Jessica Hazard

00:00Running a restaurant is tough. Staff turnover, rising costs, and the endless tasks that bog you down and take you away from what you love. Let Adams Keegan lighten that load. Their privately held Tennessee-based restaurant and hospitality-focused outsourced HR, payroll, and benefits firm. The team at Adams Keegan removes the administrative burdens of HR administration, payroll benefits management, garnishments, unemployment claims, compliance, 401k, and so much more. From their proprietary HRIS platform to seamless payroll and competitive benefits that keep your team smiling, they've got you covered. Adams Keegan lets you focus on what you do best, creating unforgettable dining experiences, while they handle the rest. Essentially, think of Adams Keegan as your back office HR department, right here in Music City. One of the many things I love about Adams Keegan is that unlike big publicly traded companies out there, they have an incredibly high standard of customer service, and that's what we all need, is really good customer service in these areas. They don't give you a 1-800 number and make you fill out an IT ticket submission.

01:04They surround every client with a team of experts, all based right here in Tennessee. You can call them today at 615-627-0821, or visit adamskeegan.com, that's A-D-A-M-S-K-E-E-G-A-N.com, for your free HR consultation and see how they can create a customized solution to help your restaurant thrive. 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 not your host. We are still powered by Gordon Food Service, but I am joined today with Jim Myers.

02:04Jim, say hi. Good morning. How you doing? I am cold, how are you? I am warm. Actually, it's delightfully warm in the studio. Yeah, it's been nice. I've been one of those fortunate few who hasn't lost power. I've been inviting people to come stay over the house like crazy, and everybody's not doing it. I'm starting to think I smell or something. I don't know. You're already making me choke laugh. No, it's not you, it's the people, I think. People are very much like, I wanna be home, I don't wanna go to somebody else's house, this is a thing, unless you're like family, then it's different. Right, right. It's a whole thing. Yeah, I checked on my mother-in-law yesterday and her 94-year-old boyfriend, and they were hunkered down by the fire, having a glass of wine, a blanket over their laps. It was a really sweet scene, but no power. Your mother and her 94-year-old boyfriend, that's the, there's a whole podcast of that. There is, there is. In fact, he would be a great person because he's such a fascinating guy, and he used to run Genesco Shoe Company.

03:11Oh, really? He was a World War II pilot, went to MIT, super smart, and a inveterate prankster as well, so. Well, I love that. So let's move along. This is one of the last intros that I'm gonna do, and I think people may be wondering, what's Jim Myers doing? Why did you say you're not the host, Brandon? What is going on? Today, we're talking with Jessica Hazard, and she is the owner of NYPi, and you interviewed her. I did. What a great conversation with her, and I've been a fan of NYPi for a long time, and I had no idea how much she had grown and her background is so interesting. Oh my gosh, it's fascinating. And that was a great conversation. And who knew, you know, it's like 312 Pizza. I always thought that was like a chain out of Chicago, and learning that it is a locally-owned mom-and-pop restaurant. Right, yeah. And NYPi also, they do such a good job with their branding. You walk in and you feel like, oh, this is a chain.

04:12There's probably 50 of these across the country, and then you talk to her, and you're like, oh no, this is locally-owned and operated by you, and you have three locations, and the story of each location and the real estate around it was really fascinating. Yeah, it's an interesting lesson in growth, but I think a good lesson, too, in terms of growing the right way when you're trying to open multiple stores under the same brand. It's a very hard thing to do. We talked a little bit about that, going from two to three, three to four. These are huge business acumen leaps that you have to make to be successful. Very similar to having children. Having one child, the two child, the three child, the four children, playing Zone and what you're doing is so much. Right, going from man to man to Zone. Yeah, so I think the main question is, what are you doing here, and what is going on with Nashville Restaurant Radio? And I wanna give a little bit of a backstory of what's going on. I've been hosting this podcast since March 14th, 2020, and it is the love of my life other than my wife and kids.

05:19I love this podcast more than anything, and I love talking to restaurant owners. This is who I talk to, this is what I care about. I wanna build community. One of our lines, our full tagline at NARA is stronger restaurants, stronger communities, and I think that's kinda what I've been doing this entire time with Nashville Restaurant Radio. I'm kind of in a transition to where I'm working directly with so many restaurants right now, and I'm sharing a lot of those through NARA Connect. I'm actively building the communities. And in comes Jim, who has so much experience in the Nashville restaurant world. I mean, you used to be a writer for the Tennessean, you used to do reviews, you have extensive knowledge. Yeah, back in the day when we had what I call real restaurant criticism before the rise of user-generated content, which is Yelp, for example, and the rise of influencers, where everything is beautiful.

06:21Everything is beautiful. And we wanna kinda keep to some of that. I want there to be some authenticity, but you're gonna come in and you're gonna host Nashville Restaurant Radio for the foreseeable future, and you're gonna be doing your style of interviews that I think is gonna translate a lot more with the guests who dine in restaurants, as well as people who work in restaurants and restaurant owners. But I wanted to kinda change the broad focus with a different voice and a different perspective. I'll still come on from time to time because I'm just an addict and I love this, but really I wanted to give this opportunity to somebody else to give it a shot. You do need to come back because you're really good at it and your voice is so important to this. So let me just say, you better not just disappear on me. I'm not. And yeah, I think coming at it from my background, you obviously came at it from a restaurant professional, having worked most of your career, if not all of it, in and around restaurants.

07:25In and around. That's all I've ever done is restaurant adjacent from both sides. I've spent a lot of time covering the restaurant industry and writing about it, chronicling it, always with an eye for the reader. That was who paid my bills, so to speak. And it's one of the things that people always get confused about journalists. I remember people used to call David Kleimer at the Tennessean and Kleimer was always that guy, unafraid to say what everyone was thinking about sports. Yeah. And so people would get mad at him for speaking the truth. And they had this notion that a journalist is a booster for their area of content that they covered. And that you can be supportive, but you don't have to be a cheerleader, so to speak. Because at the end of the day, your customer is the diner.

08:29You are a consumer advocate. And I've always sort of come at it from that. Now, do I have a lot of friends who are chefs since I was doing that anonymously and all of that? I do. And I have a lot of good friends in the industry and I love restaurants and I love writing about them and food and everything. But again, I think the consumer still matters. And we've talked about how expensive it has gotten to eat out, how expensive it is for restaurants to stay open with taxes and rents and food costs and labor costs and everything. It's a struggle. We're not out to bash anyone and put anyone out of business. We wanna celebrate their successes, but also remember someone's spending their hard-earned money to go to that restaurant to have a good experience. And that's what you hope for everybody. Absolutely. And we're gonna be a little more in-depth conversations with some of these restaurant owners.

09:32And I'm really excited, based on just the conversation with Jessica. And then, so the first interview is gonna be with Jessica Hazard and the next interview is gonna be with me. We've done half of it. Where Jim actually interviews me on my story and kind of where I have gone and what we're doing now. And this will all paint a really nice picture after that episode comes out. But I'm over the moon excited for what is going to come with Nashville Restaurant Radio, this new version of Nashville Restaurant Radio. I think you're gonna love it. And I think that the guests are gonna love it. And I think that it's gonna be a perfect compliment to the Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance. Let me, one more thing that I really wanna do. If you're not following us at NARA Nashville, N-A-R-A Nashville on Instagram, I would love for you to go do that. I don't have a Facebook page, but I'm gonna create one. We have a LinkedIn page, go find us there. But one thing that Jim's gonna start doing is writing an article about the podcast interview. So as he interviews Jessica, he's gonna write an article about that.

10:33And then we're gonna be posting that article about the podcast interview with a link to the podcast. There's gonna be a couple different channels. And we wanna start promoting different restaurants and supporting you in a different way. Not just doing an interview, but actually putting it out there and sharing your stories, which I think will be really, really vital for just, really what we wanna do is we wanna be the place people think about local restaurants. They think about, oh, Nashville Area Restaurants, that's where the best local restaurants are all kind of banding together. And then we wanna share that with the community, all these different things. And we have stickers we want you to put on your front door. When people show up, they go, oh, this is one of those Alliance restaurants. They're certified local, they're great. And I want Jim to kind of tell the backstory for a lot of those restaurants. And beyond. Right, no, it's a podcast, of course, and we'll continue that and broaden it like we talked about. I'll bring a little bit broader perspective. Make it a little less inside baseball, but still inside enough that it's interesting to diners because people like to know the inside story and tips and hints and different things.

11:42But I love the idea that we can then take that podcast and summarize it in a nice, readable, digestible format on the narrow side. And it's another way to digest the information and see it at your leisure. So this is exciting. And I don't wanna make you wait anymore. We don't need to draw this out a lot longer, but I wanted to formally introduce Jim Myers as kind of the host of Nashville Restaurant Radio. I am so excited about this. I really, really am. And I've had people telling me to do podcasts for a long, long time. And what a great privilege it is to jump into your huge shoes and something that you've created six years ago, multiple, I mean, 300 plus episodes. I've been going back and listening. There's an archive of great, really great content. It's one of the things I'm most proud of, like my 20 plus years of marriage and the amount of, like, if you go back and you look back over all the episodes, some of the conversations we have and how diverse it has been from Freddie O'Connell the day after the Covenant shooting to Gloria Johnson politically, and then Montel Jordan, Will Gadara.

13:06I mean, how many different James Beard award-winning chefs we've had on, Tandy Wilson did his very first podcast was this podcast. He was like, I don't know. I don't know what, this is my first one. You know, when you get Tandy Wilson, Philip Kradjic, who just got nominated for one. We've had Vivek Serti, who we'll be coming back on with you and just got nominated for another James Beard award. We've had Benjamin and Max Goldberg. We've had Josh Hobbiger, all these people. It's a who's who cornucopia of greatness here. And it wasn't, you know, we had Julio Hernandez announce he was doing Mize de la Vida on the podcast in 2020. I mean, all of these times, if you go back over all these experiences, I kind of pinch myself because it just happens in real time. And I'm just talking to people I've known for years. And sometimes I'm like giddy like a child talking to these people. And I get done with an interview and I'm like, how the hell did I even get in this position to have this conversation? But it's all there. It's all there, living, breathing right now.

14:08370 something or 50 something episodes all the way back. And you can go back and listen to this. There's a lot. And it's, I'm excited to see what the next version of this looks like. Well, it is a lot. And again, I can't say enough about how it is a chronicle of the industry since COVID essentially. Yeah, and that's during COVID. It's important to chronicle these times and local media has largely abdicated its responsibility of in-depth coverage. There's nowhere that does in-depth coverage. And so there is no one in town, I don't think right now, that owns food coverage in Nashville. I think there's some good- Well, I think that one person, one group does. Well. Or sitting there. You're listening. You're listening to me. One and only. Yes, I'm gonna have to work on channeling my- Restaurant radio voice.

15:10My new voice, it's funny. Speaking of which, someone with a great voice, an unmistakable voice, who's a customer at the soda shop one day, and I go, I think that's who I think it is. But I went by and stood with my back to the table for a minute just to listen to his voice. And sure enough, it was Jim Nance. The best. And suddenly you're in a restaurant, but you feel like you're at the Masters. Now on Amen Corner. Tiger Woods for the Masters championship. Jim Nance, he has a house here in town. Yeah, he lives here. Yeah, he lives in Belle Meade. Yes. Maybe, I think it's Belle Meade. He lives in Belle Meade. I think he was in Forest Hills when I moved to Belle Meade. But- Which is crazy. Everyone's moving to Nashville. That's the other reason we need to, to not just chronicle this, it's such a huge part of the fabric of the community. Restaurants, food, dining out. It's what put much of the city on the map as well, and has made us a destination, is people coming to dine in Nashville.

16:17And we're gonna chronicle that. And when people come to dine in Nashville, where I want them to have a place to go, because I'm going to Charlotte on Friday. And if I want to go out to eat in Charlotte, where do I, do I just search local restaurants in Charlotte? Cause I want to find a good local restaurant. Where are the best local restaurants? Nashville has people coming into town from all over the world, and they come to town and they go to Chewy's. And you're like, what? Why did you go to Chewy's? Why did you go to, you know, Eddie V's? These are chains that are downtown, and the Pelican and Pig is not far away. There's East Side Bon Me if you want a sandwich for lunch. Like go try that, go to Fat Belly Pretzel, go to, there's a million places. And I just did a video the day talking about like Baja Burrito, and Arnold's is pretty well known. But like, go with the locals, go check these places. These are the people that need the help.

17:18And I want them to have a source that when they come to town, they go, where do we eat local? Oh, there's a local restaurant alliance where everybody can see these are the best local restaurants in town, and they plan their trip around where they're gonna be going based around the best local restaurants that have come together. Yeah, it's an important service. A podcast about that, for that, and beyond. It's just a portion of it. Well beyond. Well beyond, yes, 100%. Well, hey, I'm ready to get into this episode with Jessica Hazard, people. Every time I get to like this point in the intro, I'm like, I just imagine people in their cars going, dude, will you fucking play the episode? Like, stop talking. And I feel this weird self-consciousness. Like, they didn't come here for this. They saw Jessica Hazard was on the show, and they wanna hear that. They don't wanna hear all of me talking beforehand. I could be wrong. I get the most comments about the podcast from the intros, which is crazy. People are like, oh, I heard what you were saying there.

18:19Yeah, really, okay. It's weird how many people, because that's like my personal opinion time when I come on and talking about the ice storm we just had or whatever it is. And if you are a guest out there listening, I will talk about the ice storm for another second. Sorry, see, you get me talking like this. See, here he goes. Well, just go support local restaurants. I mean, I don't think people understand how devastating an ice storm like this is. You know, when it comes in on Friday, Friday night at midnight or whatever, the next morning is 6 a.m., people stay in Friday night. Everybody was down in sales Friday night because the people were at home planning for ice the next day. So they don't go out deep. Maybe some people went out deep Friday night. You missed out 30, 40% on what the business should have been. Nobody went out on Saturday. Nobody went out on Sunday. A few people were open on Monday and Tuesday. Most people were closed. Today, here we are, Wednesday, and a lot of places still don't have power. I mean, a lot of places are still figuring out.

19:19I mean, that's four or five days that restaurants got no business. And that is detrimental, not to mention the places that lost power to throw away all of their food. And then when it comes down to, hey, we're gonna go back out to eat. What are we gonna do? Maybe a lot of people still have a ton of milk and bread left over. I don't know, but this is vital that when you go out to eat this weekend or when you go out to eat the next couple weeks, I think forever, but before you go out to eat, make sure the place that you go out to eat is a locally-owned and operated restaurant. These big, huge companies have a guy in Chicago or Houston or LA who's putting the other insurance information and has all the documentation and can get that done. We're talking about mom-and-pop places where there's a husband or a wife who's trying to figure out, how do I do loss of business insurance? Do we take pictures every single day of the snow? Do we take pictures of all the invoices? And do we have, and a lot of times you're not gonna get that insurance because you just don't have somebody who owns that. So they're gonna take a massive loss.

20:20And when you're going out to spend money, go spend money at a local place. It's somebody whose kid goes to your school. It's somebody who gives back when you walk in and you ask for donations for your kid. That's the people that, they need you right now. You're here. More than anything. You hit on everything right there, especially things like loss of business insurance. Most restaurants don't carry that or can afford to carry that or don't know if they even have it. And I was in Publix, not that I wanna shed a tear for a large grocery chain. They got plenty on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of last week. But the Publix in Belle Meade, their power went out long enough that I walked in, they were unloading every single freezer in that grocery store and filling shopping carts and throwing thousands of dollars away. It's a thing. And imagine if you're a gigantic corporation like Publix or if you're 312 Pizza, reference them again.

21:21If you're 312 Pizza and you're a small place like that and you throw away $5,000 worth of food, I mean, most, all right, I'll put it like this. Most restaurants don't make 10%, but let's for this math equation, just so we can say this, let's just say you make 10%. You throw away $5,000 in food, you have to do $50,000 in sales to make that up. And so one restaurant that is closed for five days, and let's just say that on a low end, they do $10,000 a day, they lost $50,000 in sales. Not only is that $5,000 in profit, if they make 10%, which they don't, but let's just imagine, I'm trying to get everybody their 10% plus. But I mean, like these are big numbers. Like when people are going to chains and spending the money, these guys have the money, they're fine. They're gonna be fine. They have private equity. They got all the money in the world. Local restaurants are, they need you. And so go vote with your wallet. Absolutely, they do. When the restaurant closes, oh man, I love that place.

22:23Well, stop saying you love that place and go to that place and spend money there. That's what's gonna keep restaurants around. Right, no, you're absolutely right. And again, the big places have insurance, they're not worried. They're not worried, they're fine. These big chains coming into town and they have the marketing to post on every site in Chicago and New York. When people are coming to town, they're promoting in other cities that it's, we're at a disadvantage as a local restaurant. So if I can be a mouthpiece and let people know, hey, this is important right now. Make sure you're doing this. Yes. And if anybody listening understands that and spends their money at local restaurants, then my work is done. But I would love to see more of that. Yes, because no one lifts up the communities during times of need like the local restaurant community. 100%. We need to pay that back now. If you don't know which restaurants are local out there, like, well, how do I know if a restaurant's local?

23:24You just said on this intro, you thought 312 Pizza was a chain. You thought that NY Pie was a chain. You didn't even know these places were local. It's a true story. Those are real. There are some places out there. You walk into Honey Fire in Bellevue and it looks like they did a really good job. Like this is a perfect chain of, no, that's a local restaurant. Go to our website. Go to NARA Nashville, N-A-R-A Nashville.com. There's a tab there that says restaurant members. If you click on that restaurant member tab, it's gonna have a list of all of the restaurants who are members of the Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance. Choose any of those restaurants. If you're wondering where to go, and there's some great restaurants on there of all different pricing, Rose Pepper to Honey Fire to Bad Idea to NoCo to, I mean, all these restaurants that are members of the Alliance, go to the website, choose one of those restaurants, and make a point to go support them or multiple ones. Amen, brother. And go leave them a five-star review. All right, I'm gonna step down off my soapbox and we are going to officially get into welcoming Jim Myers.

24:28Thank you very much. To Nashville Restaurant Radio. Great to be here. And so I will do this here for the last time, maybe not the last time, but let's get in with Jessica. You are listening to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Welcome everybody to Nashville Restaurant Radio today for my first interview outside of interviewing Mr. Still himself. I have the great pleasure to be here with Jessica Hazard, who is the owner, CEO, COO, everything you can be for New York Pie, NY Pie. NY Pie has three locations in Nashville, greater Nashville, we should say, and is about to open another one. We'll get to that. But first I wanna say welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Thank you. Tell me a little bit. First, you're from New Jersey, is that right?

25:29I am. What exit, as they say? 52. Exit 52. So I asked that, I have no idea where exit 52 is. I can tell you exactly. Yeah, tell me please. 52 miles north of Cape May. So the southernmost point of New Jersey, it's 52 miles north in a little town called New Gretna. Okay, so do all the exits run south to north then? In the parkway, yeah. On the New Jersey parkway, okay. What kind of town is that? It's a little town. Yeah. Yeah, it's super little. You're near Atlantic City being the largest city, okay. Yeah, I mean, if we say we're going to the city, we're going to New York. Okay. Or you say you're going to Philly, or you say you're going to Atlantic City, they're all. That's a great area of New Jersey. Cape May is beautiful. Yeah. I've been there a few times to the coast, and it's nice. New Jersey gets a bad rap. It does get a bad rap. And it's very unfair. Yeah. So what does New Jersey know about pizza? Let's start there. Well, New Jersey knows a lot about New York style pizza.

26:32Not so much about Chicago or some of the other styles. Okay. I'd say up the East Coast, New Jersey, New York, it knows good pizza. And people tend to like the pizza they grew up with, right? So when we moved down here, we couldn't find the pizza. And so we're like, well, let's bring it then. Right. And so it resonates with people that are like, wow, that's just what I grew up on. Right. So are there any characteristics in New Jersey pizza that set it apart from New York pizza? It's really similar. It's super similar. I mean, if you're from Long Island or Brooklyn, you might say, oh, it's a little bit different here, but it's so similar. It's thin crust, hand toss. You cook it on a brick oven. There's a certain magic behind the sauce and the cheese ratios and the cheese you use and the tomatoes that you use. Right. But there's kind of a standard that if you are like a true New York, New Jersey style pizzeria, you kind of stick to some of the same brands and things in your recipes.

27:36Right. So there's a familiarity with how it tastes and looks and everything. What about Connecticut pizza? Is that its own different world? Oh, now you're starting, now you're going to start a little rumble, huh? No, no, no, we can, we can stick with New York. No, people from Connecticut sure do stick behind their pizza too. They do. They do. Yeah. I've been to Sally's. It was all right. It was good. It was all right. Faint damning praise, we call that. No, it was, it was, it was fine. No, that's great. But I think you're right. Pizza is one of those foods that is very nostalgic for people because most families grow up eating pizza and what do they eat? They eat generally what's near where they live. It's a very geographical in terms of loyalties to establishments. People tend to support the places that are close to home. And then they tend to support the ones that remind them of their childhood, what they're comfortable with.

28:40But there's, there's such tremendous variety that there's something for everyone out there. There sure is. You know, and I don't, I don't, I tend not to get in the you're right, you know, or he's wrong kind of discussion about pizza because it's pizza at the end of the day, right? Yes. Facebook gets onto it a lot. Oh, all the time. There's always the war between Chicago and New York and well, more so Connecticut and New York. Right, right. A little bit of Chicago and New York, but. Sure. So when, so you, you come to Nashville in what year did you move here? Oh gosh, it was, let me see if I get this right. It was 2005. Okay. Yeah, and so lived here for a little bit of time. I went to school in the South. I went to school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina at UNC. Nice. And I started a healthcare career in Chapel Hill. Okay. And so I've actually been in healthcare up until recently. I do consulting on the side now, but kind of like our friend over here, I walked away from my career in February.

29:47So. Oh, just this February. So this whole time, so you see this need for pizza like you grew up on that you could not find in Nashville. You opened NYPi and you maintained a healthcare career. I did, I did. How hard is that balancing a full-time career and a burgeoning pizza empire? You know, I, and I also had young kids at the time. And so you just kind of do it, you know, you just do it. And you know, you have to be really organized and you have to set up a lot of processes and you really need to count on your team. Right. Build a beautiful team of, you know, they all have their different strengths and you really need to rely on those people. And you can't, you can't think like everything has to be a hundred percent all the time. Like you're not gonna hit a hundred percent, but you know, you sure can try. Right. Yeah, you can set the bar for that, but you also have to know what to let go of when you have to let go, which is, which is hard for people who are organized perfectionists who like doing things a certain way.

30:53It's one of the frustrations of the business. So what, what went into the decision to say, okay, I'm, I have a family, I have this job, I'm gonna do this thing on the side. How did you, let me ask you, did you grow up in the restaurant business? Did you grow up working in restaurants? No, that's a great question. I did not grow up in the restaurant business. My parents own a campground. Okay, like a KOA kind of thing? Well, my best friend, Michelle, her parents own KOA and we owned Pilgrim Lake in New Gretna. And so I grew up with my three siblings, you know, working every job. So, you know, I was, you know, cleaned the bath houses, was lifeguard, worked in the campground store, you know, dug ditches. I mean, just grew up within a family business. So business has always been just ingrained in me. Sure, that sort of entrepreneurial spirit of family run business. Yeah. Digging ditches. Oh, yeah.

31:54So there's electricity, you gotta run electrical lines and plumbing and repairs. Okay, yeah. Yeah, internet, you know, so. So campgrounds, and then were you ready to go away to college at that point? Oh, I was so ready, I was so ready. Like I said, I grew up in this small little town where everybody knows everybody's business. And, you know, I love the people I grew up with. I love my hometown. I still have a home there. And I go back too often. And so I can't say enough good things about where I grew up. But when I was 18, I sure was ready to go to someplace big. Sure. Yeah, so that's how I landed in Chapel Hill. And it was great, I loved it. Great college experience there, beautiful campus. Such a pretty campus. Some good restaurants in the greater triangle area, too. Yep, yep. Did you ever go to Crookes Corner? Oh. We did, you know, it's funny, we did, you know, he's not here, you know. And do you know the story of he's not here?

32:54No. So I think it was back during the Jordan times, you know, when Jordan was at Carolina. And so people would come in all the time being like, is Jordan here? And so they kind of came up with, at some rate, they came up with he's not here. That's funny. Yeah. That's funny. So then after school, you're looking for a job. Is that how you got into healthcare at that point, or? Yeah, I had actually wanted to be a physician. And I didn't get into med school the first go around, which was kind of fortunate. Now I only applied to like North Carolina schools because it would be in state tuition, which is a lot less expensive. But I didn't get in the first time around. My undergraduate was in health policy and administration. And so I got to thinking, I'm like, well, what would be a good compliment to being a physician? And so I got a master's degree in public health nutrition. And then at some point decided I really didn't want to be a doctor anymore. Okay. And so I was a dietician for a good year and then realized that dieticians don't make as much money at the time for my student loans.

33:59And so I was asked by, I actually, we had a pizzeria in Raleigh. So ran that for a little while with my partner. And then I got a call out of the blue from just a job that I used to work for. And she's like, hey, we just lost our practice manager at UNC health, like OBGYN practice. Can you just come run it? I know you're 23. I know you'd never done it before, but can you just come do it? I'm like, heck yeah. So I started running physician practices. So my expertise is in big like health systems that employ physicians. It's like the business side of running those practices. Okay. So then how did that lead to Nashville, except for the fact that all healthcare roads lead to Nashville. Right, exactly. I worked for Nancy Cheshire was one of my physician partners. And she was just very well known in the maternal fetal medicine, OBGYN community. And she was recruited to go work at Vanderbilt. And she was the first female clinical chair at Vanderbilt.

35:02And so she recruited me to be her business sidekick. Okay. So that's how we got here. And then we were here for several years before opening the first NYPi. Right. So now you're ready to open a restaurant. You've decided, hey, I want to do this. This will be a fun side hustle. Probably more than that, obviously. You took it seriously, but how did you go about learning how to open a restaurant, learning how to, everything it takes from hiring to recipe development to equipment to all the things? Yeah. I had a partner that grew up in the pizza industry. And so he really focused on recipes, equipment, layout. I focused more on decorations, menus, marketing, profit and loss statements, setting up QuickBooks, payroll, so all like the business components, hiring, firing, training, HR. So basically every IT, I wear every hat. And so that was how we divided duties initially and then went from there.

36:06Okay. Do you still have a partner in the business? I don't. Did you buy him out? I did. Okay. Good for you. Thank you. How exciting. So then, so you're working on getting this off the ground. Talk to me about choosing the location. It's a new, it was new then, wasn't it Nashville West? It was. I mean, we looked all over the place and there was some things that were deal breakers. For instance, bad parking, deal breaker. The people need to be able to get there and park. You wanted to have good demographics. So we were looking for daytime numbers in shoppers as well as business folks, business offices and then residential. And that area in Nashville West really hit all of those things. And I mean, the shopping center is just a huge draw. So it was, we felt like it was such a big risk because we'd never done this in Tennessee.

37:09And in fact, when we were getting ready to open, we had to meet with the health inspectors and walk them through why it's safe to serve pizza by the slice. Really? And how we were gonna do that in a way that would make them feel comfortable. So we came up with a logging system. We still use it today. So when a pizza comes out of the oven, it gets logged, the temperature gets taken, which is kind of funny because it's coming out of a 550 degree oven. So it's gonna be like pretty hot. So you take the temperature and then after so many hours, if you still have that pizza, it gets thrown away. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so it was fun. Yeah. But we, to answer your original question about like, what are you looking for? We turned down so many places, mostly because of parking or they just weren't at the right spot. But Nashville West was unbelievable. Like I can remember to this day, the day we opened and I'm like putting the slice prices on the slices. We have all these big, beautiful slice pies all lined up and everybody is all ready and there's a line out the door.

38:15It's like, oh, we opened 11 and there was like all like the shopping center employees were excited by it. And so like literally they opened the door and I'm still putting slice prices on and it was insane. The response was just unbelievable. And people responded to being able to buy by the slice. They did. Because it was fairly novel unless you were from the East Coast. Yeah, so people from the East Coast were so excited when they saw pizza with slice, they're like, finally. But then other people like really grew to love it. Like for instance, we have Nashville Electric Service workers come in all the time and they just love it because they can get their slice, they can get their soda. They can not have to take forever for lunch. Sure. It was definitely a teaching and a learning curve for the community. I looked on the website and you talk a lot about the, just sort of creating the general ambiance that you wanted of a New York.

39:16Of your hometown pizzeria. Yeah, hometown pizzeria. And I wanna tell you, and I'm not just saying this, you've done a great job because that's how I think of it. Because I go in to pick up my pizza and I jaw with the guy behind the counter or whatever and we talk and everyone's great. So how did you find the right people during the interview process to who could create the ambiance that you wanted? Which is, again, a hard thing. You're in Nashville, Tennessee. Southern city and the, I'll just say people are people, but the attitude in the two different areas is very, very different. Just the way people talk and interact with each other and everything.

40:16Well, I mean, it's our primary thing we interview for now. I don't know how good of a job we did it back in the beginning. I think we kind of lucked out and we have some folks that have been with us for 14 years, 13 years, 12 years. Nashville West is just so special. It was really, like you mentioned before we started the podcast, it's my OG, right? And it was so important that we had that level of warmth. And so we trained, we hired to it, we trained to it. I always tell the story about my hometown pizzeria. I grew up in Naples, was my hometown pizzeria. It's still there today. They just got the store next door, so they're blowing down the wall in between. They've been open since the 70s. And so I would tell everybody, we're not a franchise, we're not a chain. We're not, like Panera, it's nice to go to Panera and it's nice, it's clean, it's whatever, but there's never any warmth. There's never any, oh, hey, Jess, you want your spinach egg souffle today? It's like I'm like a number or whatever.

41:19So I always would, in the beginning, tell the Panera story, but we're no Panera. We want when people come in, it's like, hey, how you doing, you know, and know their name. Right, it makes a huge difference, it really does. There's also a story that I like to tell during training about just when, just really great customer service examples. So TJ and Travis and Robert and all the guys at Nashville West, we have girls too, but I'm specifically thinking about the guys right now. They knew all of the customers, of course, they still know all the customers, but they had a couple that would come in every single Friday from, I don't know, somewhere west, like, you know, 45 minute drive to come in for a pizza. And it was snowing and they were getting ready to shut down for the afternoon. And they dug through and found our customers' numbers and called them before they got on the road to say, hey, we're closed. And I'm like, that's what I'm talking about, is just like truly being worried about our customers and, you know.

42:20It's real hospitality at the end of the day. Yeah. And actually, it's funny that you said that because one of my peers and administrative folks in the company, her name's Chris, we just got done reading probably three months ago, Unreasonable Hospitality, have you read it? Yes, I have. And if I'm not mistaken, Will Gadara has been on the show. Oh, Will has? Yes, yes. Oh, wow, I'll have to go back and look at that one. So just blown away, just blown away. And it's not like, you know, some of the concepts are just so, they make sense. And a lot of the concepts we do today, but we've made a strategic decision as an organization that we're gonna full in embrace this and we're calling it wild hospitality. And we kick off with our managers first. This month, actually, we're having, you know, we're pulling them all aside for about six hours and we're just gonna brainstorm, what does it mean at NYPI to provide the unexpected for our customers?

43:26I love that, I love that. I love everything about that. You're leaning into it. And I think, yeah, go back and listen to that episode because it's a powerful episode. And Will Gadara, you know, he's legendary in this business. So you're doing well in West Nashville, you open. What was the point that you said, hey, maybe we should try opening another one? Very excited to be partnering with C&B Linen. If you know me, it's my number one topic of conversation is linen companies and how shady linen companies can be. I have just discussed it with how the business practices work in this industry, which is why I was so excited when I found C&B Linen. They're out of Waynesboro, Tennessee and they don't charge any fees. So the linen price that you have, whatever that first linen price is, that's your price.

44:29And so you may say, well, every year they must raise the price on this seven year contract, right? No, because they don't do any contracts. There's no gas fees, there's no clean green service fees, there's no replacement cost, there's nothing. The only price you pay is the price that you pay for the actual product. I know it's too good to be true, no contracts. They do formats, they'll make custom formats for you. They do fresh linens, cleaning supplies. And guys, I just did a tour of their facility and it is immaculate, it is state of the art. I'm gonna post pictures on my Instagram. You can go find them and you can see how absolutely gorgeous this is. To the point that they even wash and sanitize every one of their used laundry carts. It's just absolutely amazing. If you're looking for a linen company you can trust who wants to earn your business every single week, go back and listen to our episode with Jason Cruz, the owner of CMB Linen. Hear it straight from his mouth, exactly what they do.

45:32Or you give them a call at 931-722-7616. Or you can DM me, at Brandon Styll on Instagram for my exclusive pricing through the Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance, NARA for short. Sharpier's Bakery is a locally owned and family operated wholesale bakery providing bread to Nashville's best eateries. They have operated in Nashville since 1986. Yes, next year will be 40 years. They providing high quality, fresh bread daily for restaurants, catering companies, hospitals, and universities. Their bread is also free from any preservatives and artificial flavors. They're right off of White Bridge Road. Erin Mosso and her team have been doing this for a long time. You know what I love about them is that they're local and they care, they care about your business. That's like the number one thing you're gonna hear me talk about is, do they care about your business? And I 100% believe that they do. If you would like to be working with a bakery that cares about your business, give them a call.

46:35615-356-0872. That's 615-356-0872. Now you can always visit them at sharpiers.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S.com. And they have pictures of all of the bread that they can have for you. And contact information, go check them out Sharpier's Bakery. So I've been visiting a lot of restaurants recently and one of the comments I hear a lot is, well, we just post online, we do marketing ourselves. And guys, you need to speak with a professional and that is where Myles Hospitality Marketing comes in. She works exclusively with independent restaurants and small hospitality groups, helping you build a smarter, more strategic marketing plan without hiring a full-time team. The best part, owner Christine Myles brings over 25 years of restaurant marketing experience to the table. She's worked with everyone from beloved neighborhood spots to national chains and she knows what works in real world restaurants.

47:37So whether you need help branding, digital marketing, social media, or just figuring out what actually is worth your time, Myles Hospitality Marketing gets it from quick wins to long-term growth. They offer everything from graphic design to full fractional CMO services. Check them out at MylesHM.com. That's M-Y-L-L-S-H-M.com. Mention Nashville Restaurant Radio and receive a free hour consultation, Myles Hospitality Marketing, because your marketing should work as hard as you do. So you're doing well in West Nashville. You opened, what was the point that you said, hey, maybe we should try opening another one? Wow. It was a few years later. We opened in 2015 in Hendersonville. Gosh, I think we had always been looking and we had set up Nashville West to, we really wanted it to be able to run whether we were there or not. And we were there a lot.

48:40So I think we were kind of getting to that point where we had processes in place. We had a great team. It was just a good time. And we stumbled across this development in Hendersonville and like, let's do it. Right. And both of them were build outs from scratch, like the empty building. So that was also a learning curve. Yeah, did you do anything differently that you had learned from NYPi in West Nashville that, man, if we could do this over, I wish we would have? Well, you learn fun things. Like you learn that you really need to have the right tonnage of HVAC. You learn that you need to communicate to not pour the concrete before the plumber gets there and lays all the pipes, or they're gonna be ripping up your concrete. You know, like the floor. Oh my God, we learned so much. I can't even, it's been a long time since I've thought about that, but yeah, we learned a ton. That is a lot.

49:40Wow. And you learned those things from the first restaurant. From the first and then kind of rolled into the second. And we opened Hendersonville on Super Bowl Sunday. So I also learned, don't ever do that. Unless you wanna kill yourself. It was terrible. It was so busy. We were, it was just absolutely insane. And that's also where I learned, my partner was, he had this thing, like everything was just wrong. Everything was wrong. Everything was messed up and the orders are just coming in and the pizzas are coming out of the oven. Nobody knows what's what. And he goes like this. He's like, no more pizzas in the oven. I live by this. It's like, when things are so crazy, you gotta stop. You gotta just take it in, figure out what you have in front of you and then move on from there. And I think people don't realize, you kind of get into this hype and you don't realize that the best thing you can do is just stop.

50:41Right. So. Stop, take stock, regroup. How many pizzas fit in an oven? So you also asked me what's different about Hendersonville. So Nashville West has a double decker oven. So it's a single brick deck and then another one underneath of it. And they each hold about six 18 inch pizzas. I mean, you kind of got to smush them in there a little bit, but so that's about 12 and they take about, I don't know, eight, nine minutes to make, depending longer if it's more ingredients on top. But Hendersonville, we did two double deckers. So it can make double that. Okay. Okay, wonderful. So it's a lot of pizzas coming in and out. That is a lot. Yeah. Is, I haven't been to Hendersonville in a while. I'm trying to remember it. I love that it's there though, because having a son who played baseball up there, it was a nice option when everyone looks at me and goes, where are we going to eat up here?

51:43And I go, hey, NYPi right up here. Oh, that's awesome. Okay, so you've got Hendersonville. Did you expand the seating there? Yes, yes. So Hendersonville is about double the size. Hendersonville is 2,700 square foot and Nashville West is, I think it's like 1,400. Okay. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah, you can do a lot more in on-premise seating. And it has a huge kitchen. So I designed, that was my brainchild. Like we have this massive, massive stainless steel island just in the middle. So anybody can work on any side of the island and it just works out great. Nice. Yeah, those kind of ergonomics are important. Yeah. And again, you are informed by the previous location. Right. So now you have two and you say, wait a minute, let's expand again, you know, from two to three. And two to three is, it's a big change.

52:46It is, it is. It's what people who, in any business, when you're shifting from a small scale mom and pop operation to multiple locations, you have to have your organizational ducks in a row, so. That's exactly right. And the funny thing is, is when you go from two kids to three kids, you know, sometimes I've heard some people say that that's easy. It's easier than going from one kid to two. But in the restaurant business, it's definitely going from two to three. You have to have your ducks in a row. You have to have your policies, your procedures, your way in which you do things, you know, now you're not having to maintain consistency of your product between two stores. Now you're at three, you know, that's more people, it's more payroll going out the door. I mean, it's definitely, I don't think I appreciated how that it wasn't just gonna be a third more work, you know, that it just, it really was a lot. And that really drove us to really step back and focus on what's our foundation for growth because I do wanna grow.

53:51I want to open more after this next one we're opening. And so if you don't have your foundation, you're, it's a recipe for disaster. Yeah. And so you just sort of dropped that next one casually. The next one we open, which is opening in Franklin this spring. Oh, that, oh, no, so we opened that one in 2023. That was the third one. I skipped the third one, yeah, so. Okay. The third one, the third one was kind of fun. I was actually flying between Philadelphia and Nashville because remember I have a home in New Jersey and I get on the plane and I fly Southwest all the time. And I have my favorite spots, which is exit row, you know, aisle on the left, not the right. And there's a guy sitting in my seat and he's getting ready to sit in the seat and he's carrying a pizza box. And he puts it into the overhead and then sits down. Actually, he might've been in the window. I think my seat was open.

54:52And so of course I had to start talking to him, right? And he was telling me how he was getting ready to open a pizzeria and his concept was this square tip of pizza or whatever, so. So anyway, I met him. I'm like, hey, if you ever need any cheese or whatever, give me a call. And so at some point he called me and I ended up taking over his lease and opening in my pie in that location. But it was wild. Like it was just, you know, meant to be, I think. So that was Franklin? Yeah, that was Franklin, yeah. Interesting. And that one was already a pizzeria. So just a light remodel and good to go. That's good. Yeah. Okay, so now to the fourth location. Yes. You're getting ready. Yes, we're getting ready. We signed the lease. Yes, we signed the lease in December in the Capitol View area, which is like Detroit Cowboys there, ML Rose, it's right across the street from the Publix. Right. Yeah. It's a great little area and a lot of businesses in there.

55:53There's good parking too. And there's a lot of parking. Good parking, yeah. Yes, I know. Things that Nashvilleans really, really appreciate. Yeah, free too. Free two hour parking. And it's free. Yeah. Sweet Mary, mother of God. Thank you. I know, I know. I went out to lunch in Nashville the other day and the parking was $24 and I was just getting Mexican and I'd already committed. I'm like, all right, well, whatever. But I'm like, I need to figure out where the free parking is. Right. I mean, does every back lot of every business have to have a pay parking sign right now? I mean, apparently it does, but it's getting to be. Yeah, it's crazy. But this is great. A real issue. You can park in the Publix, you can park behind the store, you can park on the street. It's all free two hour parking. Nice. And the space, I'm so excited about it. This is going to be different than the other NYPIs. I mean, the core is going to be the same. We're not changing our product or our wild hospitality or the way in which we interact with our customers, but this will have a full bar, bartender, wait staff.

57:04We'll still have the ability to order at the counter and order slices. Okay. But we're layering in that extra. And we're also going to play around with some live music. Wow. Yeah. Now, what makes you want to do live music? It's Nashville. It's Nashville. And you know, when we go back to like that feel, when you walk into the store, you know, I think it just like that level of individualness, like it just adds to it. We've started using the tagline NYPi, New York pizza, Nashville soul. And so, because we do feel connected, we feel connected to our roots in the Northeast, but we feel connected to the community here. So we think that perfectly describes it. And so why not? I mean, I know there's a lot of reasons why not, but. Well, I won't go full devil's advocate here, but let me ask you, what is the customer mix you expect downtown at Capitol view versus.

58:12Yeah, yeah. I mean, do you expect more visitor traffic there than. So it's interesting, because we've done a lot of market research by going to Detroit Cowboy. There's the Mexican restaurant on the corner and then ML Rose. And it does seem to be, there's a lot of office buildings there. So you have actually, this is right underneath 16 floors of HCA. So hospital administrative type employees. So you have your business workers that I think the demographic is, corporate America type business workers. And then there's a lot of apartments right there. And so I think that's like a younger crowd, like a 2030s. But if you're looking at the Detroit Cowboy, there's that free shuttle or free bus that comes by like every 10 minutes where you can jump on and off of it. And so I think that we might get some of the downtown, but I don't think, I think we're far enough from downtown that it's not gonna be like, it's not gonna be like a Broadway joint, and that's not what we want anyway.

59:13No, no. What kind of music do you think you're going to have? It's Nashville and we wanna make sure that folks get to hear a wide variety. I tell people that aren't from here, we love country of course, but there's all kinds of music here. And so we're still in the planning phase of this, but we're gonna build out a little stage. I bought, I already did like the first purchase for Capitol View is an upright Steinway piano from like the 1900s, like 1920, somewhere around there. So we'll have a piano on stage, have some guitars. And then of course, as we pay for bands to come, they would bring their own stuff, but we'll see what happens. I don't know. Did you build it out with a stage and a sound system and all of that? Yeah, it's not built out yet, but that's the plan. I forget, we're still months away. We are still working on our permits. So, but when we got a fair amount of work to do, even though it was before COVID, it was your pie.

01:00:17So it was a pizza place, like kind of like Blaze where you make it, you know, as you go down the chain. And then it became Big Shake, so it was a chicken place. So we have a fair amount of cosmetics type stuff to do and you know, just to get it right for us. We have to rip out the pizza oven. It's such a great oven. It has all this like flame and it's beautiful. And it just only holds six pizzas and it takes up almost the entire, like it takes up, I don't know, 12, it's something ridiculous. It just takes up all this space. And so I've tried to figure out how to, how to, you know, maybe move it over and put a triple decker oven next to it. You know, and maybe just use, cause it's like that wood fire type look, you know. Nice. And a triple decker oven, just in case you're curious, if you're my height, so I'm five five, you're the, the top oven comes to like right about here. So like you, like there's no way you could get all the way to the back of it. Like it'd be like, you know, putting pizza in the oven by Braille or something, I don't know.

01:01:20So yeah. Hire really tall people. Or hire really tall people. Brandon, Brandon. Yeah, so, so anyway, we made a really tough decision. So we're going to be selling that oven and putting in two double deckers, just like Hendersonville. Okay. Is that the sweet spot now for you, you think? Yeah. That in terms of capacity. Yeah, I think, I think so. I mean, we still like our, we still love our small, our small little, you know, comfortable places, but yeah. So what's your favorite pie? Okay. I know it's like, what children are your favorites? Yeah, I'm going to plead the fifth on that one. So my, this is crazy. I love a cheese pizza. So anytime I go into any store, I at least have one cheese pizza. Cause you can really taste, is there too much sauce? Is there not enough? Is there too much cheese? Is there not enough? Do the flavors taste right? Is the recipe consistent? So I love a cheese pie.

01:02:21I also love our NY special, which is, you know, some veggies and some meats. So like pepperoni, sausage, peppers, onions, black olives. And then I love, we have some olive oil based ones. So we have a Greek that's a vegetarian, shredded cheese and spinach. And so it's such a beautiful pie and it's healthy for you. I love that one. And then we have a garlic chicken. That's the same idea. Olive oil base with garlic chicken and spinach. And that one's talking really well to folks today that are really trying to beef up on their protein. So, cause it's pretty packed with protein. Yeah. So, yeah, I can see how that cheese pie is the best barometer or quality control test you have, whether it's a place that you're checking out or whether you're doing an analysis of your own place. Right. So what's the best selling pie? So it's usually neck on neck.

01:03:24Well, people like to get their cheese pizzas and put toppings on it. So if you put that aside, it's the New York meat, which is, I don't know, it's like five or six different types of meat on top of it. It's an insane amount of meat. And then the NY special, which is the one I described previously. Okay. Are you one of those people who's always on the hunt for the next restaurant location? You open any sweet deals on retail space that may come your way? Why not be proactive and have the market experts out there working for you? The retail team, Atlee and Associates, led by Miller Chandler and Megan Glazier, is your go-to for all things commercial real estate in middle Tennessee. They're located downtown in the heart of it all in the Batman building. Miller is a Tennessee native, so you know he knows the neighborhoods and demographics. And Megan is a California transplant who brings fresh perspective as she fully embraces the Music City culture. They use the best prop tech like Placer AI and Esri to analyze the data, while also leveraging their own industry knowledge and relationships to find and negotiate a killer deal for you.

01:04:33If you're one of those people and you'd like to get a hold of them, their office number is 615-751-2340. Or better yet, you can call them directly to get your conversation started on your next restaurant location. You can reach Miller Chandler at 615-473-2452 or Megan Glazier at 760-846-6193. That is the retail team, Atlee and Associates. Give them a call today. If your leadership team is not on the same page and you are constantly having these long meetings and you're not getting traction, this is your opportunity. Today, I'm talking about the Entrepreneurial Operating System, EOS. Yes, it is based around the book by Gino Wickman and Traction. We use it at our restaurants. They use it at Frothy Monkey. They use it at Atlee's Barbecue. They use it at Carrington Row, Germantown Cafe, Park Cafe. Lots of restaurants are using it because it helps. And let me tell you today, Justin Cook is a great facilitator.

01:05:36Justin helps business owners and their leadership teams implement the Entrepreneurial Operating System, which is a set of simple, practical tools, disciplines, to help you get better at three things, vision, traction, and to be healthy. Vision is getting you and your leadership team 100% on the same page with who you are, where you're going and how you're going to get there. Traction is helping your leaders become more disciplined and accountable to execute on the right things that will make your vision become reality. Because a lot of times you're doing a lot of stuff, but not the right stuff. Healthy is helping your leaders become a healthy, functional, cohesive leadership team. Because unfortunately, leaders don't function well as a team. If you start with the leaders, the rest of the organization will follow. And you'll get to a point to where your entire team is crystal clear on vision. Everywhere you look, people are executing the things that make your vision come true. And it's a great, healthy, fun place to work. If that resonates with you, you can email Justin right now at justin.cook at eosworldwide.com, or you can call him 615-336-7133 to see if EOS is a right fit for you.

01:06:44He will come down and do an initial kind of introduction and ask you a bunch of questions. It is totally free. Definitely call Justin today. Let's talk a minute about the competitive landscape of pizzas right now. And I bring this up for a couple of reasons. I have a dear friend who is actually on the board of Papa John's right now. And of course, we asked her a million questions about Shaq O'Neal. I heard a recent story. I'm sure you did too. I think it was NPR about the pizza industry isn't doing as well. Their numbers are down nationwide. There are a lot of reasons being tossed about, whether it's people changing their dining habits away from pizza, whether they're just with Uber Eats. There are a lot more options in the delivery space.

01:07:52But what are your thoughts on that? And have you seen anything locally in the economy that suggests that's going on? Or do you think that's more a function of the large corporate chains? You know, I would hope that it's a function of the large corporate chains. I personally haven't seen too much of any decline really. But I'm not naive enough to think that that's, you know, we need to be prepared, right? So if you read the article, it talks about how folks still really align to value. They're willing to pay more for a pizza if they know that it's high quality ingredients and that's what you're passionate about. So that is us. Like we focus 100% on authenticity, on staying true to the recipes that we've used since we've opened, which are true to New York, New Jersey style pizzas. We never change our ingredients.

01:08:53So we use, we're 100% are grande cheese users, grande we feel is the best mozzarella on the market. It's very typical too of Northeastern pizzas. We use really high quality tomatoes. You know, our dough, our flour is made daily. We make like, I don't know, each store makes four or five batches of dough a day, 50 pounds at a time. So it's a lot. But the article says that people are willing to still pay for that. The reality is that prices are ridiculous. I just came across a menu from, we own Paisano's Pizza in Raleigh, North Carolina, back in the early part of the century. And I came across the menu and I opened it up and like an 18 inch piece pizza was $10. A slice was $1.50, I think for a slice of cheese, right? So, and unfortunately we've had to, and I think the whole industry has had to raise prices. So at some point you're like, how much is somebody gonna pay for a pizza?

01:09:54And like, we hate raising prices. Every time we have to do it, we're like, oh my God, is there anything else we can do? You know, can we cut back on this expense or that? But at the end of the day, the prices are going up, payroll's going up. But I think that that's one thing that the article said. The other thing that was mentioned, and we've heard this, I'm on the operator's panel for Grande Cheese. And so it's independent pizzeria restaurant owners. There's like 40 of us and we get together every quarter and we kind of share things. But they also share research with us. And they were saying with the rise of semi-glutides, people are very interested in smaller portions, higher proteins. So we're trying to think through, okay, well, where could we adapt or offer some small bites, high protein type menu items? Or, you know, so I think you just need to be able to adapt to these things and be aware of them. You know, before COVID, we didn't use DoorDash, we didn't use Uber Eats, we didn't deliver. We're like, if you want our pizza, come and get it, you know?

01:10:57And it worked out great for us because people really felt value in coming to us. And so if we wouldn't have pivoted during COVID, you wouldn't be talking to me today. Right, yeah. So you just have to just be aware, I think. But I'm not terrified. Well, and I think you did hit something big there and that's the cost of everything is going up right now. And people are hyper aware of it. Businesses are aware of it. Yeah. And you're fighting against the sort of perceived notion that that food should cost less. Right. So, which is, whether that's fair or not, doesn't matter if people think that way, they're going to vote with their pocketbook that way. So it's hard, it's very hard. And I think it's one of those, the lesson that has taken a long time for people, for the consumers to get is that quality matters.

01:12:00And it makes a difference in everything in the overall experience with that product, the taste, it's better, it's better for you, better quality ingredients are better for you, they're healthier for you at the end of the day. Even if it's something that's naturally unhealthy that if you buy a better quality, it's better for you. And so getting that message across, and I think it's plagued a number of different sectors in the restaurant community, pizza being one, I also think ethnic restaurants as well, because for a long time we've had this sense that a taco from a stand should not cost very much. Right. Or Indian food shouldn't cost very much. And then people go, oh, that place was great, but they were so expensive. But I think the consumers are coming around. Yeah. I think there's a general shift in understanding. And I think what you're trying to do is recognize that, which is great.

01:13:06And do a smaller pizza or smaller portions, higher protein, I think that's brilliant. I'd love a personal high protein pizza. I know I'm not gonna eat too much because it's only this big. The other thing that you hit on is, you kinda hit on it, is by the way that we do things, we're not buying things that have tons of preservatives. I mean, yeah, pepperoni, that's a side, but for instance, we don't buy pre-made chicken. We buy chicken breasts, we cook it, we chop it, we marinate it, we cook it, we chop it. We make most of our salad dressings in-house. Our dough is made in-house. So there's not all that preservatives and extra stuff in it. Right. No, that's great. That's outstanding. Just a quick aside outside of this, Grande, is that a brand? Grande is a brand, yes, out of Wisconsin. So they're great. I love them as a company.

01:14:06We worked with them forever. They have this thing on their, I don't know if it's still on their website, but their passion is in helping independent local dairy farmers produce the best milk from their cows. And so they work with the farmers to, and I guess scientists or whatever to figure out what's the best feed or a relaxed cow has better milk. And so there's some farmers that will play their cows opera music, because they found that it makes the cheese better. So I don't know if that's urban legend, but I'm sticking with that story. I know, I love that. I actually tried an experiment like that. I was running a slaughterhouse in Alabama and we piped in music into the holding pens where the hogs would generally be delivered early in the morning or late in the afternoon. They were in the pens and we started playing different kinds of music.

01:15:08And then we tried to see if we could taste the difference. And we really couldn't, although we joked that they did not like big band music or something like that. There's some music genre that we chose that we said, oh, that's just terrible. So I don't know, but I do know happier animals taste better through their entire life cycle up until the point that they're harvested. So I can tell you that. So, but that's interesting that a cheese company is working directly with their all material suppliers, which is a nice notion. Well, and they do the same thing with independent pizzeria owners. So they offer us a lot of support and just help. They have a marketing arm that they provide reasonable marketing services.

01:16:10Like we just released a new menu. They designed our menu so that they really want the independent pizzeria owners to be successful. And so that's pretty cool. That's great. Okay, so back to cheese, which I could talk to ad infinitum. So what do you notice about the differences in qualities of cheeses? And we can just talk about mozzarella since that's the primary driver for your. So when it comes in, does it come in in whole blocks and you grate it yourself? You can buy it shredded, but we don't, because go back to the traditional, we put it in the cheese shredder. It's kind of a job. You don't really push it in there. And it's your shred, not someone else's size. It's the size that we choose, correct, yeah. I think with cheese, there's a few things to think about. One is the taste, of course.

01:17:12Is it too salty, not salty enough? Is there flavor to it? Is there no flavor? So the flavor, I think, is probably one of the most important things. The second is the amount of grease that it puts off. And a New York style pizza is going to be greasier than some of your other ones. So you sort of expect some of that grease, right? And you can adjust that by alternating or blending whole milk cheese with part skim. We do all whole milk. We used to blend it and just decided it tastes better with all whole milk. So, and then the third thing is the spread. So with grande cheese, you can actually use a little bit less cheese and it gives you a better spread. So the way that it melts, it melts out. And in pizza, more is not always better. So there are plenty of times where I try a cheese pizza and I have to give feedback to the pizza maker saying, this is too much cheese.

01:18:16Like if I have to work this hard to get through all this cheese, it's too much. So there's this perfect amount that you put on. Same thing with the sauce. Too much sauce, not good. Now, if you are a sauce lover, get some extra on the side or whatever, but for the most part, the less sauce you use, the more you taste it. And the more you taste the cheese and you can really enjoy the dough. So there's definitely ratios. Yeah, balance is everything. Balance, yep. And pizza cheese, who knew it could be such a... Well, and that's just mozzarella. I mean, we could talk about fresh mozzarella. We could talk about Mars Capone. We could talk about ricotta. Grande ricotta is incredible. So our cannolis, we use the ricotta cheese from Grande and we use Mars Capone and make the fillings all homemade. Nice, are you making your shells too? You know, we don't make our shells. That's the one thing we don't, yeah. Off the record, where do you get your shells? Oh, from a big box.

01:19:18Okay, I won't put that in there. I have a relationship with the people at Savarino's. So you can actually put that in there. So right now we do US Foods or Cisco. So Savarino's we partner with and they provide our chocolate cake and our cheesecake. Nice. So while we don't make it in-house, we get it close by out of Columbia. Were you able to go there in the heyday when it was on Belcourt? No. Oh man. No. It's everything that you would love in terms of the atmosphere. Almost to a detrimental point. I'm not gonna put this in this story, but they were their own worst enemies because if they didn't know you, they'd look at you and go, who the fuck are you and why are you walking in here right now? Because it had that East Coast Italian clubhouse vibe like a lot of the old school joints do.

01:20:18And if they don't know you, they'd say, well, who's this Jemoke? Where is he from? Well, they're great to partner with. They deliver all the way up to Hendersonville. So they go to all of our stores. And like we literally, we text our order in and then it shows up. It's great. They're really, and the cheesecake and the chocolate cake is just unbelievable. That's great. Yeah. No, they're good folks. Hey guys, today we are talking about Robin's Insurance. And restaurants carry a very unique set of risks. We can customize a menu of insurance solutions to meet your specific needs. Reviewing the options and developing a plan for restaurant insurance coverage is a perfect recipe. Every restaurant owner has heard the statistics about how tough it is to survive and thrive in the business, but getting adequate insurance at least gives you a fighting chance to mitigate some of those risks. It's well worth considering a custom built restaurant insurance policy as it'll not only make life simpler, but it may even overcome some risks you haven't even considered.

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01:23:24They do not make you sign a contract. They earn your business every single week. And let me tell you, I will personally vouch for Jason Ellis and his entire team over at SuperSource. If you want a dish machine and chemical company like this, give him a call, 770-337-1143. And if you are a member of the Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance, make sure you tell him that you get the special NARA pricing. So that's amazing about the cheeses and everything, which is obviously integral to pizza. Another thing that people talk a lot about is you can't replicate the water of New York or New Jersey. That there's something different. It's the mineral content is different. That New York has the greatest drinking water in the world and all of these superlatives. And people talk about it when they talk about bagels, they talk about pizzas. Those are probably the two primary.

01:24:24All the chemicals that are in the water. Yeah, so talk to me about the water and how that's important to you and what you're doing to get the best pizza that you want. So I'm on the side of the fence that I think it's urban legend that the water makes a difference. We've actually tested it. Okay. We brought in water and just to see. And where we boil down to is two things. One is that it doesn't matter, but you do wanna filter your water. So all of our water coming in, whether it's for our soda or for our dough is filtered. So it just gets rid of all the chlorine and all that stuff in there that would affect the flavor. What I think it comes down to is you need to know your dough. Your dough recipe is not static. It changes with the temperature. It changes with the humidity. And so if you don't change your recipe and you don't know your dough, that's your problem.

01:25:25And so we have a 24-hour fermentation period, basically let it rise. You can use it in under 24 hours, but ideally you would use it around the 24-hour mark. And so when you make the batch of dough today, then tomorrow you go and you look and see what happened to that dough. Did it blow up? Did it not rise enough? So then you adjust the temperature of your water or the amount of yeast that you put in there. So it's an art. There's not a specific science. I mean, there's a science behind that, but it's more art. But it's something that you have to monitor daily. And it is a living thing as well. And you can't dial that in, in other words. Yeah. Which I imagine a lot of places do. We won't mention them by name, but I have some ideas. So the water doesn't make a difference. I don't think so. I don't think so. I'll probably have a bunch of haters that are on the other side of the fence.

01:26:27They're gonna get some calls on this. And I'll tell them. It's okay. I mean, I stand by it. I'll tell them to talk to you. No, that's, I mean, you either notice it or you don't. And I think sometimes our taste buds can be grossly influenced by the power of suggestion. I've seen that as a professional eater and taster at times that, and in all humans, we're subject to outside influences and we will often taste or not taste what we're told to taste or not taste. Yeah. And in fact, that's a whole separate episode of the psychology of tasting notes. Yeah. And at the end of the day, your customer is the one that is gonna taste the difference. Right. My colleague that I mentioned earlier, Chris, she and her husband were having an argument one day about whether the different colors in a candy corn tasted different.

01:27:34And so they took a knife out and they separated them and then they did blind taste testing and they couldn't tell. Yeah. So the little tip doesn't taste any different from the cob. No, it's just food coloring. Oh, man. Oh, that's fascinating. Well, I wanna thank you for taking so much time of your day, your busy day. Now, you say you're doing this 100% of the time now. For the most part, I still do some consulting on the side, but yeah. Keep that door open, yeah. But yeah, this is my job. Congratulations, that's a big leap of faith, but also congratulations for the success and growth that you've had. You're doing something right to be around this long and to be able to grow on your own terms. Thank you, thank you. And I also, my youngest daughter is heavily involved in the pizzeria too, so she's learning all aspects of it. You buried the lead. I know. You're gonna be, so is she interested in learning the business?

01:28:38She is, she really wants to open a bakery. That's why I was so excited when we went to the Nara thing at Perrin and listening to that podcast. And she went over, I said, you need to go to that bakery now. And so she went over the weekend to see it. But she wants to open a bakery that has a cafe and a little art, like where she can sell her artwork. And she is getting ready to apply to go to CIA, the Culinary Institute of America. Wow, good for her. Hyde Park? Yeah, Hyde Park. Yeah, she's gotta go to the Northeast. She has to go to Hyde Park for sure. Yeah. You're on your own if you're going somewhere else. You're no kid of mine. We took a tour last year and I was like, I wanted to go there. I was like, okay, I'm ready to go back to school now. Right, right. Yeah, it's so cool. Well, that's awesome. Well, thank you again for coming in. We really appreciate it here at Nashville Restaurant Radio. One of our traditions is we let you have the last word. This is your chance to give us your best bon mot, pearls of wisdom for the listening community out there.

01:29:43So now, for the Gordon Food Service, final thought of the day, I turn the mic over to Jessica Hazard. So after being in the food industry for over 16 years in the Nashville area, I've come to learn one really big important thing, maybe two. But one is you have to have the best team out there. You have to have people that care and they're passionate about pizza and their customers and that's what we have at NYPi. And so I wanna just end it with a big shout out to the team members of NYPi because without them, wouldn't be sitting here today. All right, thank you so much for joining us, Jessica. Have a great day. All right, so big thank you to Jessica Hazard for joining us on Nashville Restaurant Radio. Jim, you have done it, your first episode in the books. What did you think? I think it's going to get a lot better. We're editing this thing in the beginning, you were like, welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio and you had like this cringe look on your face.

01:30:50Oh man, it's like Pete Schweddy all over again. And his Schweddy balls? Yes, and the NPR vocal pacing. Do you know like every time somebody gets on a microphone, they reference that, they're like, oh, Schweddy balls. Like before the interview, they hear their own voice and the baritone that comes out and the whole thing, they just, it's a whole fun. Yeah, it's a whole mouth feel, isn't it? It really is. You will definitely get your sea legs. He'll get his own intro and outro and all that stuff. This is the last time I'll be on here kind of doing this with you, but we're here in the studio. For a little while, yeah. For a little while. No, I'll find my sea legs, but thank you. Thanks again for the opportunity. Jessica was awesome, you're awesome. This whole podcast is just fabulous. I was in studio when you did the interview and it is really difficult to not jump in and throw in stories. You're talking about Will Gadara and you're talking about Savarino's.

01:31:51I mean, Savarino's, I used to live in Hillsborough Village and Savarino's was one of the first places in Nashville to be on Diners, Drivers and Dives. And it got just massive. This is when Diners and Drivers and Dives was at its peak. It wasn't like a million restaurants have been on it. When you got on Diners, Drivers and Dives, it was a massive shot in the arm. And Savarino's was one of the first. And I literally, the front windows of my condo that I lived in there in Hillsborough Village looked into the back door of, there was Zumi sushi, there was Belcourt taps and tapas and Savarino's. So I could walk 20 yards to Savarino's. So we ate there like once a week in the eggplant rollatini and all the little cannolis and the family was there and they had all their sandwiches were named after regulars. And it was a real, it's hard sitting in a studio not being able to comment on those sort of things. But I loved your approach. I loved, it was a different style of approach. There's a lot of times you were speaking and I was like, I wouldn't have asked that question. I love that he did.

01:32:52Well, yeah, hopefully it will bring a different perspective to all of this than you brought and engaging for people. But there's so many great stories out of there. And just to coax these out of the restaurateurs is gonna be a blast. We got Dolly, to me must be walking a dog across the street right now and our dog does not handle that. That is hard to bark. You can hear the dog barking, but that's a thing right now. Security system. Yeah, it's that thing. Well, Jim, thank you for doing this. And I'm really excited to the next episode with me on it. Yeah. I'm a little nervous about telling my whole story. But I'm gonna ask you some probing questions as well. I'm ready for it. I'm here for it. Let's go. So this will be kind of my final, not final, but you know, I'm really excited about this. And thank you guys out there for listening. One of the things I always say at the end of the show, I have a sign off, so to speak. What I tell people is, cause we were in the middle of COVID when I first started. I said, I hope that you were being safe out there.

01:33:53Like don't go out and lick doorknobs. Please be safe. And I love you guys, bye. Because every time I own the phone and I'm talking to somebody that I love, I always say, all right, love you, bye. And the people that are in this community, I have so many amazing friends in the community and so many people that I genuinely care about. And I do love them. I do, I absolutely love the people that are out there, the people that listen. This is absolutely has been an extension of me and my heart to so many people. So I always say, guys, I hope you're being safe out there. Love you guys, bye. And that's how I end the show. And that's how we're gonna end it today. So I love you guys. Jim, love you, dude. Love you, brother. All right, stay safe, bye.