Jamie and Ben

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. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We've got a fun episode for you today. We're going to be talking with Ben and Jamie and they are two of the owners over at the Pearl Diver in East Nashville. You know what? I didn't know a whole lot about the Pearl Diver. This was a fun interview because, you know, a lot of times I know people that come in and you ask them questions, you kind of know the answers too, but you want to share their answers and there's a lot of them that are genuine, like I'm looking for the answer.

01:01But these guys, I didn't know anything about them. And so everything about this is completely organic and completely like just learning about them. And I was so fascinated because what they do, these guys are restaurant veterans who've traveled the world and they've taken kind of their favorite cocktails from their favorite places that they've gone and some of the favorite food that they've made. And they just kind of turned it into this amazing restaurant that does authentic food. And it's not like Mexican authentic or Cuban authentic. There is some authentic Cuban there. They do kind of all over and it's really, really interesting on top of the fact that they're just like two of my new favorite people. I love sitting in this studio talking to people and these are two guys that absolutely nailed that. So excited. I'm at a new place coming called the Tiger, I think it's the Tiger Bar, and I learned a lot. I learned a lot from this interview and I hope that you do too.

02:01We are getting a ton of engagement on our Mexican restaurant bracket. This has been so fun. It's been so fun just to see people get involved. So fun to see people comment. People are posting about their favorites that didn't make the list. There's so many that can make the list, but this is going to come out Sunday afternoon. You have until 1130 tonight to vote. So you go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Right there on the home page, if you scroll down just like the very next thing that you're voting, you just click a button, you can go vote straight from there and it's going to get progressively more exciting as we get down the list. There's a few that are running away with it, but there's a few that are still tied. Like 60 to 60, like voting wise. I mean, there's definitely, if you go vote right now, it will be very, very helpful. This is brought to you by NetChex and NetChex has been an amazing partner for this. They helped me kind of put everything together. Lauren over at NetChex has been amazing and I just can't thank her enough, but if you are out there and you need HR solutions, payroll solutions, scheduling, hiring, they have all kinds of solutions.

03:15If you need any of that, you need to give Lauren a call. Her number, 615-319-9200. That's 615-319-9200. Give her a call. If you have any questions about any of the stuff she specializes in working with restaurants, they're a fantastic partner in heaven, I couldn't be more excited. On another note, Brandon's book club is often running. We referenced this book in an interview. We just finished with Imron Shake. He is the owner of Milkshake Concepts, one of the partners, and that interview is going to come out on Friday. I'm so excited about it. They own Layer Cake and the Cherry Bar there, and they've got three more locations that are coming to downtown. Really cool stuff. This guy is the CEO of a big restaurant, but they're based out of Dallas and could not have met a nicer guy. Just a lovely, lovely guy. What a wonderful conversation we had for a guy who's really moving and shaking and making things happen.

04:16That interview is going to come out on Friday. The reference there for Brandon's book club is that we're reading the book, The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter, and a reference in our interview with Imron because he is a, let's get outside our comfort zone and continue to grow. That's the reasoning behind the book, and it's really good stuff. I'm going to share that, and then on Wednesday, we have another episode of the Gospel of Cocktail podcast that is going to be with Kayla Ellis and Laura from the Fox Bar. If you are a fan of the Fox Bar, you want to talk to Laura. We're going to have Andrew, who's the owner of the Fox Bar, coming on National Restaurant Radio pretty soon. This will whet your appetite with Laura, and from everything I understand, this is an amazing episode. I cannot wait to listen to it, put it together, and yeah. All that stuff's going on. So thank you guys for listening. Let's jump in. We're going to hear a couple small commercials, and then we're going to jump right in with Ben and Jamie from the Pearl Diver.

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07:27What chefs want is the perfect addition to any broad line company as they've got all of your fresh produce delivered daily, plus custom meats, anything that you need that your broadliner can't get. Give them a call 800-600-8510, or visit them at whatchefswant.com. Super excited today to welcome in Jamie and Ben, and both of you are with Pearl Diver, right? And are you guys founders, owners? What do you guys do there? We're the owners. You're the owners of Pearl Diver, fantastic. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Thanks for having us. Yeah, you got a good voice for this. I'm going to drop by a couple decibels. Do I even speak? Well, now we'll just go ahead and get going on the radio voice. Looking for a nice cold beverage. You know, it's funny, people come in and they go, sweaty balls, dusty muffins. I feel sometimes like I'm in that Saturday Night Live skit. We're like, hello, we're so excited to have you here today.

08:27This is going to be a lot of fun, and we're going to talk about your neat bar. Yes. So you guys are just got back from a trip to New Orleans, how long were you in New Orleans? Seven days. Seven days. How was your life for doing today? You know what? I think after doing it for years, I think we know how to pace ourselves down there now. You're pros. Yeah, I think so. The longer that you're down there, the more years you go, the less of a desire to kind of drink everything that gets thrown at you, because it can be really inundating with opportunity. Every event that's going on, there just is an unlimited amount of booze, so you kind of have to just... You have to have restraint? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what that is. And you don't get burnt out on it, frankly. I can imagine. Yeah. Now, if we were down there for two days... Yeah, we'd be dead. Yeah. I've only done that, I've been to New Orleans a handful of times, but I remember one time I lived in Jackson, Mississippi. I used to run the Amerigo in Jackson, Mississippi, and a buddy of mine did a road trip.

09:28We had $100 cash each, and we went down there and we filled the tank up. We got there, filled the tank with gas, because we knew we weren't going to have anything on the way home. I think there was debit cards then, but this was a long time ago. We did the five-for-one Corona, it just got fucking wasted, and then we walked into the Harris Casino. I was like, whoa, we got like $12 left, let's do it, and then we'll just throw this into a machine or whatever. I hopped at a roulette wheel and bought 12 $1 tokens, and I hit a number for $35. Like, holy shit, I got 35 bucks, and then I put three chips on that number, and it hit it again, and we went from like... We had $100 each, till we both had $350 each, and we went to Dickie Brennan's, and we went from like, we're going to sober up a little bit, then drive back to Jackson, Mississippi. It's a good thing you didn't have Jamie on the roulette wheel with you. I might be good at many things in life. And I actually, you know, the thing is, I am good at how to play. I just never win. He did a great job teaching his girlfriend how to play roulette, who we watched her just shred it.

10:29Just shred it. So fast. But it's all about luck. Oh, yeah. I mean... There's a little bit. There's a little bit. It's like, you should do this, and this, and this. If I did it, I will lose every time. If I tell somebody to do it, they will hit it every time. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, yeah. Huh. That's my life. Did you guys get to go in the casino at all while you were there? Yes. Yeah, we did. And continue to lose it? Yeah. What did you win? Jamie? I did. I lost very bad. Okay. My girlfriend won very well after I told her how to do her job. I made more money playing a random slot machine at a dive bar the night before, so that was really awesome. Okay. I threw in 20 bucks and... Right away. We hit it big when we were leaving. I was like, I just made 200-something bucks. I was like, great. Cool. Hell, yeah. My wife relates every $20 bill as to pizza. So she's like, don't lose a bunch of pizzas. And I was like, yeah, I just won like 10 pizzas. That's so interesting because I used to do that to like drinks. Yeah. So I used to run a company called Fresh Point, and we would take people to hockey games all the time. And drinks were like $17 at a hockey game, where a beer is like $12, you know?

11:33And you would just go in like, you want a beer? You want a beer? And you just pop down, and it was like, fuck, that's a lot of money for drinks. But anyway, I started associating that with places. I was like, what's a $7 taco? I'm like, well, that's like half of a beer at a game, or you go to any bar. Yeah. So like, if you go to any bar, like, you can drink like a king if you were like at a Preds game. Right. Because the prices of all that stuff is insane. Unless you're on a rooftop at a hotel bar somewhere. Then that's a little different animal. Or yeah, or you're, yeah. So what were you doing in New Orleans? Let's go through that story. They want to talk about Pearl Diver. I want to talk about a lot, I have a lot of cool stuff I want to talk to you guys about. So we were done there for Tales of the Cocktail. It is the preeminent awards ceremony for the cocktail industry globally. Kind of like imagine South by Southwest on steroids meets kind of like the Grammys kind of deal. In New Orleans. In New Orleans. So it's the home of that. I mean, it's also like the home of the cocktail as well as New Orleans. So every year, right around now, they have their big awards ceremony.

12:39They're taking every brand that's worth its weight in salt is their, you know, it's kind of like their big expense account moment for the year. And then every great bar that's been, you know, made it through some of the rounds or is in the top four or top 10, top 20, whatever, everyone's there. And there's a lot of, you know, it's also what you make it to. There's a lot of educational stuff. There's a lot of classes that are being taught to, you know, younger bartenders and bar owners and everybody. I mean, literally anything you could imagine is there. It's like how to be a sustainable bar, how to how to run your point of sale the right way, how to carry your tins, how to, you know. What did you learn? What's the biggest takeaway? Like you guys are on the way home and you're like, dude, what did you learn? You're like, I didn't know this, but I learned this. What was it? What's your biggest takeaway? It's a little hard for both of us. Yeah, we've been a lot. Yeah. This time, I don't know, really learned nothing about cocktails while I was down there. But you guys, I learned that the French quarter is really fucking messy now.

13:42It's it's gotten worse than I've ever seen it. Yeah, for sure. What does you guys were nominated? Right. So we've been been open for this next week. This weekend will be our four year anniversary for Pearl. We've made the top eight for best U.S. cocktail bars. Three years. The other year was COVID. So it doesn't matter. What do you do? Yeah. Nobody's winning any awards that year. Wow. That's congratulations. Thank you very much. That's a big deal. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Was that a goal of yours when you opened the bar? I mean, it's always on our minds. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean, as the difference is, as far as a goal, it's a because of the market that we're in, it's a very unreachable goal sometimes. Yeah. You know, it's it's always in an A market. It's always the New York bar, Miami bar, L.A. bar. OK. I think that top eight the last three years is huge for Nashville. I mean, huge for us, but also huge for Nashville. Yeah. It's big.

14:43I mean, in general, too, I actually don't believe that there's actually any other bars that are on that list that have made it that consistently, which is great. You know, what are you really good at being a bridesmaid pretty much at the party? Yeah, exactly. For sure. But what do you what? What do you attribute to that? Like, what makes a really good bar? When you guys set out to open the Pearl Diver, I don't know your history. I mean, you look so familiar, Jamie. I don't know. I'm sure we met many times. Yeah. I'm like, I don't know where it was. I don't know how it is. But we got to talk about your tattoos, too. But like when you set to open Pearl Diver, what was your like North Star? Giving great service and doing something really, really fun. Yeah, we've each kind of we have an entire Rolodex of concepts between us that we that we want to do as partners. Pearl Diver was something that I really, really wanted to get get moving when back when my other bar was open and we just closed that one. What was your other number? 308. Oh, yeah. I love that bar. And Jamie and I really kind of got real close during that time and we started doing a bunch of really fun little like tiki ish pop ups is kind of like beta testing and we're like, you know what?

15:51Let's let's build a bar together. Let's do it. And it kind of just molded itself into that. But the goal is really was just a I mean, I think we kind of carry that with everything that we do is to make a really approachable, great bar that can be the stand on its own as a neighborhood spot where people that don't necessarily love cocktails can come and hang out and then turn around one day and be like, holy shit, I love cocktails. I didn't realize it. You know, we take a lot of the pomp and circumstance out of the whole game. Yeah. Also, too, Pearl was very much so based on our travels. Yeah. And I think it was really important for us to kind of bring back some of these cultural ideas of their cocktails and bring it back here. Right. I saw the description. It says you've traveled the world of sugarcane and I got like, yeah, and agave like in Hawaii and South America, where we where we traveled anywhere so much. Why? Yeah, it's actually actually one of the least factors of it. But Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Jamaica, Thailand, like we just travel.

16:55You know, like all these islandish type places that, you know, in their culture, like we would say we're going down to a tiki bar, but it's just their bar. And that was like a huge thing for us to not like cultural appropriate on. Like that's why there's no grass skirts. There's no like tiki hat. You know, well, the tiki is a culture. Yeah. So, I mean, that's one of those things that we've kind of spent the last four years. It's tough because you don't want to be a dick and be like, you know, first, we really had to put the fork down in the middle of the road, be like, listen, we're not a tiki bar. It's like all these guys dressed in like Shriner hats and all this stuff is coming here to play stump the bartender with an old book of tiki recipes. That's what we're doing here. We will do that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a huge thing. There's like tiki files, you know, and they travel all over the place to do this kind of thing and collect all the mugs and stuff. And then that aspect, the adoration that they have for the that culture is it's it's great. But that's just not what we are. You know, the I we're pretty rare in not even like obviously here were the only ones to do that. But even in across the country, we're probably one of maybe two or three bars that do what we do, being that we are focused on sugar cane and agave.

18:10And that's bringing these cocktails, like he was saying, when we went down to Cuba, we had an old man pressing fresh sugarcane juice and we fell in love with that. We immediately ordered a sugarcane press. And did you guys are you guys friends before this? Did you guys like traveled like travel buddies together? I mean, we literally flew in a four person prop plane to Cuba like back in 2016. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I worked at 308 for five, six years. So we knew each other. And before that, we actually played multiple shows in our in our different punk rock bands. So you guys have to have a like a music background. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, very much so. OK. OK, I'm putting the pieces together here because I. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I haven't drank for three years. So I'm like, you know, I mean, it's almost not been one of those years. Well, the first year was COVID and then you guys had just opened. Yeah. And I live in West Nashville and getting out to eat just for sure. I never really got to go and really experience Pearl Diver because I just.

19:14Well, good news is you can always come in and have a slew of really fun mocktails and stuff. Great food, too. But yeah, the whole point was, you know, we would. Cuba was really the defining moment for the concept overall. What was it about Cuba? Well, when we got there, you know, so I was a classically cocktail trained bartender. I came out in New York City, moved here in 2009. This has been, by the way, talking. And I was trained by a lot of the the really preeminent cocktail gurus. And so I was really fortunate in that road. But so we wanted to do these. We wanted to make sure we were doing everything right. You know, back in the day, it was always about fresh juices and making sure the recipes were right. The bartenders knew what they were doing. But then we went to Cuba, which is the home of the mojito, the home of the daiquiri. And the daiquiri was the biggest one that we, you know, having having a daiquiri in Cuba and having a mojito in Cuba and seeing just how vehemently different they are really than the way that American bartenders, no matter what skill set they are, you know, it's just kind of this big eye opener.

20:24We looked at each other and we're like, holy shit. It's like having a caipirinha in Brazil. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, even so, yes and no, because at least in in America, the the specs, the understanding of the presentation of a caipirinha in America is still closer than it is with like the mojito. It I mean, it's not what's the difference. What is American bartenders take the take everything. They shake it all up. They make a mint syrup, whatever it is. Everything's strained, fine, super clean. And in Cuba, the mojito is essentially a muddled like a mint muddled rum and soda. It's a highball. OK. You know, and there's so it's like one of the things where it you see it in a culinary cuisine, that whole idea as well, where they take food and they want to go American culture wants to make it more than it needs to be. And it's like, keep it simple, stupid. You know, it's really the goal to it is just like use good product. Do it this way, the way it's supposed to be done.

21:25And that's kind of what we looked at each other like. All right. We everybody's overthinking this stuff in America. Let's give it to them the way it's supposed to be done. Yeah, we did that with, you know, every aspect. And that's on our classic side of the menu. And then on our original side of the menu, we just go, hey, we've traveled to these places, we've had these flavors. How do we get those into our drink? So almost every drink that you have has some kind of spice from a different region. And I think it's, you know, we have a lot of fun with it. And it allows us to use a lot of different ingredients people aren't using. So that's awesome. So I think people are listening to this. One of the my favorite things about travel was drinking. I should get a Hawaii and you drink a Mai Tai the way they do it in Hawaii. And they all have their I'm soaking the Myers and in cocoa beans. And then we're using that to float. And then you like I mentioned in Brazil, the Kaipri, now they make it there. Or a Pisco sour or people go and they travel and they pick up indigenous ways to do things. And they're trying to find a place like in our house, at my house, we can make those drinks at home.

22:28The way that we learned how to do them there. But it's like a special thing. It brings me back to that vacation. I go to the Pearl Diver and drink these drinks and it will take me back to when I'm there in the place. And is that for sure kind of part of the concept? That's 100 percent. OK, OK, I nailed it. OK, it's a cross between two of them. It's like giving people this escapism, whether or not it's like giving them that that recollection of, oh, remember that time we were in Jamaica and we had this beautiful cocktail, whatever that. But it's also about paying tribute to the authentic culture that formed this stuff. You know, like, sure. One of one of for us, it's one of my favorite moments is when someone comes in from Puerto Rico or wherever and says, holy shit, your pina colada is done the way that we make our pina coladas. Your Paloma is the same way that we do it in Mexico. Like, that's huge. Biggest compliment you can get. Yeah. It's like who these who these tattooed white guys making making these drinks from, you know, Panama.

23:30And you're like, well, we took the time. We we cared about it. And you've got to go to a bar now. Like I was when I went to Rio a few times and reference Brazil a few times. But it's really was one of those moments. You're in Ipanema and they're they're making a caipirinha and they take the lime and then they add the sugar cane and they're muddling it and they put crushed ice on it and they just fill it with Kishasa. Yeah. Yeah. And then they give it to you. And it's like, this is the best. But after two of them, you can't stop laughing. Like you're just but then you go to a bar here and you order one and they go, yeah. And they take ice, lime juice, simple syrup in this. And you're like, yeah, what is that? Like, you're not. No, that's not a that's not it. That's just a that's just a Kishasa sour. Every time I've seen somebody actually put the lime in them, I go, holy shit, you're making it the right way. This is going to be good. Yeah. He spent a good amount of time down in Brazil. Yeah. Sao Paulo, like rolling a shot, so barrels are crazy city. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, from all I've saw, Palo is just one of those cities that is like, holy shit, Mexico City.

24:31You guys have been to Mexico City? Oh, yeah. One of my favorite similar vibe ish. No, not at all. I've never been to Mexico City through South. I mean, I think any Latin American city does have some similarities. Mexico City feels very sophisticated. OK, yeah. And it's weird because we feel like New York. You're kind of flying into like a jungle, if that makes sense. Like you can look from the outside of the plane. It's just a huge mountain all the way around. And everybody always says Mexico City is so dangerous, but it's actually not the city. It's the suburbs. It's kind of the opposite of anywhere else. American culture, you know, like. So if you stay inside the city, you're safe. It's when you adventure out, like if you're going to the temples of the gods, that's 45 minutes outside of town. You stop off in one of those small towns. Watch yourself. Yeah. But if you just watch it, walking around Mexico City, you're good to go. And the food and the drinks, I mean, talk about a place that uses different spices and drinks. They are in every drink there.

25:34What's the most common spice used or what's the most interesting spice used in a drink? That's yeah, that's tough. For me, I'm talking Mexico City, like you're there, like if you're getting a drink, like what's something that you put in there that you would be like, I didn't think to put that in. But when you did it is really good. Almost everything they use, there's different types of chilies. I mean, like everything is a different chili. Everything is an actual spice. Every rim has a tahini of some sort. Like everybody makes every bar almost has their own style of tahini they do. There's just and to be honest, half of them, half of those chilies I've never even heard of. Well, it's like you have like Edgar Victoria from Alabrije. Yeah. You know, I mean, he grew up in Mexico City, was tagging. He moved to move to America to get away from that lifestyle. But he's done with the street food he used to eat. And I'm like, that's the best, man. I mean, I'm just mouthwatering over here, listening and talk about it. It's like, I just wanted to do that here in America. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. I went on a one of my trips to Mexico.

26:36I did like a Alpa store tour, essentially trying to find the quintessential perfect Alpa store recipe because in America. And what's wild is just talking about my wife. This was my wife last night, even. Even like Hispanic people here in the States like doing Alpa store are not doing it the traditional way. So it was one of those things like finding that and discovering it and then being like, we're going to do that here. We're going to make it right. It's, you know, street food is where it's at, really is. I'm having this epiphany while I'm talking to you guys. And I'm thinking of like the best restaurants that you can go eat. And it's really restaurants that focus on seasonal focus on like locally sourced and do it like the right way. You can do a restaurant and go, I'm going to open a restaurant and I'm going to buy the cheapest stuff and I'm going to make food that will fill your belly. That's one thing. But then you look at the guys East Side banh mi making their own banh mi bread and it's the way that it should be. And Gracie, with her history and her culture, like this is the way I remember when I was a kid, like those banh mi's are beyond.

27:40You look at Hal over at Loughlin table. Hal, what do you why is your zucchini so much better than any zucchini I've ever had? I buy local and I buy it at the peak of the season. And that's when I'm serving it. And it's like, oh, that makes a difference. And then kind of just if you're doing a restaurant or a bar, finding the authentic way to do it and not skipping. Yeah, I mean, not not taking shortcuts is true. It's the way that that's the best place. You got to think about it, too, like whether it's food or drink. There's there's a reason why those recipes lasted in the in those countries for hundreds of years, you know, until they come here and then they get turned into a shit show. You know, it's like you were mentioning the my tie earlier. I can't tell you the amount of my ties I've had at bars that had fruit juices in them. And it's like they just just took like what's what a planters punch for a my tie, you know, and one of those things like when we get a chance to hand somebody over a real my tie or a real the real daiquiri parts of the is the most funny one for us, because we're always I always tell people if you're going to come to our bar for one drink, you got to have our daiquiri because we actually took that's probably the one thing where we actually took a classic recipe from Cuba.

28:49And if anything, we actually kind of improved upon it because that was the thing that happened with him. And I were like, OK, the balance is great on the ones that they were making in Cuba. And they work. But they weren't using the fresh sugarcane juice. We're like, this is the land of fucking sugarcane. So we like we came home, we pressed a bunch of sugarcane and made some daiquiris and looked at each other like, oh, man, we did it. This is awesome. This is fucking wild. So we tell people got to have a daiquiri. You know, we were just in New Orleans. And I'm staring at, you know, 20 fucking machines. And they're also slinging pizza. And you're like, this is the daiquiri. That is the reason why people's head spins around on their shoulders when we tell them they got to try a daiquiri. They're like, I've had a daiquiri. I've been in New Orleans. Like, that's not daiquiri. That's that's interesting, because and I also mean, there's this perception. I think it's a disservice when people like we don't fucking serve frozen drinks. If we're not doing daiquiris, is your daiquiri frozen? No, it's not. So that's a thing. It's not the daiquiri should be frozen. Doesn't have to be frozen. It shouldn't be frozen. It's also some of the people are afraid to order because there's a stigma around ordering it because it's a pain in the ass for a bartender to make.

29:56Does that make sense? Yeah, but nothing's hard to make. Yeah, nothing. Well, that's what I mean. But is that a mindset? Is that a mindset going in like, hey, look, I'm not here to make drinks that are easy for me to make. I'm here to make drinks that are going to make you the guest have an amazing experience. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel that culture anywhere? You know, it's so funny. I've had more times than not, especially in this town. People get annoyed by a drink order. And that's upsetting. Is it? I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think it comes down to to good management. You know, I mean, that's one of the things that he and I pride ourselves on is we're especially with the concept of Pearl Diver, where you have all these esoteric ingredients. And, you know, it could be if you were to go about it one way, a very lengthy process from from order to glass. And, you know, there's a lot of steps that we can take throughout the prep process with our bar backs and our bartenders before service, getting to a point that when it comes time for the order to come across the bar, it's a three touch cocktail.

31:03And the majority of the time is actually spent dressing the cocktail with garnish and presentation that it takes to shake the thing up. We're primarily more work on our bar back at Pearl Diver than on our bartender, their scientists to make sure you guys can have a drink faster. Really? Yeah. So almost every drink is it starts from probably seven, eight touches. We get them all down to two to three just in. How do you do that? Back at housework. It's science prep preparation preparation. I mean, we've got everything down to almost a brick system, like sugar content system in the back. Yeah, that part's always the funniest thing for a bar back. They come in to apply for a bar back position, and they think they're going to be, you know, slinging case, slinging into looking at a refractometer. And they're looking through a refractometer. They're like, what the fuck is going on? Like, well, you got to make sure that this is right, because again, going back to the sugar cane thing, you know, we are taking fresh stocks of sugar cane and we're pressing that.

32:05And depending on when that sugar cane was harvest, what time of year, where it was harvested, it's going to change the the like the base sugar content, the bricks level is going to be different. So when we get to we need to make sure that everything is completely identical from batch to batch batch. So that way, when the bartender gets that, he knows that his specs don't need to be changing every day. So make these drinks. Oh, little backstory for people listening. Is he talking about like bricks on like a house? Like, is this what is he talking about? What is the bricks? B R I X is I don't know where the word originated from, but it is the sugar content is the the amount of sugar is in something. So I'm a produce guy and I know about cantaloupe when it arrives. We pull out a refractometer and we check the sugar content. It has to be between 12 and 17. I forget the percentage, what it was in order for us to receive the product because I had to sell. Well, I wanted to sell sweet cantaloupe. Yeah, you don't want bad cantaloupes. So we tested everything when it came in. That's the only reason why I know what that is.

33:07So you are taking sugar cane. You're making different mixes and you're testing it with a refractor and make sure that it's consistent. Sure. I mean, it goes to so many other things. I mean, our bar backs are quite possibly professional pineapple purveyors because, you know, what what the average American views as a as a good looking pineapple is not ready yet. You know, a pineapple shouldn't be green. That's you know, it looks beautiful. We use those for garnish because it's really beautiful. But, you know, we tip them over as soon as they come in, because what everybody thinks that a pineapple grows the opposite way that it actually is presented. So you turn them upside down, let the sugars come down through from the top to the bottom. They will actually speed up that process faster. So when they get to the point where the outside is looking that nice brownish gold color, that's when our bar backs know to use these to juice and these other ones to cut and this to garnish. So there's a whole process that goes into everything and that goes down through every single syrup and mix that we make.

34:10You know, with how we make it so much faster, we take things that have, you know, organic matter in them that will that will fall off in flavor. Those have X amount of days. We can combine all those things. We combine all of our our spirit mixes into another batch. You know, so let's say it's a cocktail that's got two or three different alcohols in it. You've got a base, you got to modify or whatever. And then you have your sugars and your sweeteners. And we basically separate. You've got a sour. You've got your sweet. And then you're strong. And those are how we get to the three touches. And a lot of the sweets, you know, like I said, we use so many different spices, teas that goes into our sweets. And we took the old chef approach and instead of just going teaspoons or cut this up and do a cut cup, it's we'll break it down to grams and weigh it out. Just what chefs have been doing for years that a lot of back a house bar people weren't doing. Well, I think it's kind of one of the things that I try and do every single day in my restaurant is be intentional.

35:14I want nothing to be done because that's the way that it's always been done. I want, and everybody needs to know the reason why everything gets done. When you're intentional with everything you do, then it's, it becomes less about reacting and now becomes a, we're proactively going into a shift, ready to go. And now it's a dance. It's now it's a choreographed dance that we're doing, that we know what the next step is versus we don't know what's going to happen. Hey, we're not ready. When you're intentional with every single thing you do, you have that much more confidence. Correct. How do you teach all of this to people? I mean, how long is the training process? Do you find people that, I mean, I'll let you know when it finishes, there is, there is no end, you know, and it all depends upon the person, you know, what our, our hiring process is, is definitely unique in the fact that we're, we're very strong believers in the fact that you can teach talent, which can't teach personality. So it's one of those things that you can come to us and you can say, listen, I have never worked in this industry before, but I'd really like to do it.

36:17If you got heart and you got drive and you're willing to do it and you're, and put in the time we'll build you into the biggest beast that you can be. So it's, it's more about what, how big is your heart? How big is your interest? I mean, spirit of service. We'll take that over the, uh, experienced bartender any day. Cause then you're trying to break bad habits previously. Yeah. We're always like having to tear them down to build them back up. So it's like, you could give us this laundry list of places you've worked at. And we're like, next, who's this guy? Bob's never done anything, but we're going to donut shop. Let's see it. Let's give Bob a call. No, I referenced this in my last interview. Just got done interviewing, uh, a guy named Sandy Gennaro, who was the, who's the drummer for Cindy Lauper and Joan Jett. And he was just sitting in your chair and we're talking about this. And, um, fuck, I lost my train of thought. What was I saying? Where were we? Come on service. Service heart heart. I said you could train, uh, I. I was talking about hiring, but I said, you can, you can trust.

37:17And, um, you've got to have heart. This kid said in the interview, this is where I'm at. The kids said in the interview, he goes, I've never weighed tables before. And I go, okay, well, this is just kind of a nicer restaurant. We like, I like a little bit of experience. I want you to know some of the terms. And he goes, look, I'm going to make mistakes. I know that right now, but I learned from all of my mistakes. And I, I'm, I'm eager to do that. And I want to do this. And I want to, and he came, went back and I was like, done. Like, let's go. If you're willing to say, I'm not perfect. I don't know, but it's all about attitude. It's about attitude, spirit of service. I don't know what it is, but seeing, seeing a kid grow too, like seeing one of our employees go from that first part, because it can be, it can feel very inundating, like it's an overwhelming situation when you're first walking into these jobs with us. And then it's like getting that point where they're like, they get so, it's so much pride. It's, you know, it's like your kid walking up to you and you're like, look what I drew at school today. These kids are like, taste the syrup. Look what I did it. I did it. You're like, nailed it. Good job. It's great. And that's so rewarding to us to see, to see them accomplish these things.

38:19And, and it's just, it's like exponential build on their personality. And they, you know, they continue to grow and grow and grow and grow. So there's a thing that we've almost said in every employee meeting ever. This is like a big thing for me is I want every one of our staff members to either move up or sideways, never back down. And if that's following your own dream, opening your own bar or whatever it is, it's like, just don't go back to that day job. You hate it. You know, like, or don't just don't stay. We, we don't ever expect anybody to, to be like a lifer with us, you know, because that, to me, I look at that, like, what did we do wrong? If we haven't like also built them as a person as well, like made sure that they're, they're evolving as a person, not, not just as an employee. Cause you know, we kind of look at it like we're like a farm league coach. You know, we're, we're going to give you these skills that you can go on and use to open up your own place or manage your own place or whatever it is, you know, become a brand ambassador.

39:19We, you know, the time at, at three way, I look back on the staff that I had there and the majority of them have gone on to open up incredible places. And that's what we want to do here. We want to give all these kids this skill set that we were given to follow their dreams. Nobody's like, what do you want to do with your life? And that's the thing that we always ask in our meetings with people. We're like, how are you doing? And what's your, what's your goal? You know, no one's goal is like, well, I want to be a server at Pearl Diver for the next 20 years. Why not though? I mean, I see. So that's the thing. Like if you're, but that's what you're saying is very intentional. You want to do is you want people to come in, you want to train them. You want them to be really enthusiastic about it. Then you want them to continually get better and then go on to run their own bar, open their own thing. I mean, it would be, it'd be different if we were like a, if we were like a really huge franchise and we were like, okay, you know, work up through these, these bottom rungs in our company and maybe we'll give you an opportunity to manage the one in Dubai or whatever.

40:22We only have so much room for somebody to grow. Yeah. We're a mom and pop. So it's like, if we're going to build you up to this amazing beast, because we expect this higher level out of you, it's silly to think that once you've obtained that, that you're going to just stay at our mom and pop. Well, I think that's what Benjamin and Max Goldberg are doing, you know, with Josh Hobbiger and you look at all the things that they're doing. They're, they're bringing on another kisser right now. And Julia Sullivan worked for them and then there are people that were going to move on. I don't have a place, but we'll partner with you and you get your own place. Do you guys see that as something in your future and you have these bad asses that want to do their own thing? Like, Hey, look, we'll back you operationally and you go be creative. You know, if we get to that point financially, yeah, I mean, we already have one of our kids is opening up a beginner's luck. So he started with us, chase and we're going to help them out with whatever little things we can. Yeah. I mean, and we're also in the middle right now of building out our, our second concept with our partnership. And what is that? It's called Tiger Bar.

41:28Tiger bar. Yeah. There's a whole lot to go into. Was the old Walden space. It was Hoppsmith or what was it? Not Hoppsmith, but a hop stop hop stop. And then it was Walden. It's next to Mickey's and the Fox. Okay. Um, but to be honest, I always thought it was like such a perfect location. And the fact that nobody's nailed it. It's like, it's like a proving grounds thing that we're going to go in and nail it. Yeah. Yeah. We have to, it's got this like doom. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it seems like it was like built on ancient burial Indian burial grounds or something, but like we're going to go get it. No, that's so awesome. Well, I just, I look at the industry in this staffing issue, right? That we're having, and there's a lot of debate around it as to where, where is everybody? And I'm like, well, they don't want to work for assholes and they don't want to go work at Ruby Tuesday and make the two 13 and work their ass off to have some guy yell at them. Like it's not fun place, but I have this dream that restaurants need to be a place that you can retire from. I think that we need to put the infrastructure around hiring people, offering the right benefits to where I can work here for 2030 years and make a really good living at doing it. Bill, I mean, it's so many people in this industry that the spirit of service, this is their life. This is their community.

42:40These are the people that they go, this is the they go to work to see the same people every day, especially if you work in a community restaurant where you see people in your neighborhood come in a lot. I could see work in there for 20 years and retiring from there, building up a 401k and going, and I want to have like celebrations when Bob, the dishwasher who spent however long, that's just what he wants to do. And I'm happy doing it. I come to work every day. I clock in and do my job, but I want to celebrate those things. And then I don't know, I always feel like if you're going to invest that much time and energy into training and it's fucking expensive to spend that much time and energy to somebody to then just, they're just gone. Like, man, I really, if we could harness that somehow to help us grow, you could take over the world. You could. I mean, the, there is a problem though, with the, I understand the frustration with the hiring and I know Jamie does too. There are two very different types of people that are in our industry that are looking for jobs, especially coming out of the pandemic.

43:42There is one that they're like puddle jumpers. They're, they could, they could be great at their job, but their whole thing is like, they're going to go and join the opening staff of every new spot that has ever opened. And we are at a very interesting reflection point in the hospitality industries history here in Nashville, being that we've got a ton of big city money coming in, opening up a lot of hotel spots, opening up a lot of very expensive build out joints because there's a lot more money coming into the city now. So one of the most difficult things is being able to curate that relationship with someone who wants to work and wants to do a good job, but it's not someone who's just going to dip out because they're like, well, they're making a whole lot more money down at Jay Z's new steak and shake spot on Broadway. You know, and you're like, and it happens all the time. Yeah. I mean, well, when you get pro Bart, those guys downtown, that is, that is a marathon, man. I'm sure I am blown away for sure.

44:46That happens in our city. It's insane. You go downtown, you have a broad winter Friday night and 11 o'clock at night, there's a line outside of honky-donk central to a hundred yards along. And you go, if I'm a bar turn in that building from seven o'clock until two o'clock in the morning, I'm three deep with no break. Whole day. Sure. I mean, that is balls to the wall. I mean, how do you do that? Yeah. I mean, that's a whole other beast. That's just the speed, volume bartending. The, the, we're more on the other side of like, you know, the craft side of it. So, but there's, there's more craft coming into town is what I'm saying. And it's an elevated volume. It's at, it's, it's like at an elevated level of not saying that's different than ours, but the, the money that is being spent at these places. So like, you could go to try it for me to go work. I'm going to, I'm going to make 800 bucks, but a night, but it's like, you're going to, Nashville is one of those weird places. You could literally open up a fucking, a melting hot dog stand and make a ton of money for this first six months.

45:47Cause everybody wants to go and check it out. You know, what's going to stick around for two years. What's going to stay sustainable. Right. Is your goal to be around for six months pillage as much as you possibly can and then burn the place down, take the insurance money and run. That's what's been so funny about staff with on my end, especially with the puddle jumper per se people is like, they're always at the new spot. They always want the most money, but it's so funny. I'll, I'll go to the new opening and I see the same guy always at every brand new opening, same dude. It's like, Hey dude, when are you going to hire me? And it's like, yep, I'm not going to hire you. And then then I get the check and almost everything was for free. Yeah. Don't do that all the time. You know, he's only going to work there for two months. He's going to go to the first two months, make all that cash. And it's like, no, I don't, I don't want that as an employee. So I think there's a middle ground. Yep. In, in. There's a lesson in there by the way. You just was a masterclass right there. If you're hiring like what to do, that was brilliant. We literally skipped by people's resumes that have the, when you see where they've been for the last two years and there's eight different places you've been in the last two years. We're like, what was, it can only, you know, only so many of those spots could be because you didn't like the way it was run, you know, which is natural thing, you know, feeling it out. But yeah, but it also comes down to this thing. I, I just been reading all these interviews about the new hiring process.

47:11And after the pandemic, a lot of people just wanting to do whatever they want. They had all this time off. They want to do what they want. They want to feel very comfortable with that. And I understand that I get that part. But there is a you versus me thing where if you've had 13 jobs in two years, maybe it's you. Was it 13 of your employees or employers or it wasn't you? That's where mirrors are handy. You put that mirror, look in the mirror and start thinking about this. I've got a couple of friends that, you know, right now they want to work at three different jobs so they don't get tired out by one. It's no more or less money. It's just more exciting for them. I was like, why don't you get really good at one job instead of okay at these three? Well, that's a new mentality today that I don't understand. I mean, it's understandable, though, because you came out, you go into the pandemic. I mean, our industry pandemic it. And we're all like, shit, there's a lot of that. It's like, what am I going to do? I, you know, without running a bar, without doing that, which is like occupy the last 24 years of my life.

48:18What would I do if, if I had this got turned upside down? And so then you saw people go, well, I'm going to do this. I'm going to start my own jewelry company. I'm going to make earrings. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that real estate. And I think that that did open up a lot of people's minds as to that idea that I don't have to do this one thing or the other, but it also, at the same time, a lot of the people we're getting now from interviews have art. It's enough time has gone by that they're like, okay, so I had my homemade earring company and I need a fucking job. And you're like, no, it's, it's a real thing. Like, especially if you have a consistent source of income, you're busy, and you're doing the right thing and you're treating people the right way. The grass always looks, you know, I learned this the other day that, you know, the way the blades of grass grow, your neighbor looking at your, if you walk, if you look at your yard from your neighbor's house, your grass always looks greener from an angle. If you look at it directly on, it doesn't look as green that like, that's a real shag carpets you push one way or the other grass looks greener from the right or the left. Yeah. So it's a literal grass is always greener from somewhere else. But I get so many people that are like, dude, I only make 30, I averaged $37 an hour. And I'm like, ah, it's like, that's pretty good.

49:28It's like, I need to make more money. And I go, we need to work more hours. You only work 12 hours a week. We got, you can work 40 and make 70 K. Yeah. But they're like, well, no, you guys are, I'm good downtown and make a thousand dollars a night. And I go by all means, if you want to go find a place to park, get there and then just get your ass handed to you by tourists who don't give a fuck about you or, or the establishment, don't respect the place that you're in that just do not care. They're there to get wasted. They don't care if the drink is good. They don't care. And if it, you know, the probably, you probably get tourists that come in that want a daiquiri and they go, this isn't what I want. I want, I want their shitty stuff. You know, like, no, no, that would you rather make a thousand dollars a night and spend $200 a day on therapy? Like no thanks. 99% of the time they come back and they go, yeah, it wasn't it. Sustainability is the, is the name of the game too. You know, we, our staff does well and they consistently do well and they get treated well and they all work well together. We don't allow any like inner turmoil, the factions that build up within the industry, you know, like front of the house for spec house. No server doesn't want like, we don't let that happen.

50:37It is somewhat of a family mentality. Like our staff are, and this happens in most jobs that you work where you become friends with your staff, but it's like extra at ours. I mean, they're throwing parties together. Yeah, we were in New Orleans and they were like messaging on a group thread that one of the people just got a job there and they're like, I just wanted to say thanks to everybody that's working here, you know, and been showing me the ropes. I'm going to invite you guys all over for, for brunch and all of a sudden it's like, and it's healthy. We don't want, we're not looking at each other going, Oh crap. No one's going to make it to work. You know what I mean? Oh, it's good. You know, and I see my friends that, you know, take a break from the cocktail world or anything, go downtown. I mean, they age like 10 years in a six month. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like pretty quick. It's like a presidency. It's crazy. I, yeah, yeah. I went down a cousin in town in California and we were working and I said, do you, he's like, we went to see Bill Burr at the arena. And after the show was out, he's like, can we just go walk around? Like, yeah, let's go. I don't drink. So like, that's not really my scene.

51:42I'm also 43 years old and married kids. Like 43, you're a pup. I know. Right. But it's definitely not my scene. I'm always the oldest person. Jason Aldean's, you know, that is nothing for me. It's really funny that I used to love Broadway. Yeah. I grew up here too. I was 16 years old cruising second Avenue. I mean, we used to go second Avenue was the spot, man. Graham central station. Spaghetti factory when I was a kid. I mean, that was market street pub. Yeah. The market strip right there. So amazing. Mulligan's. I mean, so we just, the darts in the back at Mulligan's shit. That was the, we just had one of the world's best bars, two schmucks from Spain to a pop up at Pearl diver a couple of Sundays ago. And super fun. The next day they go, Hey, I want to go out Saturday night. We go all over town. I mean, every, every one of my favorite cocktail bars, dive bars. It was great. Um, and they go, and everywhere was kind of dead at the time. So it's like, Oh, it's weird Saturday night kind of dead. Maybe it's early. And they go, we want to go see the, the Broadway at there. You know, there, there's a person from France, a person from Spain, UK, like all from, all from out of the country. And they're like, yeah, let's go see the bowls.

52:54And whatever is like, Oh, there's no bowls, but I did know that the ones in the, in the, that you can ride, right? Yeah. Anything. So you had to take a wild beaver. I mean, is there one there? Yes. Oh, I don't know. So it's fun. It's awesome. You know, to watch people do it. Imagine everybody always needs like a night, maybe to see Broadway, maybe, maybe a night does just see it. But it was a Saturday night and I have just never seen our city like that. And it was one of those things where all night long we're going to all these nice cocktail bars. You're like, Oh, your city is so pretty. All the people are beautiful. And then you go down there and you're in the middle of Walmart, basically. Oh man. It's like girls gone wild. Like just, I mean, it's crazy. And they're like, this is, and like they're from Barcelona on, on a very busy street. Like they're, they're bars on a super, one of the busiest streets in Barcelona. They're like, I've never seen anything like this in the world. And they're like, this is gross. And, and we've never had a wait in line to go to Robert's before.

53:55And it's like, there's a line to get in a Robert. And I was like, everything's weird now. Yeah, it's no, I mean, that's, I went down there. I went and saw Jack White at the, at ascend. I love ascend amphitheater, by the way. I think that's just, cause the starwood is gone. It's nice to have a grass. You can kind of walk around. It's a gray spot, but you leave there and you're just walking down the middle of the street of Broadway. You're like, what fucking city is this? Cause this is not the Nashville that I agree. And it's just people coming to town to get fucking wasted, like blackout drunk, hook up and then leave. Yeah. We actually had a, had a pretty good meeting with the mayor about some of that stuff. And it's like, don't get me wrong. Broadway is a historic spot. It's, it's a, it's such an important part of Nashville and its history. And a lot of the bars our friends work at, some of them own them. Like, I mean, if I'm, he knows if I'm, if you're going to get me down on Broadway cause I'm somewhat of an introvert and don't really go out very often anymore. If I'm going to Broadway, I'm going to meet you at Robert's and you're going to go somewhere else.

54:56I'm going to say, I'll meet you back here, Robert's or Layla's. I'll go to either of those two. And that's about, that is it. Needless to say, it was the biggest thing we've been talking about, you know, with the mayor, different things is it's like the first time, like somewhat embarrassed by Nashville. You're going to get to hear exactly what Jamie means by that right after these words from our sponsors. We absolutely love partnering with Sharpies bakery. Erin Mosso has been selling bread, fresh baked bread to locally owned and operated restaurants six days a week for 36 years. Yes. Her father started the company 36 years ago and Erin took it over five years ago and it is doing amazing things. I have so many guests that come in the studio that are like, I love Sharpies. They saved me so much time and the bread is so good. So we, we've got round buns, specialty round buns, dinner rolls, hoagies, baguettes. They do cheesecake. They do flourless chocolate torts.

55:56They do specially loaf breads and regular loaf breads and bullies bullies B O U L E S sourdough, long Tuscan wheat, multigrain. They got everything. You should go check them out at sharpies.com. That is Sharpie as C H A R P I E R S.com, or you should give them a call at 615-356-0872 supporting local is so damn important. And Erin Mosso in all of our friends over at sharpies bakery do that daily. Give her a call right now. I think one of the most overlooked things that you can do on a P and L, which is your profit and loss statement is dish machine and chemicals. It's just one of those things you don't focus on until it's too late. Let Jason Ellis from super source come in and do an audit of what you're currently doing and why you're doing it. His number is 771-337-1143. We believe here at Nash restaurant radio that every single thing that you do should be done intentionally in a restaurant and allowing some company to come in and just fix your dish machine without you knowing what's really happening is exactly what we're talking about.

57:06The thing Jason does the best is he can help educate you on exactly what's going on with all of your dish machines and chemicals. He can do staff trainings to understand why you're using what you're using again to be intentional. They don't make you sign any type of contract. They are week to week and can get you a brand new dish machine with three free months of dish machine rental. You need to check them out. Go to Nashville restaurant radio.com click the sponsors tab and then you will see super source. Click that tab for a special, or give Jason Ellis a call at 770-337-1143. Did you know the number one cause of methane or greenhouse gases in landfills is your food waste? Restaurants waste so much food. All the food people don't eat all of the scraps that come from all of your prep. It all gets put in a dumpster and then gets buried in a landfill and as it decomposes creates methane gas. Well, thank God Jeffrey Ezell and his brother Clay have come up with the compost company. You can now compost your food waste. They take it to their farm.

58:08They create organic soil out of it. They then sell that to whole foods as well as local farmers and landscapers. So it's literally coming full circle in your community. If you're a restaurant owner or manager, you need to be calling Jeffrey Ezell at 615-866-8152 and they will set you up with the green bags and the green trash cans that they will come empty twice a week. If you work in a restaurant and you would love to have this option, instead of putting food into a trash can, you can start composting. Tell your manager to call Jeffrey Ezell that 615-866-8152 or follow him at the compost company on Instagram. You know, like what's happening there on that six blocks. Exactly. Because I just went to literally some of the most beautiful bars in our city and no one was there. That's one of the reasons why I started this podcast. Yeah. I, so I used to, I had a heart surgery and I started driving Uber. I told him why my dad was driving a Reez retired and he was telling me stories. I was like, that sounds like a lot of fun. I want to do it. So that's what, I had this bill and I said, honey, I want to pay for this. She let me do it, but I would drive people, I'd pick up the airport and they would be like, we're in Nashville. And I would go, yeah, this is awesome.

59:17I'd love to tell you about Pelican and pig and all these other restaurants. Go to East Nashville when you want to eat or go to the, you know, I've talked about the nations or go to Germantown. What's good on Broadway? Nothing. Go, go to the farmhouse or etch or something. Do not eat on Bravo. I mean, maybe you can go merchants, but like, there's there's don't, don't go get barbecue there. Go get barbecue somewhere else. Shotgun Willie's is fantastic. Just go to East Nashville to eat and then go to Broadway to do your blackout drunk stuff because a hundred percent. Yeah, I would just love to see less not like less of the Nash Vegas mentality. You know, this we're, we're losing the cultural fabric that made Nashville really special from when I came, when I moved here, when did you, how long have you lived here? I moved here in 2009. OK, so you mean you've been here for a while, been here for a while. Yeah, I grew up here. So I moved from New York City. So there was like, I, you know, it was no stranger to seeing the full spectrum of hospitality and what it offers.

01:00:19And I was really excited about a lot of the the slower southern aspects of it. And I just feel like over the years, a lot of that's just been kind of bled out and commercialized for the sake of capitalizing on a ton of ton of, you know, tourism. But there and but there is still a fantastic nucleus. There is of locally owned and operated restaurants in Nashville. And they don't get enough credit. Russia just crush it. This is the weirdest thing that we brought up. You know, and some some of those major meetings is like the average tourist now comes to Nashville for four days. Back in the day, they would go. And this is when Husk was the option. And Lachlan Table 308 for drinks, Patterson House. And then they would go spend one day on Broadway. Now that tourist is coming here for four days and staying four days on Broadway. The difference is we can advertise to those people, but we don't want those people in our place anyway. So like we're kind of at a catch 22.

01:01:20That's a good point. Yeah, they come down. They use they use the entire city like a toilet bowl. That's what I'm saying. They don't give. I don't respect the establishments at all. It's just a and they come into your place. And well, we're luckily we're actually really fortunate in being far enough away from downtown that you have to kind of you're making a point to come and see us. And I mean, knock on wood, but we've been up in four years. We don't have fights. No one, you know, gets accosted. I take great pride in the fact that a lot of groups of women feel it's one of their very few comfortable spots where they can go and hang out without, you know, having some guy berate them. And like all this stuff, it's a very comfortable spot for everybody of all ages and it's very vibey. And that's important. All ages 21, all ages over 21, all ages over 21. You can bring your dog if I like it. I think that's a good segue. I would love to. I don't know why my camera just zoomed out on you guys. I'm like, you're fuzzy now. Let's walk through it. Let's walk through a Pearl Diver experience.

01:02:21Yeah, sure. Because I told you, I've walked in there one time. I was at I think it was at Pelican and Pager. So that's right next door, right? Yep. And I was and I walked in just to kind of check it because I've never been. I was like, I just want to walk in and and see it for sure. And it's beautiful. And the cabana is out back. And I was like, this is really cool. Like I would want to hang here if I walk in. So let's just let's just walk through the experience. I'm I live in East Nashville. I've never been there before. And I don't live in East. I just want to go check it out and walk in the front door. Do I have to have a reservation? You can, but you don't have to do. I don't have to. Not at all. Is it where how do you do reservations? There's open table. Is it talk or talk? OK, you're on talk. All right. So you go to talk. You make the reservation. You walk in. Hey, yeah, we have a reservation for two. Or can you and you can can you rent a cabana out back? Yeah. So those are on our talk. It's one of our experiences. Yeah. So there's two different cabanas to choose from, depending on your group size. And those are the only tables that we have a minimum at.

01:03:25Besides that, everything's good to go. OK, so I sit down. I'm going to give them I'm given a menu. Correct. I don't really know a lot about cocktails. Do you guys do? Everybody's versed in educating you on what you like. And so I don't need to feel intimidated by the fact this is the number eight best cocktail bar in America. No, I just walk in and I think we did a even good job. Like so our menu is broken down to classics to our signatures. But there's even little pictures of what glassware it comes in, because Lord knows people freak out about what type of glass man is using. Yeah, guys get real, real insecure. I don't want a martini glass. Yeah. Is that the weirdest thing? Yes. I mean, we used to laugh about it. We were like, I mean, because we dealt with that a lot at 308. It was like, can I get in a more manly glass? And I just always want to carry like a big titty mug and like, here's your here's your bacon straw. You know, it's like, come on, buddy. I swear, anytime a man would ask for a different glass for that reason and not specify, I gave him the more.

01:04:25Yeah. If there's such thing as a more twisty straw and the whole thing, you're like, they're like, well, we said a different glass. I go, this is a different glass. Yeah. The martini one always cracks me up as like a cocktail nerd. So I'm like, they're like, can I get something more manly? And you're like, little do you know how incredibly sexist the martini glass was by nature? Like, this was a drink that, you know, you look back for men, the fifties. You would never be a woman who's like, I want a cocktail. Like, you can have a Tom Collins and you'll be happy about it. And it's like the guy's like, well, I'm going to have a three martini lunch. And it's like, so it's like James Bond. I mean, this was fucking James Bond drink. Yeah, exactly. Literally, Coop's like based off of like King's chalices. Like these weren't for men. Yeah. The coop was designed to be the shape of a titty. It's like name a more masculine cocktail. That is so funny. But it's all bullshit. So but yes, to go back to your question. The our staff make it very comfortable and very approachable. And so does the menu. You know, you sit down and you can you can have a drink if you want.

01:05:28Don't have to have one either. We have great food. We have great ambience. We have a great spot for you and your friends to chill out. Well, let's talk about your food, because I looked at the menu. Yep. And it makes sense now. It didn't make sense to me before we had talked. Yeah, I like that. I'm like, OK, so it's got some Cuban influence, some Asian influence, some South American influence. God, they're all over the place with this thing. Sugarcane in the cafe sugarcane and agave. But now I see now like it works. OK, so that's the menus based upon your travels. Yep. Amazing food that you've had over your travels and you kind of brought it back. Everything has also become kind of one of the coolest sharing spots, because since there is so much different things that hit, I mean, a table orders a lot. You have the poo poo platter, too. Yeah, buddy. I mean, that's like that's what I would get right there. I have that on there. It's a lot. It's a big undertaking. But that was one of my favorite memories as a kid, you know, on our birthday. Growing up, it was like the kids got to choose where they wanted to go for the birthday. And I was always like, I want to go get Chinese food.

01:06:30I love Chinese food. And it's like August Moon in Bellevue was my spot when I was a kid. Yeah, nice. I missed the Titian feast at Omni Hut. So bad. There's not a birthday that goes by now that I don't wish it was still open. I know it's great. All the reminiscing days of being so good, young and free and innocent. And it's a volcano bowl. We've got a good amount of food for people that want to try some different stuff. And it just kind of makes sense with with the area, you know. And we we try to carry that aesthetic that comes through from just the drinks into the food and then also into the decor as well. You know, we the four of us did this together. We don't have we didn't hire an architect to or a designer to do anything. We literally got out the hammers and the tape measures and the buckets of paint. And we did it ourselves in something that we take a lot of pride in, for sure. Yeah. Where do you source your sugar cane? Like, where do you where do you say pineapples you get? Where do you where do you who are your vendors? Who do you guys buy from? I like to shout people out.

01:07:30We actually cannot get those from vendors. We go around and shop for some of that shit all day. We have another partner. His name's Corey. He shops a lot. He's probably shopping right now. That's why. Hello, Corey. He's probably listening in the car. And every every Mexican mart, all the K and S is. Yeah. Can you get familiar with K and S markets? Yeah, that's that's our big sugar cane spot. And then we've got, you know, over time, like it was at a fresh market as well. There's a couple of spots that we start to kind of establish a relationship with, like, hey, man, let us know when they get in. But we have we have a lot of products like that. You know, some bulk stuff we can get through creation, through GFS, but for the most part, everything you guys use GFS and creation. Hell, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's two of my the GFS is my title sponsor. Oh, nice. They're amazing people. You guys say positive things about them, please. I mean, we positive things. They're awesome. Yeah, they're great. And creation also, their response to the show, too. Awesome.

01:08:30They just make it. I mean, creation specifically, too, makes it so much easier on on Corey and and those ordering to be able to do that on the fly. You know, creation for our cocktails is is huge. But like, again, we use so many weird things. It is the two, three times a week going to the Mexican Marts, the K and S is because it's not really products we need in bulk as well. It's just kind of smaller quantities. You know, I've been talked about K and S market on the show. That's one of those spots that makes us so happy when we go to our menu. Jamie and I are like, it's time to do a new menu. It's like, let's go to K and S and we just walk up and down the aisle. It's like, what the hell is this? I never had to buy two of these. What is this guy? Long Chinese broccoli. Let's try that shit. Yeah. There's so I'm going to let people in on this. I think we should let people in on what K and S market is, because if you ever want to meet chefs, I'm not doing well. If you want to meet chefs, that's where they are. Chefs are the difference between the two as well, which is a really important thing for people to understand. There's one on Nolensville Road, and the one on Nolens Road is the original.

01:09:31And it is funky. You walk in and it smells. My wife gets terrified to go in there every time because she's like, I swear, every time we walk in, that's when the guy's clubbing the fish. Exactly. They have live tilapia, live eel. Sometimes you'll get there and there's blue crab. You never know what they're going to have. They'll say, look, we got in crawfish today. You're like, sweet, I'll buy. Give me five pounds or whatever it is like. You can just get anything. But their produce selection is beyond like you're going to find stuff there that you get jackfruit. I got it. We can go buy jackfruit tomorrow. You know, you can do there's so many different things they have there. Plus every single possible thing you can imagine that you just can't find it. And it's like the Kroger World Isle that they have. But it's like 25 isles. Each isle is a different world. Yeah, it's incredible. And so there's one on Charlotte. There's one on Nolensville. It's kind of the OG. You go there and the produce section is smaller. Then you go to the one on Charlotte, which used to be the old Kroger. If you didn't know the little turn in on how to get there and you go up this little hill. Oh, yeah.

01:10:34And there's never like the parking lots not full. Like there's not a lot of people there. But that one is it's I call it nicer. It's nicer. It's definitely it's definitely where I think that they've put the majority of their focus, because it definitely has, I would say, threefold the amount of produce, everything. Well, they're also clearly supplying every restaurant around it, because that is the international. Oh, yeah. Corey, it's a point of having to go to Canis way more than he needs to because he gets to go to Lucky Bamboo. This is right next door. Or via photos right there. Can Gang. Yeah, I mean. And then it's cheap, like the pricing is really good. You can go to Whole Foods or any of these other places and buy the exact same stuff and spend three times as much. So Canis has the most amazing produce selection. It's really inexpensive. If you want to buy a cow head, you can go to Canis market. You want to like, where do I buy a beef tongue, like a whole tongue? You can just go there. They'll cut it out of the cow's mouth from the head that they've got it. Some of the if you just want to walk around and see some cool stuff.

01:11:35We're kind of ridiculously versed in that stuff, because I'm like thinking, you're saying Captain, I'm like, no, I'd say I'd go to a Mexican market. I have a couple over there. There's one in Harding over near the San San Luis Tocarrillo spot. That's where you're going to get your cow tongue. Why do I know these things? Well, I knew these things as I worked for Creation Gardens. So I was the original managing partner for Creation Gardens back in 2005. That's awesome. Yeah, it's kind of started it here in town. And thank you. Well, their only facility that I was in Louisville. So Louisville was the main and then a truck drove down every day. I met that truck off Long Hollow Pike in my little my little Creation Gardens van. We pulled the truck up and I had three local trucks. We parked behind another market that let us park our trucks. There would meet ass in to ass in with a put a pallet transfer jack in between the two. We would hand stack the pallets on each individual truck at five o'clock. The drivers would go. We had next to walkie talkies. So I talked to the high brand and I'm over here at Stony River. And they got no asparagus on the truck. I'm like, all right, I'll go take care of it.

01:12:36Well, then I had to go find 11 pounds of asparagus. They shorted me from Louisville, whatever it was. Right. I didn't have a warehouse. Yeah. So I had to start getting creative. So I would go to Canis and I would go to Costco and I would go to all these different places. But I would smoke in mirrors. Yeah, I got that for you, chef. No problem. Then I would just go buy it. So when Whole Foods opened in Green Hills, that was like the greatest day of my life, because well, now I can go buy fiddlehead ferns and I can get chanterelle mushrooms and everything. Just when somebody needs a pound of chanterelles, no problem. I got you. I would just go there and buy it and take it to them. And it was like a whole... I hustled, man. I was working my ass off. But I was at Canis Market all the time. And I would see every day like, hey, chef, what's going on? What are you doing here? Hey, if you bought from me, I'd come get it for you. And like, no shit. And that's how we did it. We talk about that still with Corey, because we're always trying to find a way to eliminate the amount of, quote unquote, hopscotch. And that he has to do all the time. And it was just like, I'm still surprised to this day that there isn't somebody who's made a company out of asking all of the different chefs around town and bars, what do you need? And I'll make you run the restaurant depot.

01:13:48You know, because we all know that no one must stand in line at a restaurant depot. It's on Uber Eats or Instacart. Did they do it? It's on Instacart. Yeah. Depot is on Instacart. Wow. That's cool. I've always restaurant depot has always scared the shit out of me. Yep. For a number of reasons. But one is I just see people putting 400 pounds of raw chicken in their car in a hundred degree day and driving 45 minutes. And I go, that shit's just not safe. Like, don't do that. Also not consistent. I wish they were. They definitely were a lot better in years past. But now it's you know, you don't know if they're going to have the things that they used to have. And you can't call them up. And there's no catalog. So you just show up and you're like, we don't got it. Like, yeah, great. I thought I drove all the way down here, got traffic. I need eight clam shells of mint and you were my saving grace. And now I'm screwed. I ordered, speaking of like how I just plugged them on Instacart, but I ordered six things. Instacart for Lucky's yesterday. And the driver gets there and go, they don't have one of these things here that you sent me here for.

01:14:51It's like that's a bummer. I was like, hey, at least you went and figure it out. And I didn't have to. That's why you go to KNS. I swear to God, they're there. They got it. Consistent place. You should have seen, though, the first time that when we were getting ready to open Pearl and we made our first initial bar run and we showed up. And we're like, we're going to need that sugar cane. And they're like, how much of it? Like all of it. And they're like, what? What are these two white guys need with sugar cane? And they're like, pull it. Pull your car up back. So like there we are loading like bundles upon bundles into like our car and loading this little sedan up with with tons of sugar cane. We're driving back, right? I hope there's no bugs in order to do this. They're just like, see, crazy guy, we left. We're like, can we get some more of this next week? And they're like, no, that was our year's supply. That's what we got, man. We negotiate. You just took it all. I was that way. I was I was like a local celebrity for like cashiers at grocery stores because I'd walk in like any I'm getting these 300 pounds of avocados.

01:15:56And I'm putting I got I got a palette of strawberries in the back. She's like, what? What are you going to do with those strawberries? My favorite company. They go, what are you going to do with all this? Corey's biggest nightmare. He deals with it all the time. This is all there's always somebody in the checkout line. They're like, what's going to do with all them pineapples? So I can drink. Well, no, I tell them I go, I like to cut them up and I bathe in pineapple juice. It's good for my pores. And they look at you like you are the craziest person in the world. And it makes my day every time like we could hang out. I'm I'm minding my own business with them. What are you doing? I don't know. But like there's a million things. But everybody would always ask you, I'm like, what are you what are you doing with those 40 cases of mangoes? I'm like, well, they're ripe. And I just always need ripe mangoes. And I saw them. So I thought I would just buy them. I'm going to send them to Louisville tomorrow. And they're going to sell them back to me. Like, I don't I'm tired of getting green mangoes. I need ripe mangoes. So I saw them and buying them. So I'm doing which they always had ripe mangoes at Canis Market. The other secret, the other secret that I always found at Canis Market, Thai basil.

01:16:56Oh, yeah. Oh, that's where we get our basil. That's where we get our basil from Canis Market. On point, it actually looks right. It does. It's not like that greenish brown with the tiny little thin leaves. And when it's red, it's like it's gone like full bloom already. No, they got to get it. So there you go. Canis Market, you can sponsor the show later. But we're letting you letting this is this show is about the people. We got to let the people know that Canis Market is there. And you should go support them. Don't go on the days we need to go. Don't buy the stuff we need. And I think that Corey is his name. Yeah, we have to. You don't look for too many solutions for Corey. I think he likes doing it. Well, you don't even know him and you're so on point. I think I think that's like the thing he looks forward to, because at some point you go, I'm tired of this shit. I didn't like doing it. I had to find like I had a lot of other things. I was the only guy in Nashville going through an economic downturn. I didn't have time to do that kind of shopping. Thirty eight thousand dollars. That's what I spent my last year. Yeah, they're on just shopping stuff. Holy shit. And I think you nailed the core thing.

01:17:58I actually hope he listens to this because this is what he does. He'll bitch and bitch and bitch. And like we pay him a little extra as a partner to go on these runs. So then we're like, all right, cool. He loves it. We'll go. Cool. We'll get somebody else to do it. And then you go, wait, wait, wait, wait. Every time, dude, like every time we're ready, like, because it'll be two months of bitch and we're like, we'll get somebody else and then he won't say anything for two weeks. Like, no, I got it. I got it. And to to really put the chair at the top, you've got to understand when you're visualizing him that he speaks like Larry David. So it's like, yeah, we'll do that right now. It's like, it's absolutely ridiculous. He's like, he's like a car that carries all the product. He has a truck that is the trying to pest. He's like, he'll be loading stuff in and I'll look at him. I'm like, why the long face? And he's like, I just knocked over a five gallon bucket of duck sauce all over my brand new carpet. Yeah, that's that. That would be a thing to do. I purposely got a smaller car. Say, I can't I can't go make those runs.

01:19:01I don't know. You're like, I'm like, I'm a smart car. What is this like? Yeah, I'm smart. Yeah. Tell me about Lucky's. So Lucky's a bar that I'm a co-owner of in Wedgwood, Houston. OK, just a little neighborhood bar. We do hot dogs doing pretty well and then literally just party pizza. It's awesome party pizza. We've been open for honey, for a little honey, the hot honey bar, the hot honey pepperoni. Yeah. So we've been open up for a little over a year. We won Best Neighborhood Bar last year. Really upsetting some people. Yeah. I mean, to be to be a new bar. Neighbors? Yeah. Yeah. Specifically, specifically like neighbors. Yeah. I don't know how I knew that. And it has become the service industry hangout. Yeah. I mean, straight up. I guess it's one of a few dive bars per se that has really catered to that. I've done a really good job, I think, of doing parties with the right brands.

01:20:06And we actually do a T-shirt release every week during the summer. We did 18 weeks last year and did 12 weeks this year where we do a new shirt every week and print 50 of them. And it is they sell in the first hour. You don't have any extras laying around. I'm like, I want one. This was the last one of this season. I did it last night and it sold out in 11 minutes. Wow. So it's awesome. That's bad ass. It's great. Yeah, I was it's it's been the bartender hang for sure. Oh, you know what that used to be here in town? What would you say that used to be? Let's say 10 years ago. Ten years ago was actually 308. Well, as far as a dive, a dive bar. Yeah. If you're an East, it was three crow. Right. I mean, if back, I used to go to Sam's in the village, Sam's in the village was like two for one Tuesdays, like every night at like 11 o'clock, 1130. It was just like everybody just started coming in. That bar was just full of chefs and bartenders and servers and just people just going, what's up, man?

01:21:10Like it was just like a nod. Like, yeah, that here we are again, like Cajun can't go home yet. You go in on a Tuesday, two for one Tuesday, Cajun pepperoni pizza and do ones all night. And it was all service industry. The barbecue chicken pizza that I just remember. Like I had a I had a condo right behind there for a while. And those pizzas I just got. They're so damn good. I just I hate what happened to Hillsborough Village. I'm still I'm still salty about Hillsborough Village right now because the villager, which is still there, thank God. But like Jackson's and Bosco's and Sam's like I just know. I remember Herschel dinner was at Sunset Grill, Sunset Grill. Yeah, it's just not the same thing anymore. Yeah, it's definitely definitely changed. It's totally different. Villager and you know, I kind of like the new Belcourt, but I miss the old Belcourt. But it's still the Belcourt. Belcourt still is doing their same thing. And I love that. There's a Asian place on that road beside it called Meat Noodles. Yeah. On Belcourt, Meat Noodles is really good.

01:22:13OK, I've never been there. Yeah. Meat Noodles. Yeah. M.E.E.T. I've seen it on my Uber Eats. Yeah, I have never ordered from Uber Eats one time in my life. Oh, boy. I never done it. I never done it or any. I've never ordered food from my wife at Door Dash like a week ago. She's like, this is really easy. I didn't do it until I recently moved out towards like the Brentwood area. And all of a sudden, the Uber Eats options were just so huge. And there's all these spots because it's like I'm kind of equidistant between like Franklin and Green Hills and Nolensville and Antioch, all these things. And so it's like the list of options. I mean, it's it's a veritable rainbow of flavor that I have to choose from. And you're like, well, let's figure out. Let's try this place before. It's how I fell in love with King Market. It's like, oh, man, man. Now we have a a tie you saw over there in Brentwood, too. Yeah. Well, she's opening up a new spot in five points.

01:23:15I believe she I thought you were going to say she's opening a new spot every five weeks, which is what it seems like right now. She is on fire coffee shops. Yeah. And I don't think it's going to be a tie is saying I think she's doing something different, but it was where the old burger up used to be. Oh, really? Cool. That's a great spot for her. That'll be nice. She's one of the most authentic people in the entire city. Unapologetic. This is who I am. And I love it. I had her on the show. We were talking. I said, so what do you like to eat? She's like, Brandon, no bullshit. I like I like Burger King. She's like, I eat my food all the time. But like, I just like to fast food. I want fast food. I want McDonald's on Burger King. I love a chicken sandwich. It's like, holy shit. That's like somebody that doesn't work in the industry that most chefs when they get home, what they eat is cereal. Yeah. You know, people I blow people. I drink whiskey cokes. Yeah. People are always like, we're kind of crazy. Jamie's like, I like a whiskey coke. Whiskey and coke. There's there's not really a better combo. That's it. Well, it's funny because I don't like Coca-Cola and I don't like whiskey.

01:24:17Yeah. Give me a whiskey coke and I will be with you all night long. So I never I would never drink a whiskey coke because I like both of those things individually. And so I would chase if I like was drink. If I drink, I do a coke back. But I would never do them together because like Red Bull in in Jaeger. Yeah. I was a heavy drinking during the Red Bull Jaeger days. Those are past us, right? Aren't they? Yeah, I don't know. It is huge now. Oh, really? They've made a really big motion to they got to dispel that bad stigma that they are bombs. They got in with bartender. They did the smartest thing they could probably ever do and actually get in with like craft the craft side of bartending. I go through it because again, lucky is a huge service industry bar. I go through over a case of Jaeger a week. Wow. If I drink a Red Bull to this day, and I buy a case for every holiday we have at the restaurant, I bring a case of Red Bull. And if I drink one by the off chance, I drink one. I taste Jaeger in it. I can't drink a Red Bull without going.

01:25:18Yeah. Like with like recoiling from like like PTSDs from so many nights, you just be like, oh, another round of Jaeger bombs. Like, here we go. Like, I think Jaeger is the new for net to it. It's a new bartender's handshake. I mean, I think it's a noble quest that they've gone on because it was the brand itself was just so bastardized for so long with, you know, the terrible college situation. You know, a lot of a lot of frat boys and stuff like that. And the they did like he said that they they reached a moment where they kind of grabbed a hold of some of the cocktail industry that were high up and that wanted to kind of turn it back on its hold on its shoulder, because at the beginning it was a degestive. It was, you know, it was designed to be to be drank, to settle the stomach. Yeah, the whole thing. And then it just kind of turned into this, you know, terrible, terrible thing that happened through the 80s and the 90s. And yeah, they had a they had a wonderful party at Tales of the Cocktail. Yeah, they did. Oh, they're one of the kickoff parties for that.

01:26:20And they it was really good. They did it well. They did a good job of like kind of presenting it as going about it with like a like responsible drinking Jaeger kind of thing, which has been cool. Not everybody plays by those rules, but, you know. Well, I like that you brought it back around to the tales of the cocktail tales of the cocktail. Yeah, this year was the 20th anniversary of it. How we started the interview. Yeah. And we never even got into it. We've been we've been talking for an hour and almost 20 minutes. So they go do that. Shit. Yeah, this is crazy. I've had so much fun having you guys in here. Thanks for having us. Some of my favorite interviews are where I don't know a whole lot about. I'm just generally just so fascinated by what you guys are doing. I think it is so awesome. If you're out there listening, go check them out. Pearl Diver dot com is where you can go and kind of learn about them. You can see the menu, kind of check it out at first. Oh, what you'd want to do before you go anywhere. That's what people do these days. They go to talk to CK and you can make a reservation following you on social medias at Pearl Diver.

01:27:22Do you guys have personal socials? I want to talk to Pearl Diver. Is there other Pearl Diver restaurants? Yeah, I mean, there's a Pearl Diver. I think there's a Pearl Diver. The bar named Pearl Diver in Australia. Yeah, it's Pearl Diver something, though. Yeah, we put in Nashville because our our goal is to eventually have a couple of Pearl Divers in other cities. So tell me the genesis of the name Pearl Diver. I mean, obviously, I know. Sure. Pearl Divers. But why name a restaurant that way? Yeah. So there's a couple of things. I think when we were first trying to find the perfect name, we were finding out all these older bars that were named after drinks. And it was a drink that we were serving in it that really kind of tied our concept together. Back in our the beta testing where we were doing these Tiki Tuesdays that threw away, he and I were putting together with our with our buddy Brandon and we were putting together like a 10 drink list every Tuesday of of tropical concoctions that we were kind of digging through books to find to present just like a fun Tuesday night. Yeah.

01:28:26And one of them was the was a Pearl Diver. Beautiful drink by Tiki legend Don the Beachcomber. And so it's kind of funny that, you know, we're not a Tiki bar, but the genesis of where that that conversation came from. It was there. And then we just kind of decided that to branch the concept out into a more sustainable and more appreciative and authentic spot. Awesome. Yeah. And then also there's, you know, we we definitely like the the idea of drawing attention to some of the less attractive facts about the way that Pearl Divers were were treated in Japan as well, you know, because we're definitely very much an equal playing field for people. And we're we're big advocates towards every rights that we don't constantly doing a lot of events like, you know, when everything went down right before the pandemic here in town, we were, you know, out on the roofs, built rebuilding people's roofs and we were throwing a lot of benefits for everything and every chance that we get a chance to take our position in the community and be able to give back.

01:29:40Yeah, it sounds that way. I mean, that's a point for a place like yours that serves the community. I mean, I think that you, you know, I you say you live in Britain and I have Maribor restaurant, you know, and one of our goals or kind of our mission is we want to nourish the community. Right. So not just feed you, say to you, like when you leave, you feel better, like you feel whole, like I feel like I came in one way and when I left, I feel nourished, you know, which is everything you need to leave happier than you were. And it sounds like that's kind of what you're doing. We want to do that with our community as well. For sure. Yeah, I love that about places that don't take advantage of that to help out others when they need it. I don't understand the point of it. I mean, we did over was it almost like 20,000 meals over covid free for service industry out of work. Yeah. And I mean, that was more work than running the restaurant itself, because I we were reaching out to every brand, every sponsor, every brand, every single day being like, hey, will you buy 200 meals with us today? Yeah. And I'll give them out to our service industry in need.

01:30:41And I did that every day. It was five days a week. We did it and we did it for probably 12 weeks straight. And we I mean, we we kept people fed. And, you know, if you're if you're building a business, a small business in a in a local community and you can't do that, what are you doing? Well, guys, I'm going to I'm going to I hate to end this. It's OK. We'll be back for Tiger Bar later. Good. I mean, I'm serious. Like any time you guys want to come back, I think you guys could host your own podcast. We could talk forever. We could definitely talk forever. You just hear our meetings definitely run way beyond. I think that I think there's interesting. I think we've got a show idea here of like travels with Jamie and Ben. Like, tell us about where you've been and find other people and kind of not compare notes, but just talk about cool shit that you guys have experienced. I mean, Jamie is probably I'm very fortunate in not only having him as one of my best friends, but as my partners, but he's also an incredible asset to travel with because he's one of those people that as soon as you touch down, he's like, hey, listen, man, I got like 400 pins and places we got to go to.

01:31:47We got to hit this place, especially this place. I've already contacted these people. They know we're coming. This is happening. And sometimes I'm like, because I'm the polar opposite. I'm like, man, I just kind of I'm still stoned. I just want to like take my time, walk around, maybe check out the vibes. He's like, yeah, but do we check out the vibes later? We got to get over here. All right, let's do it. I mean, it's it's my goal to go to every city and be like, hey, what are we doing good? What do we need? Yeah. And now, again, I think of when we were open and Pearl was to what was Nashville missing? We weren't missing a bushwhacker, a burger of drinking, a mason jar, another whiskey bar, another whiskey, you know, like there is so much shit that we just keep on regurgitating. And it's like Pearl's got to be different. It's got to be something we're missing. And to be honest, like right now was the there was no there was no there was only Rumba. I don't know if you guys remember Rumba. Are you kidding me? Speedy and Speedy and Rumba place was the shit. Yeah, it was. I love Rumba owned by the people who own Jackson's also.

01:32:49But I think they still have one in Birmingham. But even there, like they had a good rum selection, but they didn't do a lot of rum cocktails or anything. And so, you know, we were excited to do that. And coming off of it for me, too, like I had been the the US rum champion. And so I got a chance to like learn a lot about rum. And I didn't even really love rum going into that. Like a lot of the US rum champion here the whole time. And I had no idea. But it was just like one of those things where you like learn of became of this fascination for me was rum. And we were, you know, we anyways, there was a gap that was missing here in town was getting people to drink rum. And honestly, we try to tell people all the time. Whiskey drinkers are missing out on an amazing like side bet of of what their offerings can be, because a lot of great rums can drink just like a whiskey. Yeah. You know, you got a good panamanian. Yeah, you wouldn't. A lot of people wouldn't know it's, you know, everybody still thinks they're going to drink a captain cruise in, you know, like there's all this stuff that you probably drink in college that Malibu that probably that probably ruined rum for you.

01:33:54But it is it is. So I bet you if you blind taste tested, a lot of people would take the rum over the whiskey. Guarantee you. I bet so. And the culture of rum is just phenomenal. We could talk at great length about how it differs from every other spirit in the world. I mean, it's just it's got the loosest classifications. So it doesn't have like whiskey. It's got, you know, there's so many filtration. Lincoln County method. And there's so many things in it. And with rum, there's from from country to country, island to island, village to village, all these things change. But they're still under the moniker of rum. I mean, and it's also one of the only spirits that is actually viewed and it's used in like religious practices as well. Like there are there are there are villages and tribes that will leave rum at their door when they're having giving birth to a child or someone's past. Or, you know, there's there's a lot of there's just a beautiful history behind it. So, you know, you know what that that makes me think about?

01:34:56Never stop learning. You know, I mean, I loved wine. I was a big fan of nerd. So I did my level one sommelier in 2003. Tell you, been a long time. It's almost 20 years ago. Holy shit. But I first started drinking wine. I just cabbed California, New World, California cabs. And then I thought white wine was just for like it was sweet. And that's what girls drink. That's right. That's what I that's what I was kind of taught as a man that there are these things men do this and women do this. And it's like, what the fuck is that? I guess it's a bunch of insecure men trying to. Some garbage theory. I'm I'm white wine all day. But when I started drinking white wine and I went, oh, my God, this is just as complex. There's so many different styles and it's really good. Like this on a hot day. A good diverse demeanor diverse demeanor or Vinjo Verde or, you know, Cortez de Gavi. I mean, there's so many amazing grapes. You know, these are not just New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, but I mean, there's a million different drinks you can.

01:35:56Same kind of thing. If you just think whiskey like rum, like every day, there's new things people are doing. You can never stop learning. It's wild. And then you then you blend, which is the most fun part for us, too, because like going back to that trip to Cuba, you know, we wanted to make these daiquiris taste the way that they did there and these mojitos. But the problem is Havana Club in in Cuba. That Havana Club, not the one that's now in rebranded and owns by owned by Bacardi is is not available in the States. So, you know, import export, you can't have it. You can get a duty free shops if you're traveling out of the country. But you can't or like we can't get it registered here and have a skew and be able to order it so we can't serve it. So instead, Jamie and I sit down and grab our whole pile of rums that we have available and we start blending and really try to get to the get to those flavors. And with rum, you get to do that with a lot of different things. But you don't you don't see a lot of people like at a bar, you know, cocktail bar being like, well, we blended these three whiskeys for our for our old fashioned.

01:36:57But like in rum, everybody is is blending their rums to to get to flavors that that works. I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. You know what I used to do? I used to blend beer. Cool. I would do like a hazy IPA or something. Then I would put like a blue moon in it. Yeah. Or I bring some kind of like super West Coast IPA and then blend it with a little bit of East Coast or something. The juicy hazy just to to brighten it a little bit, to take a little bit of that bitterness and just add a little citrus to it or add a little bit of that. And I do that all the time. What the fuck are you doing? And I like these two beers together. Tastes better than just this one by itself or this one by itself. But together, it brightens it up for me. And I enjoy drinking it by the pool. And you're allowed to. I never thought about that. And I'm like, do whatever you want. What I like. Yeah. If you've got a discerning palette and a high sense of creativity, the world's your oyster. Have a good time. That's the old Irish thing. You know, you get your Guinness and cider. You get your snake bites, your red snap and all that. So. Well, the final thing that we do on the show is we have the Gordon Food Service final thought.

01:38:03And that is where each of you get to take us out, say whatever you want. There's no parameters. You can literally just say whatever you want to take us out. It could be two words, it could be a thousand words. I don't really care. But the the floor is yours. Be nice to each other. Yeah, that's a good one. That's it. That was Ben. Yeah, I guess we'll just do a little shameless plug in my end. But we do have Tiger Bar coming out soon by Walden or where Walden was. And I don't know the exact timeline, hopefully this year. Yeah. Oh, broad. Also, this weekend is our four year anniversary of Pearl Diver. So Thursday through Sunday, we'll be partying our faces off next week. And not like, oh, you're sorry. Next weekend. Yeah. 11th through the 14th. Come join us. Oh, because this comes out Monday. Perfect. So that'll be coming up. So this coming weekend. Yes. Yes. This is the time for you to go check out Pearl Diver. Perfect. If you've made it this far in the interview, you get the you get the Easter egg. You get the pearl at the end of this, which is go to this weekend in the four year celebration.

01:39:07And come down and hang out with Ben while Jamie's working at Lucky sometime and have a hot honey pizza because it's delicious. I mean, you know what, guys, I think I'm going to come out for that. I'm going to come out for that. I'm going to try some mocktails. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to I'm going to get out of my. I sit at home and I'm an old guy or I'm at the restaurant. I mean, I actually go out and do something fun in East Nashville. Fucking every time I go to East Nashville, I go. What? What? I went to a soccer game, the first soccer game the other day. Have you guys been to the soccer? So that Lucky's is walk to and from the soccer game. Oh, OK. Lucky's is right there. It's on rain. That's amazing. Perfect. So I went to the soccer game with my kids and I got a beautiful park. Got to eat alabri. Hey, I was there. I was really excited. And I get up there and I'm like, look at these people behind the goal. They're like, this is standing room only. And they're just banging these drums and they're going to town. I was like, this is a really cool vibe. I dig this. They did a really good job. Thirty four minutes into the match, I was like, are they going to stop fucking drumming? No. Like when when when did the drums stop?

01:40:08Because my head's starting to hurt. And my kids like, why are they drumming? And I'm like, I think that's just that's the vibe. When I was 24, I had been down there with them. Oh, lay, lay all day. But now I'm my 40th. I'm like that that my head's starting to hurt at the drumming. Well, they just stopped drumming for 45 seconds so I can just get myself together. And I felt old. I felt old. It was that it was the first time that I was like, holy shit, I'm I'm the old guy. I'm the old guy. I don't I don't like the noise. You damn kids and your noise. I was that guy and I was like, no, no. Stop my lawn. His lawn's greener. What I felt like. Have you got do you get in my crazy? No, no, no. OK, I know you're not. I'm not going to start like a thing where to stop the drums, though. I know. I don't think you can stop the drums. There's no stop. Yeah, I don't want to. I don't want to start like some petition like stop the drums while they're playing the game. And somebody will at some point, I'm sure. I don't do it like I'll just sit on the other side of the stadium.

01:41:10I can do that. Get the club level seats and you can actually sit inside and watch the game from inside. No, no drums. Pro tip. That's always fun. But also, aren't you there to be in all of that? And maybe I was there with my kids and they're trying to ask me questions. You already did it once, though. You already did it once. I did once. Well, now I know where to sit. Yeah. Other on the attack side on the second half. Yep. Truth. Pro tips. There you go. If you're if you're older than 40 and grab yourself a Chivinata empanada while you're there. Yes. So I did Alabria and I was like, I'm getting a Chivinata next time. That's it. So we were one of their like first accounts that was selling them besides themselves. Yeah, we were just getting it. We were going to the taco truck to their little food truck that they had. And we were like, man, these are so good. Could could we buy them for you for a while? And then like they bought that new maker and they're like, all right, we can do it now. And now they're on fire. They're just crushing it. That's awesome. I'm so proud of them. I love that the that the Geodes Park has some local flavor in there and they're doing that super cool.

01:42:12All right, guys, thank you so much for joining. We got to do this again. I'll come visit you this weekend for your anniversary. Go follow them at Pearl Diver Nashville. Jamie and Ben, thanks, guys, again. Thanks for having us. Thank you. All right. OK, Jamie and Ben, thank you so much for joining Nashville Restaurant Radio. You might get to hear more from those guys coming up in the coming weeks. They may be coming in to do something special for me. We'll keep that under wraps for the time being. But I imagine you're going to hear more from them because we had we just had way too much fun. Thank you guys for listening to that one. I don't have this out on YouTube yet. I did record that. I record a lot of these things and I put them out on YouTube sporadically. So if you go to YouTube and you would subscribe, then you would get notifications when I put new videos out. So if you like to watch the podcast, you can do that there. Again, please stay tuned. This Wednesday, we have Laura from the Fox Bar on the Gospel of Cocktail podcast with Kayla Ellis.

01:43:12And then on Friday, we're going to be brand new with Imron Shake, who is the one of the owners of Milkshake Concepts, which is a layer cake downtown. And then they're opening Harpers and the Finch and Vidora. And that is he tells all about all these things. If you ever wanted to hear a perspective from a guy who's going to open 12 restaurants in the next year, just an incredibly sharp individual. I love talking to him. I wish I could have had three more hours with him. So much fun. Thank you for listening. And go vote, go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Vote for your favorite Mexican restaurant. Love you guys. Bye.