Gordon Foodservice Show

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, and today's episode is all about Gordon Food Service. I had the opportunity to go to the Gordon Food Service show, and they set me up in this big, they had a table for me, and I brought all the, brought basically the studio up to Louisville at the Agriculture Center, and I talked to people as they came by, as we had different chefs and restaurateurs and owners come by. I wanted to learn more about them. So today, in this episode, this is going to be a two-part episode, because I think I talked to like 10 people, and I didn't want to make a three-hour episode. So this first episode today, we are going to talk to a gentleman named Patrick Kiroli, and he is the North American Business Solutions Manager, North American Customer Solutions Manager for GFS. We also talk with Paul Hunter, who is the new Business Development Manager over at Gordon Food Service, and then we transition over to some restaurateurs. So we talked to a gentleman named Alan Latterman, who owns Sammy's and The Grind in Martin, Tennessee, and you know, I was so amazed at talking to these restaurant owners in other cities, and how proud they are, and just how amazing their restaurants are in their towns. There's a lot to be learned here, so definitely listen. If you go to the show notes, you can see exactly what minute each one of these show up on. So if there's anyone you want to miss or you want to skip, you can do that, but I recommend listening to all of

02:01them, because they are so good. After Alan, we're going to talk with Michael Spencer, and he is a Nashville guy. He owns Nash Dogs. Super fun conversation with him. Love that. And then we talked to David Parker. David Parker is the owner of Primetime Pub and Grill. He has two locations, one in Evansville and one in Newburgh, Indiana. That guy was sharp as a tack. I really liked talking to him. He is a, everybody I talked to was amazing, but this guy was so, so awesome. And then on this episode, we're going to finish up with our very own Bill Laviolette. He's the owner of Shotgun Willie's. And in the next episode, we're going to talk with Morgan Castillo from Tinfish, Ed Schwarzenberg from Gables Bagels, the Burger Boys stop by from Bad Luck Burger Club. We have all kinds of fun stuff coming up on the next episode as well. So please stay tuned and check them out because they are, they're coming soon. Let's jump right in. We're just going to jump right in. We are going to go live to the Gordon Food Service Show and Patrick Cairoli.

03:04All right. So welcome to the Gordon Food Service Food Show. Is this called a food show? We like to use the word show, just show, just the show. It's the show. And because we also have, you know, tens of thousands of food items, we have plates, we have to go where we have technology providers. We have, we want you to work on entertainment, infotainment, sir, infotainment. So that's what we're here today to talk about is this Gordon Food Service Show. It's not just food. We have people like Patrick Cairoli. Is that how you say it right? Cairoli. It's good. Patrick Cairoli. And he is the North American customer success manager. That's a mouthful. Yes. It's a lot. You wear a lot of hats around here. I have, if you could see the size of my head on this podcast, you'd understand that many hats fit on it. Go to Nashville Restaurant Radio's Instagram page, you know, see a picture of me and Patrick. We're going to take a selfie here in just a second. So you're actually going to be speaking. Part of the show aspect of this is not just come eat French fries and look at steaks and things. You can actually learn a lot. What are you going to be talking about today? You're exactly right. So we want, when you come and step away from your business, we want to make sure that that's valuable business time, not just small pieces of meat on a toothpick. So to that end, we have some live on the show floor programming, which could include demos on how to make a smash burger the correct way, not just flat, but there's a method.

04:36There is a method. Of course. What is a juicy Lucy? Like there's some things we're going to talk about. What I'm talking about today is more from the operational side. So one of them is around employees, which is top of mind. So everybody has those. Everybody has those. We don't have them for sale here at Gordon food service. That'd be illegal. What we can say is the mindset around hiring. There are many things that are familiar to our operators to me as a restaurant operator, which I was for many years, and there are also some mind shifts. So for example, if you still have this news headline that might be circa 2021 or something that says no one air quotes, no one wants to work in restaurants anymore. That would be patently untrue. There's 15.7 million people working in the hospitality industry, which is greater. Wow. I didn't know that number. 15.6 million in America, 15.6 million February of 2020. Okay. Meaning there are more people working in hospitality right now than there were before COVID. Wow. So that takes no one wants to work here anymore. If that's still weighing heavy upon your brain, that's a little bit of a dated.

05:49Actually, this is true not only in restaurants, it's true in construction and truck driving and warehousing and many things that might be viewed as undesirable or not sexy or not fun. We can't all be Uber drivers for crying out loud. So people are gravitating to some of these areas. So there's that just kind of encouragement we want to give to our customers. So versus you're taking a mindset of, I can't hire anybody. This is too hard to, Hey, look, they're out there. Do you, are you asking people to look internally and go, what are you, are you offering people the best? Is your job attractive? You're, you're, you're nailing on some of the key aspects and, and it's not as though it's easy, right? It just, it's as hard as it ever was, but it's not extra hard. And so as example, maybe, maybe as operators, we're very aware of what the guy across the street, what he charges for wings, where his wings come from, does he make his own ranch? Like we're acutely aware of our competition as it terms the menu items. We're probably less aware of what their hiring, retention, attraction strategy is. We all know that place that we go to ourselves.

06:55We're consumers. We go there on Friday night because man, this place always has great people. Why? It's not an accident. There's something that they do. What are those things? And culture is, is actions. Well, I think, you know, I think I've talked with so many restaurant tours that don't define their culture. When I say define their culture, something you guys at Gordon food source and a great job at with your cornerstone values, I think you have to have a foundation for how everybody leads in that building with core values. Because if you don't have that, you have different people who come in who, oh, my last job I managed this way. It might, and it's inconsistent. If you have a consistent culture that's written down that you can hire and fire based around, and this is who we are, and I need you to show up this way, it lets people know what their expectations are. I think that's one of the biggest mistakes restaurant tours make is they don't tell people what the expectations are. Then people feel like they get hit by a switch when they do something that isn't up to that culture. And it's like, if you define that and that's the bedrock of what you're doing, people feel at ease. We call it emotional tranquility. You're, you're, you're exactly right. I couldn't agree with you more.

08:02And then to add to that, that, that cultural component, and you're indicating it's got to be written down, you need to be able to point to it on the wall so that we can all understand what it is. And it's an action. Culture is not a coupon you clip out and redeem. Culture is a driver's license. It's an operator's license to do the things that you have written on the wall. So a step of said culture, and when we're thinking about, say in this case, hiring, employee retention, employee promotion, upscaling, a part of that culture must be actions that people are licensed to do. Yeah. So that's a really going to be a fun topic for you to be talking about up there. And I'm sure that a lot of the people who are attending the Gordon Food Service show are going to have a, it's going to be positive and it'll be something that reinforces good behaviors and maybe make some people go home and look in the mirror and think about the way that they operate their own restaurants. I love that. What's some other topics are you going to be talking about? Sure. So the other two other ones, one is, tell me why you love me, which is the worst question to receive when you're starting a long trip with your spouse.

09:08Please come up with something new and profound that you haven't told me. I've been married 25 years, but please don't ask me that question again. I feel like we've covered this. Like if you don't know by now. Oh my goodness. So, so think about it is as operators, we were taught ingrained. We have these words of, of customer service, customer satisfaction in our mind. If we're fancy, we use the word guest and those things are true. But today is because we live in a experiential economy, it's important to have that emotional connection to our guests. The 80-20 rule, right? We all know this. 20% of our frequent diners probably give us 80% of our revenue volume. Sure. Something thereabouts. Well, those 20%, they really love you. They come there, they're there every Friday. There's a reason for it. And your goal as an operator is not simply ask the masses, please rate my restrooms one through 10. I mean, I know that's important, but it sounds like, is there, is there a plane flying by? It sounds like there's an airplane landing on the roof right now. We're close to the airport.

10:11There's a pallet jack behind us moving something very heavy on the concrete. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the sound of industry in action. This is it. You're practically here. They can't really hear that. We can hear it because it's like deep and right behind us. The people on the, they're listening to this can't hear this. Well, they're missing out. Maybe they can. I don't know. They're missing out. So, so back to thinking about, tell me why you love me. I'm going to encourage people to recognize the behaviors that our eaters, our customers that come in on Friday night and Tuesday morning, et cetera, that if they love you, they exhibit these certain things, right? And that can be included. We live in a reservation society, reservations, the frequency, that's something we can measure. It can be including what they order more. We always agree. If you're having a good time, if you love this place, you're going to get the apps, you're going to get the drinks, you're going to get a dessert with four forks. Like that's part of the experience of the place that you love. Sure. If you're simply satisfied, if you and I go to a place and we're satisfied, that's two grilled chicken sandwiches and two iced teas. Yep. Were we satisfied? Sure. It was fine. It was fine. It was fine. Do we love it?

11:14Well, we're dialing it up. It was fine. So we can agree to those things. So there's some other topics that I would say observationally, you can begin to map and measure. Like what's the love factor? What's the love participation for your guests? And then number two is this idea around net promoter score. So a lot of us have seen that. You probably are aware of that. That's an emerging statistic. It's a simple one word survey question. On a scale of one to 10, would you recommend this restaurant to your family and friends? And there's math behind it. If you were a nine or a 10, just a nine or a 10, you're considered a promoter. If you are a one to a five, you're considered a detractor. Wow. And six, seven, and eight, meh, that's the mid. The mid. So what you do is you do some math and you say the percentage to total of promoters minus the percentage to promoter of detractors gives you a net promoter score. Yeah. And you can measure now, that's kind of your love factor. And you can measure that not only against yourself every twice a year, three times a year, I take conduct the survey, or if you're interested, I wonder how people love me relative to how do people love Chick-fil-A or Starbucks or Tesla or Comcast cable or any number of things. You can compare. You can. Yeah. And that's a lot of that is in your brand and how, you know, one of our core values of the restaurant is remember me. Remember me means we want you to remember the gas. Once you remember what they ordered, once you use their name, that's one of those powerful things I think that so many people don't do to tell them to tell people you love them is literally just say their name. And if you asked and conduct this survey, you asked this question, you know, would you recommend us if you want to get dimensionality is what we call on the statistics.

12:58You want to get dimensionality. You say, why do you answer the way you did? And to your point, if you say, Hey, I feel like I'm, you know, Norm, it cheers. Everybody knows my name. They know what I order that hones in on where you're hitting with the customer. So your actions now are gosh, a lot of people who are promoters say so because we know their names, you know what new task. Everybody's that's ours, right? And it's, it's not giving you big things to sift through. We have a reservation system. We know their names walking in the door, use them. Absolutely. We, we, they get carry out. There's so much easy information out there. And so is there a tech, do you guys offer at Gordon food service a way to create your net promoter score? So net promoter score can be done very simply on your own via any survey mechanism. And what you can do is connect with connect that to any, whether it's a takeout system, a takeout system that you have, whether it's a, a simple survey you have at the door, you can go analog and do paper and pen. You can do any number of ways. It's just something you do with periodic sense every so often. And it's very simple to execute. You don't need software or dollars or anything.

14:15It can be a simple email campaign or follow up to carry out or a button push at the door. I love it. And what's your third topic? Third topic is it's called can I have a bite, which is balancing humans and tech. Now we're talking, you know, I'm cheeky that way. So, so what we're saying is that technology embracement is highly important. We walk through some places that you may be engaging in this, maybe some places you have not engaged with it, but it's critical to have a human component to this. Don't simply replace people with technology, use technology to enhance the human experience. I love it. So I think, I think owning your guest data, I mean, if you can use for me, I think that understanding through patterns that how people spend and why they spend and then marketing directly to people with the way that they spend is that, are we, are we in the same neighborhood? What we're talking about? So we're again, the technology piece is humongous. It's huge. What I'm thinking more is along the lines of the service supported areas. So, and I'll give you a great example. You, you can have a robust digital ordering system, but you know, what makes Chick-fil-A go fast is people using the technology out there. So it's a people component. Yeah, that's what makes them fast. There's nowhere else in the world that you look at that line that's wrapped about in the building and go, yeah, I could do it.

15:50Cause you know, it's going to be, you know, it's going to be fit because they have human guided. We've been to the airport for a 6 a.m. flight where there's the mass of humanity. That's kind of angry and sleepy at the same time, trying to use the kiosks. Or if you look at say a company like Delta, who is the highest rated customer service, major airline carrier. Really? I didn't know that. If you look at them, they often, not always, they often have a person in the midst of those kiosks directing traffic. Hello, sir. This one is open. No, ma'am. Your passport is turned upside down. Turn it this way. Great. Now take your bags over there. It's human aided technology that makes that work. If you're just in that cluster of a 6 a.m. departure thing, trying to get out of Nashville in the morning on a Monday. Not fun. That's not, you're already mad before you started. But you, if you go to a carrier that invests in that, well, you're not mad before it started and your experience is liable to be better. So give that line of thinking towards the other places that you've engaged in technology. And don't forget that people are a critical component to technology adoption. Well, I cannot wait for you to be on stage talking to everybody about this.

17:00I think this is really good stuff that a lot of restaurateurs need to hear or just food for thought for them to sit back and reflect. And hopefully I'll have some conversations today with people who've got to hear you speak and I'll get their opinions on it as well. And see, I'll get that immediate net promoter score from what people heard from you. I go, did it make you feel, how did it make you feel? What did you do? Yeah, that's the question. As presenters, we always want to ask ourselves, how did it make people feel? And that's what we're trying to do. And what we want our customers and our partners in this industry is to know that we spend a considerable amount of time understanding the business that we're in. I like to say, according to Food Service, we are of the restaurant industry. We are not to it. Yeah, I love it. You know what? I'm a big fan of everything you guys do over here. And it's guys like you that really help restaurants succeed. And I just appreciate everything you're doing. Thank you for stopping by Nashville Restaurant Radio today. Next time you're in Nashville, swing in. We'll do a full episode and we'll kind of do a deeper dive into some of this stuff. So deep. It's going to be so fun. Patrick Cairoli. You nailed it. Thank you for stopping by today. Thank you, sir.

18:07All right, Patrick Cairoli, our first guest on the Gordon Food Service show. Next up is Paul Hunter. And this is kind of before the show starts. So before all the Gordon Food Service people are busy running around, I grabbed a couple people who worked there because I wanted to get their opinions and their takes. Paul is your new business development manager here in Nashville. And he is the guy you want to call. This guy is amazing. If you need anything, if you have a, if you're thinking about switching your broadband business or anything along those lines, Paul's the man to call. And he's a, he's a good dude. Let's jump in right now with Paul Hunter. All right. We're back at the Gordon Food Service show and we are talking with Paul Hunter. Paul, what? New business development manager for Nashville? Business developer. Yes. Business developer. How is the developing of business in Nashville going these days? It's fantastic. We're out there beating the streets and trying to find people to, to help out. You know, I like that because that's not a trying to find people to sell them food. It's, I'm trying to find people to help out. Exactly. Anybody can sell them food. We're trying to help them run their business more effectively, more profitably, give them solutions. What are, what are you seeing right now is when you walk in somewhere and you say, I want to help people out, what are problems people are having right now? So right now what we're running into is a lot of our customers and prospects are struggling with consistent delivery times and windows from other people, from other distributors. Okay. It's all across the board. That's one thing that really is important to them right now is can you get me a consistent delivery time and day? And I'm assuming you can. We can. How do you do that? Well, we. Because there's only so many seven o'clock on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Yes. And you have people who currently get that delivery. And if I'm a customer and I go, I can't get my delivery consistently at seven a.m. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. It's a problem. So what we do is so a lot of our competitors

20:15will do what looks like a great thing. And that is, Hey, you want to delivery any day this week? Sure. We'll do it. Right. Wow. The impact of that is the customer who normally gets that Tuesday 10 a.m. slot, maybe they get bumped back an hour because two people got a delivery that weren't supposed to get a delivery. Okay. So what ends up happening is there's there's no consistency with routing. We really, really try to stick to our permanent routing days. And what that does is that offers a really consistent delivery to our normal customers on that route. Now, that doesn't mean we don't make exceptions for great partner customers. And obviously we have van deliveries. We have a lot of other ways that we can get them product in a pinch. But we really try to stick to those perm routing days because of that consistency. That's difficult for some. Right. And I think that we've unlocked something here, Paul. And Paul was just walking by to say hi to me. And I said, put a microphone. We're going to start talking. He's like, I didn't know we were getting into this stuff immediately.

21:23Oh, that's loud. Yeah, back here. All of a sudden. Now I know what that sound is. I thought it was an airplane in the last interview. I'm like, is there an airplane landing on the roof? It's so important and vital. What I hear people say is I want better pricing, right? Everything, inflation, all these other things, I want better pricing. But then in the same breath, they'll say, I want consistency in delivery and I want more deliveries. And those two things aren't congruent. There's a cost associated with making a delivery and there's a cost associated with making a delivery when you want that delivery to be made. So if I want five deliveries, I want to get a delivery whenever I want any day, that's expensive to do because there's a way more cost on the distributor. But they'll also say, but it needs to be the cheapest. And it's like, well, discipline in operating your business in a really professional way, consolidating your deliveries and then identifying a time. Because you don't have to have it at 7 a.m. Maybe have it at 4 a.m. as a key drop or maybe get it at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. There's other options if price is a major issue for you. It's about sitting down and having a conversation with the company you're going to work with and treating them like people. I think so many chefs just think these companies are out to get us and they can do anything, but they're trying not to help me. And it's like, no, I want to help you, but I can't fly. It's like they're asking for an impossible thing.

22:49And I think there's a, hey, let's sit back and talk about what realistically we can do. How can I save money and how can I be a better partner with you, right? Exactly. And one of the things that I try to do as a business developer is when someone, if someone needs five delivery days, that's usually an indication that they need help on how they're ordering, right? Or it's a space issue. I have a reach in, I don't have a walk in, you know, kind of a thing. Could be a space issue, but what we try to identify is why do you need five delivery days? And normally when you identify those reasons, you can also help with some systems. You can put some systems in place and they realize, wait, I really don't need five deliveries a week like I thought. I needed to get more organized. I needed to plan ahead a little better. One of the things I used to do, because we have data, right? You've got data. And when you do produce, people think that if they order it today, it'll be fresher than it was yesterday and it may come from the same slot in the, doesn't matter. But if I have three months of data from you, I could do your order for you.

23:55Yeah. I mean, I could do your order for you, but like every week you ordered three cases of romaine. You ordered one case three times a week and then you ordered five case of potatoes and you can look at averages and I can go, well, if this is what you're using, I will just order that same amount in a three day span and you'll get the same amount of product on less delivery day. I mean, you can look at data and figure it out. It's not that hard. So true. Yeah. And people don't think they can. Yeah. So we, we just had a great meeting with a guy yesterday who owns a restaurant. When he purchased the restaurant, they were already using three or four different vendors. He's kind of stuck with that because he's trying to fix some other things, but he wants to get down to one or two. But one of the things that he told us at the end of our conversation is, look, I don't care if we're talking 50 cents, a dollar, two dollars here and there. I want someone who can offer me good product, good service and consistency. That matters more to me. Right. Yeah. So there's an operator who realizes if I spend all my time chasing pennies back and forth, right, I'm not focusing on running my business. Right. So we, we want to offer him something that will allow him to focus on running his business effectively, profitably, efficient, efficiently, and know that he's got a trusted partner in Gordon food service that's going to take care of.

25:18And you know, what's funny is that it's not funny, but I, I think there's a, there's a lot of salesmen talk and people can hear what you just now said. And we want a trusted partner and all these little things, but you guys actually mean it. Like, like the one, my, all my experience with Gordon food services, you guys do what you say you're going to do. And all of these sales, many type things, you know, you don't take percentages to the bank, right? It's, it's a, it's a credo. It's what you guys live by. And it's really refreshing and fun to work with you guys. And not only just hear it because I've seen it and I've experienced it, especially with you. Yeah. Well, so I appreciate you saying that, but one of the things that I think makes the biggest difference and you see this, I just pulled this out of my pocket. So the cornerstone values, when I started here almost 20 years ago, Jim Gordon, he talked to me about these and how important they were to the family. And every company out there has their quote cornerstone values or core values, whatever they want to call it, right? I've never seen witnessed a company like Gordon food service that literally lives these out and holds their employees accountable to this. And one of these cornerstone values, the first one is customer is keen, right? So we can do all the salesy talk we want to in the world, but if we don't put the customer at the center of everything we do, and then it's all just words. I love your cornerstone values because they're so kind and they're lighthearted and it like really is a service based, but then they throw a weird one in there that is my favorite one and it's war room mentality. Absolutely. Now I haven't looked at your corner. I just look at your sheet. I know your cornerstone values. It's crazy how that's how, as a customer, I knew your cornerstone values because, and I've interviewed Rich Wolowski, who's the CEO is still the CEO of the company. He is. Yes. I remember that interview.

27:22It was an amazing interview, but I told him, I said, you know, I didn't know your cornerstone. When I read them, I went, this makes sense because this is the actions of your people. Yeah, this is really, but I love the war room mentality because it's like all soft and fluffy and customers king and we love you. We're going to do everything we can, but don't mistake kindness for weakness. And I was like, hell yeah, man. There's that one, that one cornerstone value that was like, we will come to play. And I was like, yeah, there it is. And that war room mentality means a lot of things, right? What does it mean? So I'll tell you a story. So when I started, Paul Gordon was still alive. I got the opportunity to meet him several times. Incredible man, like one of the most intelligent, engaging men I've ever known. He obviously has since passed, but I remember hearing from so many people who'd been with the company 20, 30, 40 years then, some of them, we still have a couple in the Tennessee area that had been with the company 40 years, but I remember them saying like, we're a family owned company, right? And we talk a lot about the things we do for our communities, the charity, the way we give back. And there's that side of the Gordon family philosophy, right? But so many people who worked with Paul Gordon said, yeah, everybody sees that they hear about that side. And that's great. They don't see the other side, the war room mentality. And that is, they said when, when they would sit in a meeting with Paul Gordon and they're reviewing performance, he was also the guy who would lean across the table and look you in the eye and say, we're not winning. We must win, right? It's that war room mentality. We're going to win. That's one thing it means. The other thing it means is, okay, here's, here's a kind of an off the wall example, right? So a few years ago, the whole world dealt with this COVID thing, right? So a lot of companies, they were forced to just terminate people,

29:26lay off people. They had to do what they had to do, right? The Gordon family said, we don't want to do that. We're not going to do that. This is people's livelihoods, people's families, right? So the cool thing about us being a family owned company, we didn't have to react and think about what our shareholders would think if we didn't make our earnings plan that year. The Gordon family could say, Hey, it's, it's not going to be a very profitable year, but we're going to take care of our people. And we took care of our people. That's war room mentality, right? That's like, we're going to have to give up some profit this year to keep our people on board so that their families are intact. I hear war room mentality. And I just think strategy, you know, like, let's, let's, let's think things through and let's execute a detailed intentional plan. Let's not just willy nilly do it. Like war mentality means let's get really smart people in a room and let's find a solution. And then let's go, let's go get it done. That's a big part of it. Yeah. I mean, it's not just a, well, I don't know. What do you think? Well, I'll just go do it. It's a, let's make this happen. And I, um, big part of it. I love that.

30:37Can I share another example? Of course. So back in the eighties in food service, a lot of people don't know this, but all the best produce went to grocery stores. Okay. And what was left went to food service and not only that, but food service operators had to deal with retail packs because produce was when they were packing, you know, processing, getting produce ready to go to market, they were thinking grocery stores, right? Buying for a family of three or four or five. Right. So here's the war room mentality. Paul Gordon said, why does it have to be that way? Why can't restaurants get the best produce? So he's like, I'm going to make this happen. So he got with other independent food service operators, Benny, Keith, and some others. They started a produce cooperative called Marcon produce in the eighties. Now Marcon produce controls more fields in Salinas Valley and Yuma, Arizona than anybody. We put out the highest quality produce in a Marcon label that you can purchase. Well, that was war room mentality.

31:45That was Paul Gordon saying, why is food service stuck with seconds on produce? Why can't we have the best produce in food service? So again, another example of war room mentality. I love it. Well, Paul, I was going to say Paul Hunter, thank you. Thank you for coming by today. It's always good to see you. I'll catch up with you in just a second also, but wanted to get your take on the Gordon food service show today. What are you doing today? Just walking around, talking to people, shaking hands, kissing babies. That's it. Yeah. So I've tried to make sure that any of the customers that I'm working on with the DSRs that I know when they're here, that I can sort of help. Again, you talked about planning, you know, kind of being strategic. I want to make sure that I'm taking them to the booths that matter or that I think they need to see that could benefit them and just, yeah, just shaking hands and kissing babies. Well, man have so much fun. This is a good atmosphere in here. It's a good vibe and people are rolling in. Yeah. It's open, right?

32:46Oh yeah. There was an enormous line waiting to get in before we opened. Yeah, man. We're at the Kentucky Exposition Center and there's a lot of people here. This is awesome. Thanks for stopping by. Yeah. Thanks for having me. All right. Paul Hunter. What an amazing guy. I love that guy. So we're done with the GFS kind of employees who are there. Now the show has started and we're going to jump in next with a guy named Alan Laderman. But first I want to tell you, if you're, if you want to own your own restaurant or you're a line cook, you're a chef, you're somebody who works for somebody and you want to own your own business. I think one of the first things you have to do is you have to find a space, obviously write a business plan, but you got to find your space. And when you are ready to start looking for locations, you need to find a broker. You need to find somebody who knows the area, who can help you find that spot. And let me tell you Miller, Chandler, and Leann James of the Chandler James team at Leann Associates are the people you need to call. If you're just curious, what in the world does this stuff do? Give them a call, learn, set, start, do something, get started. If you own restaurants now and you're looking for your next space, these are the people you need to call 615-473-2452. They're amazing. They're just great people. And I love, I get to see Miller at the gym all the time. He lives right by me. So it's really fun. And we catch up and they're just, there's just so much happening in town. If you're looking for that perfect space, he can help you find it. So Miller Chandler and Leann James from the Chandler James team at Leann Associates. First come, they need to come to mind first when you're looking for your new spot. All right. Let's jump in. Alan Laderman. He's the owner of Sammy's. This is a fun story. You'll love this. All right. So we're here at the Gordon food service show.

34:39We're joined with Alan Laderman. He's the owner over at Sammy's in Martin and the grind in Martin, Tennessee. Yes. Very happy to be here. Love Gordon food service. We go every year. We have a good time. We go out to eat. We have a couple of drinks, walk the food show. So enjoying Louisville. Where did you go out to dinner last night? Were you here last night? Yeah, we went to Vicenzo's. Vicenzo's. Yeah. It's a old school Italian spot. Nice. You know, they do a lot of stuff at the table. A lot of classic dishes. There was veal on there. There was rack of lamb involved. Nice. Lots of pasta, some cocktails. We went to a place last night called Lemu. Oh yeah. I've been there. And we got the A5 Japanese Wagyu. I've never had like official, they brought it like the executive chef walked in and brought a certificate. Have a snoot on it? The snoot or the hoof? Yeah. It had the little, I don't know if it was a hoof or if it was the snoot. There was an imprint on the certificate.

35:41I've never had A5 at Lemu, but I have had it in Chef Morimoto's restaurant in Orlando. Nice. And they did the snoot. So it was pretty cool. It was really cool. It was like butter, man. I've never eaten anything like that before. It's an amazing experience. It's not something you could eat just all the time. It's so rich. No, it's too rich. Yeah. Yeah. But it's really good. So tell me, you're here from Martin, Tennessee, and you've got The Grind. And I've looked you up a little bit and apparently you're a destination location. You come to Martin, you've got to go to The Grind and Sammy's. It has, you know, when we created that concept, that's not exactly what we thought was going to happen. And we started noticing this incredible buzz online. And as we opened, we had lines out the door for about two and a half years every single day. Wow. It was chaos. And honestly, whenever I, you know, that was seven years ago, or yeah, it was about seven years ago when we opened. And when I think about that time, it's just a bunch of streaks of light.

36:45And what do you think it was? Lines out the door, you open the restroom. That's a fun honeymoon period. It's an exciting time. Apparently it's kept up that way. What do you attribute to that? I attribute that as there was some luck involved. There was some skill involved. And I really think that it was that perfect timing of, you know, of when the internet got obsessed with food. Yeah. Was around that time. And we just naturally fell into that with our marketing, because we do a bunch of over the top milkshakes. We do a bunch of crazy burgers, donuts, as buns for burgers. We stack nachos up and we make cheese fondue and frozen. So you have a really unique menu that people are going to go and try new things they've never had before. And it's apparently very good. And we do it in a small town. I think that the internet has made people in these smaller rural areas like, man, I wish I could eat that kind of food, this crazy food.

37:48Or they see it online and they go, man, I've never in the big city where they make exactly in our town. You know, we're at least a two hour distance to a real city. Right. So you're in, are you in between kind of Memphis and Nashville? Kind of? Yeah. Yeah. So we're about, we're almost three hours from Nashville, but we're two hours from Memphis. So there is a Jackson, Tennessee that has some decent restaurants and things like that. But mostly we're pulling from, you know, Kentucky that's just right north of us and all the whole county and several other rural counties around us. And so we just saw it as an opportunity. It's like, hey, let's give some people some great quality and some amazing service because we're kind of everything there is kind of over the top, right? We're over the top service, over the top food and everything. I like to say that we don't just serve food at the grind. We serve fun. So have you, have you read Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Gadara? I've never read that book. Okay. Cause I think that's kind of the concept is just give people more than they expect. Get them in there and really wow them with an expectation of a coffee shop. And then they walk in and they go, Oh, this is way better than I thought it was going to be. I call it delightfully deceiving people, delightfully deceiving people.

38:59And so it's a, it's a, you know, deception is typically a bad word. It's not something that's pleasant. So we like to surprise people with things they don't expect in a good way. And we kind of learn that trick. Me and my family kind of learned that trick from years of going to Walt Disney World. And I know that they're good. They're a good example. Yeah. And, and we just kind of thought it's like, Hey, what if we brought some of that back to small town America? And, and you know, it took off like a rocket, honestly, and the rest is kind of history. You know, we operate more like a normal restaurant nowadays. It's not lines out the door every day and stuff like that, but we are still very busy restaurant for 90 seats. And if you go to Martin, Tennessee, if you make the trip there, is there anything else to do in Martin, Tennessee? Not a lot. There's a couple of good restaurants now though, besides ones that we have. But you know, there's a, there's a small college there, which is growing UT Martin, UT Martin. That's right. And we just got a new chancellor there and his whole goal was to get, you know, 10,000 students to the school and so on and so forth. So the town is growing and, and the restaurant scene is growing after things like the grind and Sammy's open. People saw that you can make money in this business in a small town and, and make great products. So we've seen many new places spring up after probably a, you know, in Nashville, there's so much bureaucracy and so much taxes and different things that happen and road closures and just, Oh, there's a new building going next door. We're going to cut your power off for two days and you have to do this and you have, there's a lot kind of nice to be in a smaller town where you can kind of know people and get stuff done. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's very, um, it's way cheaper in a small town.

40:53I'm going to tell you this concept that we're working on right now. Uh, we're at the very end of our construction phase. We've been working on it for two years. It's in a building from 1896. Oh, wow. I've got an elevator that works in it, a pulley elevator from 1896. We're going to put sore flower and things on it right when you walk in. It's an incredible building. If you bought that building in Nashville, it would cost you millions and millions of dollars, but we're fixing it up and we're definitely spending money. Don't get me wrong, but it's nothing like that. Nothing like that. And you can do stuff like that in smaller areas and you can still make money and still, uh, provide a great product. What is the new concept going to be in this new amazing historic facility? It's, uh, it's so it's a multi-concept, honestly. So, uh, we are going to be brewing beer. We're going to be. Beer is good. Yeah. It's a, you know, not a bunch of beer. It's just a small, it's a true microbrewery. Yeah. So, uh, we're going to be doing that. We're going to be, uh, making our dough in house, making pizza, and we're going to be, uh, merging kind of a Southern and Italian concept on pizza. Interesting. Their cuisines are very similar. You know, they really are like forget pasta part of Italian cuisine though.

42:04So we're not doing any pastas. Really. We're going to be just merging the flavors. So think, kind of think how country ham is very similar to prosciutto. Yeah. Right. No, I'm 100%. So, um, we're going to be doing that. And then on the, we have this half floor in our building. Um, and we, we have turned it into a very small barcade and it's really cool. And really, I, I've taken a lot of, I'm very proud of it. It's very cool. Cause when I was a kid, uh, pizza places always had a little arcade in them. Yeah. You play Galaga. Yeah. You play the Gallagas. You play those Pacmans. Exactly. 100%. So me and my old man, um, big pinball heads. So I love pinball. We've got, we've got several pinball machines. It's a really cool spot. And that is something when I'm talking about, uh, delightfully deceiving someone, no one in the town knows that that's on that little floor. They know this building because it has been things over the years and we've completely gutted it. So I'm not talking about that floor at all. So they're going to walk up there and just be like, what is this? I mean, we've got a, a bar top. The bar top has is a bouncy ball bar top. So I put 14,000 bouncy balls and poured epoxy over it, 70 gallons of epoxy. So it's really wild. Like it's really wild.

43:25So where do you procure these games like the pinball machines and things like that? You can find distributors. Those distributors are still making, or do you have to like go on eBay and find some dude who's got one that he restored in his house in Idaho and you're like, Hey man, you're negotiating. Is this still available? He's like, those definitely exist, but there are nowadays, there are like seven, eight legit pinball companies making real pinball machines with real high quality IPs. You know, they just announced an X-Men really, you know, one. And so it's something they're not cheap, you know, but these distributors can also rent them for your business. So you can also like, or lease them through them or whatever. You can switch them up if you want to have new games. Exactly. And they hold their value really well so you can trade them. So if you do own some and they're from the new modern pinball era, they oftentimes hold their value really well and say, Hey, I want to get this new X-Men pinball machine. I've got, you know, a Star Trek pinball machine or whatever, and then you guys make a deal. Are you going to do like quarters or is it like you buy a card and you can hold the card on there? Is that like the new pinball machines? How do you pay for these things? The current model that we're going to be doing is quarters. There's something nostalgic about that, that I want to pump quarters into a machine. That's a whole thing. Absolutely. As an adult, what's four quarters? Who wants to swipe a card? We do that all day long. It's actually, I want to pump quarters into a machine. And that's how there's something romantic about that. For sure. The mechanic and the sounds, all of it, even holding the coin, everything about it.

44:59So we're definitely going to be doing that at first, you know, that lures us to in the future, as things settle down, we expect to be very busy when we open. We have, we, you know, have a bit of a reputation for having good spots. So in the future, it allows us to have, you know, free Wednesday night, you know, Wednesdays are free, kind of free play or whatever and stuff like that. So from eight to 10 free play or something, you know, you want to build late night business or bring people in, you can do that. And that's the goal is to have it. So there's a way to get up into the bar where you don't have to walk through the restaurant. So my goal is to have people hanging out there, you know, college kids up there, even though the restaurant's closed, maybe we're open till midnight type thing. That's so cool. Have you seen anything here at the show that you really like or what are you here to look for? I'm mostly here looking for cheese. Cheese. I mean, the cheese, I'm going to grow a cheese. Is that the cheese? Grande is one of the meetings I have today. Grande cheese is the stuff. Yeah, they're the guys that that's my goal is to go with Grande. Okay, well, that's what I hear. It's the best. That's what everybody says. Yeah, you got to go with the Grande cheese. I don't know. I'll probably have some sponsor out there who's mad because I said that, but it's all right. That's what it is. Well, we went to just a month ago in August, me and my wife went to New York and went to a pizza school. And it's a school, but it's really just you two working in a restaurant. And so we, you know, they were using a bunch of local cheese guys in New York and some Grande cheese as well. And we made a whole bunch of pizzas and a whole bunch of dough. And it was like a fun process. It was, it was actually fun. It was actually pretty affordable. And honestly, a GFS guy turned me on to it. And so, yeah, it was really cool. Well, I love that. Well, I know your, your family and your coworkers, everybody over here is hanging out, watching you. And I know you've got a lot of things to do. And I just, thanks for popping in and telling me about your story. And I got a couple of kids, I'm thinking, you know, that trip to Martin sounds kind of fun. The hiking and fishing,

47:02anything to do up there? If you, yeah, I mean, there is real foot lake. That's just about 20 miles away, big giant lake, lots of hunting and fishing there. We've got also right outside of the real foot lake is Discovery Park of America. One of those really nice big places that you ever heard of Kirklands, the store Kirklands. Well, the guy who created that is from Union City. And, you know, he's passed away now, but he left a very large endowment for that thing. And it's like a, you know, it's a $50 million place. Well, their corporate headquarters is across the street from one of my restaurants in Nashville. Well, right on. So it's a, they're, well, they're from Union City, Tennessee, and they built this amazing structure for kids. And so we get a lot of nice duality with that guys, kids coming to the grind and then going there. When do you plan on opening this new location? We're honestly trying to open before the end of the year. All right. Well, I'm going to bring the kids and we're going to come down to Martin, Tennessee, and I'm going to come check it out when you open. Maybe we'll cover it. We'll do a full thing about it and we'll play some pinball. It'd be a good time. Alan Ladderman. Yeah. Thanks for joining us today, brother. Nice meeting you. Thanks for having me. Cool. Had a good time.

48:14Don't you guys, this is, this was so much fun for me. Uh, we're going to jump in next with, uh, Michael Spencer. He owns Nash Dogs. Uh, and he was a super cool guy. It's really nice to get to know him and can't wait to, uh, spend some more time with him in studio coming up shortly. Uh, but I do also want to tell you about SuperSource, right? So SuperSource is your dish machine and chemical solution. Here's what you know about SuperSource. Jason Ellis is the best and they don't make you sign a contract. Do I need to say anything else? I mean, they, they're not going to lock you in for seven years. Uh, he also helps out new, new people, new customers with dish machine rental help for the first couple of months. And I'm sure he'd be happy to help you out with that as well, but they make all their own chemicals. They sell all their own chemicals and they do not have you sign a contract. I say that again, no signing of any contract. Uh, the service is impeccable. He has to earn your business every single week and he does that. He's probably the most, number one, when people come into this restaurant and they are into this restaurant, into the studio and they see the SuperSource stuff, they go, man, I love that guy. And you've heard it. If you're listening to the show, they actually say it on the show. If you want to have that kind of relationship with your dish machine and chemical person, you need to give them a call. 770-337-1143. That's Jason Ellis with SuperSource. All right, let's jump in right now with Michael Spencer. All right. So we're back at the Gordon food service show and I am joined with a very fashionable, uh, Michael Spencer. We've identified we're wearing the exact same glasses and, uh, our shoe, our shoe, uh, I don't, what is our, our, our affinity, affinity for shoes is a thing. Yes. Some nice Nikes. I know we're, we're doing our thing here. I like it.

50:03Has Jordan's caught my eye. We're basically twins today. Right. Absolutely. I mean, you're looking fly at the GFS. Both wearing black Polos, jeans and Nikes and the exact same glasses. Literally. This is a thing. We're styled up. Hey man, you're good to go. That's crazy. I'm regretting that I didn't wear my gold wedding band as well. My wife would be pissed. Well, we're here and you are walking around looking, what are you here trying to see? Is there anything you want to learn from being at the Gordon food service show? So honestly, I didn't know what to expect. It's my first time at a expo show. It's my first time at an expo show like this. And I was honestly kind of, uh, taken aback with what I came into. I didn't really know what it was going to be, but I walk in and get some amazing aromas and I see what the assignment is now. And I'm going to go eat a bunch of food and kind of walk around, meet a bunch of people, make a bunch of connections. And if you find a cool product that maybe you could use, then awesome. Right. Yeah. That's pretty fire. I've only been in the restaurant industry a short couple of years. So this is a first for me and I decided to be here. Okay. So you started Nash dogs, I guess, a couple of years ago. What's the genesis of Nash dogs? So I was working for someone else, corporate entity, super unhappy. I was working at the sales rep and then I moved into, um, assistant store manager of a, um, large box store. And, um, I figured it just wasn't for me anymore, you know, kind of building someone else's dream and chasing money to, I don't know, making somebody else rich, literally that, you know, um, I was talking to my GFS rep Sarah earlier and I was telling her, um, you know, I grew that account to 12 and a half million dollars, you know, and, um, I was selling like lumber and like housing materials and out of that, I was going to make like 60 grand, which I don't know for some folks, that sounds acceptable, I guess, but for making $12 million in sales, it's good margins in that too.

51:57I believe. Absolutely. You know, so I was just thinking like, what, what can I do on my own where I can have more time freedom, you know, the ability to be a family man, because that's kind of my number one priority. Yeah. Family, you know, so you're married, you got kids. I do. I've got a 10 year old son. Um, so when I started this, he was five turning six and I was just missing a lot of life, you know, working for somebody else. So you, so you decided to go open a restaurant where you never, you went, you saw him sometimes now open a restaurant where I actually never see them. Yeah. I don't know. I'm figuring that out right now, but you know, we've got money in the bank and, um, we're, we're doing well and, um, it's good. I can kind of cater my schedule to him, you know, actually. So really the big pinch point when I was, so I had requested all for a baseball game 30 days in advance. And then who was playing, so it was my son's baseball, your son's baseball game. Yeah, absolutely. And I wanted to be there, you know, so I requested all for that, for that game. And then on the day of they called and I said, Hey, we had a call out. We need you to come in. And I was assistant store manager and you know, so I was on call salary and I was like, you know, I requested this day off and I'm not going to be there. And they're like, well, if you don't come, we're going to write you up. And I was like, I'm not in, write me up. Yeah, literally. I said, write me up. I'm not in middle school anymore.

53:14Yeah. I'm not getting demerits. Right. So I came in the next day and they wrote me up and I was like, I'm super good on this. I was like, I'm not a child. You're not going to reprimand me for doing something. I told you I was going to do a month ago. And, uh, that was really kind of the, the turning point where I decided they wrote you up because you requested off and then I wouldn't come in when somebody else called out. Yeah. Did that other person that call out get written up? No, they didn't because you have, there was like a strike limit. And the reason I got written up is because as a store, as assistant store manager and your salary, you don't have the option to not be on call. Oh yeah. Fuck that. Yeah. So I was like, I'm super out of here. So that was kind of the turning point where I was, where I was like, I've got to figure something else out because the money that I'm making from them and the money that I'm making for them and the time I'm putting in, it doesn't match. So what is the, what's the biggest reality check that you've had so far as an owner of a restaurant? Um, the absolute ton of hours that has to be put into running it the right way. I mean, you can half ass and skate by, but if you really want it to be profitable long-term and turn into something that you're working on and not in, you know, it takes a lot of, it takes a lot of dedication and, uh, mental fortitude, you know, like there's not days where you, I mean, if you call out, you're costing yourself the money or, you know, you know, you gotta take, you gotta take your ass to work. So what are you, how many, you have, how many locations do you have? So I've got a location in opera mills. Um, for those of you that don't know, that's a tourist mall in Nashville. Um, it's like a kiosk inside the mall. Sure. And then I've got the hot dog stand, which is what we started with. I built that in my garage during COVID. Um, and that's kind of what got us started. So I do that for like private caterings, weddings and stuff like that. Okay. And we go to our food trailer and the food trailer is kind of the, the gym that you, you know, that I take all over Nashville and sweet. Yep. So you go, you just go all over and do this. Yeah, absolutely. We've just recently moved into like corporate catering and we're doing, uh, indoor, um, serving now where we're, you know,

55:19coming in, there's a company called food that we work with and it set us up in really cool, like office buildings where we do like a cafeteria use easy cater. Yeah. Use easy cater. So a great job too. Right. So, um, that was a really cool thing to be able to kind of, uh, put into the business, you know, and kind of start selling food in a different fashion. I love it. And, um, what's your future look like? What do you, what do you want to do going for? How many locations do you want to have? Do you want to take this thing national? What is, what is your aspirations? So long-term, um, you know, I'd say 10, 15 year goal is to turn it into a national chain. Um, it's kind of a little cheesy thing that I always say, but you know, if you think about like, you want to, like a good, cheap cheeseburger and you're anywhere in the world, you know, you're in Delaware or New Delhi, you know, like most times people are going to say like, where are you going to go as McDonald's? So I'd like, you said a good cheeseburger. Well, that's a good cheap cheeseburger. Cheap cheeseburger. Right. Um, the quality of it is definitely in question, but if you know, regardless of where you're at, you know, you can get a McDonald's cheeseburger. So eventually I'd like to have the answer to that be nash dogs. You know, you say, Hey, where can I get a great hot dog nash dogs? It's a lot of work, but we'll see how, how to get there, you know? And so you, you work with Gordon food service.

56:38Yep. Why do you, why did you choose Gordon food service? Um, so super awesome rep Sarah Libby shout out, um, to her, she's, uh, been super great with kind of helping me, I don't know, be able to learn the business and, you know, help, uh, just bring in some, some great products. I, I kind of pitted her against PFG and some other folks and you know, she really, um, put in the work to make sure that my business stayed with GFS. Let's talk about that. When you pitted her against these companies, how did you do that? Um, I'm just like a very straightforward like shooter. I mean, coming from the sales world before I owned a restaurant, like I understand her role, you know, she's a sales rep and her goal is to move the product for GFS and she knows that, you know, somebody needs it. So, um, same thing with PFG and, um, I can't remember the name of the other company I'll talk to, but anyways, I got essentially bids because when I worked at the, you know, in the corporate world, you always get three bids and then you go with the best one. So, and you chose one company to do this with. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I kind of, I told all of them what I was doing and I was very transparent. Hey, you know, I'm looking for a distributor long-term and, uh, this is what, what I'm, what I'm after. And, um, I was kind of transparent with what I was hearing from one to the other and I showed them the prices and, um, I already was with GFS. So it wasn't a hard sale to keep me with them. Sure. But, you know, you're able to negotiate an MDA based around this thing and get it done. What you did is what I think everybody who owns a restaurant should do. So many people will decide to spreadsheet and they all just buy from all three and you give me the cheapest price every week and I'll chase pennies every single week. It takes hours a week to do and it's a pain in the ass and you have a million invoices to pay. But when you can do that at one time and say, I'm looking for a three year deal, everybody come to me. Every one of them knows that they're in a competitive situation and they all come to you at their best offer. Right. And you can choose the one and then you have a partner and it sounds like what you did. And has GFS fulfilled that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, just like Sarah, I mean herself, like sometimes I get

58:43busy through the week and I'll forget to place like an order for, you know, next week's supply and she'll be like, Hey, she's like, do you need me to put that in for you? And I'd say you haven't put it in yet. So she can tell you what you need probably because you know, so it's like, like this past week, I mean, I was getting ready for this show and it was like Sunday night and it had been a long week already leading into Sunday and she put in the order and it came, you know, the next day. Typically, like if I put it in, it takes a couple of days to it takes a couple of days to post and actually like confirm that it's going to show in. But she can go right in there and do her little computer thing and make it happen right away. I love that. I love hearing stories where in the wild, you know, we didn't have this plan, but we're at the Gordon foods over show. So I want to give them a little bit of love. And I think that's a really good way to go about doing an MDA. We're, we're, we're keeping these, we're at that 10 minute mark, kind of keeping these short and sweet as we get along. I'm excited to meet you, man. And thank you for coming by and talking to us today. I look forward to learning more about you. And next time I'm around anywhere, I see a Nash dogs, I'm going to grab one.

59:46Yeah, absolutely. And I'm very grateful for your time. Thank you. Absolutely, man. Thank you so much. Michael Spencer, ladies and gentlemen, I tell you what this next interview was probably my favorite. I don't like to put favorites on there because that's not fair to everybody else. But David Parker from prime time pub and grill, he's got two locations, one in Evansville and one in Newburgh, Indiana. You know, sometimes you sit down and talk to somebody who don't know anything about them. And then midway through the conversation, you're like, man, I really like talking to you. That's what happened here. I had so much fun talking to him and I'm going to make a trip up there and I'm going to check out Newburgh because in our next episode with tinfish, with Morgan Castillo, there's some more conversation about the city of Newburgh and Evansville. And apparently there's a hotbed for food up there. I didn't know this, but it is it is a thing and they're really, really good people. So you're going to love this conversation. Before I do that, you know, I got to tell you about Sharpies Bakery. I love Sharpies Bakery and the more people, the more chefs that come in here and talk, the more people tell me how much they love Sharpies Bakery. I use it at Chagos. I use it at Mayor Bowl and at Green Hills Grill. We just did a pop-up with Arnold Mint and he was like, I have to have Sharpies rolls. They have to be Sharpies.

01:01:00I'm like, good. I love that. We do that. So the more and more of us that are using Sharpies, I think the better. But let me tell you, Erin Mosso and her family have been doing it for almost 38 years. They've been delivering fresh baked bread to the back door of your restaurant six days a week. So they're there all the time. Don't bake your own bread and don't buy frozen bread. Buy bread from a fresh baked bakery. They are amazing and Erin Mosso is who you need to call. You can call her at 615-319-6453 or you can look them up at SharpiesBakery.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S Bakery.com. Let's jump in now with Mr. Parker. This is going to be a lot of fun. Enjoy. All right. Here we go. Back at the Gordon Food Service show. And now we're joined with David Parker and he is the owner of Prime Time Pub and Grill. You have two locations. That's correct. We got one in Evansville, Indiana and one in Newburgh, Indiana. Now your voice is amazing.

01:02:02We're sitting here kind of talking and you did this little thing where you're like, Hey, we're talking about this. Give me a little bit of that. Yeah. We're talking about Prime Time Pub and Grill in Evansville, Newburgh, Indiana. You have a great announcer voice. You got this. I got a face for radio too. Me too. We have that in common. Yeah. God bless you. So tell me about Prime Time Pub and Grill. What are you guys doing over there? Looks as this pub and grill steakhouse. Yeah. Pretty much nailed it. Yeah. So we, Prime Rib is the hero of the menu. Obviously we use ground ribeye in our burgers. So they're big old half pounders. And what's the secret to great prime rib? I'm going to cut you off because I don't, we'll get into some other tangent and I want to stop right there. How do you make perfect prime rib? What's the thing you got? Is there a trick to it? Well, there's a couple of tricks to it, right? So low and slow is a big piece of it, but we usually start by peeling the fat cap back. We put our seasonings on it, rub down in olive oil, and then we do a process we call flashing where we cook it at a real high temperature for about 15, 20 minutes. Gets that olive oil nice and crispy. And then we turn it down really low and cook it for a long time. How long? About five or six hours. In an alto sham?

01:03:13Yep. Okay. And that's, so that's, that's the prime time part of the name. Correct. And the pub and grill is, do you have a bar and you also do other food? Oh yeah. Yeah. We've got a really cool bar in the original location, which is in Newburgh. It's a concrete bar that we poured right in place. It's pretty cool. Um, you know, obviously, like I said, the prime rib is the hero of the menu. We use ground up rib loin in our burgers. Uh, we also have a, what I call the best sandwich in the world. Uh, it's the prime dip. So we take thin shaved prime rib, we sauteed nausea, finish it with smoked Gouda and onion straws and a creamy horseradish we make in house. It's freaking awesome. That sounds delicious. I do prime rib at two of my restaurants in Nashville. And the hard thing is you don't know how much prime rib to cook unless it's a thing and then you have prime rib the next day. So you got to figure out a thing to do with it. Right. And so you're going to shave it down and you're going to make these. And we have something we call them rib rolls and we have fresh baked these little, um, these little rolls that we do two inch rolls. And then we put the fresh shaved and we just put, we just put cheddar cheese on it and then sell it with horseradish and nausea. But sounds awesome. The onion straws and a Gouda smoke Gouda. Yeah. Smoke Gouda. I'm going to like, we have everything to make that without the smoke Gouda. I'm going to do that.

01:04:28Next time I go on the restaurant, maybe some onion straws and I'm going to bring some smoke Gouda and try it. Cause that sounds delicious. Yeah. It's fantastic. And you know, one of the cool little secrets about that is sauteing it in the Aju, right? There's a really sauteing and putting Aju in the saute pan and doing it that way. Yep. That's correct. I've, I don't, we cook it, we kind of reconstitute it cause it's cold. This portion, we set it, we dip it in the Aju and just let it heat up that way. Cause Aju is hot. Then we just pull it out and then it goes right on there. We've done it that way. In fact, that's how we originally did it. But one of my culinary guys came in and said, Hey, can I try to show you something? And I was like, yeah, okay, go ahead. And he put it on the flat top and then took the Aju and ladled it over the top and then laid the smoke Gouda on it as it melted. And wow, what a difference that made. That sounds amazing. Yeah. It's, it's, I call it the best sandwich in the world. Well, so talking about Newberg, I've never been to Newberg, cool town, small town, Kentucky, Indiana, Indiana, right on the Ohio river. So right on the Kentucky border, a great little river town, small quaint, the population is not huge. Outside of the city of Newberg is growing pretty rapidly and has been for the last 15, 20 years. It's, I call it a bedroom community because people live there, but they don't work there. Got it. Then we have a lot of industry nearby, like Alcoa, Toyota. Yeah. And some other pharmaceutical companies, things like that in Evansville.

01:05:59Nice. And Evansville, yeah, Evansville is right there too. Got it. How long have you been doing this and how long is the primetime pub and grill been around? We're about five and a half years for the original. The second one, about two years. And then we just rolled off a new concept. It's called Prime Sports. It is a completely different concept. It is a sports bar, sports bar, sports bar, sports bar. Yeah. Really great smoked wings, a traditional Stromboli. Everybody in Southern Indiana thought a Stromboli was on a hoagie bun. Where that came from, I have no idea, but we do a traditional Stromboli where you roll the dough out and just sauce it, mozzarella, sausage and pepperoni, roll it, do it again, roll it and then finish it and then bake it. Wow. Cut it into pieces and it's fantastic. Our smoked wings are out of this world. The pizza, we have a Detroiter style pizza, which is not common in our area, which is a thicker, thicker than a hand toss, sauce on top type pizza with the cheese baked into the crust, which is freaking awesome. And we're a sports bar. We got stuff to do. We got pool tables, dartboards, that kind of stuff. What's your pub game? What's your game that you play?

01:07:06Oh boy. I don't play any of them well. I like to play darts and pool. I mean, I used to be into golden tea a long time ago before it got too technical. Now it's, it's kind of crazy what people can do with it. And have you heard of ring toss, right? Where you got to swing the ring and catch it. That's my wife's favorite. Yeah. That's pretty fun. I like, I'm a dart guy. I keep darts in my, the console of my car because I never know when I'm going to walk into a place like that. And somebody's like, Hey, do you want to throw darts? I'm like, not with house darts. Yeah. I always have my darts. And then I go to my car and I get my darts and then everybody goes, well, I'm not playing you. Yeah. Right. What do you mean? You have darts in your car. I'm like, what is this double in, double out? What are we doing here guys? Like, what does that mean? I'm like, nevermind. It's a thing. Love me. Throwing some darts. The only reason I know double in, double out is because of that TV show, Ted Lasso. It's the only reason. Yeah. Okay. No, they do that dart thing. Yeah. There's a great scene with that. Yep. That's a fantastic scene. Yeah. I love it. Um, five and a half years ago, you started this thing and you're like, Hey, we're going to do a restaurant and then the world shut down.

01:08:14What was that like? Yeah. So we celebrated our one year anniversary on a Wednesday, the following Monday, they shut everything down. And so we saw a lot of the businesses around us kind of keep everything in close and, and, Hey, we're going to not open or only be open for limited stuff. We went a different direction with that. We started looking for things that we could offer the community that they could still use. So we, uh, we did drive up, uh, meals. So we did a box lunch with a bottle of water for eight bucks and you could literally drive up outside the restaurant and put a tent up and we would hand you your box lunch and contactless. Yeah. You go in the back seat if you want us to. Yep. We created a contact free catering where we individually wrapped everything. And then we would, we would set it all up and then they would like schools did this quite a bit with us. They would just send one person at a time. They'd walk in and grab one of each thing and then go out and wow. So who thinks of those ideas? Is that you? What did you do before this? Uh, well, I've been in restaurants for about 30 years. I just, I just did it for other people. Um, and then, uh, where, believe it or not, where I probably got my best experience for being a, an individual business owner was the last five years I was with a company called sky zone, uh, which is trampoline parks. And I'm very familiar, but I, uh, I worked out of the corporate office in LA and my job really was they wanted to have, uh, it was all franchise organizations. So they didn't really have, but one or two company owned parks for testing and things like that. The EBITDA on those things is ridiculous. And so they said, Hey, we want to get in the business of owning our own parks. And I said, well, it's not quite that easy, but you know, we can build that. So I essentially built the infrastructure and the organization within the organization and the company ops team, um, where we got to where we had about, we have about 10 to 12 parks. And, you know, I had my whole support team, uh, and then we got purchased by private equity and they didn't need a small guy like me because they already had, you know, best support for a hundred parks for themselves. And then I went, well, you know what? It's time to become an owner. My kids had graduated high school. I'd done my job and a perfect location happened to

01:10:15just show up. Uh, that was in mid November and I contacted my boss and said, I'm going to give you my notice at the end of the year. I'm, I'm out. I'm going to go try and do my own thing. And five and a half years later, you're still, you made it through a pandemic. That's incredible. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it wasn't easy. I mean, a lot of people, I mean, a lot, when government stopped assisting, a lot of people went under. Yeah, absolutely. It really hurt a lot of people and to be a new restaurant owner a year before the pandemic starts and to make it out of that. So I was asking what you do before then, because it had to be something creative, but you also have to be strong willed and you have to be a leader to lead a whole team through something like that. And I just was wondering what your background was because that's clearly what you did. Yeah, I was in, I was in a corporate restaurants for, for 20 years with Applebee's for 16 years and started off as a manager and worked my way up to a director of operations. And then I was a regional vice president for a small sandwich company. So I had some experience.

01:11:18Yeah. You knew what you were doing and cogs and how to manage everything that you're doing. You, you knew how to deal with systems processes for everything that you do. That's right. It's all about systems and processes. Everything is about system and getting people to follow them. Yeah. That's probably the hardest part. I mean, it was the hardest part in the corporate world is making sure a line checks done every day. And when they finally realized the importance and how that works towards food costs, just like pars do, just like a good prep list does, when they, when you can finally get that light to switch and they see the connection, then you're kind of on your way. But you know, even, even still today, we, I got people that have been with us since we opened, I still have to remind them to do a line check or I know, you know, everything we have here, but I need to be able to come in and do it. I need you to touch it. Yeah. I need you to touch it, look at it, taste it, do the whole thing. Yep. It's a big part of it. Man, anything you're really looking forward to seeing here? Yeah, we're, we redo our menu about twice a year. And so we're, we're looking for ideas on, on the menu. So when we first opened, we were, I called it a new segment. It was fine casual, right? So we weren't casual dining like an Apple Bees or a TGO Chili Bees is what I say. And we weren't fine dining, chainy like, you know, so a bone fish grill, we nestle kind of right in between that. Well, what we discovered is that with the changing economy and the changing dichotomy really of, of the population around us, that we needed to, I don't want to say dumb it down, but we needed to bring it down a little bit.

01:12:44And so what we're doing with the menu now, so the last menu rollout, we came out with bowls, we have rice bowls. They're awesome. They've been really popular, great price point, good value for the guests, good food costs for us. So this time we're going to take that a step further and we're looking at creating baskets to make it more pubby. And we're, and we're pulling out of, we're still going to have our filet medallions. We're still going to have a sirloin. We're still obviously going to have prime rib, but that's going to be the extent of our steak offerings. We're going to start pulling out of that, especially with the price of beef continuing to go up, has not gone down, has not adjusted like a lot of the other products have. I can't hardly even sell something for a price that somebody will buy it for, where it's still good for me too, right? It's gotta be good for both. Yeah, it's gotta be. Those are the burger boys in Nashville. They do the bad luck burger club. Nice. We've got a, our burger won the Evansville burger brawl. I would put it up against any burger around. They're absolutely fantastic. We win the Evansville reader's choice. We're at least in the top three every year for five years. Our mac and cheese is ridiculous. So we start with a cavatelli noodle and white cheddar and then, and then smoke Gouda again, little bacon, little garlic breadcrumb and some green onion.

01:13:53We won the Evansville mac and cheese festival with that. You guys are crushing it up there. Put those two together. It's called the Mac daddy. I like to tell people we have a, we have a money back guarantee. If you don't like what you got, we're going to get rid of it. Take it off your bill and get something you do want. I do. That's the way to do it. I want to do a full interview with you. This 10 minutes that we have here is just not enough. I appreciate that. I think that a lot of people could learn from a lot of the things that you're doing because you're doing it the right way. Yeah, I appreciate that. And you're passionate about it. You care about it. This is, this is your baby. And I, I it's really refreshing and exciting to talk to you today. I appreciate that. Thank you for joining us. And like I said, I'm going to be in touch and we're going to, we can do it by zoom or maybe I'll come up to Evansville. Cause I really want to eat there now too. Awesome. Part of my favorite thing about doing these interviews is kind of learning I can meet you and go, okay, that's what you do. I can see you walk by, but getting to talk to people and seeing the passion that you have for what you're doing and how you're doing it. Sometimes I start talking to people and like, I really want to eat their food now because I think that passion and that, that care shows up in what you're, it shows up in the flavors.

01:15:02Oh yeah. All of that stuff shows up. You hear a guy, it's like, oh, I mean, you know, we do our thing. It's fine. You're like, then their food's fine. That's it. But with this knowledge and what you're doing is really, really impressive. And so thank you again for joining us. We're going to take a quick picture and we've got more people coming up next. Appreciate it, man. And for our final segment on this episode, we're talking with Bill Laviolette, Bill Laviolette owns shotgun Willie's. They've recently moved into a new location. And when you're in a gigantic building and you're interviewing people, you don't know, sometimes it's a really welcome time to have somebody like Bill Laviolette, who's been on the show, who you know, he's a good guy. And we, it's probably the longest conversation we had just because I love talking to him and he is, he's doing some of the best barbecue in our city. And you're going to learn more about it right now with Bill Laviolette. We're talking, Bill, is it Laviolette? Laviolette. Laviolette. Okay. Yeah, close enough. Yeah, exactly. Any relation? No, I was the first one in town and the one that got to stay. We're talking to Bill Laviolette, obviously, I don't know if you know shotgun Willie's barbecue. When I first had you on the show, we're middle pandemic, pandemic, dying laptop zoom. I mean, you were here tiny hole in the wall hole in the wall. And now you've got a new location in the wall. You're blowing up. Everybody knows shotgun Willie's now. Now you've made a name for yourself in the barbecue game in Nashville. Pretty crazy. That's hard to do with the big three. Yeah, absolutely. I still feel like we're still making that name to be perfectly honest with you. There are a lot of times I feel like we're more well-known outside the state than we are in my own neighborhood. But you know what, to be in a brand new, bigger location and still realizing that I've got an entire local market that still needs to be tapped is I think a pretty good place to be in. It's a fantastic place to be. Yeah, I'm not complaining

01:17:05about it at all. No, are you still making the brisket out the back? Back got a bigger smoker now. So we got two of them. We had our original 500 gallon smoker, Jose. And now we have a thousand gallon smoker named Earl. A thousand gallon? A thousand gallon. So we've three times the cook space. Do you still run out of brisket every day? We try to. That's the goal. For those of you who bemoan us for running out, we are built to sell out. And that really, at the end of the day, benefits you because you know you're getting fresh barbecue every day. The challenge for me, which has been for four years and continues to today, is to guess how hungry people will be tomorrow. So we are ramping up our cooks, obviously, and we're doing everything that we possibly can. But you know, with growth and expansion and popularity comes, fortunately, more business. So we're still trying to keep up with demand. And like I said, we're a four year old business, but I really feel like we're a two year old business.

01:18:13Because I don't even count the first two years. Trial and error, baby. Flat up survival. Let's just go. You're right in the middle of a pandemic. You opened and bam, the world shut down. Yeah, pretty much. I don't take that personal. I mean, I do personally, but I don't. Yeah, like it, but it taught us a lot of things. I think, and I say this, not really tongue in cheek, but there was a silver lining in the pandemic for us in the sense that it allowed us to get better at what we did and kind of slowly grow our business. I think if we would have opened and would have been drinking from a fire hose from day one, it would have been great. But I feel like we had the ability to grow into our success for lack of a better term. Well, you know, and also it's weird because in the moment you're like, what the fuck? Why is this happening? But man, as you're learning your craft in that difficult of an environment. Yeah. Then when everything opens up, you're like, oh, this is really easy because we've been just treading water as hard as we can. And now I'm standing in three foot of water. Like it makes it a lot. It's almost easier because you were trial by fire and now it's not, not on fire anymore.

01:19:28I'm going to say what I'm about to say by knocking on wood. I was saying you better knock on something. Because I stood in that restaurant in January of 20 when it looked like an abandoned construction project and said, if I can get through this, I can get through anything. And the universe said, here, hold my beer. And then when I saw our business literally just take off in March of 22, now I feel like, look, I've probably endured the hardest two things I will ever endure as a restaurant owner. And as a human being, to be perfectly honest, I can pretty much take anything you can throw at me at this point. That's what I don't know if it's resilience or insanity and maybe a little of both, but we just keep going. And I, and there are days I truly don't understand it, but we just wake up and we just keep going. And for those first two years, there were, like I said, it was not easy and it was challenging in a lot of different ways, but we just kept showing up and people kept showing up.

01:20:33So like I tell folks all the time, if you keep showing up, I'll keep showing up and we'll just keep doing it. So well, I, yeah. And back to the, back to the, the running out of brisket thing, right? That's by design. Like you cook so much of it. And if you're a consumer and you're mad that you got there at three o'clock and they were out of brisket, go earlier. And that's when people would say, what's the best time to get there? And I just finally started saying 11 o'clock. We open at 11, get there at 11. I have friends that when we first opened, took them five tries to get it before they finally were able to get the brisket. But I will say that, like I said, it's by design and it's for you, the consumer, because you know, you're getting fresh made barbecue every single day. We do not serve a leftover piece of meat. And so, and especially when you think about during the pandemic, when I saw my brisket price per pound that I paid for it triple. And so, and then out of that, if I had a 15 pound brisket and the way that the processing was, if I was getting that brisket on my cutting board at seven pounds, that was a victory. So I'm at over a 50% loss before I served it to you. So I couldn't afford to not sell a brisket that day. Like we, you know, we were starting and it's, it is a challenge because you feel like, all right, here we go.

01:21:57It's not like, and not to bemoan anyone in the hamburger industry, but if I have a hundred pounds of ground beef and I only sell 50, well, I can sell that 50 pounds tomorrow. I got, I'm on the clock. When I opened at 11, I am on the clock to sell what we've made that day. And like I said, I feel like we're at about a 90% where we sell out between, the goal is to sell out between 230 and 245. To me, that's the ideal situation. So get there before then. Yeah. And you get in line, I'm sure. There have been times now, even at the new place with Cooking More Stuff, we sold out at 12.45 last Wednesday. That's an early day. So just come early. I'll make it worth the while. But we're, we're trying to figure all that stuff out and continue to grow as a business. And, you know, obviously meet demand without missing the mark. So I love it. I'm so excited for you, man. I love meeting you back in the day and I love going into Shotgun Willie's. It's just, I love local restaurants. It doesn't get any more local than what you're doing. I mean, it's your, you and your wife and your, your family business. You guys are, you're out there smoking meat. You're serving your community. You care about the people. You want to bring quality product to your neighborhood. And when you're out, you're out at the end of the day, it is a business and you, I can't just throw a bunch of me to, and I want to have a quality product every day. That's why you're so busy is that you have a quality product every day.

01:23:16And I think that's just, I love your story. I love everything about it. I get, I get to get you back in studio. I love it. Like let's come back and bring your wife and let's, let's talk more about this stuff. It's been a lot. I mean, it has been a journey, but to be, to be where we are now is in a new spot, which is arguably, I mean, my kitchen now is as big as the old restaurant. I never imagined the shock and will is ever getting that big. It was never on my radar to expand to that size. And the beauty of it is we grew out of demand, not out of desire. We realized that if we're going to keep up with the amount of people who want to eat our food, we have to be in a different spot and ramp up, ramp ourselves up. And the beauty of it is since we unlocked that door, we've continued growing and working and getting better at our craft. Every single, I mean, and that's our goal every day is just be better tomorrow than we were today. Just continue to get better at what we do every day, a little bit better. Yeah, just a little bit. And the nice thing too, you know, you talked about the neighbors, like I live a mile away from the new shop. So the people that I'm serving most days, a lot of them I'm going to bump into at the grocery store. I'm going to bump into them at other restaurants. And that's my goal is to be part of my neighborhood. I love folks who come from Australia and the Netherlands and wherever.

01:24:36And I love the folks that come from Mount Juliet, but to see my neighbors supporting my dream at the end of the day is exactly what I hope. I get chills hearing you say that's what it is. That's what we do, man. That's hospitality. And it is. And again, I love it when people bring their families in or folks from out of town, or they celebrate, get our barbecue for a special occasion and say, this is my barbecue restaurant. And it is, I'm just a steward of it, but I want my customer to have it because they are an investor. Think of it at the end of the day, they're investing in my business every single day. And I really struggle or I shouldn't say struggle, but I've tossed this around in my mind is taking the apostrophe out of Willie's instead of making it possessive for me, making it plural for us, because I've told people all the time, when you walk into our shop, you're a Willie. You're now a Willie. You're one of us. Like a bill. Yeah, exactly. You're part of the fabric of this restaurant. And all I wanted to do when we moved to the bigger spot was just make a bigger hole in the wall that we were a field. Like I still want people to still walk into that restaurant and go, this is my place.

01:25:50I love it, man. I'm so excited. Do you guys use Gordon food service? We do. I assume you're here for Gordon food service. They do a great job for you. Not just having to be walking by in the neighborhood. Anybody can come to these. You don't have to be a, you can be a prospective customer or whatever. It's a, it's a thing. Yeah. I am a customer of GFS. And they do a great job for you. They do a wonderful job. They treat me right. You know, little plug for GFS. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm a whore. I'll sell anything. That's right. Find all your food service needs at Gordon food service. Brett Wilson is my rep. He's a good young man. He's an eager beaver. Takes good care of me. Good quality consistently. Oh, every time. Never a problem. That's my favorite thing is that they, they, we talked to Paul Hunter earlier and he was like, man, we want to do this consistently every day. Get your delivery on time, get the right quality, have everything. And I'm like, that's been the number one thing that I've think about with you guys is like, you guys get it done and it's consistent. I think their warehouse being all robotic and all of the things that they do helps alleviate human error because they just do a fantastic job.

01:26:54Well, and you brought up that word consistency and that's pretty much the foundation of what my goal was with opening the restaurant. Just be consistent. If you tell me you're going to do something, do it and I'm malleable. If you give me a heads up, I can adjust. Communicate. Yes. And that's what I do like about what GFS does. It's just consistent. When I place my order, I get it when I need it. If I, if something comes up, I'm notified and I can adjust. It's not a guess. That's all I ask for. I don't want to, I don't want to show up in the morning and then my product doesn't, oh yeah, they didn't have broccoli today. You're like, well, But I need broccoli today. Broccoli today. Like, oh, sorry. Like that doesn't happen. Like they will, Hey, wait, they'll call you in advance and go, it didn't come in on the truck, but we've got a van coming out that'll bring it to you or whatever. And it's like, thank you. Now I don't have to worry about it or be shocked. I don't have now have to figure out a plan B that nobody told me about when my product got there that morning. It's a whole thing. Right. And you brought up the van thing and I love that part of it.

01:27:56It's great. It's like, if I need something in a pinch, I can get in on the van. If I cook too much, if I've sold a bunch of chicken and I need chicken tomorrow, I can get chicken tomorrow and save myself a trip. Which is nice. And it comes in a repetitive van. You have to put it in the back of your car on a hundred degree day. And all right, it's not an attempt for too long, you know, restaurant depot. For the record, I do put it in a cooler. It does not go in the back of my truck on a hundred degree day. I've never understood the people you'll see at restaurant depot getting like all this chicken and perishable stuff, putting it in trunks of cars. And you're like, you're going to go serve that to the public. You could have just ended that sentence with, I don't believe what I see at restaurant depot. That too is a whole thing for sure. All right, Bill, we are at the 13 minute mark. I've taken it to be a seven hour episode. I'm putting out with me. It would do this alone would be a seven hour episode. I'll cry. I'll laugh. I'll sing. We'll do all the things. It's so good to see you. Nice to see you too, bud.

01:28:57And all your success. It's so fun to see people back in the day and then even today. And the burger with the burger boys were just walking by with a bad luck. Yeah. And the last time they were on the show, they were still doing pop-ups. And now he's like, we have like 15 employees now. I'm like, we don't think we have 15 employees. When I sit down to do panel, I'm like, oh my God, we're like a real small business now. That's been the, and you know, that's been the thing that has blown my mind over the last three months when I just thought going into this was, oh, we're just moving into a bigger spot. We'll have more tables. We'll have more chairs. We'll have more parking, a bigger room. Yeah. What I've realized is we closed a small business and we opened a big business. And so there's some growing pains that I experienced four years ago that I'm now re-experiencing now that I never- On a bigger scale. Yeah, exactly. And one of those is juggling employees because we used to have five. And now I've got 15 of the most wonderful employees.

01:30:04I have almost 200 right now. Holy crap. I don't see how you sleep at night. Like 200. 15 is literally like trying to herd cats for me. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know who's here one day to the next. Just at the end of the day, tell me who's here. So I know what to expect. I've got some great, great people and that helps. But we'll talk about this more next time. Yes. I would love to be back on. And if we decide to do it, let's do it at the shop. I could do that. I'm mobile now. Apparently you're remote. I can't go anywhere with this stuff. You got this fancy mixing board. I have to take the whole studio apart and bring it. But then don't do that. It's fine. I don't want to put you out. Hey, I haven't been to the new shop yet. So that's my- It's just big. I live a long ways away. So it's not easy for me. We go to Honeyfire in Bellevue every week. We love barbecue, but for us to drive to East Nashville- I know, seriously. To get something that's going to sell out. Geez Louise. I'm going to drive all the way out there. Then you're not going to have it. And we do it at nighttime too. We're at nighttime.

01:31:05And then I get there in their clothes because it's seven o'clock at night. We're big creatures of eating close to our- I get it. I totally get it. We know all the people there. It's a whole thing. And again, one of the other things that I say a lot to folks is like, there's a lot of places to spend your money in Nashville. And you come out and you make the decision to spend it. That doesn't go unrecognized. And the same thing is like, if you go out of your way, meaning more than 15 minutes to get there, I truly appreciate that. Because you drove by a lot of places you could have stopped at to come to our shop. So if you can't come a lot, what I want to do, and it goes back to the consistency thing, anytime you come out is a great visit for me, whether it's once a week or once a month or once every six months. But I want to make it the best visit you can have every single time. And I love Kerry Bringle's statement. Just because you love my- you don't have to hate somebody else's barbecue to love mine. This is a community of people. We all- the smoker. I've started since I've met you. I have built a whole hog smoker in my backyard.

01:32:06And I want you to do that. And now I'm learning how to do what you do. Yes. It's really freaking hard. It's not hard, but it's not easy. And the biggest thing is it just takes time. What I recommend to you is not opening a barbecue restaurant. I'm not going to. As much as you love doing this, just keep doing it in the backyard. It's a great place to be. I just wanted to learn how to do it. Sure. I read Pat Martin's book, The Fire, and I went, I don't think I know how to cook with real wood. Yeah. I have a gas grill and I'm a dude. And I just kind of want to know the different- somebody can't say this is an almond wood or an apple wood or a- I've been using a lot of cherry wood. I don't know the difference between the- and I wanted to know. I wanted to know how different wood cooked as a life skill. It wasn't a, I want to do this professionally. It's like, I wanted to hang out with my friends in my backyard with a big bonfire while we're creating coals to make a- That's the beauty of barbecue. And test different methods, you know? To me, that's the beauty of barbecue. And really what captured me into it from just a backyard guy perspective in the very beginning, it takes time.

01:33:14It slows you down. You can't speed it up. No. There is a reason why we cook only with wood because it takes time and you can't speed it up. But I do believe it makes a difference. Again, I'm not going to- If you get the results you want cooking barbecue the way you cook it, go for it. Because at the end of the day, that's all that matters. But for me to deliver what I want to deliver and represent where I'm from, and it's again, it's not a contest of A is better than B. I'm not saying Texas style is better than- West Tennessee whole hog or whatever. Exactly. But where I'm from and to be true to how I grew up eating this and how I learned to cook it, this is how we do it. And it's not easy. And I appreciate when more people start doing it that way and get the understanding of what we put into it. Because I think people lose in translation the process part that it's not a quick thing to do. It's not, oh, you've run out of brisket. When's more coming off? I'm like, we're done tomorrow.

01:34:16Not a thing we do. I mean, you could stagger it, I guess. But like, no, we're doing it all at one time. And I think as more people start to appreciate and get a better understanding of how we do things, they get a better understanding on why we do it the way that we do it. Well, I think it's great. Because I think that the running out thing is fantastic because you force people to get there earlier and then you can gauge your business by, hey, if everybody has to come early, we're going to be busy as shit from 11 o'clock until 2. Yeah. That's what we do. And trust me, I pay attention. We ramp our cooks up. It's not like I am married to cooking this many briskets every day. And if I see the trends going up, I'm throwing more on. And we're certainly doing that now. And we still haven't found that sweet spot at the new place. So we'll get there. We'll get there. Bill LaVulette, thank you for joining us today. So good to see you too, man. I'll talk to you later. Have fun today. Hey, look at me. I didn't cry. Not even once. Very impressive. Good to see you.

01:35:16All right, man. Thanks. OK, round one. Gordon Food Service Show is in the books. We have another full episode. Please check our Spotify to make sure that it is out. And we want you to listen. A lot of good conversations here. I'd love to know what you think. Go find our post on Instagram. What you think of this episode. It means a lot to me. I always love feedback. Or DM me. Send me a DM. I am at Brandon underscore NRR. Or you can send me a message at Nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio on Instagram or on Facebook or wherever. Or whatever. Hit send me an email. Brandon at NewLightHospitality.com. That's my email. Send it to me. So I want to say thank you to all of the guests who joined me at the Gordon Food Service Show. And stay tuned for part two. And as always, I hope you're being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.