Jason Crockarell and Maribel Onofre

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02:06That's Robins. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service and I am joined with our co-host, Crystal DeLuna Bogan. Hey. Great to see you. Great to see you too. Welcome back. I'm here. Episode two. Episode two. I think they're getting better and better. How did you think about episode one there? Did you get some feedback on how you did? Yeah. I mean, yes, of course, Caroline Kors reached out. She was so supportive and she said that she thought I did really good, but I don't want to toot my own horn over here.

03:11I think I'm just comfortable, you know? Yeah. I think this is why your interviews are very candid and open because people are comfortable with you and I think you created a cool space that people feel like, you know, they're talking shop or, you know. That's what we do. Yeah. I thought I got so much feedback from the Sarah Gavigan episode. You did. So many people were just like. I got mixed, like, about it. Really? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, she's very honest and she, although didn't mention certain names, I've just, some people are a little, their feathers are ruffled a little bit. But she ruffles feathers. I totally understand that. She knows she does it and she doesn't, this is, she wears it, you know? I am saying that I, whether or not people's feathers were ruffled, that's going to happen in any scenario. And I don't try and do anything salacious on this show. That's never a thing. Sometimes. But not everything is roses. Yeah, I mean, sometimes we have to be real here and that's the thing. I think that when people heard Sarah be real and say some of the things she said, I think it was compelling.

04:16It was a compelling podcast. It was interesting to listen to because you're mowing your yard listening to this. You're like, oh, wow, that, she just, like, there's a realness to it. I mean, this is a dream, right? You know, like owning a restaurant, owning, operating a restaurant, it's a dream. It's not always like a good dream. Sometimes it's a nightmare. And, you know, you go through ebbs and flows. She's not, you know, she's coming up on something that she went through a really hard time. We all, you know, it's a lot. There's a lot of money at stake here. You know, millions of dollars we're talking in. So, you know, right now she's wearing it really boldly, you know, that she's coming out of a hard time. So, of course, you know, when she's having conversations with other industry people, she didn't mention names on the podcast, but, you know, there are some people that were referenced and they know who they are. And, you know, they definitely were like, did you hear that podcast? You know, I was like, yeah, I was on, I'm the co-host.

05:19I was like, obviously you didn't listen to it because I was on it too. But yeah, I've talked to some of my chef friends, you know, past week and they definitely heard it. So, you know, it's good, it's, you know, I was like, come on the podcast, you know, like you have, you can have your own point of view, you know, like I think this is great to tell your story, your side of things. I think we should, you know, I thought about, I thought about, we should have Jill Melton on to hear her side of the whole thing. I mean, just look, I mean, if we're gonna do one side of, I think there's a bunch of comments on that thing, but I'd like to know from her perspective why she would. That's not the only instance she's gotten in her, you know, I think she might be able to clarify. I would like to know from her, I'd like to hear like, hey, what was going through your mind when you did that? And are you gonna double down on it? Like, what would you do that more? Is this like a thing that you're gonna start doing? There was a couple of like bot accounts that were like, there's gonna be more of this that were like, hmm. Yeah, I never know what's real anymore.

06:20Is there an account that was made, does she have a side account that's a burner account that she's gonna start reviewing restaurants on? Everyone has burner accounts, don't they? I don't. I don't, but I'm saying. Like, I don't have a burner account. I can tell certain people do, that they don't want their name out there, but they want their opinion out there on a matter. I'm not, I'm not saying that I know these things, but I'm not. You know these things. I know these things, yeah. So let's transition to this week's episode. This week's episode was so much fun. We had Pie Town Tacos. So Jason Crockerle, who owns Flavor Catering and Pie Town Tacos, they're kind of introducing their new partner. They have a new partner in Pie Town Tacos, her name's Maribel Onofre. Yeah, she was so, I just wanna like, I wanna eat whatever she's cooking. She was. She is so authentic. And I mean, I can see why he gravitated towards wanting to be on her team and like giving her an opportunity.

07:21I love, I love that story. I just wanna support them. You know, like I just wanna, I wanna, I want people to see how profitable it is when you give someone an opportunity and how their passion shines through. And she didn't necessarily have to invest all of her money into that business necessarily. And she's an owner of that business. So it's a beautiful way that she came about this role. And she's an immigrant. She's amazing. I just love everything. She was so sweet. And so she just, you can tell she gets it. She thrives off of serving and she's a leader and she works with her husband there. And it's like, it's such a neat story. And I was so excited to share it today. I didn't even know, you know, and I love eating that way. I love thinking like, okay, I'm in the mood for tacos. I could choose so many different things. I can Uber eat, I can do whatever, you know? But like, I love that that is something now I'm like, oh, like I really wanna support what she's doing and her team that she loves so much and give them my dollars, you know?

08:26And I think that's what it's about. Like it's letting us choose, you know, where we're spending our money cause we're gonna eat, you know? And I think it's just where we're gonna put those dollars. I wanna support that business. Me too. So let's get to that. I will say that next week, we're gonna be back with an all new show. We're gonna have Q Taylor, who's the owner and operator over at Cinema, as well as 8th and Roast. And they're bringing in their new executive chef. Her name is Shelby Briggs. She is awesome. She just moved here. Just moved here. Like no one even knows her and knows about her. So I feel like- I can't wait to learn about her. I know. She seems like she's just such a hard worker and she has so much experience and she's bringing a whole new kind of vibe to Cinema. I mean, they've been open for 10 years. You know, like they've been under one chef for 10 years. So- I can't wait to find out all the stuff. I bet she's gonna shake things up. I mean, I wanna hear all about what she's doing and what her flavors are and just like, you know, just know about her because we don't really know a lot about her, right?

09:32We will do another introducing episode. I've loved that we've had Anna and Josh and Maria from Tantissimo and Malavida and they were so amazing. And then introducing today, Maribel Onofre. And then next week introducing Shelby Briggs. So some new people in the industry, maybe not so new, but new that you may have heard of. We're excited to do that. If we're a DJ or this is the new song, these are the new things that are coming out. We're trying to introduce you some- Dropping today. New chefs here in town that are really, you know, I'm excited for all these people because they're given back to the community. They're really, I think they're joining the Nashville culinary community in the right way and I love sharing that. Yeah, I love it. I know like more of that, like reach out to us. We wanna put you on, give you that platform. 100%. So let's jump in. Right now, we're gonna jump in with Pie Town Tacos. Super excited today to welcome in our guests.

10:38Maribel Onofre, welcome. Thank you for having me. You know, I'm very excited to be sitting here with you guys. We're excited to have you here. We are also joined with Jason Crockerle and Jason and Maribel are partners in Pie Town Tacos and Jason is the owner of Flavor Catering. Yes, sir. How you doing, man? Awesome, excited to be here. Excited, I can't believe I've done 375 episodes and I haven't had you on the show yet. Man, we're gonna have to make some time. Today's all about Maribel, but you know, we got time in the future. It is, we're also joined here with Crystal DeLuna-Bogan. How you doing, ma'am? I'm back, I'm here, I'm here. Here's your support system, your emotional restaurant support system right here. This is what I need. Yeah, I'm here. This is very, very important. I'm here to help you pronounce the R's and things, make sure you pronounce Maribel correctly. Maribel, Maribel, onofre, Maribel, did I do it right? Yeah. Okay, we're good, we're good. We're getting everybody to know exactly what I'm saying. I'm used to all the people saying all things, calling me all, like, Maribel, all that, so I'm always telling them to say Maribel, but it's hard for them to say.

11:47Maribel. I feel like since Enkanto came out, maybe people get the name a little better. But that's different, that's Mirabel. Mirabel, okay. Yeah, I'm Maribel. I like saying that, Maribel. That's much more fun. Well, now nobody, anybody who comes in there will now know exactly how to say your name. Yeah, now we'll, yeah. You got that out of the way? So Maribel, tell us, when did you start working at Pytown Tacos? So I started working Pytown Tacos one year ago. Yeah, but I started working with flavor two, going to, two years ago. Wow. Two years ago at flavor catering, one year at Pytown Tacos, and now you're a partner in the company. And now I'm a partner, can you believe it? That's awesome. That's how hard I work. I, that's true. So that's the question right there. How did that happen? Like, I mean, do you just start, and is that one of your goals since the very beginning? Yeah, well, not my goal wasn't be the partner at Pytown, but my goal from the very, like, I'd say five years ago was to have my own business.

12:54But I didn't know back then what it would look like, you know, I was doing sushi for a while, so back then I wanted to open my own sushi restaurant. Wow, sushi. Yeah. Amazing. What is your background in sushi? So I was a sushi chef for eight, nine years. Really, where? I worked at downtown in a sushi place, very popular. And then I worked at Peter's Sushi in Breadwood. Which downtown place that was very popular? Can you not say? Verago. Okay, you were at Verago. Yeah, I was there for a while, but then I lived there and I went to Peter's, and then I came to Flavor. Nice. Yeah, so it was like. Where are you originally, where were you born? In Mexico. You were born in Mexico. Yeah, born and raised in Mexico. Mexico City? Mexico City, yeah. Well, I'm part of kind of like around Mexico City, I would say we're three hours from the city, city. So very humble town, you know, and but I'm very proud to be Mexican.

13:56And I have to say that. Same. Same. You're Mexican? Yes, I am. Oh, okay. Yeah, both of my grandparents are from two very different regions of Mexico, so I got a really broad, like Mexican upbringing. My grandmother is from a town called Tecate, which you might know from the beer. She was like queen of her town. Like she had the, like literally it was like a pageant, she was like the beauty queen. It was really, she has really awesome pictures. I mean, literally it was just the beer factory and like farmers, like there's nothing else there. And then my dad's family's from Monterrey, very wealthy, kind of like they have ties in the kind of. Cartel. Cartel. How you say? I know where we're going there. How was gonna go there? Like in the cartel? They, their family owns Cementos Monterrey, which is like a very big cement company. And so they have very, a lot of wealth and then my mom's family has like nothing. So like it was really interesting to kind of see the juxtaposition of when we would visit both families or just be around the families, like how different, you know, the culture is.

15:02And so I prefer my mom's side of the family. Better food. So as far as what she just said, how does that work for you? Yeah, no. Well, for me, we very humble family. You know, back then we have struggles, a lot of struggles from when we were a kid. But the good thing is that my parents, my mom and my dad, they always make it look like there were no issues. You know, they always gonna have food at the table. They do all the things behind our backs that we didn't realize it. So, so far I'll say that my best time so far is being my childhood. You know, like I see both my parents, my brothers, my sister. So I always cherish that. And I also cherish that my parents didn't like show the hard part to being a parent and being poor, you know. Well, it allowed you to be a kid. Yes. You know, when your parents kind of isolate that, that allows you to be a kid. When did you move to America? I moved to America 11 years ago.

16:0411 years ago. Yeah, 11 years ago I moved here in Nashville. How old were you when that happened? I don't know if you know math, we're gonna figure out your age, but like, what? I'm old now, but I was 18. When you moved to Nashville, or you moved to America, did you move to Nashville? I moved to Nashville, yeah, I have a cousin here. She help me out, you know, to settle. She give me some housing for a while and she also find me a job. Is your family still in Mexico? Yes, I have my brother now he's living here with me, but the rest all are in Mexico. So why move to America? I needed to chase the American dream, you know, like that's what they call it out there. I don't think there's a dream no more, you know, nowadays. I don't call it like American dream. But yeah, you know, I have to get out of there, help my family some way or another. And that was the only choice back then. So I don't do, I don't say that it's like a sacrifice, but I think I needed to do that move for me to grown up, to be my own person.

17:09And also I love my family so much, you know, in Mexico we do have like that family value is kind of our first or like principle that we always follow. And to me, my family is my everything. And so when I come here, I'm like, okay, so I can now support them. And now they mean like, okay, now I have a purpose in life. So you support your family in Mexico right now? No, no, no anymore because now, you know, I already support them for a while. So now I can like lay back a little bit. I let my brother support them. And now they good, you know, they're in a good place. Now I have my sister and my brother there. They also, they have jobs and stuff they can support. It's only my mom and my dad that we need to support now. So it's easy. There you go. It's easy, just the mom and dad. Wow, was your mom an amazing cook when you were younger? Like what is your, cause you obviously moved to America and then you jumped into making sushi, which is interesting.

18:09And then, and now obviously doing tacos at Paitan Taco, like what was your earliest memories of food around your family? My earliest memories of food will be like back home. We eat a lot of organic. I'll say, you know, we cultivate our own products. We do our own corn, most of it. So we have fresh tortillas every day. My mom do all the process of the nixtamalization of that. Every morning she get ups and go grind it, come to the tortillas. And then sometimes we have like some herbs, you know, we call it caletes. It's like a fresh herb that you can boil it and then you like put it in a pan. I don't know, it's hard to explain. But then you do a taco, you know, so I, that's why I always tell people I eat tacos my whole life because that's what we do. We have tortillas and we have any food, can be eggs, can be beans, can be rice. And we always end up making a taco. Where is the closest place in Nashville? If I could go and order food that reminded you of those days, where's the best chance of finding that in Nashville?

19:15It's hard to find that in Nashville. I think like I have some places that I have something that reminds me of my home. I like my tacos, chicken tortilla soup. I feel like when I had that, it's remind me like a home style food. That's how I call my tacos food. It's like home style Mexican. Very rustic, yeah. It's not refined. You know, very simple and that's how I grown up with. It's very simple, you said, regular taco. I also go, there's a place on Plaza Mariachi called Chismes Cafe. Okay. I love that. You know, the plates is very similar to back home a lot. Like the menudo is the best menudo I ever tried in Nashville. Menudo? Mm-hmm. I don't know what menudo is. What is menudo? So it's a soup. Most of the time it's pork based and it has everything in it. So we're talking like the tripe, the innards. Like it's a soup of the parts that you probably could not sell.

20:16Like if you were, like it's a family style soup. So there's a lot of vegetables. It's like a lot of times it's tomato based. Depends on what part of what region in Mexico you're from. You have a different. Different, yeah. So in Mexico City, you have more brothy soups and it just depend like the tomato, the availability of tomato and chili depends on the type of soup base. So there's different, like the Mexico City style tortilla soup that Teresa makes is very, that's the type they eat in Mexico City. But if you go more south, they have more tomatoes because it's warmer. So you have a more tomato based soup. So like, I like that. That was so incredibly educational. Really? Wow. You didn't even know it was hot. Did you know this, Jason? Did you know this, Jason? No, yeah. I love menudo. I'm here for the information. But my wife's also Mexican. So there's a thing there. It's just like saying like, oh, soup in America. It's like, oh, it depends on where you live, you know? Depends on what kind of ingredients are there. New England clam chowder versus Manhattan clam chowder. Exactly, exactly.

21:17Except for tortilla soup's more delicious, but okay. So Jason, you met Maribel. Maribel. Maribel. Yeah. Just gonna keep doing that one. A couple years ago, two years ago. Yes. What was your first impression? Well, we have a pretty cool story. So like many people, Peters is like one of my favorite places. My girls love it. They're obsessed with the sushi there. And I had a kind of a Friday night, I think it was, date with my youngest daughter. And so we get there. Of course, Peters is packed. You can't get a seat. So the only thing that was open was at the sushi counter. So we sit there and I'm sitting there with my 12 year, with then 12 year old daughter. And you know, I've been there plenty of times and there's all these older dudes that are back there. They're very stoic. They're like focused on their job. That's all they care about, right? And I'd been there a lot of times. And then I looked to the left and there's this vibrant young lady that I'm just like, who is that person? You know, like it was just completely different. Those dudes never talk to each other.

22:17And she's back there like giving them a hard time, joking, playing around, talking. I'm like, this is so unlike any experience I've had here. It was just bizarre. And you know, you pick up in restaurants, you just pick up things. If you're from the restaurant world, you're like, something's different here. Or I think if you're a leader, you're always looking, I'm always looking for great people that are like in the server position, like, oh, you get it. You're a get it person. I like you. Oh, a hundred percent. And like, I was, I mean, I was mesmerized with her like from the very beginning, just sitting across the counter from her. And so I think it was like, I can't remember what season it was. It was really busy for us. For flavor, I think my first shift when I went there was around May or April. Yeah. So May, like, you know, we get all the graduation stuff going on and it's crazy. And so we had requested some friends to come help us work. And so she shows up for the shift in flavors kitchen like two days later. And I'm sitting there and I walk in and she's over there real quiet.

23:18Two days later from when you saw her at the sushi place? Yeah, I think so. I don't know. So you saw her and said, hey, come here. Yeah, what's your name? Yeah, I go, I go, hey, didn't I just see you at Peter's? And she gave me this look like you're the creepiest person I've ever met. No, it's because he come up to me and he's like, do you work at Peter's? I'm like, yeah. Oh, so you didn't speak to her that night? I didn't speak to her that night. You didn't like poach her or anything? No, a hundred percent. You just saw her. She just saw how. She also worked at flavors. She just saw that amazing. And then two days later she was at flavor and you're like, wait a minute, I know you. Yeah, she didn't work at flavors. She just picked up a shift. Yeah, I only come to like do one shift. Yeah. And she's at flavor. And I just like make a beeline for it. And I walk up and I go, you work at Peter's, don't you? And she was like, yeah, why are you asking me this? This is weird. You are creepy as hell. You're like so creepy right now. I've been watching you. And I go, I was at the restaurant on Friday. I sat right in front of you. I watched you do sushi and like you were killing it. Like what's your story? Like the whole thing.

24:18I mean, I was like, she's like, I'm just trying to do my prep, man. Just leave me alone. You know? But then I was just like, you're amazing. Like you can just tell, like you said, like you're looking around the room, you see people and you're like, I don't know who that person is, but I need more of that in my life. And so that's what we do. There's an attitude. It's a positive. It's an energy that you can tell somebody that has like that energy. And you're like, ooh, yes. That whatever you're doing, it's affecting you. It's infectious. A lot of people are catching on. I can see it. I can feel it. That's awesome. So you're there now. And he says, do you want a job? Yeah. No, no. So I started there. I went that shift and they're like, come back to do more shifts. So I come back to do more shifts. So I kind of like do some shift at Peter, some shift at flavor. And then later on, they're gonna open a new kitchen at the Skirmahorn. And so that's when the opportunity come. They needed a full-time people to come join their team. And I say, hey, can I come, you know, do that? Did you take over that kitchen at the Skirmahorn? For a little while, yeah. Gosh.

25:19Next episode, sorry. No, that kitchen, Roger, like in what, like old kitchen is just so insane down there. Completely flooded and they redid the whole thing. I mean, to take that over, I mean, the millions of dollars they spent there was just absolutely insane. Yeah. And it was kind of dormant for a long time, but yeah. Yeah. And then, yeah, I came over, you know, at Skirm with another chef and we run that kitchen for a while. And I guess that's when he saw my potential. Well, I will say, back up a little bit. I mean, like to give her some more credit, like she was kind of like doing her thing, but I'm like, you can do this. And she was like, I don't know. I don't know if I can lead, you know? She was hesitant to like kind of use her voice and like use her authority. And I could just see it was there. I'm like, yeah, you can, you can totally do this. Yeah. Yeah. We did it. Yeah, at the beginning, yeah, you know, cause I come into a group of people who's been there for a while, you know, all these chefs, all these line cooks. So when you're a newie, I said, they're like, is she gonna be good?

26:23You know, you know, you're working in restaurants. When you see someone new, like, is she gonna be a sous chef? Like does she have the potential? Like they always look at you, like you better do this job right or, you know? And so that's how I felt. I'm like, am I gonna do this right? Am I like gonna pull the ropes? You know, am I gonna be able to lead them? And so that's why I was a little hesitant at the beginning, but then he kept pushing me like, hey, you can do this, you know, you go and do it. You have confidence in yourself. And then I said, you know what? Yeah, I can do this and I started doing it. It's all about confidence. You know, I think that you needed somebody to push you and if you wouldn't have given her that opportunity, she probably would have just kept keeping on, you know, because I think the consistency is what we all look for and we wanna just keep our head down and work hard. And we all work hard, but it takes that one person that says, hey, that idea or that you can really do it because it takes a lot of money to back somebody and a lot of trust to give somebody an opportunity and I really applaud you for doing that, Jason.

27:32That's great. I mean, that's really important. And I mean, especially somebody who came from what you said, like a poor upbringing and to go back on what you said, because I just been thinking about that since you said it, my grandmother always used to tell my mom because they grew up very poor. There were 10 of them and in like three bedrooms, 10 of them and she always said poor is a state of mind, not a financial station. So you can have all the money and be poor if you're always wanting and needing. They didn't need food and she repurposed all their clothes. They were never hungry. So she said, you're not poor. You have everything you need. You're not poor. And so my mom never grew up with that mentality that she was poor, even though we look back and we're like, oh, you guys had, I mean, no one had knew anything, but it's so amazing. My mom, she doesn't tell it like how we see it, like, oh, you were the poor family and my dad was the rich family. It's like my mom never saw it that way because her mother never let her say that they were poor.

28:37She's like, we have everything we need. Your grandfather goes to work. He brings home money and I stretch it. So I love that mentality that you have because you are making the most out of what you have and you need somebody to believe in you, to give you that because there's just so much that goes into opening up a new concept that I don't think we can, a lot of us entrepreneurs don't realize until we're in it. There's a lot of, it's not even about making good tacos. It's about the business, right? And we need somebody behind us to help us with the business. And I see that's what's happening. So I feel like there's nothing but success here, you know? Yeah. Yeah, Jason always pushing me to say like, hey, yes, we can do it. But I also push him to say, yes, we can open. You need each other. So quick. Oh yeah, that's a funny story too. Yeah. When we were gonna have the grand opening for the new Pie Town Tacos in East over on Woodland. Yeah, we had set the date for January 16th and we were like, oh, that's the opening day.

29:40We were working with Amanda and her team over at Reed PR and just, you know, so we had all these things going and then what happens on the day before, but we have a catastrophic snowstorm. And so I pick up the phone and I call him a minute, but I'm like, hey, like, you know, Nashville never gets snow. And now we've got like- Nine inches. Yeah, it's crazy. The whole town's shut down and we're supposed to have our grand opening on the same day. And she's like, we should do it. We should just do it. And I'm like, are you serious? She goes, yeah, everybody's here. Like everybody showed up. Let's make some tacos, see what happens. And- That should be a t-shirt by the way. You should have a t-shirt that says, let's make some tacos and see what happens. Yeah. Let's make some tacos and see what happens. Yeah. Yeah, we're looking for new merch. So maybe that's a thing. I think that's a heck of a, on the back of it, it just says, let's go eat some tacos. And see what happens.

30:40Like it could be a whole thing. Totally. Many stories go from there, right? I'm like- It's not like, where is your story gonna go after this? Go to the bad. Eat some tacos, see what happens. We find joy somewhere in there. So how was the opening that day then? Yeah, it was great. Two people. But we did open. Yeah. They got open. No, we got open. First we call our team for sure. I wanna make sure they were okay coming into work. They all like, yes, let's do it. They were very excited because we've been there from one week before, training them and they were ready to open and all this. So we opened the doors, all this snow. And then we're like, you know, if people come, if no, let's just do this. But the thing is like, they show up for us. You know, there's a lot of neighborhoods, a lot of neighbors that live down the road. So they didn't have any place to go eat. And they come by, they came by with their, how do you call it? Sleds. With their sleds. Yeah. And the kids, you know, and they're so nice. They come and they like, hey, welcome to the neighborhood. And that thing, you know, for them to tell us, welcome to the neighborhood, that make my day.

31:45You know, I was kind of scared and skeptical, but when they come and they show us that love, that East Nashville love and warmness, it's like, you know, I think we're gonna be okay. You know, that give me a relief. Yeah, to be a neighborhood restaurant, I think that's really important. Also, when we opened the Girl Cheesery seven years ago, we opened the, it was in January and there was snow as well, and everything was shut down. And we were like picking up people. Like we had one of our managers pick up like employees because he had like a four wheel drive truck. And I think same, kids came because everything's closed. So it's, if you can open, people will walk there. They will come and they will be so grateful because everything closes, right? And I think that's what you have, the responsibility we have to be neighborhood restaurants, you know, to serve the community and trying to make it safe for employees first and then serve the community after that. It is so gratifying to see kids come in, they're off school, they're all excited, you know?

32:49That's perfect. I'm sitting here listening to all this and I see what you see, Jason. I hear your story and I'm always looking for leaders, looking for people who can lead people, but coming from a humble background where you moved to America, you supported your family in Mexico, this level of responsibility, not only personal, but fiscally, the responsibility that you had to have, your positive outlook and perspective on life, your love for cooking in the kitchen, like all of these things, you know, when it comes down to opening a restaurant that day, there's so many decisive factors financially. Well, if we open our labor percentage, we're not gonna make any money, we're not gonna make any money, this is it. But your idea there is that, hey, people are here. I checked with everybody, I made sure that they were okay to come in. Everybody wanted to come in. We wanted to serve the community. And so we did this and then the neighborhood kids came and welcomed. That is so wholesome and so perfect because you do the right thing on a regular basis with a positive attitude and your North Star is positivity and doing the right thing.

33:57And I think so many people miss that. There's a genuine authenticity to your leadership. Then I think a lot of people try and manufacture and you can tell, but yours is, I can see exactly what you saw that first day. Two, the other thing is you talking about her North Star, I would say her North Star is her care for people. Like, I mean, that was the first question. Like, are our people safe? Can they get here okay? Do they even wanna do this? And then she was like, oh, okay, my people are with me, let's do this. And every day it's that way. We had a guy that was going through some stuff, missed some couple of days, was unannounced and her first question was not like, when are we gonna write this dude up and make this? She was like, is he okay? And then it was like, what can we do for you? All right, cool, are you good? All right, now let's talk about the business side of this thing is like, hey, you have a responsibility and this is what the next steps are. But her first step is always, and that's her North Star, is caring about her people.

35:00And that's the intangible that you look for too in somebody and I'm like, if I'm gonna partner with somebody and we're gonna grow this thing, they gotta have a heart for people and it's just, it's evident. So how did the partnership come about? Yeah, so we come about, I think you're better to spend that. I'm like, I don't even know how that came. Contract details right now, no, I'm just kidding. Paragraph three, section A, what does that say? Yeah, it's a no-brainer for me. Like, you know, I want this, I saw something in Maribel that I said like, I wanna have an opportunity to work with her for a long time. And also I think it really was just like, knowing a little bit of her story and also her husband Jack is amazing. We need to throw Jack in there for sure because they're a part of the deal. He runs the East Nashville store and the truck and all the things. Oh, really? Yes, husband and wife.

36:00Gosh, we gotta get Jack in here, yeah. Do you know that that's a terrible idea? Yeah, he'll be like, oh, she's this, you know. Yeah, you guys can talk offline about- No, we won't talk to Jack about that, yeah. But I just saw like, hey, my hope is that with Pytown, this is an opportunity that is really unique for Maribel and Jack to take this brand and grow it and make it their thing. It's not about me anymore. Like, I just kind of got it up off the ground. And now it's really about them taking it and running it and they can do anything with it. You talked about her like positivity and then that, you know, the aggressive nature of like, hey, let's do this. One thing, kind of a timely story is that you don't know is that she got a catering this morning at about 6 a.m. for 120 people. 135. 135, sorry. Thanks for correcting me. And she figured that out.

37:01She was in her car right in production sheets right before we walked in and passed it off to her team. And then she closed her laptop. She looks at me and she goes, our team's awesome. They're gonna kill this. It was for today? For today, yeah. Catering 135 people today? Yes. Leaving in 45 minutes. Wow, that's awesome that you took that event. Yes. That's amazing. That's how we roll at Pytown. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not, it's going back to the people, you know? It's not about, it's not one leader can do. It's what you can do with the people. And so far I feel very, very happy. And I'll say this every day, every more, every Monday when we have our meetings, like, just how the people show up for me. I thought I care for them and I feel like they care more for me than I ever realized it, you know? I'm like, hey, we have this catering. They're like, okay, we do this, we do that. They all moving, you know? They wanna do it. They're happy to be there. And they just like, I want, and that's what I want for Pytown, you know?

38:03So far we have a great team. They always happy. They always joking. And I feel when you have a great team that you don't have to worry about much about like, who's coming? Cause you know they're gonna take care of whoever's coming. Jim Collins wrote a book, Good to Great. And the entire gist of that entire book was get the right people in the right seat on the bus. Everybody rowing in the same direction. You can do anything if you have the right people. And it sounds like you have the right people. We're gonna take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. And then we're gonna come back. And I wanna learn more about Pytown Tacos and just some more about you. Interesting, just maybe some quick fire questions. We'll be right back right after these words. It is springtime. That means we're gonna be hanging out on patios. We're going to brunches. And of course that means bravazzi. The hard Italian soda made right here in Nashville that is taking over brunch by storm. Yes, bravazzi is gluten-free. It's made with real fruit juice, cane sugar and nothing artificial.

39:07This is great out of the can, over ice or mixed in a cocktail. And you can get it on draft. This is distributed by best brands right here in Tennessee. And it has the perfect amount of sweetness crafted in the Italian tradition. This is a studio favorite. When we pass these out to guests in the studio, they love them. We sell them at Chagos and everybody loves them over at Chagos. We are big fans of bravazzi. And this is the time of year where everybody wants a crisp, clean Italian sparkling soda. These are also great for the boat. These are great for outdoor picnics. Get you some bravazzi wherever you find. Find beverages, enjoy responsibly. Dude. Yeah. Dude, I had so much fun last night. Oh my gosh. And you know what? Bro. Bro. I feel great today. Dude, I feel amazing. I know. What was that stuff we were drinking? Cali Sober.

40:08That's right. Dude, that stuff was amazing. There was that Paloma Spritzes. Is that what I was drinking? I crushed some Paloma Spritzes last night. Oh, dude. It was so good. I feel so good today too for how good I felt last night. I know. I had three of them. I slept like a baby. Dude. And I feel good today too. Where did you get those? I got them at Frugal McDougal. You got them at Frugal McDougal? I went downtown and got them at Frugal McDougal. Where does Frugal McDougal get them from? Frugal McDougal gets them from Litman Bros. Oh, okay. So I can go downtown and get these at Frugal McDougal right now? You can go get them right now at Frugal McDougal. You could even go to Corkdorks, bro. I heard Corkdorks has got them. Let's go. It's 100% legal THC infused mocktail? 100% legal, dude. 100% legal. Can you believe it? It gets you a little high and you have the best night of your life. We had the most fun. The most fun. Cali Sober's the most fun. I'm gonna go get some Cali Sober right now. Let's go. I am so excited today to introduce all of y'all to a brand new linen option here in Nashville.

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43:18All right, welcome back. We are here with Jason and Maribel. Yeah, that's right. No, I'm gonna, Maribel. Maribel. No, I said Maribel, just like. Maribel. Maribel. Maribel. Spell it. M-A-R-I-B-E-L. Maribel. Okay. Yeah, you got it. You got it. I'm working on it. Good job. You're getting better and better every week. I'm working on it. I'm gonna get you. You're gonna help me. Brandon, the Mexican-ish. You're like Mexican-ish. Yeah. Do you know Mexico is my favorite place? I have been to Mexico. She doesn't care. That's like 25 times, probably. What part of Mexico does it? I've been kind of all over. Not really all over, like where you can drive from LA. Like I've been to Tijuana and Sonata. I've been down that area and then all over the Yucatan. Have you ever eaten lobster when you've gone to Tijuana or any of those areas? Not in Tijuana, like Cozumel and Playa del Carmen.

44:21My parents would just, because we're from Los Angeles, my parents would just drive down and get lobster and butter. Like they literally would do that. I would go down and buy tequila because I was like 19 and I was in high school. Oh God, he was one of those. You could go to Revolution Boulevard in Tijuana. Did you ever get pulled over and just gave a 20 to one of the police and then just let you go? I'm not proud to say this, but I have driven through Custa, like the border at like two o'clock in the morning with one eye open and then just like, go ahead. You're like, holy shit, it worked. How do they not, like, pull it like, you've been drinking tequila for six hours, haven't you? So has everybody else in line. So are you 18, like, yes, sir? I mean, it was. Yeah, that was a time. But I always, like we've, like we had the vacation in Mexico because everybody is just beautiful in the culture and people, I don't know, I just love Mexico.

45:22Yeah, Mexico's great. We're just really jumping into this interview, aren't we? Sorry about that. Breaking news, who doesn't love Mexico? Who doesn't love Mexico? We know we love Mexico. Yeah. It's a thing. Tell me about Pie Town tacos. Like the actual, if I'd never heard of it. Okay. Where is Pie Town? Why is it called Pie Town? Yeah. Do you serve pie? No, we don't. Sometimes we do serve pie. We call it fried pies, kind of like panadas, like fried panadas. Yeah. Pie Town started on Pie Town. That's the little triangle there downtown, you know, South Broadway, like Lafayette and Eighth around there. Where Hot Diggity Dog was. Yes. I know. Same spot. Right there. We take over that, well, Jason took over that. Same block. Yeah. Yeah, and I guess that's why you call it Pie Town? Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, that kind of got, that little triangle there got dubbed as Pie Town and our production kitchen for flavor used to be right next door to the former Hot Diggity Dog.

46:27And like, we were huge fans. Gail, who used to stand behind the counter and run the place was awesome. Oh, she's a rock star. She's a legend. Yeah, legend. So tough. I mean, she was down there when nobody needed to be down there. It wasn't a good part of town. Oh, no, not at all. I mean, they served the construction workers and the, I mean, locals, like, I mean, it was so cheap and people would go there knowing. And she knew everybody. Knew everybody's name. Their order, the whole thing. She was funny. She was kind of the mayor of that district. She was. Super cool. And then she told me one day, she was like, hey, I'm hanging it up. Like, I'm done swinging hot dogs. She's doing really well in other areas. And so we knew whoever was gonna go in there, this is the end of 2019. We knew whoever went in there was gonna affect us because we were right next door. Same parking lot. Same parking lot, the whole thing. And so we were like, well, we'll sign the lease. She let us sign the lease on the building. And she owns the building. This is great. And we were like. True sign of a successful business owner owning the building.

47:30Yeah. That's my dream. She's awesome. And so we're like, this is, you know, January, 2020. We're like, we'll take some time and figure out what we wanna do next in there. And tacos was kind of always in the back of my head. And then came COVID, March. And we're in the catering business and we have about 250 people on our staff. Oh my God. How did that? How did that just slash you, right? Oh yeah. I mean, I can remember the day of the East Nashville tornadoes, a couple of days after that, our whole team got together and we were gonna go do cleanup. And on that day, I got, I started getting phone calls. My phone started blowing up like eight in the morning. And we do a lot of stuff with Vanderbilt, the University of the Medical Center. And they were canceling stuff in October. And this is when people were telling you like, oh, it's gonna last a couple of weeks. I know, yeah. Anyway, so there's really smart people at Vanderbilt from what I've heard. And when they're canceling stuff, six and seven months out, then you're like, okay, this is a real thing. So long story short, cause this is all about Maribel. But we were like, okay, what can we do?

48:34We got all these great people that need work. And so we opened Pytown, not that it was a good time to open a restaurant, but we had a food truck and we could wrap it under the Pytown brand. And then we could send it out to neighborhoods. I mean, I'm sure you guys did a lot of this too. Yeah, we were, that day of the tornado hit, we were already had a lunch scheduled. So we just didn't do that. And then we just partnered with, whatever, whoever needed. We had, I mean, the food trucks came alive around that time because we didn't need any building. Like we had, we were self-sustaining. So yeah, I mean, we're always the first to respond when there's natural disasters. Actual first responders are food trucks. Actual first responders, yeah. No, food trucks are the best, yeah. So we just branded it under Pytown and we started going to neighborhoods. And at least we could take a handful of great people like Maribel and keep them working. You know, it wasn't about like making money. It was like, how do we stay alive? And how do we take care of as many good people?

49:34And it really was like, you got 250 people you're responsible for, you can't save them all. And so it was like, we're gonna save as many people as we can, what do we do? And so that was our first tactic. And then we were kind of, we weren't even started building out Pytown at the time. And so during the day, we would just park the truck in front of what was going to be Pytown and serve tacos. And so that was great for a while, but then 2021 happens, catering comes back and all 250 of those people were now completely necessary. And so we kind of had to empty Pytown out to like get flavor back on its feet. So it was kind of a leapfrog in each other. And then about 2022, everything started to kind of feel a little bit more normal. And I'm like, people love these tacos. It's a great concept, whatever, but like it needs leadership. And I'm not able to do it. Like I'm stretched in a lot of different directions. And so I'm looking for the leader who's the person. And not just like willing or able, but just that was gonna be passionate about it, had a heart for it, both the people and the food.

50:37And that's where Mary-Belle came in. So talk to me about the menu. Because as a chef, I'm wondering, you worked in sushi. I'm assuming because you had a connection there and then you just obviously are good at what you do. So you just, but what is your flavor? Like, where do you get inspiration for your tacos? My inspiration for my tacos has come from my childhood again. My mom making the simple soup, chicken soup. My mom making the simple rice, beans, with boiled egg. I think every time I make food, I relate it to my mom's food. Very simple, love all the simple foods. I love the margarita pizza, that's it. I don't like to put all toppings crazy. And then when now I'm creating something, I always look back at that. Like, what can I do? Like for Cinco de Mayo, I make mole. Because we make mole back home. So things like that. That's how I relate it most.

51:38I don't gonna say, oh, I'm a chef and I'm great and I'm this because I'm not. I'm just putting that, putting some passion that I have into what can I do? How can I make this simple mushroom taste good? Put it on a taco, add some little things. That's how my food is. But what we serve at Paitan, we serve street style tacos, very simple. Same, the pastor taco is my favorite. Reminds me a lot about home. We have the best queso in town, I'll say. Okay, she said it, she said it. Shots fired, she said it. I love, I love. She said best queso in town? She said best queso in town. I like it. Come try it. I like the confidence. I love the confidence. If you don't like it, then we remove it from the menu, but come on, come try and tell me. Has Delia Jo come down and tried your queso yet? I know. I want to know from the queen of quesos. This is a direct challenge for Delia Jo to come and try the queso.

52:39Will you Delia Jo to let us know what it is? We'll all go make our own. She's very busy eating other quesos and posing in bikinis. So she can take a minute away and she can come and try the queso. Can you tell that I actually know her and I'm from the queso? I was gonna say. If I looked like that, I would also wear a bikini all the time. Oh, 1,000%. 1,000%. I'm wearing a bikini right now. Underneath your- That's why we're not just video. Yeah. That's why we're not doing video. Camera's off. But that is something that- Teaser, that is something that may be coming to Nashville Restaurant Radio as a full video, the full reconfiguration of the studio to have video. So that is- Yeah, and then we can show your sponsors all the time. I thought it was more of you in bikini and I was like, how do you lose followers? How do you lose followers from showing more skin? It's been a great last episode, everybody. On the final episode of Nashville Restaurant Radio. I love Nashville Restaurant Radio. That was the six and a half foot tall guy wears a bikini like, yes, that's their shtick.

53:42That's their thing. That's their thing. They're sponsored by, you know. There's not an audience for that. There's no audience for that. My wife didn't want to- Sponsored by Nashville Shores. Yeah. You ever heard the term off the rails? Rabbit hole. Anyways, back to the tacos. So, we were talking about Pytown Tacos and your authentic tacos and the history of the town. I heard that Pytown is called Pytown because it's a little square. It looks like a slice of pie. It's a triangle. Also heard that since it anchors, like the two corners were, is it Arnold's and Dan Geer's? Dan Guar's. Dan Guar's, I don't know. I never ever pronounced it. Dan Guar's. Then those were like the corners of the pie and they both sold pie, so then they called it Pytown. I love it. You know who I think dubbed it that? I know you, Bryce McLeod over at Isle of Printing. He is the best. He's the best and I'm pretty sure, like, he's the official mayor. He branded it. I think he did too, yeah. He branded it. He has all the merch. Shout out, Bryce. Yeah, shout out to Bryce.

54:44Yeah, and he's not there anymore though, right? Did he? No, well, I don't know if he's technically still there. He's been to open a shop out in Jolton, I think. Yeah, yeah. Like many of us that had to leave. Bryce is Isle of Printing and you'd probably be most familiar with his work like any barista parlors. Yeah, he's got all his, he's incredible. He's done like hand sculpture things for, he's awesome. I love it, yeah. So he's kind of the unofficial mayor, but yeah, if you look at it from a map, it looks like a piece of pie. And so I don't think we knew that we were gonna have multiple locations when we called it Pie Town because now the people in East Nashville are probably like, why is there a Pie Town tacos in East Nashville? But it works and that's who we are. Do people ask that question? Like, why is there a Pie Town taco? I feel like people don't even know what Pie Town is. They don't even know what Pie Town is. So they can just like, just own it. Do people walk in and say, what kind of pie do y'all have? I'm sure. No, they don't, but they're like, why Pie Town? Like they're asking, so we have to repeat all that story, you know?

55:45Yeah. It will be easy if he called Maribel Tacos but he didn't want it. I mean. You weren't there. Come on. Maribel Tacos has a nice ring to it. Well, it's like the Green Hills Grill. They open one in Huntsville and people are like, what's Green Hills? I don't know what Green Hills is. Well, that's like Porter Road Butcher is not on Porter Road. Because they were gonna be on Porter Road and then they opened a shop on Gallatin. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, like we don't question it. We don't question it. We just stay short. Yeah. PRB. PRB. For short. PRB. Yeah, I think that's their thing now. Yeah, it's a thing. Maribel, we're back to you. Okay. Okay. Did you meet your husband here in town? I did. I meet him at Peter's. So he worked at Peter's or was he a guest? Or were you picking up guests at the sushi bar? I'm not that kind. No, he worked with me, you know. He worked with the sushi place. Then we started hanging out and then, yeah.

56:47And then we married. Yeah. And then married. So y'all have children? We don't have children. Okay. We have dogs. I'm not gonna ask you like, is that coming? That's not gonna be a thing. So you have dogs. How many dogs do you have? I have two dogs. I have a Golden Retriever and a Grey Pony. They're the best. Oh my gosh. Those are like real fancy dogs. So I love them. But you have hair on all your stuff, don't you? Yes. Yes. Dog hair everywhere. Yeah, I do not have a chihuahua, so. What part of town do you live in? I live in Cambridge. Say like Bell Road, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The new mall is, yeah. The new mall. Like the Hickory Hollow used to be? No, no, no, no. The Outlets. Tangier Outlets. Tangier. Tangier. Oh, that's right. Yeah, so we live there. You know, it's kind of, sometimes it's hard to come to Nashville because all this traffic. But besides that, I love it there. It's quiet. It's good. What's your favorite thing to do when you're not working? My favorite thing to do is walk my dogs.

57:48You know, make some quick lunch, a sandwich, and just stay home, chill. You know, sit outside, look at the sky. I love it. It's peace, peace. I can tell her personality. Like she appreciates all the little things. When I have peace and I'm like, this is a good day off, you know? And that's what I want. And you know, when I have vacation, like you sitting at the beach, just laying down there, that's my vacation. I'm not gonna go and drink and do all the, no, no, no. That's what I do. Do you ever go to like the Harpeth River? No, I haven't. Like out in Kingston Springs? No, I haven't. I do wanna do, they have like canoeing, right? Yeah, canoeing and kayaking. That's my place. Like I have a kayak and it's not far from where I live. And you can just go down there and the river's like lazy. You just like float down there. So you can go as fast or slow kind of as you want, but it's just so beautiful and it's so quiet. If you go like on a Tuesday at noon, it's just amazing. Are you a beach or a river guy? Beach, for sure. But I don't have that here. You're a California guy. So the closest thing is, I'm a river, there's snakes.

58:49I'm a water person. I don't like when there's snakes and there's like slimy things in there. Well, there's neither snakes or sharks. I mean, You're right. Which one is worse? How far are you swimming into the ocean? Way out there. Like I go out a mile and then I just hang. I just bob up and down and I just hope that I live. I mean, he's Californian. You know that, right? They didn't know. Yeah, yeah, originally. I'm a Nashvilleian though. I have lived here for 36 years. Yeah, you're Nashvilleian. I think it's probably longer than you've been alive. So I would say. He's really trying to guess your age. Did you notice? Yeah, it's a team. She's 21. She's 21. Okay. He's like, right? I've been at 18, I've been here 11 years. I'm like, okay, so if you have 18 and then 11. He's good at math. Yeah, look at him. He's good at math and he loves Mexico. There are two things we know about him. The way I did that was, you see, if you had 18 and then you have 11 and you take the one from the 11, you have 19 and then you have 10. He lost me.

59:49And then 19 plus 10 is 29. That's how I did it. There you go. That was a long way to get. That's the math that they teach now in school. Yeah. It's common core math. That's what we're doing here today. Common core. Okay, I feel like we're just hanging out talking at this point. What do you want to talk about, Maribel? I don't know. What you, you've been doing this, you're in the hospitality, right, for a while? Absolutely, yeah. What do you- 30 years. What kind of- Like advice? Advice you give to me. You know, I'm new in this business of ownership. You know, I'm stepping in. It's been like three or four months now. It's hard sometimes, but what advice you give to me? Well, I'll defer to you first, Crystal, if you want to go that route. Give advice. That speaks to her heart though, right there. You know what I mean? Like how many times you get people coming on where you're interviewing them and then they go, I don't know, what advice do you have for me right now?

01:00:52Not a lot. Not a lot of people do that. Yeah, I have a, we're very, I feel like we're very similar. I always feel like I lead with my arms open and the table is here for anyone to take a seat that has something to bring to the, you know, to the brand and building the brand. And I think as long as, I think you're at a great start and I think you're putting your people first, which is gonna give you the loyalty that you need when you're in the tough times. And I always just say, just know your numbers. Know your food costs. Know how to always improve that and never lose sight of your numbers and what you can do to build the bottom line. Because as a leader, you can have the best people, you can have, that's the hard part. But if you don't, if you lose track of your margins and your labor, you don't have a business for them to go to. So I always go refer back to that and as long as that's taken care of, then we can have fun.

01:01:57We can laugh, we can joke, we can build a menu, we can have specials, feed the community. But if we're not profiting as a business, then there is no business. So that's always, you know, it looks fun and we make it look fun because I think that's what we try to do. But at the end of the day, when we sit there at our Monday meetings that I also have, we're looking at numbers. We're looking at percentages, margins, food costs, and labor. Because those are the only things you can control, right? And I think people will come when they see the good energy. You know, they'll keep coming back, but I think you can never stop telling people that. So it's good that you guys have a PR person because I think their job is to let people know your brands and your energy. And people can't forget that because there's just so many things out there right now. Nashville's a really hard market. I think for tacos, they're so simple, but people, there's so many choices, but now I hear your story. I want to support, this is why Mas Tacos is so popular.

01:02:58People talk about Mas Tacos like it's a person. She, she makes her soup. She makes, she's not the only one back there, but we have a connection to Teresa, right? I think that's going to be your story, you know. Off the record, I wore a Mas Tacos for a little bit. You did? Yeah, I wore with Teresa for like, there's some part-time shifts there. I love her. Because I love those tacos that much. I need to go in there and see how they do it. Yeah. Yeah, for a long time, I think it was like 2013 or something. So you know, you see the same faces go in there, the same people that have worked there for so many years. That's not an accident and that is, that's loyalty. And I think you have that going for you, you know? So keep that up, but you know, learn your numbers. I think that's, that's, you know. It's a big one. That's going to help you be a guidance to help make decisions. But I think if it was me, you know, trying to do this in under three minutes.

01:04:01Before I go into this tangent, we're going to take another quick break to hear a word from a couple sponsors. But note, the end of this show, there is an outro where you get to hear our thoughts on everything that happened in this episode. And it's like 15 minutes long. So stay tuned. That's coming up shortly. Sharpies Bakery is a locally owned and family operated wholesale bakery providing bread to Nashville's best eateries. They've been operating in Nashville since 1986, providing high quality fresh bread daily for restaurants, catering companies, hospitals, and universities. Their bread is free from preservatives and artificial additives. Learn more at sharpies.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S.com. Or you can give Erin Mosso a call directly. Her number is 615-319-6453. That's Sharpies Bakery. Y'all today we are talking as always about SuperSource.

01:05:02And you know, one cool thing about SuperSource is did you know that they develop most of their cleaning products and chemicals in their in-house facility? They're environmentally conscious and only use dyes that are safe for the employees and the environment. They carry a number of products for keeping your dishes, flatware, surfaces, floors, restrooms, laundry, basically your entire facility clean, bright, and smelling and feeling new. This is just one of the many reasons SuperSource is taking over this city for dish machine and chemicals. You need to call Jason Ellis. His number is 770-337-1143. And he would love it if you would give him a call and let him come down and just check out your operation, meet him, say hi, see if there's any way he can help. He is here to help you succeed. That's Jason Ellis with SuperSource, 770-337-1143. An advice I would give you, one of the things that I tell everybody in our company, it's a version of a QBQ, which is a question on the question.

01:06:06And I want everybody before they start their day to look in the mirror and ask themselves, what can I do to make every guest a repeat guest today? Right, so that answer to that question is completely different for every single person who works in that building. Right, so if it's a host, maybe it's really looking over the reservations, it's making sure the front entrance is beautiful, making sure that you know when you have regulars coming in that you're greeting them by name. That's what I can uniquely do. I can ensure that all of my tables are assigned, depending what your restaurant is, what you're doing. But like, if you're a manager, I think the number one thing that is, you gotta have enough food and you gotta have enough people. Right, you can't run out of food, you can't, sorry, I'm short, I can't have people because then you're never gonna hit those numbers. Right, so what can I do to make every guest a repeat guest? As a general manager, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm out talking to tables, shaking hands, kissing babies. That's a literal walking out, trying to make every guest a repeat guest. At that level or an owner level, it's preparation, it's removing roadblocks from your team, giving them all the tools that they need to be completely successful.

01:07:12If you have servers or people greeting guests and they don't know their menu, they don't know how to interact with them, or it's all about those numbers because it's about people and experiences. And when people feel warm and happy when they go somewhere, they want to go back. So if you have a team that's constantly focusing on what they can do to make that guest a repeat guest, they're gonna make the right decisions, you're gonna do the right things. And when you have those sales, the numbers will go a lot better because you can look at it two ways. One is, I want the sales, but we have to manage the numbers. You can get too engrossed in managing numbers down because your sales are down. But if you focus on everything you can do to increase those sales, the numbers are a lot easier than when they don't have them. I always say sales fixes everything. It does. And when you're focusing on making, and you guys are, you know, so with Pytown Tacos, it's not catering. I mean, catering is regular guests and people are ordering regular basis, but Pytown, you're serving your community. It's really a community restaurant where you need to learn people's names and that's outside of it.

01:08:12Like, what can I do to make every guest? I can remember their names. I can do this. I mean, it's one of those things I like to, I think it's really solid North Star kind of stuff for me. Yeah. So yeah, we do the, we have the restaurant bad. We also do catering and we have a food truck. So yeah. All kinds of different facets to what you're doing. We use trying, you know, to get the business out there. And yeah, it's been great, big opportunity for me to learn new things, new skills, you know, new leadership. Said, cause my goal here is to grow, but also bring my people with me. You know, I do, my goal in life right now has changed or swift a little bit cause I want my people to be recognized, you know, my people, my immigrant community, my Hispanic community to be seen. Do you want to shout out some people who work for you today? Yes. Who are some people that work for you today that do a great job that you'd like to recognize on the show?

01:09:14Yes, I want to shout out for my husband, Jack Furze. Okay. You know, he's a big- Is this a good one? Yeah, he's my emotional support and a big support there in the East Nashville, you know, and just overall now he's taking over, slowly taking over the Python. He's great. And we have Carlos and Reezy over there at the East Nashville today. Shout out Carlos and Reezy, I like it. Yeah, they're great. You know, they always support them. When you ask them something, hey, you know, can you help me out? Like, yes, you know, we do it. Like when you have that team that is back you up, when some, the hard things happen, you know, bad situations and then you having a hard day or things like that, but then they're there to remind you like, hey, slow down, we're here, we got you. And I think just that I'm grateful for that, to having that. So I don't have to worry as much. I was talking to Jason early. I have to shout out for Letty. She's a big part of my prep team.

01:10:14You know, she does all the prep for all the restaurants. She's great and just having her give me like a sigh of relief, you know, like, oh, when you're here, I know you got this. I know I don't have to be in the room for these things to be done, you know. She's great. She also like started from the dishwasher team, you know. So now she's a supervisor. And so that's my goal, to make my people grow, you know, to bring them with me, to show them their ropes, to make them start learning English, you know, cause I want them to be sitting here maybe next time. You know? We'd love to have them here next time. There you go. That's awesome. I love that. And those people will get your back when you have 150 person catering. That's what I'm doing today, you know. Jack, Jonathan, I have to shout out Jonathan. He's great. Oh, he's good with numbers. Remind me every day like, hey, these numbers need to be. Well, I love, I've loved having you here.

01:11:19I've loved getting to know you, sharing your story with our audience. And it's just been a lot of fun. Thank you both for coming in. We'll definitely have to do, and again, this is one of the reasons, again, I say this way too many times, but is it this? I genuinely mean it. This is why I wanna do this show. Because I want to tell stories like yours, and it's an honor to have you here today. First podcast ever? First podcast ever. I think you've done a wonderful job. How did it go? How do you think it went? It even went just like conversation with two new friends that I met. Yeah, it's pretty easy. So we do have one more thing for you, and this is the Gordon Food Service final thought. Jason, you get one too. So you get to take us out of the show. This is gonna be the final thing that we do. You get to speak to our audience, whatever you wanna say. So motivational, promotional, whatever.

01:12:19And you have no time limit, just go ahead and go, and then Jason, you go after her. Yeah, I'm just gonna tell all my fellow Hispanics out there to go, if you have a dream, work hard for it. Don't be sitting down, and don't be afraid. Sometimes we are afraid to be like, oh, are we gonna change jobs? Are we gonna be fine? Take the risk. If you have a dream, go, work hard for it, find a ways to do it, and make it happen. And also I'm gonna tell all the people who have business to be the next Jason. If you see some talent out there, and if you can do something to support it, please do it. You don't know how that mean for us and for our community. And just make you, when you work in a hospitality, restaurant, or any job that you work at, just make sure your team feels seen. Make sure they see that you care for them.

01:13:20If you care for them, show that care. Because that means the work for the people. Perfect. Thank you so much. I think for me, it's just super proud of what Maribel and Jack are doing. And I'm kinda like you, I'm caught up in the story, and her story's amazing. So I just think more people that can come, and come to Pytown, and get to meet Maribel, I think you guys saw it today. You're just gonna wanna love and support this girl, and what she does. And what Jack's doing over there. And by the way, the queso's the best, Maribel said so. So we're excited about what the future looks like. They're doing such a great job, and we're just taking it day by day. One taco at a time, we're making a lot of friends, and so it's a lot of fun. Yeah, come get you tacos, people. You know, you said something earlier. You said, that's how we roll at Pytown Tacos. This is how we roll. I need the shirt. I go, that's another back of a shirt.

01:14:23This is how we roll. This is what we do. Especially for the food truck. And I see pie wheels on the truck, right? Like pie wheels on Pytown. Hire me for your marketing. You didn't know you were getting all this marketing advice today, and merch advice. All the things. I already ordered the merch. I've been sitting here, just designing the merch for you guys. I can see the food truck with actual pies for wheels, like on a t-shirt, like the Pytown. Hubcap. Yeah, hubcap wheels. Oh, pie hubcap. I like that. Yeah. Put one of those on. If you could have something custom, artist, draw. Best queso in town. Best, or along the back, yeah. Prove me wrong. Yeah, prove me wrong. Delia said so. Delia said so. Yeah. I'm gonna text Delia and be like, what's the best queso in the city? Is it pie? And why is it Pytown Tacos? I'm gonna ask her what's going on here. This is a whole thing. All right, well guys, it has been an absolute pleasure having you. Thank you for joining us, and we will see you soon. Cool, thanks. Thank you. Okay, wow.

01:15:26So thank you, Maribel, and thank you, Jason, for joining us here on Nashville Restaurant Radio. What'd you think? Did you have fun? I had so much fun. I loved getting to know her. She's so interesting, and she cares so much. Like, it comes through. I just wanna, like, she's somebody who I wanna go eat at her wherever she's cooking. She just has so much passion, and I can tell her people are so loyal. All her cooks are so loyal to her. They're just gonna do the best job. You know, and cooking like that, I feel like the food's gonna come out good. You know, meeting people like her gives me hope. Just in every day you drive down the street, I lose hope in humanity. I mean, how could you not? And people driving, and little things, and working in a restaurant, dealing with the general public walking in, sometimes you lose hope. And I- It's pretty soul-crushing. It is soul-crushing sometimes. And you meet people like Maribel, and you go, man, what an amazing human.

01:16:30Like, just a great, fun person. I'm like, those people are out there. There's great people out there, and they will- Yeah, and I love, I love, like, when she got comfortable, she got really confident, and I love, like, I loved that. And she really threw it out there. I mean, she said best queso in town. She did say best queso in town. She said it. And there's a lot of quesos in town. And she said best, so she threw it out there. We- Do you have a favorite queso in town? What's your favorite queso in town? Okay, so we, personally, at The Grilt- You're a cheese aficionado. Yes, I like a queso that's made from scratch. Like, I'm not a big, like, Velveeta-y, I don't know. You know, like, I like the whole, like, I want spices. I want it almost like a cheese soup. I know, I don't know. Like, if anyone knows what I'm talking about, it's like more, I don't want it to be that viscous, like, you know.

01:17:32I want it thicker, I want it thicker. So, you had the Chagos queso the other day. What'd you think of that? Okay, it was really good. I got to eat a Chagos- I'm not saying it's the best queso in the city, but it's good. Okay, best is so relative to, like, also, like, what you're eating with it and whatever. So, like, for chips in salsa and queso, I love that little trio that came out, you know, with the guacamole and the salsa. Like, it's a great appetizer. It's such a good vibe in there. I haven't been in there since it's been remodeled. And I used to work next door at Cha Cha. Yeah, at Cha Cha, like, when it was Cha Cha. So, I know the building really well, and I love the vibe. You have a red, what's it called? A red rock tile, a female-owned business here in Nashville. Tile everywhere, I mean, the vibe is great. Yeah, love it. You have a great jam there. It's a great vibe there. So, I would highly recommend it. I mean, I know you'd probably recommend it, but I mean, I've revisited it. It's great.

01:18:32Well, thank you. I really appreciate it. So, back to queso. Very important. So, you know, I have not tried Pytown Tacos yet, though, because she said it, I haven't tried it. So, you gotta go try it. Yes. I think we should all try it. I mean, whether we have opinions on it or not. Also, it's like, queso's a real big temperature thing. Like, if it's not the right temperature, or if it's too hot, it can be too runny. Yeah. Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, 100%. Or if it's not hot enough, it's too gloopy. You know? Or if they don't stir it, because it'll get like a skin on the top. You have to constantly stir it and keep it going. Otherwise, you get the big chunk of skin in there, too. You can't have that. I don't like the super watery. I like the super thick. I like a good, nice, even consistency that coats the chip, but doesn't drip too much. I would say a nape. We're talking culinary terms, nape. That's exactly what I was thinking. Back of the spoon, you know? Like, it gets that, like, it holds to the back of the spoon. I, yeah, it's a temperature thing.

01:19:36I'm not a nacho cheese queso person. What's your favorite, like, so you as a family, like, oh, I will, I'll start this and say, we go to Mexican. Mexican is like our thing, right? If it's a Tuesday night and there's nothing to eat, it's kind of our code word for, we're both really tired and we don't wanna cook, but we really want comfort food. Yeah, and you love Mexico. You said that multiple times in that episode. We go to El Aguero in Bellevue. That's like our local Mexican restaurant. That's like our favorite. That's what we go to. We do that like sometimes twice, two, three times a week. It's a little crazy. What's yours in your neighborhood? Is it like a place that's like your go-to for a family? Okay, Mexican food is so relative. Like, we were talking about, that was a, what part of Mexico you grew, like you, so because I'm Mexican, I have a comfort food of a certain type of Mexican food, which is a very simple, like, pinto beans and rice, ganasada, like very, that kind of Mexican, which is more like a peasant type food, you know, which Maribel talked about being from Mexico City.

01:20:41So she, her comfort food is more of that type too, like clear broths kind of stuff. Mine is more like tomato-based tortilla soup. Oh my God, like I would, I love that. So unfortunately, I have not found my favorite tortilla soup in town. I make it really good. So I gotta bring you some of mine. I love the version that I kind of came up with, with like tosa guajillo chilies, and I like to put a lot of garnishes, like charred corn and fresh cilantro and queso fresco, and like, I like to, I like a lot of textures in my soups, but, and then I like to make my chicken stock with a lot of corn cobs, so it has like the sweetness to it. Do you make this and serve this anywhere? Just at my house. So that's what I'm saying. Like there are, like, when you talk about favorite Mexican food, it's so relative because it depends on like what part of Mexico or like maybe you grew up with a certain kind of Mexican restaurant in your area.

01:21:42I was just saying, what's your go-to as a family? Like your little family. I have a five-year-old. So she, like, I don't get to go to restaurants two and three times a week, Brandon. Your kids are older. So mine is still baby. Well, we don't go that often anyway. We're used to. I'm just saying. I can't like, bedtime routine, like I'm stuck in that right now. I long for the days where I get to go to restaurants two and three times a week with my family. Well, just fast casual. You don't do any. Fast tacos is my go-to because I like to see Teresa. I like, it's something that my whole family, we all, what we like, you know? What do you base when you go out to eat? What are the things you look for? Are you looking for price? Are you looking for the people? Do you like to go out and see people and be social? Or do you like to just don't see me? I'm gonna sit in the corner with my family. No, that never happens. I feel like if you're in East Nashville, you're gonna see somebody, you know? It's just like something. It's a thing. And I love seeing people. I love just, because I don't get to like, go to dinner with, you know, well, we won't have like more than that quick interaction because just, you know, we're busy.

01:22:46And so I love that. My, so favorite, I mean, Rose Pepper is great. Patio vibes. Hell yeah. They have a pretty good queso too. I mean, I don't partake in margarita vibes, but like they definitely have like, it's a great family style restaurant too. You know, like you go there at the golden hour, which is five o'clock, where no one goes at that time. And we're talking like kids running around the patio. Nobody cares. There's chips everywhere. Like love it. Love those vibes. It's great energy there. And then I would say, I just appreciate Moss Tacos, but there's so many good restaurants, but I'm not a big, like, I don't know. What do you order at a Mexican restaurant? Cause that's really telling, but you're from California too. So I mean, you probably have a good Mexican food order. Are you like a combo number three kind of guy with like an enchilada and a chicken taco? If I, so there's different times I go eat Mexican food and I'm a very moody, foodie. Okay, moody, foodie.

01:23:47No, no, no, no disrespect to the actual moody, foodie on Instagram. Um, I can go with a combination 12. I can say choose, pick a number between one and 20 and whatever number you tell the waiter, I'm good with eating. I love it. It's going to be great. But I like the, um, the pollo fundito is one of my favorite things, which is just, it's mushrooms and tomatoes and mozzarella cheese with chicken. And you kind of, it comes to rice and beans. You kind of make, put them all together and make a taco type thing. I like fajitas. I'm very vanilla like that. But also something about like just cheese enchiladas, if it's made with really good cheese. Okay, you're like, okay, you're talking more like Tex-Mex though. Yeah. So let's illustrate. You're, this is, you're talking like Tex-Mex. This is like white people, Mexican food. I don't know if you know this. You're white. I'm a white person. So yeah, this is the majority of, this is the food that Mexicans make for white people. Yeah. Yeah. That's like when, that's like when Vivek was in here and he was talking about Indian foods.

01:24:50Most Indian restaurants are just Indian food that they make for white people. They created that food for a specific person because, and this is the same with Chinese restaurants, Thai food restaurants. All of them, yeah. I mean, they have to stay in business. So they're going to give you, you know. That doesn't mean I'm not adventurous. I'll try anything. I love the molcajete. I'll do whatever. But on a Wednesday night. I will tell you, there was a restaurant called Mazatlan and it was on Bradley Parkway. Right close to like the airport. Like if you get off Bradley right there, there's a place called Mazatlan right there. And when I was at US Foods, this was one of our accounts. And I would go in there like on Wednesdays at 9.30, 10 o'clock when they were making family meal. And that was the best food I've ever eaten. But I didn't know what it was. Like I didn't, they would just go, you know, hey dude, they'd make me a plate. Cause I was in there in the morning we're doing family meal. That was some of the best food I've ever eaten. That was like the greatest perk of that job ever. My dad who is Mexican would often say, like if we would go to a type of maybe Americanized Mexican restaurant would say, give me the salsa that the guys in the back eat.

01:25:58Yeah. Because you know, there was a version that was just different and he would always get something. They always would give them something that was like in a little deli container. That's like, you know, and it's like respect, you know, like they know he knew. I mean, he was fine with, he actually liked the Americanized Mexican food just because it's just a different version of it, you know? And it's probably something he- A lot less spicy. A lot less spicy. And like, but you know, when he was in his prime and my dad's such a good cook, he even went to culinary school later in life just cause he loved, like he always wanted to be a chef, but he just never, it's just too late in life. Yeah. So he wanted that whole lifestyle. So he sent me to culinary school when I was very young cause he was like, well, at least one of us can go, but you know, when you're a, he was a, he's like the salesman of all salesmen. You would really hit it off with him, Brandon. What are you trying to say?

01:26:58He could sell you ice in a, whatever that saying is, you know? Ice to Eskimos. Ice to Eskimos. Catch up pops with a woman wearing white gloves. So he just like couldn't survive off of an entry level chef's salary. He was just like, no, I don't want it. But he often, he made, he cooked for our whole family, which is huge. So he would often, that's the kind of food I miss, you know? The canasada that's straight off the barbecue grill, you know, that's kind of smoky and it has like a rub on it. The chicken from the, you know, the pollo asada that's like from the Mexican market that he gets and he has the butcher do a special marinade on it from. Like, I can't make that food anywhere, you know? Like that's like a family thing, you know? So it's- But it's also why you travel. Yeah. That's the reason why you travel is to go places and eat food like that in those places, right? Yeah, I mean, I think it's so specific and personal. Like when you ask somebody, like Maribel was talking about like her mole. Mole is a celebration, like food, you know? So like, I know when she probably makes her mole, there's something really special about it because it's a very celebratory dish, you know?

01:28:06So like, I love hearing about that kind of stuff. I didn't know that was like a celebratory dish. There's so much that goes into mole. Like it's not an everyday food. Like there are certain dishes that you save for, you know, special occasions, you know? And that's like one of them because to have that much in, that's days of making a sauce, you know? And it feeds a lot of people and it's good party food, but that's not like a normal everyday type of food. I mean, maybe it is to some now, but like traditionally it's saved for special occasions. And so you can taste that. And then there are like a million different ways to make mole, which is so beautiful. I am learning so much. For somebody who's been to Mexico so many times and loves Mexico so much, I really don't know a lot about Mexico. It's just different when you actually grow up in a Mexican family. And like, I always like poo-pooed that kind of food because I went to French culinary school. So I was just like, I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna, now I'm like begging my dad. I'm like, I cannot make the beans right.

01:29:06Like, what did you put? Like, he doesn't ever tell me exactly what he did. And like, I know. And now I'm just like, it's like we all wanna go back to simple, you know? Like there are, I could overcomplicate any recipe that he would do, but like I wanna make it exactly how he made it because that's my memory of it. And you know, I long for those recipes, you know? And like, I have a cool thing that I'll say really quick. My grandmother, before she passed, I tried to write down as many recipes as I could so I can pass them along to my cousins. And we may actually made like a family recipe book after and be distributed to our cousins because I'm the oldest girl cousin. So out of like 28 cousins. So anyways, I cooked alongside her and all of her, she was like embarrassed to show me the recipes, which is crazy because she's like a legend. But she was like, I used Bisquick. And like, she was like embarrassed.

01:30:06But the donuts, the lard donuts that she made growing up that I like cherish, like she was like embarrassed to show me that it was Bisquick. And I was like, oh my God, I only want it to taste the way you did it. I don't want it like any different way. And I just- It's Bisquick, it's Bisquick. It was just the way she did it. And it was like how she fried it in the lard and like the cinnamon sugar and just like these little kind of banuelos that she used to make in different, like she would call them churros, but they weren't churros. It was different. It was like something she made in her village. And it was so cool to watch her do it. And she like brought us all hair nets. It was so cute. And then she was so cute and she did it. And we make the malas together and we have these great like memories of that. And I would just like always recommend like cook with your grandparents while you can because there's no writing down recipes. You have to see it with your eyes. You know, you have to watch them. She had this weird little measuring cup that was not like eight ounces. It wasn't six ounces. I think it was like 7.2 ounces.

01:31:08Like I'm like, I would never have gotten this measurement right. Yeah, it was, it's so cool. So we have, I just like am such a big, I mean, and not all of us had like amazing Mexican grandmas like I do, but like, you know, I would just say like cook with your auntie, you know, like cook with that family member. Well, because those recipes are not being handed down like they used to be. No. And my grandmother who we just lost last week. I know, my deepest condolences. Well, we got to sit with her, you know, as she was going and Jen, my wife got to tell her, grandma, I have all your recipes. I've been working on your cinnamon rolls. I'm gonna tell her, like, I think people wanna be remembered for a lot of things, but being able to tell her that, hey, I have your recipes. I've been practicing your cinnamon rolls, her famous grandma LaVon cinnamon rolls, like these famous cinnamon rolls in our family and she makes this popcorn and all the different things. We have all those recipes. My wife's been working on, she can make her biscuits and her rolls, they're not biscuits, they're rolls.

01:32:13But that's important that we get to tell her that all those things are gonna be continued to be made in her name. Yeah, and teach your sons those recipes. You know, this isn't just like, it's interesting because it's like, my grandmother assembled all of the girls to show us, but I'm like, you know, why wouldn't my boy cousins want to learn this? You know what I mean? Even she was just like, oh, they don't need to know. It's like, no, they want these recipes too, you know? I don't think I texted you on Mother's Day to say happy Mother's Day. Oh, thank you. Happy Mother's Day to you. Thank you. I'm sorry, that just happened last week. I was waiting for it. It was there. It never came. You said that to Cook With Your Sons and it reminded me, my boys picked out a card for my wife and it has like a little thing that was attached to it that was like a little room service order and had a bunch of stickers and it said, Mom, we're gonna cook for you and then you could put all the different, there was a place to put whatever she wanted to order and I thought that was so cool.

01:33:14So this set, I always had to work all day this weekend. So it was past weekend. So this weekend, we're celebrating Mother's Day and me and the boys are gonna cook her a big breakfast on Saturday. That is so important and special. It is. I think. I think that is so important to Cook With Your Sons because all of a sudden, and then like, I don't know, I think it's different now. I think the whole perception of what a chef is is different now and it's evolving and becoming something it should be, but I think you're gonna be possibly a dad someday and you're gonna have to also cook for your kids, even if you're not a professional chef. Cooking is one of the most, it's like meditation, I love it. You gotta cook for yourself. And so I really think that, I don't know, teach your sons how to cook young. I mean, there's nothing better than a man cooking a meal for, have you cooked your wife a meal?

01:34:16That's better than any restaurant you would take her to. I'm telling you. And you gotta know how to cook. I mean, cooking is. And like, it would be nice if it was good. Yeah, right? Like, you gotta know how to do this stuff. All right, we could do this for hours. The intro, we're doing like 30 minutes and the outro like 30 minutes. I know, it's too long, sorry. Hope that you enjoyed the episode. Stay tuned next week. We're gonna have Q Taylor and we're gonna have Shelby Briggs. It's gonna be a lot of fun and can't wait to share the episode with you. Thanks for listening today and hope that, do you have a sign off yet? Cause I have a sign off. I say, I hope that you guys are being safe out there. Cause mine goes back, if you're wondering, mine goes back to the pandemic. Yeah, pandemic. Started off and I was. Safe now, cause like now it's like. I was like, hope you guys are being safe out there. Like, don't go breathe on people. Yeah, don't breathe on people. And then I said, I love you guys, bye. Cause every time I go on the phone with my wife, I go, love you, bye. Like, it's just like the term of endearment. I gotta think of something. And then everybody who's listening, I love you. Like, I want to share love. Like, hey, I love you guys, bye.

01:35:19That's what I say. So if you're wondering why my sign off is what it is. I say. Maybe I'll throw it to the comments of our Instagram and we'll. What should the sign off be? I have my, hello music city. And then I go, thanks for listening. Hope that you guys are being safe out there. Love you guys, bye. That's a great. That's mine. That's mine. I gotta work on mine, Brandon. That one, yours is so perfect. Like your voice gets to that level and yeah. I love you guys. I gotta work on mine. Bye. But I do mean it. Like, I love you guys. Yeah, I can tell. It's genuine. I don't want to just say anything. I gotta work on it. All right, well. Coming soon. Coming soon. To Nashville Horror Story Radio. I stole sign off. Special sign off. So I will say that I do hope that you guys are being safe out there and I do love you guys. Bye. Bye.