Joe Buonavolanto III -VP

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01:00That's R-O-B-I-N-S, I-N-S dot com to request your insurance consultation. Once again, that's Robbinsins.com. We absolutely love partnering with Sharpies Bakery. Erin Mosso has been selling bread, fresh-baked bread, to locally-owned and operated restaurants six days a week for 36 years. Yes, her father started the company 36 years ago, and Erin took it over five years ago, and it is doing amazing things. I have so many guests that come in the studio that are like, I love Sharpies, they save me so much time, and the bread is so good. So we've got round buns, specialty round buns, dinner rolls, hoagies, baguettes, they do cheesecake, they do flourless chocolate tortes, they do specialty loaf breads, and regular loaf breads, and bullies, bullies, B-O-U-L-E-S, sourdough, long tuscan, wheat, multigrain, they got everything. You should go check them out at Sharpies.com. That is Sharpies, C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S dot com.

02:04Or you should give them a call at 615-356-0872. Supporting local is so damn important, and Erin Mosso and all of our friends over at Sharpies Bakery do that daily. Give her a call right now. 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. Today is going to be a very special episode. We have got Joe Bonavolanto III, and he is the vice president for Bona Beef.

03:04Today, Caroline Galzin will be joining us very shortly, and we also have her husband, Tony Galzin, who we have brought in as the expert on Italian beef to help us do the interview, because I know nothing about Italian beef. Do you know anything about Italian beef? Because if you do, then you should be very excited that Bona Beef is coming to Nashville. Now there's still probably a year or so out, maybe a couple years out, from hitting Nashville, but this is one of those first looks. So if you want to learn more about Bona Beef, listen in, and Joe's going to tell you about what exactly Italian beef is and more about his concept. And we get to learn just a little bit more about him and his family and a super, super nice guy. Thank you again, Tony, for joining us on this interview. You totally make it amazing, and we thank you, the listener. Again, follow us on YouTube. If you would like to know, be notified when we go live on shows like The Roundup.

04:04That is something that we are going to be doing on a regular basis, and we would love to have you join us there so you can watch these episodes. We recorded the episode with Joe Bonovolanto, and I'll put it up on YouTube pretty quickly. Lots of fun things coming up here in the future, and fun interview with Kerry Bringle coming up next. And we will be getting to that shortly. Let's jump in right now with Joe Bonovolanto. All right, so we are super excited today to welcome in Joe, I just said it, Joe Bonovolanto, the third. The third, yeah. And the third, welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Thank you very much. So, Joe, I'm new to this, I'm new to Buena Beef, and I'm really excited to, is it Bona Beef?

05:06Bona Beef. Bona Beef. And I'm excited to learn. Are you guys coming to Nashville? Is that what I'm understanding? Yeah, we are. We just made an announcement last, geez, I want to say November. We've awarded our first franchise area development in company history to a group out of Nashville that's going to be opening up three locations. We're still targeting the exact areas, but we're hoping in the Franklin, Brentwood. Bellevue? I'm sorry? Bellevue, maybe? You know what? I'm not a real estate guru. I leave that to my brother. That's my neck of the woods, so I'm selfish. Hopefully one in your neck of the woods, or at least nearby. So we'll have three locations opened up, hopefully in the next two to three years, with the first one being most likely next spring. That's really exciting. Congrats. Almost welcome to Nashville. So when we were kind of just all first sat down, Brandon started asking Tony a lot of questions about Italian beefs that made Tony laugh.

06:12So Brandon is a real deal true Southerner. I am also a Southerner, but I lived in Chicago for 12 years. I lived in LA, California for 10 years. That is not a place to find Italian beef. No, so that's what I'm saying. I've been to Chicago. So for Brandon and all of the other true Southerners listening, tell us about Italian beef. And also what it is for getting anyone ever saw the bear, because that's really some incorrect information. I'm not going to lie. I really like the amount of interest we had from a PR standpoint. I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah. But so, you know, for those of you that don't know about Italian beef and really our company, we started in 81. My grandfather took out a second mortgage on his home and gave his sons a $10,000 gift slash investment to start an Italian beef restaurant. Our family dates back to Italian beef restaurants as early as the 60s.

07:12My grandfather's brother owned Mr. Beef on Orleans in the city, which is pretty well known. Oh, that's very good. I used to work right around the corner. And he helped get us in business and really, you know, gave us the confidence to get started in 81. My grandfather had a dream of putting his sons in business so that they could build something together. And today we have 26 company owned restaurants, a fast emerging ice cream shop, upscale catering company and a USDA manufacturing plant located a little south where I'm at now in Chicago. And, you know, it's exciting. You know, COVID was a real brand tester, I'd say. You know, Tony, I'm sure you guys, Caroline, I'm sure you guys know that it was very, they were trying times. But that gave us the confidence to move forward with nationwide expansion plans. You guys were COVID-proof. You got a drive-through built right there.

08:13You know what? We were ahead of the game in terms of double-lane drive-throughs, online ordering. We just invested, you know, a million dollars in technology right prior to COVID. In addition to that, you know, we were already integrated with third-party delivery and such. So anyways, that gave us the confidence to get into franchising and really give people a playbook and go to some hot areas like Nashville, Florida, Texas, Arizona. And that's what our near-term hopes are. But for a Southerner trying to know what Italian beef is or understand the process. All right, now I'm excited. The old-school Italian beef restaurateurs, they make Italian beef like you would make it in your home. It's typically not the most prime cut. You would use a top-butt sirloin, any kind of sirloin. You'd slow roast it with Italian seasonings like garlic, salt, oregano. Some people use red pepper flakes. Some people use cumin, all kinds of things, right?

09:13And then the first thing you'd want to do is you roast it, you sear it, then you drop the temp, then you let it cool for overnight. And then you slice it in real thin slices so that it goes a long way. And that's why in Chicago it dates back to, geez, I want to say the 20s. And, you know, that was a way for people to eat a very flavorful product for a pretty low price back in the day. And we do it the same way as that people did it in the 20s. That's something we're proud of. You know, many people in today's, you know, the people that serve Italian beef, like the pizzeria, I call it pizzeria, for example, or, you know, maybe someone that has a full-service restaurant just so happens to have Italian beef on there, they don't do it the true way. And Bona today still does the true way after 41 years. That's awesome. So, Tony, I know that you have some strong opinions about Italian beefs because there are some places that we've had around here that make, you know, I guess, their version of an Italian beef.

10:17And we've actually done Italian beef pop-up several times over the years. We did before we had a restaurant. Before we had our restaurant. It's awesome. So to you, what is the perfect Italian beef if you're going to order a beef? If I'm going to order it, how do I order it? Yeah. So, yeah, like you said, that's exactly right. I like it. You know, it's like, yeah, like I use top round. But like you said, like a top sirloin, something like tough typically and then slice very thin. And then I want to see it still in kind of the big pieces so it can't be held in the jus too hot or it starts to break down into like a little like debris. You know, when you go to like a New Orleans restaurant, you get like a debris po' boy or something where it's just like broken down. You don't want that. You still kind of want like the slices, but they're tender. So then I always get it. I don't, although I like the Italian sausage, I keep them separate. I'm never a combo guy. And then but that's just my preference. Nothing wrong with the combo. I just like my sausage and beef separate. So then I always get it hot giardiniera dipped.

11:17Dipped is very, very messy, very messy for a lot of people. But for me, that's, you know, I kind of like the bun barely holding together by halfway through. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the similar similar fashion over here for sure. Great minds think alike for me. So, Joe, I, I love an Italian beef, but if I am going to an Italian beef place, I'm much more of a Maxwell Street Polish kind of gal. So what do you guys have on your menu besides Italian beef? Oh, that's actually, you know, one of the best things about our concept is we truly have something for everyone. And I love Maxwell Street as well. I what was the one place that just Brandon, do you know what a Maxwell Street is? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what language you guys are speaking. He's tapping out. I am at this point just enjoying the show. Yeah, I'm over here taking notes. I'm just learning. I'll chime in here in a minute. I'm formulating. I mean, you guys were talking about, you know, like mean threes last week and you can, you know, you know, talk about that for hours and hours and hours.

12:20Well, so a Maxwell Street is a Polish sausage. It's been grilled. That is smoked first. And then it's grilled and it's on a poppy seed bun with caramelized onions and yellow mustard. Yeah, it sounds delicious. Take a ride here. I'm only about 10 minutes away. But so our menu offerings, we truly have something for everyone. And it actually used to be a lot larger. But now we've really narrowed it down to, you know, we're every single menu item goes through a pretty rigorous process now to make our menu. For the long term, meaning it has to have the same quality as our Italian beef sandwich. We believe that everything on the menu needs to be at that high quality. So outside of Italian beef and sausage and hot dogs, which are Chicago staples, Chicago style hot dogs, we have great all natural chicken options. We have a great fried chicken sandwich. Our tenders are out of this world. Our grilled chicken. Quite frankly, I want to have a great grilled chicken because on the days I don't eat beef, I want to eat a grilled chicken sandwich.

13:25It's a it's six ounce breast. It's marinated kind of like a Greek style. And we serve it with mayo, lettuce, tomato and avocado. And some if you prefer avocado. In addition to that, our burgers are outstanding protein bowls. Our protein bowls have really taken off the last five years. It's essentially, you know, beef and sausage with mozzarella cheese and your choice of peppers on top. We do a chicken and avocado bowl, which is phenomenal. My mom and dad eat them. They're keto friendly. OK, yeah. We have five salads on our menu that are outstanding. A buffalo salad, a crispy chicken salad. Our grilled chicken Caesar salad is out of this world. And then we also have a strawberry spinach avocado salad. It's got all the healthy ingredients, but with fried chicken on top, really just it's unreal. And then in addition to that, we have fresh pastas. So we do we do a fresh rigatoni ravioli and fettuccine. And then you have your option of Alfredo marinara.

14:25If you ask for JB3, I'll make you a vodka sauce, which is half marinara, half Alfredo. And there you go. So we have something for everyone. And what we've most recently done, and I'm not sure if you know this, Brandon, but we I don't. We partnered with a 96 year old ice cream shop that was on the south side of Chicago. Still is called the original Rainbow Cone. So now we have a signature dessert in about eight of our restaurants. So what we did was we carved out a little space in the dining room and created a kiosk. And you can get our five flavors stacked on a cone. And it really it really complements the whole dining experience very well. So we're very proud of our menu. I love that you guys are partnering with Rainbow Cone. And I think, too, that, you know, a lot of what I'm hearing you say, even though, you know, maybe someone like you bring in this these you're like, we're speaking a different language. But something that I think really will connect with Nashvilleans in particular is it sounds like what you guys do is so rooted in tradition, you know, in family tradition, in food culture, tradition, you know, all the things that I'm hearing you say.

15:37I hear so many little touchstones that to me sounds so Chicago specific, just that you're like, oh, we have a Greek seasoning on our our grilled chicken. I'm like, I know exactly what that means. So Chicago, I mean, I'll tell you what my thoughts are. While speaking a different language, I do understand food. I'm a professional eater. I can eat with the best of them. I'm a 260 pound man. I'm hearing lots of food that sounds really freaking good. I mean, I want to eat everything I just heard you talk about. And if you can get it readily available and it's quick in it, you have high quality ingredients. I don't know about that, but I love it when new places come in and educate me. New places come in and educate me on if I can learn about Chicago's culture and I can learn about rainbow ice. I didn't know anything about that, but I could get it here in Nashville, I think is massive. We just had a guy in studio that was talking about people coming to town and Nashville's really special place.

16:38What do you guys do for your community? Like, my main thing is, yeah, I think all of that is awesome. But I want you to come into Nashville and be now incorporate the culture of Nashville because I imagine the food scene in Chicago is a tight knit kind of it's a whole thing. But Nashville's a little different, but it's still kind of the same thing. Do you guys have plans when you get here? Like, what do you want to do you know about the Nashville food scene? Do you want to be part of the Nashville food scene or do you just I don't know what's your what's your take on coming to Nashville and what you want to do for the community? Well, you know, if anything keeps me up at night, it's how to penetrate the Nashville market and share our stories like you just mentioned. And that's something that me and our marketing team or PR team are working pretty hard on. I mean, we have about a year to get the word out. But the best thing that we can do as a Chicago business is provide, you know, free trial to people in the areas before we open.

17:38We have this beef it up truck. We created it last year and it's used for, you know, call it special events and PR opportunities and such. So that that is our plan is to kind of get the word out. I don't know if they if Chick-fil-A did this in your market. But when they came to Chicago, they were literally throwing chicken sandwiches to everybody. And how I don't want to do that per se, I do want to create a bunch of grand opening events to to really get the word out. In addition to, you know, the digital means of getting the word out. As far as being an active local contributor in the communities, you know, absolutely. And that's that was a key decision for us to do franchising because, you know, a local business owner is going to stay really well connected with the communities. Whereas me being in Chicago, I'm going to miss out on some of those opportunities, not because I don't want to do them, just because I'm not you know, my kids don't go to the same school as the trick, you know, people trading in the area and such.

18:45So we're really, really, really excited about the two entrepreneurs, one of one of whom is going to be the operating partner who lives in the Nashville metro area to really lead the charge from a local standpoint. Let's switch gears just a little bit. And I want to talk about your socks hat. Would you be if I took a picture of your office, would you have a socks hat next to a Chicago Cubs hat? You can't you can't see him, can you? No, I can't see him. But if you see him like hold up the hat behind him, he had a Chicago White Sox hat next to a Cubs hat. And I'm like, how do you how are you? Can you be fans of both? Is that a thing? Can you be? Hey, look, the Cubs are playing a day game and the Sox are playing a night game. Can I go to both and be a fan of both? Is that a thing? I'm learning Chicago culture. You don't want to, you know, this is a business that has, you know, many, many stores all over the Chicagoland area. It doesn't want to alienate anyone. So you have a very, very diehard Cubs fans, very, very diehard Sox fans.

19:45You do have some people that are just like, I like both. Usually Eric Williams actually is just like, oh, I just cheer for Chicago. One of our friends, it's a chef in Chicago. Although I do know that they do the bone of beef race. Yeah. Are you guys involved in sponsorship at Wrigley Field as you are? And, you know, I married into a Southside family, so I never go to Wrigley Field anymore. So I don't know. Yeah. So in 2015, we decided to advertise in both parks. And today we're only advertising at Sox Park or guaranteed rate field. Excuse me. So I guess I got the, I still got the Cubs one up. To your husband's point, I'm not alienating any of the brands. Yeah, you don't want to, you don't want to. That's smart. Yeah, exactly. Okay. But I didn't, I didn't, I was, I was thinking about it. I was just like, right, there is the race. And then I was trying to remember, is it Italian beef, cheesy beef?

20:50Combo? Or is it sausage or is it combo? Or the, Joe, what are the three beefs that? You know, you kind of cut out a little bit. Oh, sorry. And so Tony was saying the beef race at Sox Park, is it Italian beef? It's Italian beef, cheesy beef, and then I couldn't remember the third. Combo? I think it's cheesy, hot, and juicy. Cheesy, hot, and sweet, and juicy. Okay. Sweet. It's a classic rivalry. Classic. So funny. We're not as technologically savvy as I'd like to be. We don't do a lot of zoom type calls on our internet. Isn't the most amazing down here in our little basement. But now Tony can see you. Now I can see. I put on a monitor now. So now he can actually see you. He hasn't been able to see you the entire time. So Joe, we, we kind of earlier touched on. Oh, hello. A little bit of a delay. Sorry guys. Can you hear us, Joe? Yep. Awesome. So earlier we talked about the bear, which, you know, you said has been amazing for business.

21:54Did you watch the series? And if so, what did you think of it? We're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. We are starting off with Southern Health Insurance. Y'all, if you own a restaurant or you're a manager of a restaurant and you don't offer insurance to your employees, today is your lucky day. Southern Health Insurance wants to help you find a solution to offer insurance to your employees. That's health insurance, vision, dental, even life insurance. Seriously, improved employee retention. If you're having any issues keeping staff or just keeping your staff happy is the right thing to do is to offer health insurance. A healthy workplace with opportunities for growth is a happy workplace. Encouraging your team's wellbeing will result in a higher morale and better work performance. Listen, if your employees are going to the dentist regularly, if they're going to the doctor on a regular basis, they're going to stay healthier. And that means they're going to work more. We're going to get more healthy people working for you.

22:54It's an amazing cycle. So here's what you got to do. You got to call Dan Maher over at Southern Health. His number is 832-816-8602 or you can email him at dan at southernhealthins.com. This will also work if you're an individual who just needs insurance or if you have a small, small business and you think I can't possibly do it, he can find a way. Give him a call and find out today. Well, we are talking about net checks today and my favorite topic is payroll. Man, I love talking about payroll. I love talking about taxes. Yeah, seriously, I don't know anybody who really loves those things. But payroll and net checks is more than just a paycheck. There's more than one way to pay. Today's workforce can be remote, seasonal, part-time or salaried. And net checks can be just as varied depending on your needs. They have net direct, unlimited direct deposits, live checks through their net pay system, pay cards with Skylight, pay option program from NetSpend.

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25:00If you have any needs or any questions about your current program, opening a new restaurant or just need a double set of eyes on that, we'd love the opportunity to help you with that. My number is 770-337-1143. We don't do any contracts, no minimums, weekly service to make sure that all your equipment is functioning properly. Make sure you have everything that you need. Again, my name is Jason Ellis, 770-337-1143. So earlier we talked about The Bear, which you said has been amazing for business. Did you watch the series? And if so, what did you think of it? Yeah. My thoughts on the show were it was very entertaining. I like how you could tell that it's very Chicago. Now, as it relates to the restaurant and the way the Italian beef was made and such, it's just not how we do things. We don't make beef gravy the way he did.

26:02We have a little higher standards with our restaurant in terms of cleanliness and uniforms. One of the things we pride ourselves on by being a modern Italian beef stand is that we have the favorites dating back to whenever they were in Chicago, but we've made it a place where you can eat with your family in the restaurant and have a comfortable experience and such. So, you know, I mean, it was an entertaining show and I really liked the actor, but from an Italian beef standpoint, just not who we are. You guys don't buy your beef from an igloo cooler in the parking lot? No, I mean, unless there's something I don't know about. Sure as hell hope not. That was strike one with that. Tony and I really struggled to watch the series. There was just too many things like that. Even if your credit is so bad or whatever, you can't... You can go to Restaurant Depot. There's a Restaurant Depot. You can get what you need at Costco, I guess.

27:02Sure. You can just pay cash. You don't need to meet a guy. And then who's baking bread in one store? Yeah. So this kind of leads into... Tony has a big thing about... I know you said that you guys do Chicago style hot dogs. Tony has this big thing about, you know, he doesn't feel like he can get the hot dog that he wants here in Nashville. So I'm sure he's very excited to get a hot dog from you guys. Oh, I'm very excited. Yeah. I'm sure it's going to be. What's your whole thing about why you can't get a good hot dog? All right. Have you ever heard my hot dog? My hot dog rant? Hopefully I'm about to. You are. Okay, good. Yeah. Okay. So the whole thing... Listen, there's places that do hot dogs very well in Nashville and like do creative and different toppings. For me, I only like one style of hot dog, like a Chicago style hot dog. And my whole thing is that so many places say they put it on the menu, this is a Chicago style hot dog, where really there's only one way to do it. And if you just want to get into the game, now I'm sure these guys have, you know, if they're making their own beef, they probably have, you know, all kinds of... Maybe they're making hot dogs. I don't know.

28:02But really all you have to do is buy the shit. There's like one or two brands of hot dogs. You buy that. There's two brands of yellow mustard. Pick one. Buy that. Buy the sport peppers. You buy the pickles. There's like everything is set just to make a hot dog. You just need to buy it. And people get too creative and they want to do this or that or make a weird kind of bun or a different kind of giant 12-foot hot dog that's grilled. It's not right. If you want to do a Chicago style hot dog, there's one way. And it's as easy as pie. You just got to buy the things. There's companies that have been making the hot dogs and the buns for 100 years. All you got to do is buy it. That's my rent. That's my rent. That's what Joe does. That's what you guys do at Borna Beef. You're going to get that. Yeah. I mean, like, you know, there's like, you know, you can't really mess with the standards. Do you guys make, I know you said that you have a USDA manufacturing plant. Do you guys make your own hot dogs or do you use like a Vienna beef? We have our own hot dog.

29:03Oh, nice. It's called Joey's Red Hot. So after my grandfather, Joe Sr. So Joey's Red. We have a whole label of Joey's products from our dressings to our meatballs to our hot dog. Nice. So what was it like growing up, Joe? You are the third. So was it your grandfather who started the company or your great grandfather who started the company? So my grandfather, who actually still comes to the office every day, just walk past my door here. He was in he was around 50 years old and he worked for People's Gas, which is a utility, you know, part of the utility companies out here in Chicago. And, you know, he worked there for 35 years and he had a dream that his sons, if they all wanted to get together, they can go into business with one another and have each other for support every day. So that's how the business got started. My grandfather was there with it alongside of his sons and my grandmother at the time.

30:06She had she passed away pretty early in the I want to say like 1983. So she didn't really get to see all this today. But that's how it got started. Like I said, with a ten thousand dollar second mortgage on his house. Wow. How was it going up here? Awesome. You know, you hear the you hear the horror stories about family businesses and, you know, I'm blessed. We have we have a lot of fun together. You know, there's nine of us that are the third generation in the business right now. And we all have our areas of expertise. We all respect one another. And don't get me wrong. Are there disagreements? Absolutely. Absolutely. But when the when the meeting's over, whenever the subject has concluded, we're all on the same page again. And that's it's really a testament to my grandfather, my father and uncles that they're just such strong leaders. You know, we were all able to if we wanted to have a have a position in the company, learn from the ground floor.

31:08And then hopefully, if you did a good job, you got in other areas of the business. And we, you know, in addition to family, we have a long tenured staff of family of a long, long tenured team members who we treat like family. And they also have helped us grow the business to today. What is your specific title, Joe? I'm a vice president. Currently, I'm overseeing the franchising efforts right now. OK, have you have you watched on Netflix the Prince Harry and Meghan episodes? We've seen that about like 15 minutes of the first episode. I have not. Oh, well, there's just so much with family and brothers and hierarchy. And who's higher when you have that many family members? You know, I don't know how does it you said that you all work really well together. But I think that, you know, you think about Thanksgiving and hey, I made you go. You you went to this thing and I didn't go. Oh, you're better. You went to the Cayman Islands and I had to go to the event. And does any of that ever happen? You know, not that I hear.

32:10But again, I'm not trying to paint a picture like everything is, you know, a fairy tale over here. You have your disagreements. Yeah, you work. You work through them together. You hope you present your case. Hopefully the other party agrees or you see their side of it and you move forward together. You know, one thing about our business is it's not dependent on any one person. And, you know, we have to work together to hit our growth goals and our operating margins and our sales goals. And so everyone's kind of we're all aligned here. Do you have any do you have any close family members that have not gone into the beef business that, you know, everybody's kind of disappointed that they, you know, choose to do something different? No. So, well, there's my brother. He's the last one. My youngest brother is the last one of the call it my three of my dad's brother, my dad and his two brothers. They had, you know, kids when we were kind of close in age.

33:10And then his younger brothers had kids that they're close in age. So my brother is the last one to not be in the business. He's a CPA and he's probably going to join our company sometime this year. That's awesome. I feel like there could be a reality show. Yeah, yes. Where's the beef? Yeah. Oh, we just created your next venture, Joe. Where's the beef with the Bonaventon Bonavolonto family? Maybe it could be based on us, but it definitely won't be a reality. So you said that your grandfather's brother started Mr. Beef. What is the history of your family in the Chicago area? So they grew up on the west side in the Grand and Ogden area. And yeah, my family, too. That's where all the paisans were. Yeah. And then they ventured out out toward the bourbon area.

34:11So that's where our corporate offices is headquartered. We have, you know, about 1400 employees. And, you know, Berwyn is always, you know, I grew up in Berwyn. Most of our family did. It's kind of, you know, where we want to be. And yeah, so now some of us live in the western suburbs. But that's really it. Everybody kind of worked in labor jobs before we had the business and such. And, you know, from our second restaurant on, everybody was fully engaged and they were just super dialed into kind of growing a Italian beef empire. So it's the first one in Berwyn. Yeah, right outside of our corporate office. Have you been to Nashville several times? What's your favorite thing to do while you're here? I think the key is how many times or how much of it did I remember? What's my favorite thing to do in Nashville?

35:13I mean, it's going to be a cliche, but definitely listening to live music. And I'm a shot in the beer type of guy. So I definitely love to go to bars like that and, you know, hang out with friends and such. I love all the local spots. Love the, you know, most recently been trying more of the restaurants and not just eating at bars. I like this. I think it's called the Southern steak and oyster. I like the 1230 clubs. Pretty cool. I was in a conference last year around this time and I saw another few different spots as well. So in addition to that, I like, you know, the Nashville hot chicken. But somebody told me that that was kind of a creative thing. The Nashville hot chicken. Like it wasn't it's not it's more of a marketing thing than actually dating back to the roots of Nashville. No, I don't think it's a marketing thing. A lot of princes. Yeah. Maybe what you're referring to is a lot of places have kind of taken what the original hot chicken place did.

36:18And, you know, turned it into more of a, I don't know, marketing angle. Yeah. Maybe it's. Yeah. Maybe. But I've been to princes. I think it's outstanding. The party fall. I love that place. It's definitely like a must every time I'm there. There you go. Well, next time you come to town, let us know and I'll take you to like a real hockey experience to while you're here. Great. Oh, are they going to play the Blackhawks? No, that's like the big rivals, right? Yeah. Yeah, we got to come out when there's a Blackhawk game. We'll have a good time. That's one thing about Nashville. If nothing else, Nashville is a hockey town. Which is it? Which is so weird. But it is. It really is a big hockey town. Like the Preds are everything here. Yeah. One time I was down there for I was down there for a hockey game and it was the same weekend as there was, I believe, where the Bears in town. Oh, man.

37:18Oh, we ran out of beer. Oh, yeah. Oh, we were there. We were there. Yeah. And they ran out of beer, which was like every bar on Broadway ran out of beer. It was about nine years ago. Yeah. Yeah, more or less. It was wild. It was so tender crying at like three o'clock in the afternoon. It was it was wild. Chicago. Chicago. I will give Chicago lots of I love Chicago. I love last time I was in Chicago, we saw Pearl Jam at Wrigley, which was it's been several years. Tony's worst nightmare. It's like his least favorite band at Wrigley Field. Sorry. My favorite band in the world at Wrigley Field. Yeah. So you just described Tony's worst nightmare. I would rather just stick pins in my face. But we had a blast. But like I love Chicago. When when we host Chicago teams here in town, it's an hour flight. And I think very quick to get here. Yeah. People here would love to sell the tickets because we get to go like it turns into Soldier Field South. I mean, it's amazing.

38:18Like, well, you don't have your fans don't show up like Chicago. It's like people in Chicago want to come to Nashville. It's the number one. We get to go see our team in a place that's warmer. And we get to go bar after bar after bar after bar after bar after bar and see live music and do. And it's really a neat spectacle to see how Chicago shows up when we host a Chicago team in Nashville. You guys are really passionate about your sports. Now, you know, there's an organization here. Are you familiar with Bear Down Nashville? I was I know they've been around for at least 15 years. I want to say a good friend of ours was one of the founders. And it's a Chicago Bears Club that has it used to just be a beyond the edge in East Nashville. But now they have three or four locations where they get together and watch Bears games. And we've had a lot of our good friends through Bear Down Nashville. I think the Bears have a I think the Bears are coming up to something right now. So if you guys are looking for somewhere to park the truck in, you know, events leading up to your opening.

39:20Yeah, we'll connect you. I'm sure they'd love to have you come out for a tailgate. It's not a great idea. Oh, it's a match made in heaven. Start filming the reality show. Yeah, start right here. Episode one. I love it. Well, Joe, I tell you what, man, I'm really excited about bone of beef coming to Nashville. And I can't wait to try it. I can't wait to learn more about will take you Chicago's culture and kind of your food and Italian beef, which I knew nothing about. So I'm excited that that's going to be a thing here in town. One of the things that we do to kind of wrap up the interview is we ask you for the Gordon Food Service Final Thought. They're our title sponsor here. Whatever you want to say, as long as you want to say it, you're speaking to the city of Nashville. Whatever you want to do to take us out, the floor is going to be yours. I'm super excited about entering the Nashville market with both of our brands, Bona, Bona Beef and the original Rainbow Cone.

40:22I know it's going to be a big hit. I can't wait to get out there and meet some of the local people and be an active contributor in the community. Thank you very much for having me on. Joe, it's been our absolute pleasure, man. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you, Tony, for coming in and helping us with the interview. Thank you, Tony, for coming in and helping us with these duties today. Talk about beef. My pleasure. All right, Joe, have a great, great rest of your week. We can't wait to see you guys here in Nashville. All right, buddy. All right, so big thank you to Joe. Bona Volonto, the third. Yeah, good job on the pronunciation. We started the show off and I said Joe Buena. And then I said it again. I said Buena Volonto. And I was like, damn it, I said Buena Volonto two minutes ago. But now we've said Buena enough that people will now know that it's a Buena beef when it comes to town. It's a name and you look at it and there's seven vowels. And it's aggressive. It's intimidating. I'm learning. I love learning stuff.

41:23I mean, just like this whole food thing. I'm like, I have nothing. I know nothing about Chicago food and culture. So it sounds like you've never had an Italian beef. If I did, I didn't know that I was having it. There's really only one place. Nicolettos has had one for a long time. That's very good and traditional. And then I think there's one place in like Goodlitzville. Oh, yeah, there's a Chicago place up north. But I don't get that way very much. We are we're doing like special catering items for Super Bowl from Nicky's. And one of them is Italian beef setups. So I'm going to get you an Italian beef. So I mean, I'll do a little plug for Super Bowl if you want. What are you doing? Oh, yeah, let's talk about it. So we are doing some catering items. We're going to do focaccia super subs. We're going to do Italian beef setups. So it'll come with like everything you need to make an Italian beef at home. It'll have a pack of Toronto rolls. It'll have the beef, the jus, hot Jardiner, sweet peppers, all the setups. Amazing. So if you want Italian beef for Super Bowl, visit our website.

42:23NickysNational.com. Sorry, I'm not going to do too much advertisement. But all that to say. I mean, why not? Me and Joe, Bona Volanto agreed the correct way to make the beef. So that will be how it is prepared. I do feel like you're kind of the only been the only or you were the only Italian beef guy for a while. And we even did talk at one time about like, should we try to open an Italian beef place? Still wouldn't mind. I'm going to be completely honest. I think that Joe and Bona is going to do very, very well here because they are set up as a restaurant that obviously has Italian beef. But they have a lot of other stuff, too, that I think people are really going to respond to. And I think that brands like Bona and other brands in Chicago, Skippy's, Portillo's, they're fast food places, but they're not like gross fast food like hearties. You know what? It's actually like fresh food, fast food. But I don't know how much Nashvilleans are going to respond to an Italian beef. What do you think? I think there's a huge populace of people in Nashville that are from Chicago or have a tie.

43:27Or have a tie to Chicago. We're so close. It's not that far away. And there's a bunch of people come here. And I think that when we do host people from Chicago, they're going to look for that. I think that that I think it'll be a big hit. And I think it's fun to other people that are listening right now that feel the same way as me. Like, I didn't know a lot about Italian beef. I kind of live in this world. I love expanding my horizons. But like now them knowing that's going to be there and knowing that for the Super Bowl, you get kind of a preview. If you wanted to learn more, you could do that right then and there. Come on in. So yeah, so big fun having Joe in studio. And Tony, again, thanks for thanks for coming in and sharing in this interview. Yeah, of course. My pleasure. All right. Well, we hope you guys are being safe out there and have a great rest of your week. Love you guys. Bye. Bye.