Joe Muer Seafood

00:01At What Chefs Want, they deliver the seven most needed product lines to meet the unique needs of chefs and restaurateurs. From local to global and from staple items to gourmet rarities, they have the variety of products to cover all of your needs. Produce, seafood, meats, gourmet, staples, to-go and dairy. At What Chefs Want, they're transforming food service by eliminating minimum orders, offering split cases and providing daily deliveries with 24-7 customer support. This means chefs have the flexibility to order what they need when they need it. Experiment with new ingredients and keep their kitchens consistently stocked with fresh supplies. It's all about empowering culinary creativity while streamlining operations. Check them out at whatchefswant.com or give them a call at 800-600-8510. Sharpies Bakery is a locally owned and family operated wholesale bakery, providing bread to Nashville's best eateries.

01:04They've been operating in Nashville since 1986, providing high quality fresh bread daily for restaurants, catering companies, hospitals and universities. Their bread is free from preservatives and artificial additives. Learn more at sharpies.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S.com. Or you can give Erin Mosso a call directly. Her number is 615-319-6453. That's Sharpies Bakery. You're listening to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the podcast that's not about food. It's about food people. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll and Crystal DeLuna-Bogan. It's Brandon. And it's Crystal. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Okay, we are back.

02:07And I think full disclosure, I gotta say, we're doing this intro after the interview. The secret's out. The secret's out. Sometimes we like to do an intro before the guest comes in. Yeah, but they were here already. They were here already, ready to go. It's weird if they're sitting there. So when you start the episode, today we're talking with Marino and Mike from Joe Muir Seafood. And we started the interview and I feel like we had so much stuff we wanted to talk about and then we started talking. And then all of a sudden I was like, oh, there's people staring at us and they don't wanna hear us talk. Yeah, no, they're like, yeah. It feels like not welcoming to have them here. I want them to feel welcome. So we're doing an intro to kind of catch up and let you guys know what's happening in the world with us, with all the stuff. I started the interview and I said, did you hear the episode for the GFS food show? Yes. And you said. I'm actually shocked how you even managed to do that because there's so much going on around you.

03:13How are you not distracted? Okay, so have you ever watched the red? I would be so distracted. Have you ever watched the red zone network? No. Do you know what that is? No. The red zone network starts at noon on the red zone channel and it is this guy, I think his name is John Hansen. I don't know, but he's the host and he goes every single football game, there's seven games on at noon and he goes whip around coverage of every game, seven hours of commercial free football. He sits there for seven hours and every time the ball gets in the 20 yard line, he calls the games live and you get to go watch all the, you get to watch every football game that's happening. It's the most amazing channel in the world. I watch it every single Sunday. Okay, so you already attuned to this kind of behavior? Okay. But the guy just sits there for seven hours and goes back and back and then three o'clock and three times, new game start and he filters in the end of the other games and the new games and they just whip around coverage. That's what it felt like being at the show because it started, I was there at like eight o'clock in the morning, I set everything up and then Patrick Cairoli, who's like their North American customer solution, he sits down.

04:20He's like, yeah, I said, well, let's talk, man. Let's do a warmup kind of conversation and there's nobody really in the place yet. They're just kind of still setting up and we had a conversation and then Paul Hunter sits down and then people start arriving. Yeah, that's where I would start getting messed up. And there's just people everywhere. And are they like crowding around you? Really? Really? I mean, there's people watching. Because it kind of looks like interesting, like having headphones on, I don't know. People are like watching you, but you have to tune all of that out. And could you get headphones on and you're hearing each other like this, you can lock in. Yeah, you can lock in. But the hardest thing is you don't know who's really sitting down. Okay. So you're sitting down and your name is Peter and you own Prime Time in Newburgh. So did you like have these lined up already? That's what I was gonna, I was like, had all these questions. There was like five that were already lined up. And then you talk to them and you're like, you're coming on. Yeah, but like Andrea Chavez from Rose Pepper, she just walks by. What are you doing? I'm like, sit down. And so she sits down. And then who else did you have local? You had?

05:21I had the Nash Dogs. Nash Dogs. And then another one. Bill Lavillette from Shotgun Willys. Yes, yes. We had Andrea, we had the Burger Boys from Bad Luck Burger Club. Oh yeah, Bad Luck Burger Club. And we had a bunch of Nashville people, but these are people that walked by. Were they just like coming to the show? Yeah, they were just at the show. They were just guests. They were just at the show and they walked by. I saw them giving big bear hugs. I'm like, sit down. We gotta talk. And it was like- That's pretty cool. Before you know it, it was like 2.15. And I hadn't peed. I hadn't got up. I hadn't done anything. Did you even eat? No, I didn't do. I just was boom, boom, boom, boom. That was something I was like, you should have been like getting products to like test on the air. People would come by and like reps would come by and just like drop off some food on the table. And it was like, I don't know what that is, but it's been sitting there for 30 minutes. And I just kind of threw it away because it was old. And I was like, I don't want to try this corndog that you made with this. You needed someone to be scouting out like the good stuff and then like come over with like a steak or something.

06:24You know, like there needed to be like- It was like a six hour rush. You know, like where you're busy in the middle of a rush. I didn't understand how you did that. I didn't have another option. Like you just go. Like there's no- I was listening with all these logistical questions as your co-host. I was like, when did he just like string all these together? Like, how did he do this? Well, this was a very interesting way that this thing went down because I pissed off somebody else. Who? Right, so I had this long, I had this conversation. Probably shouldn't say it, but I'm going to say it. I had this conversation with What Chefs Want. Okay, Formally Creation Gardens. Formally Creation Gardens. And they were doing, they wanted to do this. They have a new warehouse here in Nashville. Yes. And they wanted, they're doing a big open house and we were talking about ideas for it. I was talking to her and I said, man, you should make it a party and do all this stuff and be a lot of fun if you had like a DJ. But like when people showed up to it, it wasn't just a standard warehouse tour. Like let's make it fun. I said, I will come and I can record live. We'll interview all the people.

07:24It'll be so much fun. She goes, this sounds really cool. We were just kind of spit balling. Just kind of having this conversation. I guess she sent me an email afterwards that said, save the date. We're going to do it on September the 18th. Oh, it was the same day. So then GFS called, who's our main sponsor here. Which means they pay you. Which does mean they pay me, but also I love them. Like they're so amazing. So you love them and you believe in their company. I do all this stuff. And he says, we're doing our big show in Louisville. We'd love to have you come and set up. And I said, that sounds great. I'd love to do it. Like let's do it. And he goes, cool, we'll get you a hotel. We'll put you up. We'll do the whole thing. They gave you the slab treatment. They did. It was really, but like that wasn't it. But like next thing I know, I've got an email that's here's your hotel. And I'm like, okay. I booked the hotel and the whole thing. And here we go. This is, I'm so excited to work with them. And what a fun opportunity to go to this huge, a food show and do the podcast. Like all these people walking by, I thought this will just be so neat. Great exposure for the podcast, all the stuff.

08:28Well, like three days later, I get a message from what she wants says, okay. So we're go September 18th from nine to noon. I was like, why were they the same day? That's actually poor planning. I told her, I said, I am so sorry. I said, I have booked. I'm gonna be in Louisville that day. She goes, I sent you a save the date. And I said, it was like two months ago. And I didn't save the date. You didn't do it. I didn't do it. And she was like, well, we'd like for you to do it here. And I said, but I've already committed it. So I had to tell them, no. Oh, boo. And I felt really bad because I really wanted to be there. Like I really wanted to be at the. If it was another date, you could have done it. So I told her, I said, that's the same day as the GFS show. And they were like, well, maybe we should move it. And they decided to keep it the same day. Yeah. They really should have moved it because it's kind of the same customers. I mean, it's really the same customer base. And I wish they had, I think, hopefully it was really successful. But I went with the GFS thing and I did that instead of, I really wanted to do them both. I really want, and you were just going right in the middle.

09:28I was thinking, well, maybe we'll do crystal. I don't have enough equipment to do. No, I would have, if I would have done it too, I would have never, I would have had way too much ADHD to do it by myself. I would have been like, look shiny over there. And I would, it would have been a bad podcast. You would have been able to use that at all. Oh, I'm sure you would have crushed it. You are, you get in the zone like anybody else. It would have been, it would have been fun. But I also just, I wouldn't, by myself, I would have felt funny. And they would have been like, what is this, this isn't Brandon. So I totally screwed up with that, my schedule. And that's what happens sometimes. Yeah. You know, you get three restaurants and you're doing all this stuff. You're trying to be a good dad and you're trying to be a good husband. You're trying to do this podcast. You're trying to- Have a real job that you go to all the time. I know. And so- You're busy. It was a big eye opening thing for me. And I was like, I'm doing too much. It was like, you know, people, people ask me, they go, how do you do all this? And I'm like, I drop balls all the time. Like I fuck up. I don't, I'm trying so hard. But like- And that was in Louisville. Like you had to like go, if it was in Nashville, maybe you could have worked it out, you know, where you did some time there.

10:31Or if they did it from like three to seven. Yeah. And I would have dipped out at one and shot down there. It would have been kind of crazy, but still, yeah. I would have done it. Yeah, these- I'm not afraid of hard work. I would have done it. These food shows are like in the middle of the day. I had my, I had to talk to my rep the other day about this cause of another company. I don't want to shout them out, whatever. But that we use and they had one that was more like a social kind of like a barbecue hang, but they were using the meats that they're selling. Oh, is this the chef's warehouse one? Yeah. Well then, I mean, we can talk about other companies. Okay, I don't know. I don't want to like throw in another one, but like he was really kind of upset that I didn't go. My rep. I registered to go and I forgot about it. I didn't even register because I knew I was working. Like I was working at that time, you know? So I was like, I wish I had the day off. Then I would love to have gotten free food and potentially found a new vendor for whatever, you know? But it's hard because we are also working. I don't know. It was like in the middle of the day for us.

11:32I mean, I want people to go. People should go to these shows. Like they're actually, they spend a lot of money on them. They do them. It's very nice that they host these. You get to learn about all these new products that you probably wouldn't know. You know, like it's great. I was actually very excited about that show because it was different. You know, all these shows are, I went to a Cisco food show the other day. Cisco invited me out. You went to all of them. Tell me your experience about. Well, I like to go to these things because I learn a lot. What are the differences between, you know, X, Y, and Z? Well, GFS did a full, it's not a food show. Okay. It's a show. I love a food show. Wait, well, it's a food show, but in the middle they're doing demos. They're talking about staffing. They're talking about all, they have live people, Patrick Cairoli, who was on stage talking about this is what's happening. These are the trends. This is what's going on. Yeah, trend forecasts. Q and A's. For small business owners are everything. It's not just try all the stuff. And they do, they have this, I don't know if you may notice, like GFS has this company called Relish Works, which is like a secret company that they also own.

12:37They distanced themselves from it for some reason. I don't understand it. They're probably mad at me for saying this, but they have a company called Relish Works and they are like an innovative company. So they're constantly working on really cool things. They have all the really neat stuff that Relish Works is working on. And then they try out everything. And then when it works really well, and they perfect it, then it kind of gets put into the GFS. Okay. From what I understand. So if like a neat incubator company that like finds new innovative R and D stuff, it's really a neat company. And they're out there, Relish Works. You can look them up and kind of see what they're doing. They did a podcast and some different things. So there's way more than just food at the GFS show. It's not a food show, it's the GFS show. And that was a neat component. I didn't get to see any of it because I was doing interviews all day long. You were working, yeah. But I think a lot of these shows, people think that you're gonna show up to it and they're just gonna serve you food. Yeah, that's what I would think until my rep was like, no, that's not what it is.

13:40And it's more like a, it's like a, it's very, it has way more knowledge about systems and back of house and forecasting and just like different things that you can implement in your business to help you, you know? I think that people go to these shows. Everybody loves the bag. When you go, you get a bag and you walk by and you just throw like samples in this bag and you leave this huge bag of swag. I love a good swag bag. Everybody loves the bag. And I think that's what the shows are, people show up because they wanna take home free pens and stickers and like, but like the thing that scares me the most about these shows is you'll walk by and we use all fresh ingredients in our restaurants. Everything is fresh. Oh yeah, all the prepared stuff. And you talk to this guy, he's like, hey man, what's going on? What are you looking for today? And I go, I don't know, I'm just kind of here. I'm just walking by, seeing if something catches mind. He's like, well, let me tell you, I got this chicken product right here. It's fully cooked chicken. It's in this bag and it's wrapped with a breadcrumb.

14:40You drop it in a fryer for 37 seconds. You cut it, the cost on it is 27 cents and you can sell it for $32. And you're like, I don't. This is why chefs don't like to go to these shows. And he holds up this bag to me, and it's this gray frozen bag. And I'm like, who the hell is buying this? Like who is buying this? Who's seeing that and going, this is what's gonna be the thing that's gonna bring my guests back. Not making, not in the kitchen. They're more like, we're a bottom line people. You know, like- But this is what the food, people go to these things because they wanna see something that's like, and I wanna see how you're preparing whole, like regular, like fresh chicken. That's not what these shows are though. So that's the thing. That's what they show. It's what can I buy that's processed, that's already cooked for me. I can reduce, everything is- Reduce time and labor. If you can't find staff, so it turns if you can't find staff, all you have to do is have one guy that can cut this bag open, drop it in a fryer, slice it and throw it on a salad and you'll make all this money.

15:41And people hear that and they go, this is great. This will end my staffing issues. And I'd rather find out why are you having staffing issues? And let's fix your culture and let's make it to where you can hire the right people and keep them to stay versus let's go to a cheaper product that's already done in a warehouse, a factory somewhere that's in a frozen gray bag of- Well, they got you once, cause now you don't have anybody that can cook the whole chicken. Cause you've hired this person that just can like dry and fry. And so that's, I think the food shows, you can make them whatever you want. I love produce places cause you can learn a lot from how they store fresh produce. And you know that for every hour, produce stands above 55 degrees. It loses the days where the shelf life and all these little neat things that you can learn like a produce show. Or I'm sure the wet chefs want, they've done so many cool shows at what chefs want where they do live demos. And they have a lot more, they have a lot of fresh products that they want you to buy. So I'm sure that they're- They don't have those kind of, so it's really a independent restaurant show where they're showing you neat stuff.

16:44I want innovation. I want things that are gonna help me really operate my business. And that's gonna be the right way to do it versus let's see how many corners we can cut with cheaper products. See, that's why a lot of us don't prioritize those shows. Cause I'm like, I'm getting, I'm doing the opposite. I'm like, what can I make that's so unique that my brand has that no one else has? You know, like I'm in the craveable business. Like because I'm a QSR, quick service restaurant, I wanna make that sauce that you crave, that you cannot get anywhere else, but you, oh, I'm gonna get that salad because their ranch is the best. Like how many times have you done that where you're like, I'm gonna go, and you can't get it anywhere else. So you have to buy your family's meal from our restaurant because you want our specific soup that we make from scratch. If we start buying what everyone else buys, then why are you buying from us? So that's, I'm going the opposite direction because I'm smaller. But if you're running over five to six restaurants, you may not have that luxury and you're trying to look for things to cut costs, which in my opinion is as a chef, not really my thing.

17:51But you know, like- Which is why you wanna eat at local restaurants that care about that stuff. There's operators that do care about that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's- That's why we support the smaller, it's gonna cost us more money. But actually if you hire people that care, it doesn't, cause they don't waste. At the Cisco show, they had a really cool, the European import section and the Buckhead beef section. See, I like that, that stuff. That stuff was- The imports, cause for me the cheeses and stuff. Yeah, the cheese is really good. I tried this balsamic vinegar that was like with some, and it was on prosciutto and I was like, we need this. This is gonna go good on crispy Brussels sprouts that are gonna be, that will make it pop. That's a different thing. Little things like that I love. But the overall, and it was at their warehouse. So like, I like the going somewhere, making a spectacle of it, seeing, it's a social thing for me. I love walking through there because I see so many people. It makes me feel special to see- So it was at their warehouse. It's at their warehouse, but you get to go there and you get to see all these different chefs and you walk around and you know, I can't even tell you how many people I saw. Just hugs and great to see you and so many fun, it's just fun to see everybody.

18:55And then you know all the reps and all the different people cause this is an industry I was in for a while. Cause it's more for me, these are more social things. Yeah, these are your people. So me getting to do a podcast at that is a hundred percent social, I get to meet all these people, I get to pick their brains on the important stuff that I think is interesting. I get to learn, I get to genuinely just learn that primetime sports pub, Peter from primetime sports pub where he was in Newburgh, Indiana. I know nothing about that place, but by the time I was done with the interview, I was like, dude, I want to come meet at your place. You know what you're talking about. This is really cool. And that's like the point. I think of people being on podcasts, it's like, how else do we know these stories to actually make us have that emotional connection that where we can go and support that brand, you know? That's why I, there are so many now, now I'm like, oh, personal connection. Like I know that my dollars matter there, which is wonderful. And kind of like in this interview today, you know, we got done with it and you said, I really enjoyed that because these guys care and they've got some really cool stuff going on and it gives you hope. Yeah, it's nice to hear people that want to be in this industry because a lot of times in the restaurant industry, we're surrounded by, I mean, which is fine.

20:02It's just a stepping stone. It's a, a pass through for people, you know, a means to not an ends, you know? So to, but someone who like has never wanted to do anything else but work in the restaurant industry and I love and hate it, but I want to be around people that also love it. Yeah, like I, I love that people have other passions, but it's nice to be around people, some people that want to actually do this for a living. That are pros. Yeah, the pros and like take pride in it and like actually want to better themselves and are constantly learning and talk about people so positively, like the way chef was talking about Manit Shohan and how, how wonderful the human being she is and how kind she is. Like, I love hearing that stuff. It really is encouraging. It was really cool. And sorry, in the middle of the interview, I kind of cut. I know it was turning into a- We were going on to like a Manit Shohan, like it turned into like 10 minutes. I was like, hey, we're going to change the topic. And I love you, Manit. Manit, you're one of my favorites, but- Yeah, you can come on and we'll talk to you about how wonderful you are, but you just wanted to circle back on their brand.

21:03Back on their brand because I really felt like they're, you know, I think it's interesting with the show because this show is for us. Yeah, industry people. The show is for industry people, hearing other industry people. And sometimes you want to promote their restaurant so that guests can hear it. But really this is so that if you work in the industry, you want to go eat there too, because I straddle this line of who do I do this show for? Do you do it for the guests who are listening because then maybe they want to go eat there? Is this a promotional thing for them? Or is this for other people who are inside the building? Initially, this was for us only so that if during the pandemic, if you didn't know what to do, you could hear what other people were doing and maybe you get an idea and maybe that saves your restaurant. I don't know, but like, tell us what you're experiencing. Not let someone go or, you know, it makes you a little bit more to keep going, you know? I never thought about that. That's, oh, I'm not alone. I felt that way too. I thought I was the only one because I'm spending 75 hours a week in my business. And I don't know what everybody else is thinking, but now I do.

22:06I've heard Brandon from people that when we mentioned certain things on the show, it does help them. Yeah. Like when the podcast and they promote the podcast properly, whenever you're properly marketing anything you're doing and if people have an emotional attachment to something, like our friends at 10TC mode, they said that they had a really busy week that next week. Oh, well, that's, well, and again, that's industry people want to go support them. You know, people don't know that after the fact, but like they'll reach out to us and they'll be like, thank you so much. Now- They're the sweetest people in like the world. Yeah, their restaurant opening got held up a little bit because you know, that's what happens. But they're going to start this pop-up that Anna was saying they're going to do. So maybe we'll talk about that more next week. Anna was like one of the nicest people. She was so sweet. Yeah, they're going to do a pop-up. This is the time of year where the food, where like Mexican food just gets so good with like moles and tamales and stuff. So they're going to start doing some more of that stuff, which I can't not wait. It's going to be so good. We're starting a birria, birria, quesadilla.

23:08Birria, a pizza. Okay. At Chagos. So you're taking two cultures and putting them into one thing. Okay. Well, it's basically two birria, birria. I call it birria. Is it like a quesadilla? What are you doing? It's two quesadillas. Okay. Back to back. Okay. On a pizza tray. On a pizza tray, okay. So I put it on an elevated like pizza tray at the table and it's cut into 12 slices. Okay. And then I've got the consomme. Then I do a tomatillo sauce and our salsa. All three of those sauces. So when you put it on the middle of the table and everybody gets to eat it like a pizza. Okay. I like the service idea of that. I'm going to have to come check that out myself. It's a fun, it's a fun play. I like the play on it. And Chagos is like always a fun play on things. It's not, you're not trying to say like, this is like your grandma's Mexican food. This is like, you know, a fun version of like a Mexican restaurant that's very approachable for everybody and something for everybody, for the whole family.

24:09We really try that. We have new salsa too. Oh, you were talking about the salsa. I have brand new salsa. Okay. I'm going to come in. I didn't think our salsa was very good. I know you didn't. Our salsa was too spicy. I don't want to say it, but you did say you were working on something different. Yes. The salsa wasn't great. And now it's like, you could drink it. I mean, like it's, it's kind of, it's kind of plain, but it tastes good, but anybody can eat it. And then I have it. I have a new secret salsa too. It's a sweet heat salsa. What makes it sweet? Sugar. Oh, what? The tomatoes and it's a little bit sweet. And then we use habaneros. So it's like a sweet, you taste on the front, you're like, this is kind of sweet. And then on the finish, it's like, whoa, but you have to know, we're not going to offer it. You have to come in and say, I want to try the sweet heat salsa. And what do you do? Like whip it up in the back. Like when someone's, do you just like pour sugar? Well, no, it's what we use. It's what we eat. Oh, this is a back of house, like thing that you guys, okay, I like that. That we're going to have.

25:09I like that. It's like the, it Chewy started and they did the, the creamy jalapeno. Well, now they just put it on every table. Cause everybody wants it. Yeah. But it used to be a, if you know, you know, kind of a thing. Yeah. So a sweet heat salsa. I like it. It's spicier, really spicy. So if you don't like that. Well, if you like that, yeah. But if you do, then that's an option. You give them a wink and then you're like, Oh, do you want a little more spice in it? Let me let you try this special. But don't, this is just. Don't tell anybody. Don't post it on Instagram. I'm talking about a podcast. Hashtag spicy, spicy salsa, secret salsa. This is for people in the food industry. If you want to come out and try it, you people in the food industry like flavor. Yeah. My brother has this famous saying to me, which I think is really interesting. For marketing. And he says the number one selling the cheese, right? Triple cream brie. It's freaking delicious. The number one selling cheese in the world. Double cream brie. Velveeta. Interesting.

26:10Velveeta is the number one selling cheese in the world. Cause the general population eats McDonald's. The most people in the world eat Velveeta. Cause it's the easiest cheese to make in it. It's American cheese. It's just this cheese. And it melts fast and it's good forever. But a triple cream brie is delicious. And I would rather have that. My palate is such that I would rather have really good cheese. It is the same texture as a Velveeta. Yes, that is true. So when salsa, if you're serving salsa to the masses, you want to have some that people are just going to eat and love. But you know what that is? It's marketing. But if you want something really good, that's a little more spice and has some sweetness, like, Ooh, this is unique. I got that too. But you have to know and ask for it. All right. Is your brother in marketing? Yeah, he owns a marketing company. Okay. I can tell. Your whole family is like, He has a company called Tallboy Marketing. Sales people. Like you guys were born sales people. Your sister is a great sales woman, sales person, no gender specific. We all have very strong work ethics.

27:11It's just a, we're not asking for anything to be given to us. It is a go out there, hustle and get it. You guys really do have good, like you're like, some people are born like athletic. You guys were all born like good sales people. Oh, my dad was an entrepreneur. My dad had owned a business and he had to do it his entire life. He made it happen. Like it wasn't a, Oh, well somebody's just gonna give this to me. You guys absorbed that, I'm sure. Well, I mean, he was gone and I worked for his company for a while. My son, William came in the other night and worked at Chagos. That is adorable. He's 11. And so my wife and my nine year old went to a movie and I said, William, wanna come work on bus tables? Little did I know it was- Did you make tips? No, I just paid him. Oh, okay. It wasn't like on like, I just gave him some money. Yeah, it was like when he felt like it. Yeah, yeah. But it was like a fun, like father son go to work day kind of a thing. It's a family owned business. And there's no, he gets hurt. It's on me. It's not a- It's not like a sign a waiver kind of situation. No, it's a father son work night kind of thing. Yeah, you're watching them. But it was Belmont, what's it called?

28:15A fall break. Half our staff goes to Belmont. Yeah, so they're- So they're gone. Yeah. So I'm short staffed. Oh, you're short staffed. And we had this big event at the Fisher Center and we were slammed. And he walked in- Oh, he was working that night? And saved the, he- I'm not kidding. You did? If he had not worked, we would have gone down in flames. William. Like he saved the day. He did not, I saw him- I hope you gave him more than like five bucks. I did, I gave him like 50 bucks. Amazing, he earned it. You worked for three hours. I gave him 50 bucks. He was really bussing tables. We were laying in bed talking that night. And he goes, dad, it was so fun because like when a table got up, I would clean the table and then I would spray it down with the sanitizer and I would wipe it down, not to where there's any, almost where it was dry. And then I put the four linens and the silverware in the exact spot. Then I clean up the seat. He was like a better employee than most of us. And he was like, and then the people would sit down. It was like a game for him. And I was so, and so at the end of the night, we got absolutely slammed. We were slammed. And at seven o'clock, the event started and the entire restaurant just empty.

29:17Oh yeah. And he walked up to me. He was like, dad, I'm slammed. He goes, the whole restaurant got up at one time. I got like 20 tables to bust right now. He did not stop. That's so good. It was 730 and the whole restaurant was basically empty, but there was three tables left in there. And he goes, like, are you ready to go, buddy? You did a great job. And he goes, he goes, I still have three tables that are here, dad. I got to finish these tables. Like I can't leave until the job is done. This is an 11 year old. Everyone take note. 11 years old. And I was like, dude, I don't know what I would have done without you. Like he- That's so real. Literally like saved the day. Cause we had no staff. We were short staffed and we were, and I was- That's so cool. I mean, I was sweating, running around. It was so much fun. I mean, that's like my dream scenario to be that busy. I love it. I had my five year old wiping tables the other day cause we both had to work and it was fall break. And it was, it was funny because she's five, but then she was trying to put on gloves. Cause I was like, you can't, you know, like, I didn't want her even touching the sanitizer. Cause I mean, she's not like 11 where she can know, you know, how to use it.

30:19So she really, she really was wiping tables, but she was doing it while people were still eating. So that was like, you have to wait till they get up. Let me tell you. It was really cute. Actually they really liked it. So it was, it was funny cause she was, she was on the towel. She was like wiping. I'm like, oh, wait, you have to wait till they get up. You can't do it while they're still sitting there. He was pre-busting tables. Like when people were still there and he was- That's like, I love him. Table visits. He was touching tables. He was touching tables. He was walking by going, hi, are you still working on this? And they would go, yes. And he would go, are you enjoying everything this evening? And he was like, asking him like, he was like, I'm going to poach him. That these guys are really good that dad, these people were having so much fun over here. And people would call me over. It's adorable too. And they were like, is that your son? And I was like, yeah, he's 11. He's on fall break. They were doing this and this and this. And they were like, no, I was just wondering if I could bring my kid in. Because there was another 11 year old kid that was sitting there and he was in a suit. Because he was in a suit with his mom.

31:20They came in from Birmingham for the Sharon McMahon was the author that was speaking. And he came with his mom and they were sitting at the table and I go, how old are you? His name was Charles. I said, Charles, how old are you? And he goes, I'm 11. I go, my son is 11. And he was like, I was wondering. I was like, mom, we moved to Nashville so I can get a job. And I was like- Oh, he wanted to work. I went to the Publix by my house and I asked them if they were hiring and they said, not till you turn 15. And I was like, man, I really want to get in there and work. And I saw him working and I was like, maybe I can come here. So that was the cutest thing I've ever heard in my life. That's adorable. No, I was that 11 year old. I always wanted to make money. Me too. Ever since, I mean, people I've been working for, I mean, I was selling balloons when I was 10. I mean, I would have yard sales and would not tell my parents. Like I would have yard sales. I would just sell shit from the house. And my dad would be like, are you kidding? You can't just have a yard sale by yourself. I would go in the front yard because we had a ash trees and an ash trees grows mistletoe.

32:23You would sell mistletoe. And I would get rocks and throw rocks into the trees to hit the mistletoe. And then the big chunks of mistletoe would fall down. And then I would get out of our holly bush, the little red, you know, hollies. And I would put a little thing of mistletoe together and wrap it with red ribbon. And I would tie it together and I'd put them in a little Ziploc bag and I'd walk up and down the street and I would sell little things of mistletoe for like 250. Well, everybody would, 11 year walks away says, would you like to buy a bunch of mistletoe that I made? They're like, yes. Yeah, I mean, are you a monster? Yes. Who doesn't buy it? So I made money like crazy. And then my dad would have all these CDs because they do like mailers because he had Christian music magazines, what he did. But they would do these little CD mailers. But every once in a while, there'd be like a box of CDs. So you were like, I'm gonna sell that shit. Well, no, I would take the CDs and then I would go to, I would buy like a big thing of felt and I would cut out little felt circles. And I'd put a CD, then I'd put the felt on the back of the CD and I would sell them as coasters. Oh my God.

33:24So you could have CD coasters. And I'd walk in and sell things of five for 10 bucks. And I'd walk them down the street and sell CD coaster. I mean, I would do anything. So this was really for real. Like you guys are like salespeople. Yeah, I would go out and like door to door, everyone in the neighborhood knew who I was. I watched all their cars. I did all the- What's Brandon got for us today? It was almost a joke. In the neighborhood, I live in that neighborhood now. Oh, you still live in that? Oh, you moved back to that neighborhood? I live two houses down from my parents. So people that still live in that neighborhood know me. There were like- When I was 11 and 12, that kid that sold it, now I'm 45. And I live in that neighborhood. Are you still selling them CD coasters? No, but I'm like, son, why are you not selling them CD coasters? I'm like, find something and go up there and do it. It's a little different these days, but- It's so gratifying to like have your own money that you earned. Like you really do take, you take into account like what things cost nowadays. And you're just like, I told, so Luna lost two teeth. So that tooth fairy came. She's seven bucks rich right now.

34:25Wow. Seven big ones. This girl will now, now I'm like, if she were at Target and she wants something frivolously, 20 bucks. I'm like, that's $20. You only have $7. And she's just like, wow, that's too expensive. I'm like, wow, she finally understands. She's in there filing out her teeth. I need three more teeth. She's like eating caramels, trying to pull out her teeth. She's like, I really need it. I need to get some more money. No, she's, it's like, and that's just tooth fairy. I'm like, oh my, I'm fully into this tooth fairy thing. Cause I'm like, she totally gets, she had to work that tooth out of her mouth. William lost a tooth last night. Tooth fairy is coming to my house tonight. Wow. Look at that. As a matter of fact, random, random thing that's happening. Yeah. You better get those dollars. I don't know. I mean, she's, we set the bar a little low. Cause I'm like, you just started losing teeth. We can't really, you know, three, four. So we said we'd go up a dollar every time. I'm like, this, did we do the math on this? This is not smart. We're going to be into her for a long time.

35:26It's like $125 tooth. Who has dollars anymore? Like me and Joseph had to be like, oh my God, we have to go get some money from Kroger. Like we have to go to the ATM to get dollars. Who has dollars? What I have, my grandfather, before he passed, he would give us $2 bills. And so he would always, my birthday, I would get like a $50 bill. But when I'm 45, I get like a $50 bill. And then I would get a $2 bill. It was his thing. He always gave us $2 bills. We do something. Aren't those worth something now? So I have like a hundred $2 bills. So is that what tooth fairy gives out? So he gets, they get $2 bills. Is what they get. They're probably worth more than, right? I think some are, but for the most part, they're all, I mean, worth two bucks. But they're special to me because he gave me these and he's gone now. And then I buy them back from them. Yeah. You're gonna like, and I'm gonna need that back. That's on loan. Well, it's always like a, you know, I always write them IOUs. Oh, that's cute. Because when they wanna buy something, it's usually online. And it's a gaming thing. So they give me the cash and then I just put on my card.

36:28So I just recycle them. So they get the cash as just like a placeholder for what they wanna buy online. Lesson of the podcast. Make your kids work. Make your kids work. Me and Brandon have been hustling since we're little. Nonstop. Nonstop. I'm still hustling today. Still hustling today. Me too. I know a lot of people out there listening's going, me too, my friend. I was texting with my friend Nina who owns Thai Sane. And she was- She was at the show the other day. I saw her. Nina Sinto. I love her. Big gold bear hug. She's amazing. Oh, she's amazing. She's a busy person. So she was mopping the floor. I think she like posted on Instagram and I was, I texted her, I was like, I was like, same girl, same. She's like, it literally never stops. I mean, we both owned our business for so long. And I will, I still am mopping floors. Like it's never, it's never a glamorous job, but I have so much satisfaction in like a clean floor. You know, like that is- It's a thing. That is a thing. You know? We had this leak under the bar at Chagos. It's like the, there was this leak. I don't know. I don't know where it came from. It's just a leak. And they're like, you need to call a plumber.

37:28And I'm like, I'm not calling a plumber. So I got on my back and I'm underneath there with my light and I'm moving all this stuff around. And finally I figured out where this thing's coming from. And I had to go and get some plumber's putty and take the thing apart and do this and this and that. But they're like, why don't you just call someone? I'm like, because that's like $300. If he calls somebody, I can fix it for $17. And, but you have to get on the floor. I'm like, that's what you do. You gotta get on the floor sometimes. I think so many people just, oh, this program will just call somebody. Like, well, it's not your money. Well, it is your money. It's crazy. No, that will ruin you. Don't get me started on all that. Oh my God. Yeah, anyways. Yeah, when you're an owner's mentality. But you gotta have that. Yeah. And you know what? If you are not an owner and you're working in a restaurant and owners see you doing that. Oh, it's like gold. If you want a raise, any day that you like want, all these people, I had somebody that said, I want a dollar raise. And I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing?

38:29You're showing up and you're expecting it. Well, this guy, I go then go work there. That's the bare minimum, yeah. I wanna see you do more here in the building. I wanna see you really own it. And it's not, and I'm paying people really well. It's not like it's a, oh, you make $9 an hour. It's really just the point of it though, right? Like, what are you, how are you contributing? Like even just your attitude, you know? Like how are you coming in and making it a good day for your fellow coworkers? Chef V last week talking about him going in and taking care of the prep cooks and making family meal and how I gotta make sure they're taking care of so that, well, my prep is this and this. Like it's an ecosystem of caring. And you just gotta care. If you care and run it like it's yours, you're gonna be fine. I told Wayne that night, I said, you continue your life and you work as hard as you did today and you have the same attitude. Whatever you do, you're gonna be successful. You're gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine. Just keep that mentality.

39:30Don't ever lose that. Yeah, there's nothing better than knowing you put in a hard day of work. Like that'll, for me, like it's just like laying down at night, I mean, like I did as much as I could today. And not that like everyone should be breaking their back, but it's just like, I touched so many tables. I, you know, made so many connections. I made a really good soup. You know, like I just, that gratification doesn't equate in dollars, you know? I mean, hopefully we all are making money, but like there's no amount of money that that. You get a group of people that all think that way. You go into these really good restaurants. Today, we have to get to this episode. I know that you've been talking for almost 40 minutes. Oh my God, cut us off. I'm so sorry everybody was enlisting this. Hopefully this has been interesting to you. You should probably chop this up. No, we're gonna listen to the whole thing. It's gonna be an hour and 45 minute episode today. Just because. I mean, that's the thing. I think you'll hear these people here in this interview. They're like, we care. It made me feel like, oh good, we all care.

40:30We're all sitting here and freaking caring, yeah. But we're also imperfect people who go through the same shit. Like every day there's like, I get, why did you do that? Like this is not, and it's a const, it's consistency. You have to be consistent and tell people what you expect. Consistency, so yeah, let's listen to it. Let's get into it. All right, let's, we're gonna end this. Thank you guys for listening to us. Just kind of banter back and forth. And hopefully this is something interesting to you. I don't know, but let's talk now with Mike and Marino from Joe Muir Seafood. ["Murderer's Theme"] Super excited today to welcome in Mike and Marino from Joe Muir Seafood. Mike, you are the general manager of Joe Muir Seafood and Marino. You are the executive chef. That is correct. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Thanks man, thanks for having us. Thank you so much. And of course. I'm here too. We've got Crystal. I say of course, but there's been like a few episodes where you weren't here.

41:34You've been like at, you go places now and record. Like you're some kind of traveling podcast. Did you listen? That you didn't invite me to. Did you listen to the GFS show? Well, I've been busy. Yes, I listen, of course I listen to them. What'd you think? Well, I mean, there's a lot. It'd been better if you were there. Yeah, I mean, we need some to break up, you know, some of the, I mean, it's a lot of, it's good. It's industry time. Like, I feel like I'm learning things. There's people coming, you know, those shows are really packed with just so much new information. There's a new technology. There's all this stuff that like, you know, us restaurant people need to know. Do you? That's why our reps all want us to go to them and they get mad when we don't go to them. I just got a talking to the other day for not going. I mean, they're like on a Monday in the middle of the day. I'm working. Yeah. I know it was, I had to go, I had to work. I drove down there like at nine o'clock at night and got up, these guys over here, like, I don't, did you guys, did you guys ever go to food shows? I try to go when I can.

42:34Exactly. When can you? Exactly. You're in the kitchen. Yeah, it's tough. Like last week there was a big one and they were like calling me, where are you? I'm like. Yeah, exactly. Mondays everyone stay off. I'm typically alone. Wait, was the chef's warehouse one? No, I missed that one too. I was the Cisco show. The one I was talking about was the Allen Brothers show. Oh, okay, okay. That was a big one that we missed, but it's Monday at two o'clock. It's kind of hard to leave the restaurant. Yeah. That's like manager meeting time. Oh yeah. Every Monday at two o'clock, like everybody's in manager meetings. We just added lunch as well, including, and brunch as a matter of fact, we just thought, launched brunch this past Sunday, but. So you really could not go. Well, opening lunch now, we're there from 10 o'clock in the morning till, you know. Oh yeah. Oh my God. Okay, so let's talk about that. So where is the Nashville Joe Muir location? So we're on the corner of Nelson Mary and 11th. Yeah, we're still, we're in the middle of Capitol view. So that's kind of a new area of town. Yeah.

43:35So say it again, 11th and. 11th and Nelson Mary is the cross street. Okay. So it's 11 North. So they're calling it the North Gulch. Oh my gosh. The Gulch is just bleeding out into. So I went, I went and had dinner over there. And I took my wife. I've been over there several times. There's like an ML Rose across the street, like catty cornered where you are. That's correct. There's free parking. I mean, holy shit. It's amazing. Free parking is everything. But we started driving down there and she was like, where is this place? And I said, oh, it's in the Capitol view area. Yeah, we get that a lot. And I drive down and she goes, I didn't know any of this was even here. All of like the whole area. She was like, I didn't even know this existed. We need to talk about it. Cause there's a lot of stuff over there now. There's a lot of stuff. And the restaurant is insane. Yeah, thanks. Like you walk in and you're just like, wow. Yeah, so we kind of, we consider it a little hidden gem right now in Nashville. The people that come and see it and experience it, obviously they're, you know, pretty blown away.

44:38It's a beautiful, beautiful space. It's in a, it actually has a beautiful view. There's a little park across the street. Gorgeous. It's got a little bit of city, a little bit of, you know, it's kind of cool. Yeah, we like it, but it's just kind of tucked away and people are still learning about that area of town. So that's really the challenge is just to get people over there. And you got it. You got to go. Tell me, let's do the story of Joe Muir Seafood, right? Because this whole story from Joe Muir is really amazing. Who wants to tell the story? Can you both collaborate and tell the story? You know the story, the whole story. I don't know the whole story. I don't know about the fresh seafood. So I haven't got the whole. You tell the Detroit beginnings and you talk about the fresh seafood. Originally opened in 1929 and was from what I understand a cigar bar. It was not a restaurant to begin with. 1929, that's before I was born. Barely. You and me both. So the original Joe Muir opened it in a very specific location in Detroit that was very unique in terms of its location.

45:45And as people started to come, they were asking for, you know, trying to find different food items and things like this. So he started to incorporate the restaurant into it. So there were some very unique pieces of it that still translate to the brand today. For instance, they always wore these white tuxedos, tuxedo jackets. The restaurant had this specific black and white tile. It had these red velour boots. And that's something that we literally still continue to this day. And as it evolved throughout the decades, they started to incorporate live music. They had this elevated stage, which we also incorporate here in Nashville. They do the same thing in Detroit. Beautiful piano on the stage. So they really wanna incorporate all those elements into the history of it. So family owned, obviously three generations. It went all the way down to the grandson, Joe Muir III, who kept it alive in Detroit.

46:47And I believe they closed it down in 98. I don't know the exact reason why they closed it other than this guy was probably in his 70s at that point, probably been doing it his whole life. I honestly don't know the reason why it closed. It was a very popular restaurant. The Vacari's, Joe and Rosalie Vacari, who are our owners of the Joe Vacari Restaurant Group, they ran into Joe Muir III at a cocktail party and spoke to him about the possibility of reviving the brand, buying the rights to the logo, the menu items. The whole thing. And they were able to strike a deal and they reopened it in Detroit in 2011. And of course it did very, very well because you have to imagine people that have been going there for decades bringing their children or now grown and remember that as a kid and wanna bring their kids. So it did very, very well.

47:47So well that they opened the second location in Bloomfield Hills, which is kind of a very upscale affluent area of Detroit. That restaurant also did very well. I think they came in, I wanna say it was 2019, they came here for the CMAs, Joe and Ro. And they stumbled across that location which was just being built. So it was just an empty space at that point. And they were able to get that location and decided they wanted to bring one to Nashville. So they don't really have any restaurants outside of Michigan. This is the only restaurant. This is the only restaurant outside of Michigan. I take that back. They do have a steakhouse in Las Vegas. They have another, they own Andiamo Steakhouse as well. But no, Joe, there's not a Joe Muir Seafood in Vegas. There's the ones in Michigan and then this one. That's correct. There's only three. Wow, I don't know why I thought there were all over. Like to have a Nashville satellite location, seems like that's, so they really did love Nashville.

48:51Well, they love Nashville and they obviously, the restaurant industry here was booming and continues to boom. That also makes it a bit saturated, as you can imagine. So trying to open a brand new restaurant in Nashville, as you can imagine. Well, you guys know, you're in the business. It's a challenge. We don't want to be doomsday, but yes, we agree. There's a lot of challenges in trying to draw guests in because you just have so many choices these days. Well, there's a lot of choices out there, but you guys have a really distinct niche. Like the idea that, where do you go? Who has great seafood? Like where is there a big seafood place? You know, like Henrietta Redd does really well. The optimist maybe, but like, does it go farther than that? I mean, somebody about that. There's a TV's downtown, right there. Urban Grubb does a good job too. Yeah, I mean, there are places that do good seafood dishes. Like talk about some like Japanese restaurants. There's like, you know, there's 210 Jack that has wonderful seafood.

49:53I mean, but it's not like, I wouldn't say that's like a fish restaurant. So, and Marino could probably speak more to this, but one of the more unique features of the restaurant is that we procure all of our seafood as fresh. So we fly everything in. So it's obviously a little more costly to do that, but then you can probably speak more to the specifics. But you are a seafood restaurant. Primarily, yes. This is a, if you were to be known for something, it's not your, you know, Hamburger. Beef Wellington or something. It's, you're a seafood restaurant. We do hand cut our own steaks and the steaks there are dynamite. We get a lot of, you know, really great feedback about those as well. So. Hi, this is Matthew Clements with Robin's Insurance Agency. We care about ensuring the hospitality industry. We want to make sure that you're taken care of and that we take one less stressor off your plate so you can sleep well at night. At the end of the day, when you purchase an insurance policy, you're really purchasing peace of mind. And we want to showcase that and how we operate within the hospitality space during the summer of giving by giving back to The Giving Kitchen.

50:57If you call today to ask for a quote, we will be sure to give $50 in your name to The Giving Kitchen. Just give me a call. Area code 863-409-9372. We specialize in ensuring the hospitality space. We want to be sure to give back. We look forward to hearing from you. Are you looking to grow your business or are you looking to start a business finding a retail spot is number one. You got to do this. And that is why we're talking about the Chandler James Retail Team at Lee & Associates. Miller Chandler and Leanne James are your go-to brokers to do just that. They're located downtown in the heart of it all in the Batman building and they're serving all of Middle Tennessee. Let me tell you, both Miller and Leanne are Tennessee natives, so you know they know the neighborhoods. They know they know the demographics and they can help you find your dream location. Now here's the cool part. Chandler James can help you find and negotiate terms on your next restaurant location.

51:59They represent both retail tenants and landlords in our market, which means they can also help you with lease versus buy decisions and act as your leasing agent should you ever decide to go all in and purchase commercial real estate. If you'd like to get ahold of them, give them a call at the office. Their phone number is 615-751-2340. That is the Chandler James Retail Team. Give them a call today. Y'all, today we are talking, as always, about SuperSource. And you know, one cool thing about SuperSource is did you know that they develop most of their cleaning products and chemicals in their in-house facility? They're environmentally conscious and only use dyes that are safe for the employees and the environment. They carry a number of products for keeping your dishes, flatware, services, floors, restrooms, laundry, basically your entire facility clean, bright, and smelling and feeling new. This is just one of the many reasons SuperSource is taking over this city for dish machine and chemicals.

53:04You need to call Jason Ellis. His number is 770-337-1143. And he would love it if you would give him a call and let him come down and just check out your operation, meet him, say hi, see if there's any way he can help. He is here to help you succeed. That's Jason Ellis with SuperSource, 770-337-1143. You're a seafood restaurant. We do hand cut our own steaks and the steaks there are dynamite. We get a lot of really great feedback about those as well. So yeah, you wanna talk about where we get some of the product from? Yeah, so our seafood, we get flown in every single day. I'm on the phone daily. For instance, Stone Crabs will be the first restaurant in the city that gets Stone Crabs tomorrow. We already had them made the connection, talked to them on Monday. We'll be the first people to receive them. Where do you get Stone Crabs, fresh Stone Crabs? Seafood Connections, a small Stone Crab shop out of Florida. They said they're out fishing when I called them. They're picking them up, sending them out to us. So that's a big example there.

54:05But things like our Dover sole, we get flown in twice a week from Amsterdam. We get our Tristan lobster tails, we're the only restaurant, technically the only restaurant group in America that's allowed to have them. But especially in Tennessee, our signature Tristan lobster tails, we get flown in specifically for us. What is a Tristan lobster tail? And why can't other people eat them? So Tristan lobster tails are a specific type of spiny lobster that is 2,000 nautical miles off of Cape Cod. So it's a small island in between Argentina and South Africa. And they lay there for 40 years. They get really big, sometimes 20, but they don't really move. So they're very lean, but delicious. My wife's from Boston, and we came in before I started working there. And we both agreed that the Tristan lobster tail is much better than our North American style lobster. And that's one thing that's extremely unique to us, our surf and turfs, all that stuff. Lobster tails, they're all Tristan tails. You can't get a main lobster, but you get live lobsters in two or three times a week.

55:07We do have our own tank in-house, but the signature dish is the Tristan lobster tail that we get. So what is the, what would you say the flavor, like composition of that is from the main lobster? Like what did you fall in love with? I like how lean it was and how much more sweet it was. It was a very unique flavor when you ate it. It didn't like, just ate much better than the traditional main lobster tail and just had a much more robust depth of flavor that you really missed. How did I miss that? How did I not get the Tristan lobster tail when I was there? I was like, why didn't you get that? So the surf and turfs come with a six ounce, but we serve the 12 ounce. And I mean, it's literally the size of like a loaf of bread. Wow. And chef, how do you prepare that? So we make a Burmante and then we season that. Then we gently roast the lobsters, we kind of butter poach them, excuse me. Okay. While roasting them. Butter on butter. Butter on butter, yeah. Yeah, I'm like, sold. Burmante on top of with poached butter, yes. So we slightly cook it there, finish it when the ticket gets fired, and then we serve it with mashed potatoes and asparagus.

56:13Yeah, very popular. And you know, the stone crabs, that's an item that, first of all, people absolutely devour. Very hard to get in the city, let alone fresh. So when we get them, people come there just for those. How would I know that you have them? Is there like a, do I follow you on social media? Are you announcing this somewhere? Or do you, is it like an, if you know, you know, kind of a thing? I mean, we always want to try to have them in the building first, before we start. Oh God, yeah. Tell the people we have them. So once we get that first shipment, you'll see a pretty heavy push on it, because that's a very unique item that people come specifically to the restaurant for. They're absolutely delicious. Now, they're not cheap, mind you. Yeah. Cost us, obviously, to get them flown in like that. We might get sometimes two, you know, sometimes three shipments a week, because we'll go through them so quickly. Wow. I mean, we're obviously only going to buy what we know we can sell within, you know, a couple, two, three days, and then we'll get a, you know, we'll get a refreshment. All of our servers last night in lineup, when I told them that, like, the company reached out to me, confirming my order, all of them pulled out their phones and started calling their regulars.

57:14Oh my God, wow. It's a big, it's a pretty big deal. The amount we go through, like I have 30 pounds coming tomorrow, and I have another 30 pounds, again, off the back end of that. And you just know that'll be gone. Oh yeah. Amazing. Amazing. They sell. Some will come in and we'll sell 10 claws at a time, just for one table. And they're individual claws, so you're just getting a single claw, but it's so, yeah. And how are we serving that? So we crack them, so it's easy for you guys to come out, then we make a house-made stone ground aioli, that stone ground mustard aioli, excuse me, and that is served with it, and it's just phenomenal. Just simple, like that. Just simple. Let the, I think that's what we do great at Joe Mear, is that we let the fish speak for itself. Yeah, you don't cover it up. Yeah. A lot of places, you know, you have so much stuff on the plate, like our salmon, you get a sauce and you get the salmon, and the salmon's a star. We have the stone crab, the stone crab, the star, the Tristan lobster tail. You get the Tristan lobster tail with a few, we don't try to change the flavor. We want you to know that you're getting fresh fish, or Dover's sole, very simply prepared.

58:16But it's done to the highest level possible. That's what I got. You got the sole? I got the sole. They de-boned it there at the table. I was just gonna say, that's such a classic, like fine dining dish where they can, you know, they de-bone it and you're, it's like a whole experience. And that's another Joe Mear thing. We do a lot of table-side items. We do hot towel service, like there's all these high-end fine dining things that they kind of have incorporated in the brand from the past. You know, so these are all, as a matter of fact, I was gonna tell you about Joe Mear III. Coincidentally, he actually passed away here back in August. So we lost him. Oh, recently? Mm-hmm. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's just a few months ago. Oh, no. I think he was 88. Okay. I mean, he definitely. But you know, we're keeping the brand alive. And we've done some really great things here in Nashville as we continue to grow. We see a huge upside for this because, you know, first of all, Nashville's a tough seafood town, as it is because we're landlocked. So it's not something, seafood's not something you normally would go to.

59:19That's what I'm saying. It's a very unique thing that you're doing. That's correct. It's really cool. So, and it does help us to stand out, but the big thing is just trying to drive traffic into that area. I don't think the concept itself is the issue at all. I just think it's the brand new. It's kind of similar. It reminds me, I've been here 25 years. So it reminds me a little bit of what happened with Germantown because Germantown was kind of a rough area for a long time. And then little by little by little, you know, he started to kind of, you know, bring in these businesses. I love Germantown. Yeah, I mean, it's a great area now. Best. Can I get back to something you said just a minute ago, because I want to talk about service and from my own experience, I want to say that our service name was Lewis. What was this? Lucas. Lucas. God, I was like a letter away. He's our captain. Oh, you got the captain? I got the captain. Wait, did you do that on purpose or knowing that Brandon was like a food celebrity? I don't know who I am. You have to sit in his section, but he's a pretty- I got lucky.

01:00:19He's an amazing- Give him the captain. We have a great staff. Okay, well that makes sense because I was like, this fucking guy is like the best server I've ever had in my life. By the way, Brandon's mind was probably like, how do I steal this guy? By the way, just so you know what Brandon was probably thinking. My brain was not thinking that. My brain was thinking, how come all my people don't do this? Oh, wow. I mean, I was thinking in Mirabollos, I was thinking like- You're literally gonna- Man, this guy- You're gonna get back to the Mirabolls and you're going to get in trouble with your staff. No, I'm not, because they were, listen, if they sat in Lucas' section and they, the guy- Like we need to step it up. You know, sometimes you can, you go out to eat and you have people that serve you and it's fine. And it's, you want some to drink, they bring you your food, they course it. It's great. There's nothing wrong with it. Right. And then sometimes you have somebody who's a tour guide. Yes. Who sits down and they go over the entire menu and they explain the story behind the story. And you're like, how do you know all of this?

01:01:20And when you leave, you feel like, oh my gosh. I know a ton about this place and the history. But that speaks to the general manager. This is culture and training. This isn't like, they came in like that. I mean, I'm sure you guys have spent a lot of time and money on your training and your processes. That's definitely part of the brand. Very comprehensive. Yeah. It's almost two full weeks of training. Amazing. So as there's some, we do some classroom training for several days. We do several follows on the floor. We make all the servers do a food running shift, which is, that's pretty common. But, you know, I mean, you want to see the product. Of course. And then, you know, I mean, if I catch them on the line, I'm like, what's this, what's this, what's this? I mean, that's great. Yeah. You just gotta just drill it into them. You can tell that there's a lot of education, a lot of storytelling around what you're doing. And I think I love that experience when you're dining. It's not just, I'm here cause I'm hungry. I'm going to get full and then I'm going to leave. It's an entire, in the whole atmosphere inside everything, it was an entire experience. And I felt so incredibly special.

01:02:22When you order a piece of fish and someone tells you what part of the world it came from, you know what I mean? That's very unique to say, we got this, you know, we were able to get this fish from this area specifically. And, you know, we get stuff in, you know, within 48 hours, it's coming from the ocean to the table. Well, you said, when you said you had the stone crab, the servers got out their phones and started calling their regulars. And I thought, that's pretty unique. Is that like part of the deal? Or they're like, hey, you guys give me your number and I'll call you when, or is that just a thing that happens? It feels like real estate. Like I just got a hot property. I'm going to call my clients. We are lucky that a lot of our servers are career professionals. This is what I'm saying, these are professional servers. These are not like slash other things. You don't have people, I'll call it, it's a musician coming in and working part time. It's a- And it's everybody in this town, don't worry. A lot of our servers have families. They have people to provide for them. It's not like they're there just to pay the car note, living with mom and dad.

01:03:25They're there because they care. And then you have people who start calling their regulars and then it's awesome seeing when a server comes in, it's like, oh, hey, I have my call party from this guy did this, this and this. He loves your food, he's coming back in. For me, that makes me excited when you have people who- Well, when you've been in the industry for a long time, you've worked at several different places. You know, it's rare to keep someone at one place for an extended period of time. There's obviously many reasons. Some people leave the business and then come back and these types of things. So these guys have people from their past that follow them from restaurant to restaurant. Yeah, that's actually pretty, especially when your career focused to like server. I mean, these are professional service industry. I mean, it's wonderful. We don't have a lot of that here in Nashville, I would say. Like bigger cities, Los Angeles, New York, like Chicago, I would say that's more common. I mean, working for hotels that we had, I mean, these people did not have to have other jobs. They were making plenty of money being servers. So I mean- And all guys do very well.

01:04:26Exactly. We're blessed and you can speak, I would say this for the entire restaurant, frankly, this is probably one of the best staffs I've ever worked with. Wow, amazing. This is a long time. I've been in the business- It's very impressive. 35 plus years to be able to say that about a team of people. You know, and you know how this business is. People come, people go, but obviously retention is a big thing for us and culture is a big thing. Well, yeah, when you're spending two weeks training somebody to have someone not stay very long, that costs a lot of money. And we do some very unique things. Like we try to stodge people, even servers. That's more common for the kitchen, but I'll stodge a server. I mean, I want to see if it's the right fit for us too, not just for you. And you get a chance to see the restaurant and spend a couple of hours and kind of see how things go and just check out our operation. And you know, some people, I've had that happen where someone says, you know, this is a little over my head and you know, it's a little more than, I've been off a little more than I can- It saves you so much time. Honey, I'm telling you, trust me. Cause I'll spend two weeks training this person, they'll hit the floor for a week and I get that same answer.

01:05:30I don't want to waste those dollars. You know, I'd rather just- So much money and waste it. So chef, what about you? You feel like you've, how's your kitchen staffing been? Good. You're getting in that expensive seafood. You don't want just anybody handling it. We have a very good staff. Always could get better, but we have some very good people who care, who show up. And then the truth is that's half the battle. I've worked at restaurants where you don't know if your team's going to show up, but I rarely have call-outs. I have people who genuinely care. I have people who are ex chefs, who people who want to become chefs all on the line. It's very rare that find that. And I think that's the standard they've built. I remember when I first started, I told Mike, like, this is one of the most impressive staffs. Talk about his staff up front that I ever worked with. I knew right off the bat just how line-up was ran, how the service. And I think that's one thing that sets Joe Muir apart from other places where I've worked, that everyone there is there to get better, including myself, including everyone.

01:06:31It's a, you have to bring your A game every single day because of, you sit down, you know, you're flagging Dover Soul table side. You don't want that Dover Soul come back being undercooked or overcooked, you know? It's just making sure people are accountable to each other. Team experience. We preach a lot about consistency. That's a big word for us because no matter who's cooking the food, who's waiting on you, what bartender you have, it should be consistent. No matter who makes that cocktail, it should be the same every time. No matter who makes a certain dish, it should be the same every time. And I have to credit chef and his staff in the back because, you know, our food is very consistent and that's what brings people back. You know, I mean, you've gone to restaurants before, you order something, you really enjoy it. You go back the second time and it's not the same. Because somebody different made it and they put a different amount of the sauce or whatever the case is. But, you know, consistency for us is the key to get people to return because you know what to expect. You've come to expect this level of excellence and that's what we provide and we won't accept anything less than that. And how do you keep the consistency?

01:07:31Like what's your kind of secret in the kitchen that helps you with consistency? Is it like SOPs, like standard operating procedure? I like to, one thing I realize is, I look at Howard Schultz as a big person, the guy from Starbucks. And being honest with your staff and giving them ownership of what they're doing, I felt managing them has really gone a long way with that. Instead of me going and doing everything myself, I've really empowered the staff to make sure that sauce is done correctly and make sure everything is done because I'm doing them this service if I'm not training them to learn how to make the stuff. But being consistent, it's also accountability. You know, if my broiler cook sees that the redfish sauce is too thick because we want a little bit looser, they have the full power to walk up to the cook, the saute cook and be like, you know what, sauce is wrong. If the saute cook sees that steak's not seared hard enough or not cooked correctly, you say something and that's how we built a culture where it's pushing each other and make sure it's right. So, you know, okay, chef's not an expert right now.

01:08:33He had to step off to do a table touch. That's food's not going on correctly. It's a thing that really I think has gone best with it and allowing the front of house to the call the kitchen out. I think that's when Michael walked by and be like, that's also good to you or the expo, whatever, catch that, we send it back, we fix it. You know, it doesn't leave the kitchen. There's five lines of defense before it hits the guest. And I think that's important. Yeah, that's exactly like when, if a guest gets a wrong, if the sauce isn't seasoned properly, there's several people that did not do their job at that point, right? So it's almost like, it seems impossible that they could have a bad, you know, imbalance sauce or something because it's like going through several people, you know. Right, and we empower the staff to do that. You know, the service getting ready to walk something out and they see that it doesn't look the way it should, we empower them to say, hey, does this look right to you? Yeah, that's ownership. Exactly. That's like, for instance, you had the Dover Soul when you came in, six people touch that sauce before it gets on your plate. I couldn't even taste it, the six people touching it.

01:09:35Oh, I was like, so yeah, like it was like, I was like, man, that line, huh? Six people touched the sauce. I don't understand, it was delicious. If I break down the fish, right, I'm making the fish, I have the bones. We make the fish, you may, if someone left the eyes on the fish, right, it gets too cloudy, that's gonna make, you gotta fill the sauce out. So how it builds in the saute cook is, you know, deglazing the pan, building the sauce. Someone else made the Vermont, excuse me, the beurre blanc earlier in the day. It starts going out and then the server puts finishing touches, table side, when they mix the grapes and the artichokes. So that's the type of thing, accountability, is to make sure your person next to you is doing the correct thing, because that's my personal favorite sauce, but it takes the army of people to make sure it's correct. That's amazing how the team comes together for the common purpose. When the culture is well in consistency is in the forefront. What's your history, Chef Marino? Like, where do you, where'd you come from? So I'm originally from Los Angeles. I worked at Chaya in downtown Los Angeles on Fifth and Flower, the old school Japanese restaurant. I was front of house there where I ran food, but they consider it front of house in Los Angeles.

01:10:39And that's where I started learning my love for fish. We used to get fish filling every single day from Japan overnight. The chef would call the market and I kind of nerded out with him. So I'd watch him do his fish orders and follow him in the fish locker and stuff like that. Then I came to Nashville when I was 21 years old. And then I started working at Virago. Then I went to Shohan. I was at Shohan for seven years. So Manit Shohan is my mentor. I worked with her, started as a prep cook, worked my way up all the way to CDC. After seven years of being there, I moved on to Urban Grub. And I was at Urban Grub for three years. And then that's when I came to Jomir. Awesome. Okay, I see that. I'm looking at the progression. Yeah. How long have you been in Nashville total time? 10 years. 10 years. We're coming up on 10 years. We're all California, we're California people on this side of the table too. Do you miss California? I did my three year stint out there. Only to return. Only to return. People say like, you know, California is beautiful and it's great. The beach and everything. It smells.

01:11:40Yeah. But it's like, no. Santa Monica smells bad. Living in California is like a challenge. Santa Monica? I was right on Ocean Avenue. Yep, yeah. Living in California was- That was where I lived when I was a line cook. Yeah. It was tough. I mean, the traffic, I used to leave two and a half hours early to get to work on time. Yeah. No, your whole life is just driving and making sure you're there on time for your, you know, getting there hours before, leaving late. It's like, you don't really get to experience anything that anyone's talking about. I had a 25 mile commute would take me an hour and a half. Yeah, easy. Isn't it infuriating? Like, it's like, it's so close. And you guys are from California? Yeah. Okay, can you explain to me why there's traffic at 11.30 at night? No. On the 10. And that's what you're saying to yourself. You're like, where is everyone going? Like, I'm getting out of work. I could never understand that. I went deep sea fishing one day. I love to visit California because it's great. You can stay at the beach. If you live in Laguna Beach. Oh yeah. Life is great. You don't deal with shit. If you live in Riverside and work in Laguna Beach.

01:12:40Oh, you're not experiencing anything. Your life sucks. So my family lives in Riverside and I was going to Newport. I was going to Balboa to go fishing and they had to be at the dock at 6 a.m. And so I'm like, well, that's 45 minutes away. No, we need to leave at 3.15. You gotta leave at 3.15? Why don't they? Just trust me, you gotta leave at 3.15 if you want to get there by six. We left Riverside. If you, I can't explain the 91 freeways, 14 lanes wide across, but there's eight lanes. Maybe 16 lanes. It's huge. But at 3.15 in the morning, it's stop and go traffic. And I'm like, what in the hell is happening at 3.15 in the morning? Oh no, these are the people who live in the beach cities who have to be at work at nine. And they drive in at 3.15 so that they can get to the beach city at six and they sleep in their car for three hours because if they left their house at six, it would take them well over four or five hours to get to work. And you go, that's no way to live. No, that's no way to live. No, that's a whole thing.

01:13:41Yeah, California. California, the golden. San Fernando Valley. Yeah. San Fernando Valley, yeah. Great place to visit for sure. No, I love visiting there now. Because I don't have to like be anywhere, really. You know, like I don't have to be at work. Like once you start incorporating work, that's where it is completely. I think that happens to me every day right here in Nashville. Days off are amazing when you start incorporating work. I lived in the Valley out there. I lived in Burbank. Okay, that's, I was. But trying to get out to Santa Monica. That's terrible. You had, no, no, no. I had my shortcuts. We all do and then we, then people learn of the shortcuts. Fair enough. So what did you learn from Manit? What is the thing as a mentor, what's the one thing if you had to take something from her leadership that you take into what you do now? What is it? Be yourself. She was very, you know, her style, the standards. And the big thing watching her cook is off instinct. You know, Indian cuisine is so much different than French, Italian, where everything you do is off feel, right?

01:14:46Like how hard are you toasting your cumin? How hard are you, you know, cooking your ginger garlic paste? Things like that all change. There's stuff that you're not accustomed to at Joe Mears, French cuisine, and it's much differently done. So just trust in your gut and being yourself are the two things that like she really instilled. You know, like you look at her how she cooks and how she presents herself. It's always the highest standard, always the best way of doing things. And that's one thing I really took from her. And don't be afraid to take risks. Like you look at her, one of her signature dishes, chicken tikka masala poutine, right? You would never think about that, but it's just going out, like being yourself and like how she is and how she looks at food and really just elevating the stuff that she does really makes you like respect that and want to push harder and do it. She makes it very approachable, right? She takes the flavors that she's grown up with and then she makes them into something like, then we've all like, oh, I know poutine.

01:15:49Like, okay, but what's this version? You know, or like the whipped paneer. That's my dish. Is that your dish? Oh my God, that's one of their famous dishes. Yeah, that's one thing her and I worked on pretty hard together with. Amazing. And that was actually one of the few things I was able to get on the menu there. Look at that. And I see, it's like people like me that are like, that's genius because I know what feta, but like what's what paneer, you know, but I understand it. So I'm going to take a chance and try this. I mean, not me, but like, you know, it's approachable for people, especially here in Nashville. It's like they need to have a little bit of approachability to the food and then they kind of like, they'll step into it, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Like my favorite thing she had on the menu was her lamb kima nachos. Yes. So good. Her basically Indian chili with nachos with a different cheese or different pico de gallo they would do in India. And it's the best nachos you ever have. It's that a sour creamy of lemon yogurt. It's just combinations like that. You have tamar chutney on there. It's insane. And one thing that I forgot to mention about her that I learned is she's a workhorse.

01:16:50She's always going. She doesn't stop. She's always positive no matter what is going on. That's something I learned. She's never raised her voice. She's never yelled, but she doesn't stop. And she is always positive, reinforcing on the stuff. And that's another big thing that I learned from her a lot. I mean, that's wonderful that your leadership skills have been absorbed from someone like her. Absolutely. Which I think is like very, it's a different approach that maybe a lot of us that grew up in French kitchens, like I did, kind of a little bit more militant and a little bit more like, not your intuition. This is about, not about you. This is about the way that we, the chef decided it was, no matter what, and you're sticking to this. And it's very much like a culinary school, a scoffier, French kind of background a lot of us grew up in, but then to work from an eat and be like, it's intuition-based. It's about smelling the chilies and the toasting and the, you can't teach, you have to teach that very intently.

01:17:50And she's, what's impressive part about too, she's a CIA-trained chef. Yeah. So she went to CIA, so she has all the background skills. Funny enough, she was a pastry chef first. And then she became, she moved to the savory at Vermillion in Chicago. So it's kind of watching the evolution of how she did stuff, you know, she went to CIA. She was pastry, she was savory and see how far she's exploded. It's like mind-blowing, like whenever, it's how big she is, sometimes she'll message me and I'm just like, oh my God, she still messaging me. It's pretty crazy how approachable she is. Like she comes in to eat at our restaurants all the time and she even brings her kids and she's like posting from the, I mean, it's like, oh my God, do you know how much this helps us when you do stuff like this? Like she's just so genuinely cool. Her family, Mr. Rebecca, her husband is one of the most genuine people I've ever met in my life. Watching him navigate COVID and how he kept that restaurant company going was amazing, her kids are awesome. Shagun and Karma, those are two people that like, when I see them, I get excited. I saw that, I did a dinner with her about a year and a half ago and I was seeing her kids because I had to stop by the restaurant and see them.

01:18:55It's like. I mean, you've seen them grow up if you worked for that long. I mean, that's pretty amazing. Yeah. Tiny, you want to see them and you see them now like they're as big as me and it's like, jeez, like where did the time go? I know it's been, I've only been gone for four years but it's crazy seeing that growth. Has she come into the restaurant and experienced your cuisine yet or she needs to? Because I'm sure that's important. Not yet, I plan on reaching out to her and giving her a call and make sure she's there. Just inviting her in. Chef Tom, the corporate chef, who's also one of my big mentors has been in several times and I just want to invite them in and be like, hey, you guys, I want you to come and check out what we're doing here. It's much different than show on and I want you to see how I've evolved personally and also have her talk to, you know, meet Mike and do those connections and start trying to bring her people in like Marcus Samuelsson, people like that who come into town who, hopefully, she could bring them in as well and we could start being part of that conversation with so many different, those chefs, you know, that she runs circles with.

01:19:56It's a whole thing. I'll tell you a minute story. I was at, I wasn't speaking, I was interviewing her on stage at the Restaurant Equipment Manufacturers of America. I don't know the name of- Snows. Yes, right. So, but I was supposed to, it was kind of towards the end of the pandemic. What have we learned? And what have we learned from, and I was supposed to get on stage and interview her for everybody and I'm sitting there next to her before we go on and she goes, this is so boring. And she goes, I just want to get up there and dance. I just want, can we just get up there and dance? And I go, you want to get up there and dance? We'll do whatever you want to do. And she's like, you got this? And I'm like, oh, oh yeah, we got up there. And I just completely went off script and I was like, okay, everybody, I need everybody to stand up. Here's what we're going to do. And I had this whole thing and we all danced together. We're going to dance for 10 seconds. And we just, we did like a whole dance thing and she was right there in it and it got the crowd.

01:20:58I mean, I swear I woke up 15 people when I did this. Like, come on guys, let's go, let's go. But she just like in the moment was like, we need to dance. Like we need to do something fun on stage. And I went, all right, let's go, let's do it. But that's that feeling again, again, just the feeling of reading the room and going, let's make this fun. Nobody wants to be here right now. I wanted to make it, it was, yeah. No, that's so cool. No, she's so like, we were just in Miami for the Miami Food and Wine Festival and she had invited us backstage and she was doing her demo, whatever. And I'm like, oh my God, this is like a full show. Like this is a full, like she's just like dancing and she's doing stuff and she's crowd working. I'm like, this isn't like a celebrity chef here. Like this is a professional who's also cooking at the same time and the dish was delicious. And I was just like in awe of her, how casual she was about it before. And I'm like, did you like practice this? Like she just does. Did you rehearse this in the mirror? No takes, there's been several times we had food never come in and film in the restaurant.

01:22:00Oh, she's so natural. And just, she's just like, she shows up, all right, let's do it, I'm like. No, they all are, but they're all like that. Like it's crazy how like on they are, like just all the time. I mean, it's pretty cool. I think the most impressive thing about Manite though is that she does all these TV shows and how hard she works when she travels and stuff. It's insane. But she's even better chef than that. Her food is phenomenal. A lot of sideways chefs, like a lot of them don't really know how to cook. A lot of them don't cook anymore. But her food, like you watch her cook and it's like impressive how delicious her food is. Yeah, I think people are shocked that she's still like in her restaurants. You know what I mean? She really is still like going in and like being a part of the restaurant. People didn't believe, they're like, oh, you know, she's just your boss. You don't see her, I'm like. Yeah. So I'll walk upstairs right now on FaceTime, you follow me too. You should be right here. Yeah, they don't believe that she even has time to be around you guys. She would come in and do the sauce tastings with us. She would double check everything, like her and Chef Tom, she's not there. Like, cause she did travel a lot, so Chef Tom. Yeah, he's the constant. Yeah, Chef Tom's awesome.

01:23:00But they, she would be right there doing table touches. You'd hop on the line with you if needed. She was like. I just want to bring this. I want to make this point that she is amazing and she does all these things and it's more than you would expect and it's consistent. Similar to Joe Muir Seafood. When you guys think about what an experience. See, I'm bringing this back to what we're talking about here. The Joe Muir, like you go there and it's a restaurant. We're going to go have dinner. But when I left there, I was like, that was so much more. Yeah, it's experience. And it was this full experience. What is your relationship like front of the house, back of the house? How well do you two specifically, have you guys ever gotten a big fight? Shouting, screaming at each other? GM Chef relationship I've ever personally dealt with. I would have to agree with that. What a great moment. So that's obviously you guys know. What do you attribute to that? Well, for starters, we all know the importance of that relationship and how, you know, if those two people aren't on the same page, that can be a disaster.

01:24:00So the day we met and we sat down, first of all, we have, you know, some similar, some similar common things that we enjoy and all this type of stuff. So. What's something that you both enjoy together? You golf, fishing. No, he likes to work out. He's athletic, he's an athletic guy. Do you guys work out together? We talk a lot about sports. I mean, he's a New York guy. My dad's from New York. So we'll drop it about the Yankees and Knicks, basketball, stuff like that. It was a big stuff we talked about. So New York guy, Yankees, who's your team? Dodgers. Yeah, so you could see a World Series this year if the Dodgers get it together. Yeah, I mean, the Dodgers are the most frustrating sports franchise at every. Literally just having this conversation with my husband yesterday. But you know about the Titans, right? You see. Well, the Dodgers are always good and then they are terrible in play. Yeah. That's the thing, like Titans, you expect to be bad. You know, like, unfortunately. True. This is going the wrong way. That's not even. No, I'm just saying, frustrating. You want them to be good and then there's, we got all these guys. We got this amazing secondary, but we got this amazing quarterback.

01:25:04He can't throw the ball. Anyway, that's not what you're talking about. Dodgers are frustrating. Yes, I'm an Angels fan. I'm sorry. No, that's even more frustrating, right? And you took our best player. Anyway. New York, LA. You guys could see a fun World Series. So you connect on sports. Yeah, I mean, we also, you know, we both have a passion for this industry and that's really important. But the biggest thing for me, I think, that helps us to stay aligned is there's, there's definitely a, just a mutual respect there. You know, I mean, I've got, you know, a few years on him in the business and he respects that because he knows that I may have seen a couple of different things over the course of my career that he hasn't had to experience. And sometimes it helps to be able to navigate those situations just because I've been through it before. And he'll be kind enough to defer to me in those situations. And, you know, we're both, I would say, we both stand up for what we believe in, but we're not overly stubborn. And at the end of the day, you know, this is a group effort.

01:26:06You know what I mean? I can't do my job without him and he can't do his without me. So when you have that alignment and that, and honestly, that extends to the rest of our management team. This is by far the best management team I've ever had in my career. Oh. Now I've worked with the other three that I have in my past, so that helps. But, you know, to be able to have Marino come in and be so, to fit so seamlessly with that group, because that's difficult. You know, I've worked with these three women prior, so I have relationships with them. So, you know, that helps to navigate some of those tougher issues, scheduling and stuff like that. And for him to be able to pop in and kind of just fall right into place was a blessing. So it's been great having him. And I think one thing that is big is that a lot of chefs have big egos, as you guys know. And like Mike said, there's something that, he might come up to me and be like, hey, I've done it like this before at all these years of experience. I'm like, you know what, that makes sense, right? I don't know anything. I mean, I'm 31 years old, right? I still got a whole career to go. So it's crazy to think like how we've kind of worked off each other, or if I said, hey, we've done this before, and Mike's like, you know, it's not a bad idea.

01:27:12And it's kind of like allowed us to grow there, where it's that mutual respect, like you mentioned, where it's we are building a team together. It's not a back of house versus front of house side. It's a Jill Meir. Like if there's a review about the back of house, Mike takes as much credit about that. You know, how we fix it. You know, hey, I saw this review came in. Let's just get a little better here. All right, cool, let's do it, right? And then same thing, if we get a review about the front of house, I'd take as much ownership as that, as they do. It's not a, oh, well, the server messed up. So that's why it's a bad review. No, it's a Jill Meir messed up. And I think that's one thing we've built here that I really enjoy and why we keep pushing to get better. And I guess it's a new restaurant. Yeah, the culture extends to the front and the back. You know, there was, I hate to say it, but it was a bit of a divide when I took the restaurant over. Oh, interesting. That's very common. Indeed. And, you know, to have to have, so, you know, we had a bit of turnover in the management level.

01:28:17We basically. How long have you been open? Been open just a year now. We just had our one year anniversary. Oh my God, that's so recent. Yeah, we just had our one year anniversary. You had one year anniversary. How long have you been there? I started in February and I think you came on in March. I came in in the March though. So they opened in October, beginning of October, 2023. You were there. So within five months. Correct, correct. They identified that the people that were managing the team, they were not getting along front of the house, back of the house, silos, the whole thing. And then they made a change. They made a full change. Wow. It looks, I mean. What was that like walking into that? Well, you would imagine when you flip your entire management staff in any restaurant, you're looking at some, you know, normally still have some folks leaving and that kind of thing. And we were lucky to really not experience that. We were able to retain, I would say probably 95% of the staff that was there. We had one or two people that ended up leaving that were, you know, whatever. It happens.

01:29:19Yeah, I mean. That's a very low percentage. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. Yeah, that's really impressive. And, you know, to have, just to have a brand new general manager in and of itself can cause a lot of turnover and all that type of stuff. That's very common, new general manager and turnover. People are like, ah, I don't want the change or I don't wanna, I like the way that guy did. Well, you're loyal to the person that hired you perhaps. So you've worked with them before, you know. And of course I brought in a handful of my people that I've known throughout my career to help bolster the staff. We were short staffed. I brought in a bunch of servers, I brought in some essays, some new bartenders. But we ended up basically flipping the entire management staff in that 60 day period. Wow. I mean, AGM. Including sous chefs. Poor manager. This is gonna be a bold statement, but pretty much when you do flip a general manager and people leave, the reason why that general manager left is because he wasn't performing or she wasn't performing. Yeah. There's not explaining what expectations are. And then at the end of the day, there wasn't results.

01:30:19And so when that person leaves, the people that leave with them are usually the underperformers also because they like that person because they never held me accountable, like do whatever the fuck I wanted in the building. Correct. So when those people leave and you're bringing somebody new in who's a high performer, they bring a whole different crew of people who they hold accountable. Sure. And then you say, well, what happens when that person leaves? Well, that person doesn't leave because they get results. Well, it all comes down to management style as well, right? Everybody manages differently. Having been in this industry for three decades plus, I've worked for a lot of really shitty managers over the years to say, if I ever get into that position, I'm not going to do that. And then the opposite, right? I've had some amazing managers that handled situations with kid gloves that needed to be handled that way. Say, if I get in that position, that's exactly what I'll do. So I've taken all of that over the course of my career and basically made that part of how I function in the restaurant. And it works for me. Chef has kind of a similar style with that.

01:31:21So that helps, we're not, I've worked with many chefs in my past that were just unapproachable. If you told him anything about anything, it was like, oh, you don't know what you're talking about, blah, blah, blah. And he's not like that. He's very open and he's open to coaching and things of that nature. I'm not an expert in his area and he's probably not an expert in mine, but we respect each other's opinions. So if he says to me, hey, I've noticed this about the staff when they're bringing food out, they're not reading the ticket before they bring it out, right? Little things, these are all details because that's where, that's all in the details, right? We all can agree on that. And we come together as a team to get to the highest level of execution that we can. And of course we have mistakes and there's things that we can change and we've changed quite a bit actually in the time that we've been there to continue to adjust and pivot to get to where we wanna be as far as level of execution and efficiency and all these types of things. Well, this is exciting then.

01:32:22Cause I mean, I hear this and I'm like, I wanna experience this whole situation. Like as somebody in the industry, I'm like, I wanna see how this team operates. But talking about dishes, like what are the three things that I need to order if I have never been there before? Dover sole. Every time someone asks me. Dover sole, okay. The three things I remember on this mission. That's what I was told. Dover sole, red fish and our poke bowl. Okay, poke bowl. And then what was the second thing you said? Our black and red fish. Black and red fish. That might be my favorite dish. Really? The clam chowder was very good too. Clam chowder's fantastic, yeah. New England clam chowder. Okay. It's a very simple dish. Lobster bisque. Lobster bisque. But again, with that chowder, there's a very specific way. Oh yeah. That we make it. You know? There's a certain way we cut the clams. I mean, I know it sounds crazy, but you know, those little details. Those little details make all the difference. It makes all the difference. You can't walk away from the pot. That pot can't get over 165 degrees. It's very. Yeah, it'll. Detail orangeage. Like when that pot starts going, I don't leave that little range for 20 minutes when I'm making that sauce, 30 minutes depending on however long it's taking that day.

01:33:29But it's. They have like a cold bar, right? So you can get oysters. We got some oysters. They have. Amazing oysters. East coast and west coast oysters. Always have. And then there's king crab legs, right? There's king crab legs. There's lobster tails. There's prawns. They have all these things on the cold bar, but then you can get this thing. I think it's like 37.99 a person, but it's like all of it. What's like a tower kind of a thing. Correct. It's our version tower. It's their version. It wasn't called. The plateau platter. The plateau platter. It's not a tower. It's a plateau. But you get like everything on that. So I'm like, if you wanted. So fun. For 37 and that's not. Terrible for that. That's a pretty good deal. It's a pretty good deal. We blow through those. Yeah. We didn't do that because we were going to Kings of Leon. This was a pre Kings of Leon date night for me and Jen. All right. And it was amazing. The show was amazing too, by the way. Awesome. And we got, we had like 42 plates on the table. We had so much food and I was like, I don't even know what to do with all this food.

01:34:30And I wanted to get that so bad. So I'm going to come back and do that. Would you like to go with us? Yeah, like invite me and Joseph. For sure. We would love to go with you. Share the plateau platter. You mentioned the oysters. That's a really big draw for us at the restaurant because you know, we get a different varietal in pretty much every week as part of our, as part of our anniversary week special. One of the promotions we ran was a $2 oyster night. And I mean, those guys were literally getting, I say shelled as a joke, but they were getting hammered back there because we could not keep people out the restaurant that day. And we're actually thinking about, I had a server, it was a bartender that suggested maybe on Saturdays, we don't do a happy hour that we may try to do a $2 oyster offering between four and six on Saturdays. Oh my God. People would totally do that. I think it would do very well. So we're actually planning on talking about that at our manager meeting this week and see if we can implement that.

01:35:31That's awesome. Good things to come. If you were to compare this restaurant, what other restaurant in Nashville interior, like just the way that you feel when you walk inside, is there another restaurant that is somewhat similar? Cause I have a restaurant in mind that I would kind of, if you were to like vibe-y kind of thing. I mean, for my purposes, our competition are, you know, the Bourbon Steaks, the, you know, the Cain Primes. We've got, or the other ones that we always. We talk about Halls. Jeff Rubies a lot. Jeff Rubies is a big one. Jeff Rubies is what I was thinking. When you walk into Jeff Rubies, it's this huge high ceilings. It's just opulent. Yeah, opulent dining. That's what I, when I walked in there, I was like, oh, this kind of feels like a Jeff, it's big. It's a little more classy than a Jeff Ruby. Jeff Rubies is just one of them, but like this, it's a little more intimate. There's only three of them. Like, and the only other one is in Nashville. Like that makes me want to pick this one over another one. Another unique part of the Joe Muir tradition is they don't, they kind of get away from the one large dining room.

01:36:37There's different pockets of dining throughout the restaurant. Okay, so you sat in an area, we call it the Red Room, just because it's all red back there, but that's an area of the restaurant that is kind of separated from two or three other areas in the restaurant, right? It's all one big restaurant, but you're not sitting right on top of everybody. So you might, you could have a completely different type of experience sitting in a booth next to the piano than you would sitting in the Red Room, or we have these two private rooms that we do that are off to the side. There's some seating up front. We have a great high tops in the bar area that people love to sit at. So it's very unique in that way, that there's different areas of the restaurant that give you a different vibe, depending on what you're looking for. And they have a ghost that plays piano. I didn't know. We sat there. How Halloween appropriate. And then the piano just started playing and the keys would push. I was like, there's a ghost playing the piano right now. We have a beautiful, beautiful Yamaha C3 player piano. So we have live music on Fridays and Saturdays.

01:37:39We have two different musicians that come in, alternate, and play for us during the dinner hour, but during the week, during happy hour, we'll play the radio, we'll play something more lively, and then right around 6, 6.30, dinner service starts, we'll put the piano on. And I'll be honest, it's so cool. And it's such a great vibe. It's classy, but not... Stuffy. Exactly. Intrusive. Gets you going before a rock concert. I know, I'm like... Oh, this, I feel so relaxed. You feel so relaxed before your keys play on. I did have a double espresso before we left. There you go. And the desserts, okay. Oh yeah, wait, what's the dessert situation? They come to the table. Is it a dessert cart? We have a dessert cart. It is amazing. Oh my God, of course it's a dessert cart. Yes! Which you don't see much of anymore. No! That's like... The carrot cake was like this tall. Okay. Chef, you wanna talk about our... Yeah, I'm sure you're not getting these in Frozen. No, so we have a pastry chef. When I first took over, I hired a girl. I used to work with, her name's Dee. She was working at Urban Grub and Buttermilk Ranch. So when she left there, I called her.

01:38:41I was like, hey, I need a pastry chef. And so she jumped on. Everything's made in-house. We have our carrot cake. That is a big boy. We have our signature coconut cake. Joe Mears served it through all the Joe Mears we make in-house. We have a sticky toffee pudding, a creme brulee. We have a cheesecake. It's a very special story. So we do have a master chef on staff. He's the culinary director of the entire company. And he got this cheesecake recipe from, I believe he told me it was his chef's mother, who was actually a Holocaust survivor. So she had this very signature cheesecake and she didn't share the recipe. And it took him 30 years to get it. So he didn't share the recipe with anybody. He makes it himself. So that's our signature cheesecake as well on it. It is probably the best cheesecake you'll ever have in your life. Absolutely dynamite. Oh my God. We get so many great reviews and feedback about that item. Oh yeah. It's a New York style cheesecake with a sour cream filling. And that's all I know. Oh my God, that's so cool.

01:39:41You don't even know. Yeah, like you said, it took him 30 years to get it. And it's a very traditional cake that he will not give anyone, unless he basically said, if you earn it, I'll give it to you, but it's there. But we make all of our desserts in-house. We have about two or three we rotate during the season. Right now we have a pumpkin cheesecake as well that we mold into, it looks like a little beautiful pumpkin. Oh my God. So yeah, our dessert cart's pretty awesome. We walk around, we bring it out to the table. You just, you can pick. Our desserts are big. We want to make sure we end the dinner with a bang. And because desserts are supposed to be delicious, right? They're not supposed to be something- Like small and dainty. Yeah, you want a big coconut cake to go. My wife always brings a coconut cake every once in a while to bring home to her. So it's really cool. Oh my God, with all the layers. I can just imagine. That's another very unique thing we have in town is that Chef Dan, our master chef, he's based here in Nashville. I was going to say, I'm like thinking he comes down ever so often. Well, they brought him out here to open the restaurant. He loved it.

01:40:42And he basically kind of put his stamp on, helped put his stamp on the menu and the opening and got a place out here. So he's been out here for the last year and a half. And we probably will have everyone, for the rest of this year, I think he's got another year on his lease. But to have someone like that in-house is incredibly unique. Oh, that- Because this guy- Usually they just travel, right? They come in once in a while. Well, I mean, there's only, I mean, what are there? 75 master chefs? 72. 72 in the U.S. Amazing. And this guy, he does a lot of their R&D at our store. Oh, awesome. So you get to kind of experience- Well, guess who the guinea pig is? No, that's awesome. To get to taste everything. This guy never misses. Yeah. You learn from watching him just grab a ball of dough. And for instance, he made a, I don't know what he called it, but it was like a Italian pita flatbread thing because they were opening a oddiamo in Detroit. Oh, he consults for all the restaurants. That's correct. He's over anything.

01:41:42Joe Ficarri group, he's over all the food. And he made this one pizza. You know, like the Italian, it was like a Chicago beef Detroit style. And he made Chicago beef in a pizza dough that he rolled up and it turned into a big football. I don't know how to describe it, but it's one of the most insane techniques ever seen. Oh my God. And then watch him knock it out in 30 minutes. Let me get to just try this stuff. Well, for starters, Chef Marino gets to pick this guy's brain every day. That alone, you know, the, you know, incredible amount of knowledge that you can draw from a man like that. You know, and he's obviously, he's been around the block. He's seen it all, done it all. He's also a Yankees fan. So he and I get along great. That's perfect. They had a nice game last night, by the way. I saw, I saw, we're up, we're up. That is the first baseball game last night I've watched all season. Well, I'll be happy to. One all year and it was last night. I watched the whole thing. I'll be happy to whoop the Dodgers ass in the World Series, unless the Mets.

01:42:43There's going to be, it's going to be a subway series. I think it's just, it's just in the cards. What's that? It depends on Otani. I mean, if he starts hitting, we scored nine runs game one, but then can't hit the ball in game two. Also thing is outrageous. Side note to have a New York versus LA game at four o'clock in the afternoon. Like, come on guys, put it at nighttime so I could go home. It's in LA. Let me finish watching it. Can't watch it during service. You're like, come on. They were not thinking of you when they scheduled that, were they? I don't think they expect the Mets to get there. Probably expected like the Phillies or the Braves, but whatever. Actually, I wanted to mention that. That's another unique thing about the restaurant is most high-end restaurants normally won't have televisions. You have televisions? We have two TVs on either side of the bar. Well, that's good to know during like all the sports season. And that was by design and the, not the entire high-top area, but a good portion of it. You can see the TVs.

01:43:44So people will come in there to have a drink, watch the game. And that's kind of a unique thing about a restaurant like this, because most places you wouldn't. That is unheard of. You wouldn't have the opportunity to do that. We have a great, we have a beautiful, beautiful bar. That's the kind of the centerpiece of the restaurant. Incredible bar staff, some wonderful bartenders that are not just knowledgeable and friendly, but just kind of fun. Just good people. You're finding these people. You're just like, they're all fucking. I inherited a few and then hired a few. So, you know, you get lucky sometimes. And you know, the good ones. You've just been hearing staffing, staffing, staffing, you know, like from everybody. But you know, this is so, it's so nice to hear this. You know, like I'm, as somebody who's just been in the service industry their whole lives, like I feel like I'm not trying to be something else. And to be around people that want to be something else all the time, it feels, it feels like, just feels different. You know, like I love being around people that this is what we're doing. Like me and Brandon, like this is what we do.

01:44:45I found that in LA a lot. Everybody that worked there wanted to be somebody else. Oh, this was a stepping stone job. We'll have Lucas wait on us when we come back in and you'll be like, holy shit, this dude. I feel like anybody that I'm gonna encounter there is gonna be at this. Good point. You know, which is the best sign of a manager. They don't have to be there to absorb that experience. Yeah, I mean, you know, again, we walked into a situation where we had a lot of great employees already. You know, I'm not gonna take credit for the entire staff there, but we brought in some key people. You know, as you do, when you go to a new place, you're gonna bring in the people that you know and trust. If you have an open spot, you're gonna call the people you know, right? Chef Marino did the same. He brought in some really great people. I'd say the staff there, as far as our staffing, you know, maybe one or two people shy of being fully staffed in the restaurant, which, you know, I'll take that. That seems pretty normal. Yeah, I'll take that. And you know, like I said, people come and go. I mean, who's fully staffed? Like, who's fully staffed? Like, really?

01:45:45Yeah, you're always training. You're always hiring. Someone's leaving, someone's noticing. I remember early in my career, I worked for a guy. He had a restaurant here in town called Sole Mio. It was on Third Avenue South. It used to be like. That was one of the spots. The view, the best view of the city. It was, yeah. So that one was on first. And yeah, this one was on. They moved it. It was on third. They moved it to third. Yeah, he bought that piece of land there. Anyway, I remember talking with him one day. He was one of the guys that actually gave me my first start managing, because I was a musician. I was waiting tables, was always a great side hustle for me. And I was getting a little bit older. And he said, you know, what do you think about, you know, managing? Of course he didn't want to pay me, but. But I did get to bend his ear about the business. And I would just drill him. Left, you know, why did we do it? Why do you, why are you buying this product, you know? And I used to ask him, what's the hardest thing about the business? And he would always say, staffing. People, yep. Staffing's the hardest part.

01:46:46I think if anybody tells you they're fully staffed, and then you say, oh, cause I've got this really great guy. Oh, I'll interview him. Well, you're not fully staffed. I've never said, if I've ever said I'm fully staffed, I was lying. I was lying. It has been an absolute pleasure having you here. Well, thanks so much, man. We call this the tastiest hour of talk in Nashville. And we are at the one hour mark. We'll feel like we could do this for hours. I know, I have so many more questions, but it's okay. The final thing that we do is the Gordon Food Service final thought. Okay. Where you guys get to take us out. Whatever you want to say, surmising the conversation, anything. You're talking to everybody. The mic is yours. You can say whatever you want. And as long as you want. Jeff, you want to go first? You guys take it. Come to Joe Mir, come visit us. That's what I want to see. I want to see people come in here, cause not just the food or anything, but I think the experience is the best experience I've had in town. There it is.

01:47:48He's a company guy. I like that. Yeah. Mike? Well, I would say that, you know, we've had some challenges with this restaurant because of our location for one, and then it's a new brand. So we'll just getting people familiar with the brand, but I will tell you, it only takes one time to be in our place, to be sold. And I think Brandon could probably speak to that with his experience. So, you know, we would like to invite anyone that has not come in, that is unfamiliar with the restaurant, come in and be our guest, experience all that we have to offer. It's a great menu. It's an incredible staff. It's a beautiful location. Free parking. Free parking. I mean, you're right off the interstate. Like there's a lot of pluses that we have to offer, and we're getting ready to run a couple of new promotions. We're gonna be shuttling people back and forth to these shows downtown. Tell about that real quick. Yeah, so what we just, they do this in Detroit. What they do is we're gonna put about four or five different shows, either at the Bridgestone or Shimmerhorn, whatever it is that is our demographic.

01:48:54And we're gonna offer them dinner and a show without the hassle of having to drive. So you would come to Joe Muir. You'd leave your car there. Let's say it's 15, 20 people. We'll shuttle you to this show. We'll pick you up after, bring you back, offer you coffee and dessert afterwards, perhaps complimentary. We'll figure it out. But you were talking about, didn't you have a partnership with Uber where you're doing something? Oh, that's a different, that's a different, listen brother, I'm doing everything we can. He's hustling. Throwing stuff up against the wall here. So I started this Uber voucher program. See, only a strong survive. Because we weren't seeing a lot of the event traffic because we're far enough away that you can't walk and no one wants to drive twice. So what they'll do is they'll park close to the event and then eat at a spot that's within walking distance. They just settle for whatever's close. You got it. So what I decided to do was invite people to come and dine with us, park in the garage for free, right? So you're saving the $40 of parking and I pay for your Uber back and forth.

01:49:54Oh my God. So you get a $15 Uber credit to get you to and from the event. You're not worried about parking. You're not worried about traffic. And it's been wildly successful. Oh my God, I bet. People have been eating that up. So we're gonna continue to promote that but we're gonna do this, the new one we're gonna do on a grander scale. That's really for just a couple that comes in and wants to go to a show. But we wanna invite people that are gonna go to the same show to have a group of people that we can shuttle over together. I like it. That's awesome. That's huge. Good stuff. I like Marino Crystal. And me. It's been so nice having you guys here. Thanks y'all. Thank you so much. Fun time. My favorite hour of the week is when I get to sit in here and have these conversations. I'm not kidding. This is like my favorite thing in the world. So it means so much for you guys to be here. Thank you again. And we will see you in the restaurant. Thanks for having us. A plateau. Grateful to be here. A plateau. Thank you so much. You'll come with. All right. Appreciate you. All right. There we go. That was a long episode.

01:50:56An hour and 50 minutes. Sorry, Crystal and I had not caught up in quite a while. And it was really nice for us to chat. Probably said more than we should, but you know what? That's what we do sometimes. We want to give you the real stuff. And so hopefully you enjoyed all of that. Hopefully you enjoyed Joe Muir's seafood. Take their Uber opportunity. Take the Uber credit and head downtown for the next time you have a concert. Say hi to Mike and Marino. They're amazing guys. And we are going to be back next week. We've got John Stevenson. He is the former owner of Hathorn. And then we're going to be back the next week with the Chandler James team over at Lean Associates. And if you wonder what the Chandler James team does, they're rest of the brokers, retail brokers. And they answer all the questions. It's really fun to learn really about what a broker can do for you out there. If you're looking to expand or you want to grow. So stay tuned for that episode. Lots and lots of fun. We are going to wish you a safe and wonderful rest of your week.

01:52:00We are now into the holiday season. Halloween is past us. And now it is next is Thanksgiving. Then Christmas. So man, I can't believe we're already here. Thank you for listening. Hope you're being safe out there and love you guys. Bye.