great our cocktail menu is great um I think a lot of things we do here are great I might be biased yes our meatballs that are only available at our bar and what time is that happy hour on wednesdays is it only wednesday you do the roman pizza and pints on wednesdays what time is that on wednesdays uh so that is available to the entire dining room and the bar all night five to nine on wednesdays and then our happy hour is from five to six thirty uh sunday through thursday very nice okay happy hour roman pizza night and then you said at lunch time you're doing like a deli type thing tell me about your lunches over there yeah it's like a business lunch can you come in how much time can I expect because I think Italian restaurant I think like I gotta get you know wine and food and it's gonna take forever what is can I come do a quick business lunch over there on monday through friday absolutely yeah so we do lunch from 11 to 2 monday through friday it's absolutely casual to come over and have a quick business lunch uh it's great if you want to come and have a glass of wine and sit out on our patio and just enjoy yourself um and take the full three hours take four hours uh it's kind of all-encompassing that's the beautiful thing about the deli concept is you come in you grab a menu order at the counter you know we've got a lot of grab-and-go stuff so we can be quick absolutely dine in with us take a number we'll have a delivery drink and your sandwich or your soup um and just let you casually enjoy whatever business thing you're doing or perhaps you're reading a book on our patio uh what's your favorite sandwich at lunch right now uh oh my goodness i love them all

01:16:21uh i love the americano um i love the papa georgio the chicken salad sandwich i don't know i think that one really does tell them about the americano because at first i was like um i don't know okay i'm feeling this when i read it and then i ate it and i was like damn that was really really delicious i'm so glad that you like that one uh so the americano is inspired by this um italian sandwich that i used to someone italian american sandwich i used to eat as a kid back home with my parents every wednesday and uh so it's got we do it with mortadella uh and salami and american cheese and i know everyone sees the american cheese on there and they're like oh i don't know i thought this was and it it sounds like it's not going to work but then you hit it with this incredible red wine vinegar um and a little bit of garden areola and just fresh lettuce and the local tomatoes and a little bit of red onion and it just and it and we serve it on charpere's guacamole and it's incredible incredible sandwich for sure it's ridiculous you know the the again i'm not a huge american cheese guy when it all came together with the red wine vinegar and uh and the aioli it was really really bright and really nice and uh i was surprised i love being surprised i love it when i you know tell one of our chefs i'm like oh that's not gonna work and then they proved me wrong did you say you do like a sloppy josephi or something like it's like a sloppy joe type sandwich there uh we do the sloppy geppetto geppetto i was i was close i knew it was a judd name in st louis yeah uh so this is this was our version of that because obviously i look a lot at the deli and wine in st louis and they're doing a sloppy josephi there and so we wanted to do a sloppy geppetto our own kind of version of that and we do that with black hawk farm wagyu beef um and we braise that down

01:18:28make a nice thick ragu with that you know it's got the tomatoes and the carrots and lots of red pepper flakes so it's got that nice spice underneath it um and it it is like it's very similar to an absolutely amazing sloppy joe i love it way better sloppy joe all right well it's way better yeah great job evelyn thank you so much while you're on the line i know we've taken an hour of your time um the final thing that we do is the gordon food service so other big i was fishing for that one earlier the gordon food service final thought um this is where you get to take us out kind of say whatever you want to say as long as you want to say it you could summarize the episode just this is your turn just to speak to our listeners say whatever's on your mind and then uh and then we will end it after that we'll start with you evelyn well let's start with you chef gerard because she's going to formulate her thoughts she just got done talking a lot let's let her formulate your final thought we'll just jump right in with you gerard oh you know i'll just say that you know nashville uh nashville restaurant radio and i love nashville you know i love coming down there all the amazing chefs you have andy little on here one of my one of my favorites uh over at josephine you know usually your your co-hosted nicky's you know i'm uh love that restaurant you know i i love nashville i love uh everything about it so we love saint louis too i want more connection i want more nashvillians to come up to saint louis because i think that you know uh saint louis is a sleeper town and it's uh but it's you know got an incredible food scene up here and you know i used to do these dinners which i freak over that i need to start back and i had nicky's up and i had josephine's up to do these collaborations and they're always

01:20:34blown away when they come up here and and get to experience saint louis so i want that cross traffic going you know the last time i was in saint louis was for a cardinals game this has been a it's been 10 plus years since i've been maybe it's been exactly 10 years but i came up for game six of the world series uh when they were in the world series last time i think they won the world series it was game six and david freeze hit an 11th inning walk-off home run at that game that was sick that was a bad game you probably remember that right yeah it was cold as hell it's kind of uh just uh but that was one of the that was the greatest sporting moment i've ever been to in my entire life was in saint louis well maybe nashville is going to be playing uh city uh saint louis city sc up here in the uh in the championship so we'll see if it happens i'll tell you what i'll make you a deal oh so would would nashville play saint louis here in nashville or would we play there i don't know i don't know the answer of who would get the uh home home field advantage in that scenario i tell you what i have i have season tickets to nashville so if we play saint louis here i got two tickets for you i'll do i'll do you come down and if they play up there and you got two tickets for me i will come up there for the game and visit we'll go eat at your restaurant we'll do the whole thing and we'll do a trade you can come eat at my restaurant here and you visit i got two tickets for you how does that sound perfect i love it all right evelyn final thought oh i just want to say thank you so much for having me here and it's been an honor and privilege chatting with both of you well it's an honor and privilege to have you and thank you again for your flexibility on my my double dip on the interview all right thank you guys have a wonderful afternoon and we will talk to you soon go

01:22:40check out pastria it is in one city right off of charlotte avenue if you know where like avo is it's right back there behind avo or even the um what's the volleyball court right there what's that thing place called do you know sandbar if you know where the sandbar is is right behind the sandbar it's amazing and they have a parking garage that you can park in that is great has electric parking it is uh amazing right underneath the building and um it's just a cool spot the patio out there is actually there's like little fountains outside it's very cool very calm very relaxing food is amazing service is fantastic go check out pastria here in nashville and if you're in saint louis they got a slew of restaurants in saint louis that you should go check out um check my is it niche food group yep could you get nichefoodgroup.com you can plan your trip to saint louis and um again thank you guys for for joining us today all right thank you so much for having us all right big thank you to chef evelyn and chef gerard for joining us today on nashville restaurant radio and thank you for their patience with two separate days of interviews that was a lot and um it's always tough doing interviews when you're on zoom and and in the studio it's hard to get a rhythm and and doing it coming back in and computer issues and all that stuff so thank you the listener for hanging in there and hopefully you took something out of that that you enjoyed or learned something and um yeah big big time we're going to be coming back to you next week with an all new episode of the roundup we talked to some downtown workers and bartenders and a consultant about what's happening with the business in nashville what's going on downtown we keep hearing that tips are down businesses down we want to know so we put a panel together and we talk about it that episodes may come out next week do you want to apologize also no fantasy football episode in two weeks don't know if that's

01:24:41something here listening to or you love but we are doing a fantasy football league for the giving kitchen and i am in dead last place and i'm hoping to climb out of the cellar this week i'm playing elissa again jerry and we'll see what happens but we should be back next week with an all new fantasy football show illnesses all kinds of stuff have prohibited this and we want to do it every week but life happens and you've learned that during this episode so we love doing our podcast and we'll continue to do it as best we possibly can but thank you listener for hanging in there we're going to keep doing it if you will keep listening if you want to share this podcast we love for you to let people know what your favorite show is to tell people about this podcast we'd love to get the word out there find us at nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio anywhere on instagram and facebook all those different places we have a youtube channel we have a tiktok channel we're all over the place so we would love to have you join and follow us i hope that you are safe out there hope you have a wonderful week love you guys bye