Jamie, Chark, and Cribb

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City! Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. I'll be joined with Jen Ichikawa here shortly as we sit down and talk with Cribb and Jamie and Chark from Eastside Bowl. So these are three guys who have known each other a long time and are putting together something that's really, really cool in the Eastside, in the old Kmart in Madison. And they're going to have the Charks Laneside Grill, Laneside Diner, they're going to have a bowling alley, they're going to have a music venue, they're going to have a lounge, they're going to have a vintage arcade.

01:09So many fun things. We enjoy getting caught up with all of those things. I am coming to you today live from sunny Texas. I am in Grapevine, Texas, over here at the Gaylord Springs or the Gaylord Texan, where we are going to be learning all I can possibly learn about technology in restaurants. I am at FS Tech and I'll be here through Tuesday. Very excited to meet up with all of the amazing technology companies. If there's something you want me to learn about, to interview, I'm hoping to find a bunch of new really cool tech companies to do some interviews with to pass along some of this information that I'm going to be inundated with tomorrow. So lots of fun things going on. We do, I was going to try and put out a roundup this past week and it just didn't come together. I've got a good portion of it ready to go. I'm so excited.

02:09This Thursday, which is my 16th wedding anniversary, I mentioned that on this show, we're going to put on a new Music City roundup and we're really, really excited about it. And then on Friday, we're going to be talking with Ben Powell and he is over at the Fable Lounge. And that was a really fun interview. I'm really excited to put this out there for you. So we've got three new shows for you this week and I'm still threatening to put out the Anthony Bourdain episode where we talk all about Anthony Bourdain's book, Kitchen Confidential, which was really, really good. Please follow me on Instagram. Go to Brandon underscore NRR where I posted about the Titans debacle today and Taylor Luan and how he absolutely owned everything. Good stuff. I'm posting there all the time. Find wherever you're listening to this podcast. Please click the subscribe button and like it, leave us some good reviews. We certainly appreciate that.

03:10And let's jump in right now with Erin Mosso. She's the owner over at Sharpies and I think it's time to go on brand. So excited to welcome back to our on brand. This is Erin Mosso. She's the owner of Sharpies Bakery. What's going on Erin? Hello everyone. Not much is working. Just working, continuing to celebrate 35 years of selling Nashville's finest restaurants, fresh baked bread delivered six days a week. You guys are busy over there. We're very busy. Things have obviously picked up a lot in the last, you know, a couple of months back to normal. Love to hear that. Tell me something. My wife is venturing into being like a a vegetarian. We're trying to do vegetarian Mondays, meat free Mondays and the whole vegan lifestyle. Do you guys do any like vegan bread? I know it's all vegetarian, but is it vegan also? Yes.

04:10A lot of our breads, I mean, just bread by nature is easily vegan. You know, your simplest breads like a baguette is just flour, salt, yeast and water. A lot of breads like rye and ciabatta, anything like that is already vegan. Sourdoughs are vegan, but we're also working on making some more products, taking out something that's not necessary, like a whey powder or milk powder to make a fluffy vegan hamburger bun to make different rolls of vegan hoagies. So we have a lot of things. There's a lot of restaurants, even though they're not a vegan restaurant, it's easy if their bread is vegan. So that way their customers have that choice, you know, when they're ordering. That's amazing. I was just thinking about that the other day. I was like, I wonder if they do vegan bread because there's I don't know if butter was part of it or milk powder. So that that answers that question. Now, one of the big things I see, we've got this new place, Gumbo Bros, that's open last year. The guys from Pelican and Pig did a whole pop up where they did po' boys.

05:13It's a Philly thing in Bellevue. They're doing Philly cheesesteaks. There's all these different signature breads. I know they buy, I think it's called an Amoroso roll. There's Lienheimer. What's the type of bread they make? Lienheimer. Lienheimer. Yes. There's another one too. What's it called? Toronto roll. Toronto roll. So these people are literally bringing in bread that is frozen from these areas. Can you make those style rolls and can you get them to people fresh instead of being frozen? Absolutely. You know, I know a lot of sandwiches that are city and regional specific. People are very particular about the ingredients, the way, you know, the way it's made because if you have somebody come, they're going to say, this isn't right, you know. But I will say, while those bakeries are sort of iconic and make a great product, I think that if you could get a very similar product that was made four miles away, it's going to make up for any tiny inconsistency where it may not be exactly the same.

06:15I just, yeah, I think it would be a good idea. And you know, one thing that we've learned throughout this pandemic is that we want to support local and you obviously live here, you've been in business locally for 35 years. And you can send your money off to another city or through a broadliner to bring you frozen product, which the money is just going to, it just leaves, people are supporting your local business and then you're sending it off to another city. Whereas here, when you are a locally owned and operated business and you support another locally owned and operated business, you're keeping it here. Your employees live here, everything you do, you're putting it back into our economy, yeah. I find it amazing sometimes that people will say, you need to support local, support local, but we buy our bread from a broadliner and it's frozen from out of a different state when they easily could buy it from you and the pricing is comparable. Yeah, and I think that they don't think about that. They think that it has to be from that specific place, you know, because they're building the sandwich.

07:15But my dad worked in New Orleans and he worked at some of those cowboy factories, so we have a pretty good facsimile and we can work to make you happy about it. If I was one of those places and I wanted to try your bread, could I call you at 615-356-0872 and request samples? Absolutely. We love to give out samples, we love to give people tours of the bakery, show you what we've got, talk about the bread, taste it, yeah, absolutely. You're amazing. So if you're out there and you heard any of this and you're like, hey, that makes a lot of sense. These guys on Nashville Restaurant Radio are making sense. We want to support local, continue to support local. You have hundreds of customers who right now currently do just that and I know you're very appreciative of them. But if you're out there and you want to support a local bakery, give her a call, 615-356-0872. Or you can check them out at sharpiers.com, that's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S dot com.

08:16Follow them on any of the socials and they're posting their stuff on their website. You can see pictures of all the different breads they have. I think you have over 130 different types of breads. It's not all hamburger buns and dinner rolls. Right. You know a lot. Yeah. And we don't even have all the pictures online. Just let us know what you're looking for and we can make it. I love it. Well, Erin, thank you so much for joining us today and I wish you nothing but the best of luck and success. Thank you. Have a wonderful afternoon. You too. Bye. All right. Thank you so much, Erin. We just love having you on our show. Let's jump in with our guys from Eastside Bowl. Super excited today to bring in Chef Crib, Jamie and Chark from Eastside Bowl. What's going on, fellas? Hello. Yeah, man. Bowling. That's what's going on. Bowling. And not only bowling, you have like a hyper bowling. Is that what it's called? That is correct. Yeah. What is, can we just, what is hyper bowling to start off with? Sure.

09:16Sure. It's a new concept that AMF came out with a couple of years ago. They spent several years in R&D designing this thing and it basically takes regular bowling where you've got all the gutter balls and that takes the fun out of the game. They've got these bumpers that pop up and they're reactive like pinball machine bumpers and they're LED lights that run back and forth down the bumpers. So you aim for certain colors that are constantly moving and those different colors are different point multipliers. So it allows you to get a higher score. There's no gutters involved and you can have three people that bowl all the time and one person that doesn't and it's more of an even playing field because everybody's aiming for the bumpers. I love that. Yeah. It's the same handicap for everybody. Yeah. Yeah, I love that because I'm always the one with the bumpers. My husband makes fun of me all the time, but I need them. I'm like anything sports related, I'm so bad at.

10:18So I always hate bowling because I'm like the one loser over there. So this sounds like more in my alley. I'm like the hyper male guy. I have like my own bowling balls and my own shoes and I get there and people are like, I don't want to play against this asshole. And so it's like, hey, if we're going to go out and have some drinks and have some fun, then this is your game. Well, that sounds awesome. It puts a whole different perspective, you know, because you're trying. You can get a lot more points. You're trying to bounce. It's like playing pinball. Like you said, it is the game moves along fast and they're like 12 levels. So as you start moving up in the levels, different lights light up, there are different point generators. It's really cool. And everybody throws one ball. So the game moves. Yeah, there's no spare to pick up. It keeps moving. And there's another like when you get through those 12 levels, there's another set of levels, Hyper Bowl Pro.

11:23Right. Yeah, that goes out. I don't know where the hell it goes from there, but it's pretty crazy. That's a dark and uneasy that takes a certain amount of tequila to get like at some point to the pins just like levitate and shit just gets weird. We've heard. Wait, can we talk about the actual bowling balls to you because I stalked your Instagram today and they look like the balls from pool. That's correct. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's also tells you the weight because that's for kids. Like six, sevens and eights. And of course, it goes all the way up to 15. God, I just thought it was a really cool design element. I like that there's like functionality behind it, too. Yeah. I mean, it's something that, you know, you don't really see it that often or at all. And that's, again, one of the early decisions we made here to to try to take everything that we're doing and do it differently, you know, to where it doesn't look like your normal bowling alley.

12:28Nothing about the place looks like nothing about the place looks normal anyway. It's just it's why I'm here. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a lot of the place makes a statement when you walk in. Yeah. I can't wait to see it. Let's go back to how you three got together. I know Crib, you've been a chef here in Nashville for a long time back to I remember you back at the boundary. Then, gosh, we've I've seen you all over town for a long time. Jamie, you were at the family wash and Chark. You have a long history from just obviously being a musician here in town. And then you were one of the owners over at the cannery and the Mercy Lounge, the High Lot. And you famously said, I'm done. I did. Yeah, I said that. I yeah, I swore I would never open another music venue again because it's just it's such a terrible way to make a living.

13:33It's just the most horrible job a person could have. Why do you say that? You see this venue? It's fucking awesome. But but yeah, I just I was burned out, man. I mean, I'd had like 12 years in that all the way from building out the Mercy starting in 2002 till the day I sold it, you know, right at the beginning of 2014. And I was just done. So I needed a break. I got that break. And then yeah, and then here we are getting ready to open up something new. But it's got a lot more than just a venue, which is what I needed. So you found who you found the actual location? Was it you who somebody to somebody call you and say, hey, come check out this old Kmart? Like what? How did that happen? We got here. I called the guy that owns the property. We had been down the road trying to rehab a different space to do this in. And it just there's just a lot of roadblocks just wasn't working and bailed out of there after about nine months and ended up here.

14:41And this this felt great from the moment we walked in. It was just a blank canvas. And we made use of every square inch of space that we have. And more and more. Yes. So tell us about exactly what you're going to have going on at the East Side Bowl. What is all the square footage going to be in comes you get four different spots in there, I believe. So so we have five really. The East Side Bowl is the umbrella in which is the building. We have a diner that will open in the morning at like seven o'clock in the morning and go late night. Very very diner centric menu. I wouldn't say very. It is a diner centric menu with many favorites from my old places kind of thrown in, which was kind of a nighttime diner, although we couldn't make eggs, at least at the original one.

15:47And so that will kind of be, you know, one anchor, for lack of a better word. Then we have a vintage kind of across the lobby from the diner. We have a vintage arcade with pinball and vintage video games and whatnot. And then then, of course, the lanes are kind of right in the center of the space, which is kind of accompanied by this giant lounge, which we've kind of tried to. What we've tried to do is to make each environment kind of their own space and each feel like you're in a different world, but still under the same roof, I guess. And then in back the venue, which is a whole other thing. So the diner is where the snack bar was in the old Kmart.

16:48And our kitchen is actually their old kitchen, except it's much bigger because we went into the actual. Let's make sure we say it's a brand new kitchen. Yeah, that bar kitchen by a long shot. It's your friend, Mr. design. And it was designed in a way that when he got into the space, he's like, all right, you've got four different places that you're selling food to with really almost five. So we've got to design this kitchen to be all hands on deck and be able to crank it out for all those places. Well, it can't be a shoe box in the back. Yeah, it's got to be a proper. So he designed it like a commercial kitchen pretty much. And this is space. It's very well ventilated. It's it's a it's a it's a machine, really, is what he designed. And and so that that was kind of the idea. Nineteen seventy three, which is my partner charts favorite year in music, was kind of our North Star.

17:56And and we're both very interested in mid century modern architecture and what not. So it was kind of a no brainer, really. And we I think what we've ended up with at least it seems like where the feedback is coming from is we've kind of gone from the 60s to the 70s with this thing. And it's kind of that 30 years right there is kind of it's kind of all encapsulated in one way, shape or form in kind of the feel of the whole place. Most bowling centers you see now, you know, every there's video panels everywhere and the back wall, you know, beneath where the pins are below, all those walls have now become interactive and it's screens and everything flashing all over the place. And we said, fuck that shit. And we made it. We made that back wall with these old masking units, which were the units that covered the pin machines in the old days. So you didn't see all the mechanics.

18:58So our whole line when you walk in there, there isn't on the back wall, there's not a video screen to be seen. And the only video screens we have on the lanes are basically for your scoring and they flash and do all their nonsense and what not. But we really wanted to bring people away from screens and and and all that and make it feel more like old school. And what about the music venue? How many people will can you fit in there? What is your max capacity? What are you envisioning? The fire marshal hasn't hasn't weighed in on that yet, but the architect just by figuring exits and square footage and whatnot, it's somewhere between seven and seven fifty. Oh, wow. So that feels right. I mean, you know, I know I know what my old rooms held and I can see, you know, I can see how every, you know, how everybody groups together and how it's going to be. So so I think that would be more of a standing room number for sure.

20:01You know, if we do reserve seating in the balcony, that'll obviously lower. But but yeah, we'll tell them about tell them about the about the venue, because we kind of came up with it's a unique space. Yeah, it's you know, it's it's a rectangle. But we've got a main stage at one end that's 40 feet wide and 16 feet deep. But, you know, out here, you'd have to you'd have to sell four to five hundred tickets a night to make that room look good from that stage. So we put a smaller stage in on the short wall that placed towards the bar. And and that way you could, you know, we throw some local acts in here and do 100 people, 150 people, 200 people. And you're playing in the short room and and the stages are curtained off, so they'll have curtains in the front of them. So when you curtain off the main stage, your room suddenly got 16 feet shorter. So if you're playing the small stage, it's not this vast expanse and and you're just playing across the room to the bar.

21:06And there's a balcony also above the bar. So you can do some seats up there or you could just black it out. There's multiple ways that we can make the room function, depending on what the size of the act is. Yeah, I guess when you come from your background, I mean, you've with the different because you had three distinctly different places over there and you could kind of turn this one room into a couple of those different sizes. So, well, yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, the how what was a 275 cap room, mercy was five fifty cannery ended up being eleven hundred by the time we tore the old stage out and and put the scaffolding in there, you know, it was like, you know, and and put the scaffolding stage in the event space. Then we get the event space. Well, no, he didn't get married upstairs. I didn't open that till 2012 or so, but yeah, we had the we we redid the whole third floor and did another event space up there. Yeah, we was just referencing I did my I met Chark 16 years ago.

22:09Next week is the 16 year anniversary of my wedding and we were the very first reception to be done at the cannery ballroom. You were building when I got there, you were building out behind it, like had all these booths and all this stuff that none of that was done. It was like, this is going to be really cool at some point. And it's going to be really cool at some point. Yeah, yeah, that that yeah, that was that was an endeavor, that whole cannery, you know, I worked for 45 days straight from January 1st, 2005, through Valentine's Day, 45 days straight, no day off to build everything out down there. And I had helped like a few days from a couple of people, but everything down there I did and it just, you know, I was so burned out at the end of that first show we had, I'm like, I don't give a fuck. Well, you were very, very kind to me and you basically said, hey, look, we're going to let you have it at a discount and I got to bring my own food in, you'll be bringing my own wine in and then you said, let it, we just want to take pictures and for like the next couple of years, all the pictures and all the wedding magazines, your wedding, I think it worked out really well for you, didn't it?

23:29It did that that space ended up becoming, I mean, that space ended up becoming I mean, quite honestly, it saved us every year during the summer because, you know, summer's touring season, you know, there's nobody playing clubs, everybody's out playing festivals, so we're sitting there with this big ass room, completely dark, nobody to play it and we did weddings every Friday and Saturday, we had weddings in there, we would turn that room over and then once we had the upstairs, we were, you know, doing four at a time and it was pretty great. Sometimes it would be weird because you're doing a wedding in the cannery and then you've got like, we had a, we had some show at the Mercy one time where everybody was dressed up like monsters or something and then you've got like grandma and grandpa coming out of the cannery to wedding and then you've got these like monster people coming out and everybody was cool and, you know, we would always warn them up front, it's like, well, the day you're booking your wedding, we've got like a monster's ball or whatever it is and, you know, there's going to be some interesting meeting of people on that porch, real cool people always get their picture made with weird looking people and it was just part of the scene when you, when you choose to get married at a bar, you know, things are going to get weird.

24:48I went to a zombie prom there, like the first year I met you. That's what it was, it was zombie prom. It was so much fun and like, I look back at that picture and I'm like, damn, my makeup looked so good. It was so cool. I loved that. Yeah, that's exactly what that was. Zombie prom. Yeah, I was there. Nice. Thank you for your small world. Anytime. So what are the inherent, what are the things, Chark, I'll ask you back to you, but just like with having a music venue, some of the stresses, all of the crazy stuff that goes on, what's it, what's it like? I mean, I've never, I don't understand the booking, all of the bands and all of the writers and all the shit that comes with that. Do you deal with that? Or do you have somebody else there that's going to be doing that? And how often do you plan on having bands play? Yeah, we'll have somebody here that does that. But, but to your initial question, let me ask you a question. Do you like music? Do you enjoy?

25:49I love music. Well, if you owned a music venue, you would absolutely hate music. Music will become your worst enemy. It's your worst nightmare. Your ears will bleed every day from sounds that you didn't know existed made by people you never wanted to meet. And then when you try to like, go and listen to the one thing that would bring you joy, it's gone. It's a vast empty space of nothingness. That's what owning a music venue is like. I have no, I have no, no response to that. You did right as well. That was, that was visual imagery. The diner is going to give relief to that. Exactly. The best thing about this venue is I never have to go in there unless I really want to see a show. There's a bowling alley to hang out at. There's a diner to hang out at. There's pinball machines. There's a beautiful fucking lounge over there. That's got Amstel light in the bottle. Why go anywhere else? It's sad.

26:52So Cribb, have you worked, Cribb, have you ever done anything like this? Have where you're doing multiple restaurants at one time and a music venue. Are you excited about the whole prospect of this thing? Let's go back. Remember at the Boundary, we had Uptown Mix. Oh, I used to work that every, every week. Every Wednesday, Wednesday nights. Every Wednesday we had, you know, some major acts that would come through. I used to go to that every week. That's back when I enjoyed music. Awesome. It was fantastic. So you had the, you had the food outside. You still had South Street going. You still had the Boundary going, you know, you still had caterings going even. So I've been involved in the circus for a little bit and it, you know, it can, you know, be wearing, but it could be a lot of fun. You just have to strap in because the carousel can go pretty fucking fast.

27:54Yeah. I'm at, you know, so yes, but you know, a lot of other people get dizzy. Yeah. Unfortunately, some of them work for you, but, you know, you just hold on and you keep it making, making it fun. And the thing is you're making other people, a lot of other people happy and enjoying themselves and enjoying what they're eating, you know, even if they can't taste it or, you know, can barely walk, but still we're accommodating those people and they're, you know, some of their highest points in their lives. And that's what we do. It's kind of a service. Damn it. Exactly. Or do you throw them out when they get drunk? Well, you do that too. Yes. Yeah. Yes. I, unfortunately, I would, I would like to say that you take them in a back room and just kind of give them a nice talk and, you know, get them going, but now you've got to get rid of them. There's a, it's actually kind of funny because crib is one of the first handful of people I met when I moved here in 1997.

29:02And then chart was, and he stayed, then I stayed a Yankee nonetheless from, from Boston, Massachusetts, but then shark, I became friendly with when I opened the wash and night in 2001, because he was our two, cause he was a neighbor, you know, and we had a lot of the same friends, but we really didn't know each other up until that point in time. These guys, both natives, both from here, never knew each other. Yeah. Never met. So, so it's kind of one of my strange talents. It's not anything I honed or whatever, but I am a bit of a connector. And I was actually surprised that neither of them knew each other. I never went to the boundary or anything much. I was, I wasn't cool enough to go to the boundary. I was a gold rush guy. I was always hanging at the gold rush, which is where I was growing up. You know, I turned 18 when I was a senior in high school and you could still drink it then.

30:06So I had older friends that were bartenders at the gold rush. No problem. The funny thing is the original wash was a by-write. Okay. Really? Yep. I lived, I grew up in Inglewood. One of my, pretty much my first job. Well, I was a busser, you know, and that was a whole different ball game. My, one of my real first jobs was taking care of produce and bagging groceries in that building. Wow. Wow. Okay. Mind blown over here. I had no idea. You know, well, that's the same way, you know, I was on a vegan culinary Olympic team, but I'm not vegan. So that kind of, I mean, what's the, no, you just throw some fucking grass in a cup and serve it. Listen, it's some really good taste of grass. I like grass. Yeah. It's really, you know, and, you know, and the other funny thing about that by-write is I believe David Briley's grandfather or somebody from his family owned that by-write property.

31:18Yes. Don Huffines was the actual operator owner. Okay. And the Briley's, his grandpa owned that building, which I found out I'm old friends with Briley. So that's interesting. Going back to like super ancient history. We are it's now, I guess it is. Well, I think that all of that kind of ties in with what you're doing and why it's so unique. Um, I mean, there's, there's bowling alleys you can go to, but what you're doing is something that's super intentional. That's kind of like a craft bowling alley that's hyper local. And, um, I don't think there's anything like it. There's nowhere like it anywhere that's going to have the bowling alley feel, but completely different. It's also, it's not a craft bowling alley like Pinewood Social is, right? That that's like that they're kind of very niche. They've got six lanes, whatever. It's not, it's not, of course it's user friendly because you can go bowl there, but it's not really like a place where locals will go, right?

32:25It's kind of like high-end kind of thing. And this is opposite of that. This is, this is like for everybody, right? And so we want to see families, but we also want to see rockers and we want to see artists and we want to see the gay and lesbian community. And we want to see our community, you know, for everybody. So, so we envision with all these different environments here that are, that our flow in a day is just going to go everywhere, you know, from the morning and the early morning, you know, on the weekends with families bowling with kids to the late night after shows, you know, eating in the diner and throwing balls and hanging out, it's like, there's, it appeals to everyone and people are like, Oh, families be welcome there. Well, just like the family wash. It's like, yeah, of course. It's, it's for everybody. It's not for any one person. Oh, go ahead.

33:28I was going to say, it's just, you know, it's, it's like the places that we like to hang out when we were young. I mean, well, the thing is, so, I mean, when I was in junior high school, I was going to Inglewood bowling alley right next to Inglewood, which is no longer there. So, you know, it's like, now this is a cool place that I can go revisit. And it's like, really, you know, I'm thankful that they, you know, have it get me out of this. Yeah, actually, both of these guys grew up here on the East side. I said, yeah, but you know what? It's funny because crib, I see you and you have like, like you're kind of glowing. You're excited talking about this. Like, this is something, last time I saw you, I think you were like, Whole Foods. Was it Whole Foods I saw you last time? But like, you're like, you were here, you're doing your thing, but like, you're like in your element right now. This is like, this is like, I feel like this is like the perfect gig for you.

34:32Well, you know, I like a lot of action and I like, you know, and I like being able to, you know, scare the shit out of people, you know, but at the same time, it's like one of those relationships where you get scared. And then all of a sudden it's like, Oh my, this isn't so bad. This is actually kind of cool. And these things don't taste bad at all. They actually taste pretty fucking good. Well, it's just a place where you can just be you and do your thing and, and like, hell yeah, let's go. Well, I think it's one of the reasons why I'm, I was invited, you know, and so, like I said, I'm still here. They haven't kicked me out yet. Well, a big plus you got going for you is, you know, I have no clue how to cook or turn on any of the equipment. You work at a place that anything is LSD.

35:39I, your sound was kind of going out there. I heard something and you said, I'm honored to work at a place that has LSD. Maybe we need to correct that. The nickname. Okay. Charks, Wayne side diner, LSD. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. No misconstrued, you know, I'm not talking about certain things. Wayne side diner, you know, it makes sense. You'd break it down to three letters LSD. Well, see LSD, but I think I personally, I just call it charts LSD. Hey man. Uh, I've actually got a friend showed. I hadn't seen him in years that he's downstairs. So I'm going to step out of here, but you got anything you want to ask me real quick before I bail?

36:41Dude, no, I just, I think it's fantastic what you're doing. And I'm excited to go. I, I can see Southern culture on the skids come in there and it being a fantastic show and I'm, I'm excited to go check it out myself. We got Southern culture on the skids. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what's going on in the field. Okay. Yeah, I can, I can just envision that there. I could see that whole vibe. Yeah. You know, I love the Southern culture. Oh yeah. You know, the floor will be, you know, primed and ready for, you know, buckets of chicken to get thrown off the stage and stomped on and all that a little better than the mercy floors for that. So that's cool. Is that something that is that something like when a band does that, right? Where they do eight piece box and they start throwing fried chicken out as the owner, are you like, what the fuck are you doing or are you like, that's just all part of it? Yeah. And I mean, you know, I don't mind the chicken. It's so much the glitter is what I hate. There's an absolute glitter band at mercy lounge and, uh, it just glitters the worst fucking thing ever invented for anything ever.

37:46And it's worse when you're going on a venue for it because it gets mixed in with spilt beer and sweat. And then the mop doesn't get it all. And then it gets covered in a layer of wax and it should, it's there forever. It's there forever. It never goes away. But, uh, glitter, yeah, we, we had, we finally instituted a policy where if we, we would charge them. I think it was like $500 if they brought in like a confetti cannon or glitter cannon and, and, you know, and they thought we were bullshitting until settlement said, Nope, taking that money out. Sorry. Here you go. Just don't put the confetti. Yeah. It's just, it's just bad. You hear that crib? No glitter. No glitter. Uh, my world, you don't have to worry about the glitter. It's an unglamorous world. You know, like, you know, you know, things burning, flaming, flying across the room. There might be, you know, problems. Chark, we could probably talk to you for hours and hours and hours on stories.

38:46Great seeing you, man. Good seeing you. As we say goodbye to Chark, we're going to take a short break to hear from our sponsors. Hey guys, we all know staffing is tough right now. And as a small business, it's hard to bring on staff. If you can't offer insurance, this is where complete health partners comes in for a fraction of the price of major medical. Offer your staff, tell a doctor and local urgent care facilities at no cost to them. X-rays, stitches, drug tests, common cold and flu tests. And now they even have a mobile vaccine unit. They're actually looking for businesses to partner with to offer the vaccine at your location. So check them out at complete health partners.com or visit them at www.nashvillerestaurantradio.com. Click the sponsors tab and click on the complete health partners. Or if you want to learn more, email them at complete care at completehealthpartners.com.

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40:53You know that I've been telling you about Neat Mixology now for several, several weeks and I'm telling you guys, you need to jump on this right now. I love having them come every single week, doing the inventory, going over it with me, running those variance reports. They're working on algorithms. They help us do our orders. They're just amazing. They're working on drink menus for us and now they're going to start to come. He just mentioned a couple weeks ago that they're going to start doing a buying co-op where you guys can all jump in there and they're going to have 105 restaurants that they're going to potentially be able to negotiate down pricing. I mean, somebody's been, it's been forever. Somebody should have done this and Jordan Williams and his passion project at Neat Mixology is doing just that. So you want to learn more, check them out at 615-973-4511. That's how you get ahold of Jordan. He will send you everything you need, but go check him out at WECNashville.com or follow them on the Instagram, follow them on the Facebook, anywhere you can at Neat Mixology.

42:01They're doing amazing things and their Founders 55 program. I think they're almost done. There's just a couple spots left and it's $500 a month for almost all of this for the first parts. They'll do your inventory. They'll do your bar order and create your drink menu. $500 a month. That's for the first year. That is $3 an hour. If you're hiring a bar manager, do that. If you can't afford a bar manager or you are an owner or general manager and you're counting inventory every week, give Jordan a call again. That's 615-973-4511. We are here. Um, so no, this is just, I, learning about what you guys are doing, why you're deciding to do it. And October 1st is the day. Are you doing anything special for the grand opening? Um, you know, we're still working out grand opening stuff. Um, and, and, and we've been slowed down on, uh, on a bunch of different things. Um, so we're trying to plow towards it. Um, imagine that a restaurant where there's possible delays.

43:04Well, it's more than the restaurant. So there are the restaurant delays and then there's the venue delays and then there's a lot, it's the whole space. So let's throw in a Delta variant and yeah. And you have that too. So, uh, you know, we, we may not be ready for grand opening on the first. And, you know, we've tried not to put dates on anything and that they kind of came around as a, at a time where we saw light at the end of the tunnel. Um, so I would say early October. We'll probably, you know, be able to open the doors, but we're probably going to save the grand opening for later at, at, towards the end of the month. Um, and, uh, and we, we've got a bunch of things being planned here anyway, towards the end of, um, uh, of the month of October. So if, you know, can you tell us about any of those things? Not yet, but we, we, we, we, we, we booked some things.

44:10Um, I can't tell you about one. We do have some events coming, uh, this month, uh, during AMA. Uh, and so, uh, MOT WMOT is going to, uh, do some, some, uh, showcasing during the day, uh, at the beginning of AMA and the 22nd, 24th and 25th, some daytime things, these are kind of members only, you know, MOT, uh, members only events. Um, not sure if you'll be able to buy a ticket, uh, there'll definitely be some invites, but again, that we're, we're getting, uh, the small stage together for that. So that is going to happen. Then there's also another event, uh, with, uh, a company out of Austin called Otter Music who have a streaming, uh, technology where you can stream, you can do a three camera shoot with like a second upload, uh, time, uh, from, from any iOS device, so iPads and phones.

45:17So we're, we're partnering with them. They're going to be one of our partners in, in the live room, uh, where that's how we're going to stream when we use streaming shows. That's when I get to fly across the room and the cherry picker, right? Exactly. Exactly. I've got some. Or, or, I can't wait to see that. Curtain, uh, uh, uh, track possibly. Well, I got to practice that. Well, you know, um, so, uh, so that's kind of where we're at. So I, I don't know that that, uh, we're, we're, we're working towards October 1st. There's a giant possibility. We might not be ready for that, but, um, but, so I would, I would say, you know, mid October we'll have kind of, we'll, we'll turn the open sign as charts, because people have been asking him forever. When are you guys opening? When's it opening? When's it opening? When's this and, you know, he also, the other thing with chart is he's the general contractor on this whole project. So he's coordinating every contractor team.

46:21He's got his own guys that he's done stuff over the years with from a painting crew to a construction crew, to a plumbing crew, um, and he's working with other, we have a electrical contractor we're working with. We have a low voltage guy, low voltage company. We're working on, we're working on some, you know, audio stuff for the, just throughout the space, you know, so there's, there's a lot, there's a lot of air traffic controlling. So, yeah. So what sharks been saying for a long time now is when are you going to open? He's like, you know what, when I pull that open sign on, that's when we're opening, that's when you'll know. So, so we are very close and, and every day it gets us closer today. The, the mirrors started going up behind them, the lounge bar. Um, we have this more, uh, uh, kind of gold veined old school, uh, mirror behind the bar, which is just sick.

47:22And, uh, that started today, but it's a lot of pieces, you know, it's going to take probably the rest of the week till it's all the way else. We got to do some test kitchen stuff. We haven't even jumped in the kitchen. It's like, it's not like the truck pulls up and here we go. So we got it, you know, and now we're, now we're finding like, as far as the food goes, like we, we had our test kitchen order come in, uh, yesterday and there are things on the order that we might, that hopefully we'll see next week, but we don't know, so there's like all this weird supply stuff that we've been aware of all these things because we've, we've felt it at some point, but it's like, until you actually send the order through, it's like, oh yeah, we'll give you this, this and this, but we don't have any of this. Who are you buying your food from? We're working with Cisco. Nice. Yeah. We have a brand new facility over there. We're working with them on, you know, mainstay stuff, but we're working with local people, you know, we're doing as much of that as we can.

48:30You know, as far, even as far as like a lot of the meats that we're going to be using are going to be, we're working with, you know, different, uh, there are different companies or not companies, but different farmers that have formed a co-op and they are in, in Tennessee and in Kentucky, um, we're going to be farming out, you know, more as, as we get going, first we got to, you know, we got to get going because their seasons, you know, their cycles are different. We've got to start lining up with them. So everything is start coming together. Once we know what our dude did, you know, as chart says, turn the open sign. Yeah. So there's a lot to do. There's a lot of moving parts, not only with the construction, just, there's a lot of moving parts, giving the ingredients that we want, not just what we can get, but what we want. There's two, that's two different things.

49:32So we're going to hold on to our principles and what we said we were going to do and get as close as possible. And then be exactly that plus more. I mean, you know, that sounds awesome. And there's not enough people who fricking do it right now. Yeah. So how's your hiring going? Did that better than, uh, we had felt about, uh, you know, two months ago. Um, we had our first trainings this week with our front of house people. And on Monday, uh, AMF was here all week. They they're here till tomorrow to train us and train our staff. And, uh, uh, we were expecting 11 people on Monday, which was their first day here, and we had 19 people show up. That's great. So what, you know, and, and, and so, so far things are looking better.

50:32Uh, our kitchen, kitchen staff's a lot trickier, but we've got, um, you know, a good handful of people, um, some experience, some not, or some of the people, if I got people right now that are listening, that are watching this or listening to this going, God, that place seems so freaking cool. It's exactly the kind of thing I want to be a part of. Who do I have in contact? How do I have them get ahold of these call Michael crib? Oh, no. Do not have them call Michael crib, please. We want them to work here. We have an HR department. Is there a website that they can go to? First line. Okay. Of, of, you know, them being impacted. They can go to info info at East side bowl.com is, is one of jobs at East side bowl.com is the way to go. Um, and, uh, and we're here all the time.

51:34So, um, you know, we have had people stop in, um, and, uh, and, and, you know, word of mouth is, is really been a great thing. I think what happens when people actually come here and see the space and especially for kitchen people, they walk into the kitchen and they're, I would say overwhelmed would be an underused word because nobody's really seen anything like that. Well, they, you know, like I said, it's, you know, it's not, it's not a closet. It's not, you know, a mop closet in the back where, you know, people were like, you know, screaming at you to perform, you know, like you're wearing a thorny crown and you turn blind into water, you know, every day, you know, instead it's a functional spacious working environment, you know, conditioned very, see that's a big one for a lot of people. Air-conditioned is good.

52:34Very air-conditioned and, and, and the ceilings are 12 feet high. And so it's very open. Yeah. Um, um, uh, actually, you know, the, the way that air moves in there is very, uh, comfortable for people. Um, and, and there's a lot of space, so people aren't right on top of each other. So in, in COVID world, it's really, uh, a really nice and spacious space. Um, uh, you know, we put our dish room and we made a dish room. So the, so the line people and the dish people who constantly fight all the time and are pissed off at each other, they're in, they're in their own environments, they're, they're, they're separated, um, and, and, and, and there's spaces that they work in or set up in such a way where they can get shit done quickly and efficiently. Um, Well, they cannot actually operate comfortably, you know, once again, you know, and they've had, they had people say, Oh, you don't need that much space for a kitchen, you know, you know, Oh, it's way too much, way too big.

53:45But the thing is those people aren't looking at the big picture, you know, I got a bowling alley to think about. I got a music room to think about. I got music companies and other corporations buying the room out, buying the place out, you know, so, uh, it's not going to come out of a shoe box. It's got to come out of a machine that operates, has the room to operate and can be manipulated to do what we need it to do. So that's what I belong with these guys saying, Oh, that looks good. So, okay. And then I'm like, take it apart. And so we took it apart and put it back together. And we took it apart and put it back together. And then we, you know, we have what we had. Yeah. You guys really need to get your eyes on it. You need to, you need to come and actually put your eyes on it. Cause you know, we can't, the pictures and talking about it really is a whole other thing than actually being in the space and, and, and getting into the environments because it's really like nowhere else and there's been a lot of care in, in the crews, in the contractors that have done the work that everybody, you know, they're all very, there are all artists, you know, from the painters that have, that have gone above and beyond the challenges, we throw out them like, Hey, this diner, we want this diner to be a 1958 Les Paul gold top.

55:21Can you do that? And they're like, yeah, okay. And they, you know, so it's like, there, there was a lot of, um, it's been a very collaborative experience with all the crews and contractors and, and, you know, I mean, our operations manager came out of our, our, our construction and, and we, we didn't even know he was very experienced and awesome hospitality operations manager right in our midst that hadn't done it for a while, but like, and, and he just jived with us right away is right here. Scott. So, um, it's been, it's been a very neat, uh, uh, collaborative, uh, experience here for everybody, I think, you know, I don't want. Talk for other people, but I'm, I'm really impressed with the, the artistic, uh, input that we've got from all the people that came in contracted here, the electricians that their work is insane.

56:28You'd look at, at some of this stuff and you're like, wow, man, it's like, it's impressive. And to do all this through a pandemic. Yeah. And so ironically, uh, you know, this whole thing, you know, and shark talked about this earlier, but moving into this space when we did, it was in December of, uh, 2019, I think, or November or something. And, you know, we, we basically started doing demo work here early on late 2019, early 2020 and, uh, and, and we had a demo permit. So we did all this work, but you know, when the pandemic hit, there was some structural work that needed to happen and they were able to come in here. It's just a big empty Kmart and do this work. So we had people working in here, but we were able all to be safely apart, you know, and so much that you've got steel workers putting up, you know, 30 foot, 40 foot ones of beams, you know, while you've got a small crew of guys in the back, you know, knocking down walls or putting up, you know, uh, joists or whatever.

57:46Um, and so, and in, in all of this, even, even to this day, there was nobody on any of our crews that got sick. That's great. That's incredible. Yeah. No, not happen. I can't later on. There were some people that, you know, sick, but, but nobody got anybody else. Nobody got sick. It's really, it's really kind of, so it shows you the, you know, the, that, that is partly because of the scale of this, of this space, you know, 33,000 square feet or whatever. Yeah. Huge. Yeah. Well, guys, we just want to say, I, it's great to talk to you. It's great to, um, to learn a little more about what you guys are doing. I can't wait to come in and see it. Um, I will, I will, what's that? I said, please. Yeah, I can't wait. I love, I love bowling. I love, I want to see the whole vibe in there.

58:47I can totally feel it picture. I want to see a show in there. It sounds just absolutely gorgeous. Thanks for coming on the show today. One of the things we do with all of our guests before we let them go is we like to give you the Jerry's final thought. You get to take us out. So you get to talk. We're talking to the restaurant community of Nashville, whoever's listening. I have no idea, but, um, whatever you want to say, as long as you want to say it, I love to put people on the spot with this. Uh, take us out. Whatever you got. I got one. Uh, if you like shepherd's pie and you're fond of the old days of East Nashville nostalgia, you will find that shepherd's pie right here at the East side bowl in sharks lane side diner. Otherwise known as LSD. The other thing, you know, it's fun.

59:50It's going to be fun. Yeah. It's going to be good. Yes. And you know, and people are going to feel welcomed. And it's going to be like, it's going to be, you know, like you're on your own little trip, actually, you know, I mean, the whole place looks like you're in some kind of other world. And I can't think of any better thing right now than being some other fucking world that, you know, you'd like to be in and, you know, everybody treats you well, feed you some good food, take you to play some games, listen to some music. Roll some balls. What else do you need? I can't think of it. I don't know. Well, there you have it folks. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. Yeah.

01:00:51I, I know Jen's over here just like cracking up, like you guys all together playing off each other has been just a blast. Yeah. That's so fun. We always get like one person that we never get three that know each other so intimately and like work so well together. So that was fun. Well, we don't know each other at all. I said, I've only known crib for 23 years, 24 years. I've, I've felt the same. Me, me too. It's good, dude, man. I'm excited for you guys. Can't wait to see it. Have a wonderful day. Anytime that you know. Big thank you to everybody who worked behind the scenes to make that interview happen. I know Jen and I had a ton of fun interviewing them. They were kind of towards the end. They're like, it was fun just listening to them kind of talk together. I've put a couple of clips out on YouTube from this.

01:01:54If you want to go watch those, please go to our YouTube channel and subscribe. We hope that you guys are being safe out there. We'll have lots of content, hopefully coming to you from FS Tech and, uh, Ben Powell can be there on Friday. Only roundup coming up. Be safe. Y'all wear a mask, get vaccinated. Love you guys. Bye.