John Stephenson

00:00Hey everybody, this is Brandon Styll, your host. I'm also the owner of Newlight Hospitality Solutions. We're a consulting firm that works directly with restaurant owners to increase operational efficiencies. Whether it's cultural realignments, menu costing, or just creating next steps for your business, we can help you do it. We're now accepting new clients. We have no long-term contracts, but we will put together long-term solutions for your location. Email Brandon at Newlight Hospitality or call 615-476-5259. The call and the consultation are free. I look forward to hearing from you. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of Newlight Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. It is a beautiful day in Nashville today and I'm so excited because we get to do something a little bit different. We're going to be speaking to John Stevenson and he is the owner of Hathorn and John's one of these guys that's been in the business for a super long time.

01:25Got into the business and kind of worked on the line and built himself up. He's been incredibly progressive throughout his career and I'm just super excited to be able to talk to him today about kind of the transition between being a chef and an owner and I hope you guys enjoy it. So we've got John right here on the horn and let's bring him in. John, how are you doing today? Hi Brandon, good morning. I'm doing okay. I'm hanging in there and peaks and valleys and all that so far today and we're on track for a good day. That's good and I'm so excited to get into exactly your state of mind because there's so many perspectives right now. It's not only people that work the line or people that are still working, people that are delivering to go, there's so many facets of the hospitality industry today but you've transitioned into being a restaurant owner and I want to hear that perspective but I also want to start off with kind of how you got there and am I right that it started at Amerigo? Yeah, you're exactly right.

02:31Yeah, when I think about it, it's kind of funny to me but I have actually been in the industry for almost for about 30 years in Nashville. When I moved to Nashville in about 91, I started as a line cook. My first job in a kitchen was at Amerigo and I started, hadn't really ever worked in a kitchen before. I'd worked in restaurants as server but I'd never worked in the kitchen. You're talking about Amerigo at 1920 West End Avenue, right? Exactly right, yeah. They had just opened that year so they were a pretty big deal back then as a new restaurant on West End. So Bill Latham and Al Roberts. Bill Latham and Al Roberts. Bill Latham is actually my cousin. Is he really? I'm related, I'm blood related to his wife in Mississippi and so I know him but you know we weren't particularly close in Mississippi but when I moved up here and got a job, I got to know him a little bit more and I've actually consulted with him over the years back and forth on you know my next moves as a chef and as a restaurateur and so I've used him as a resource over the years. He doesn't own Amerigo anymore, they sold that off a few years ago. So I lived in Jackson, Mississippi in 2001 and I used to manage the Amerigo in Jackson and so Bill and Al were mentors of mine. I mean I love them to death so we have that in common so I'm sorry go right ahead. So yeah I mean I wasn't planning on a career in the restaurant industry, that was just really a job. I was always really interested in food but at that point I'd still had plans to do one of two or three different things you know either be a high school English teacher or a music business person and I tried both a little bit during the 90s. Neither of them stuck so every time I would either be in school or trying other things I would always keep a job in the kitchen whether it was Amerigo or the corner market or places like that.

04:28I was always cooking right up until the time around 99 when I decided to go full time into the industry. I went to culinary school for a year. I found an accelerated program and went and I'd already been cooking a lot so I knew a lot of the tricks of the trade and I knew how kitchens worked. I went to school for a year to kind of shore up some of my technical knowledge and came back to Nashville in 2000 after a year away and got back to work you know. So I want to get back to a little known place. I don't know how little known it is anymore but you mentioned the corner market and you're talking about the corner market like in West Mead where Sam's place is now right? Yeah the corner market was a place in Bell Mead opened by Jim and Emily Frith. I think they opened it around 1990 like maybe yeah right around in there. To me it was just a magical place. I mean this is you know way before Whole Foods or anything like that. I mean I think we had one other organic style store but they were the first place that was really you know they had local produce, regional stuff. They had amazing imports of items to use in the kitchen.

05:44They had a deli. They had a catering kitchen and for a good long time probably you know at least 10-15 years that place was just the the spot to be. I mean you could get great sandwiches, great food. Of course they called it the corner markup because it was you know it wasn't cheap stuff but it was you know stuff that you had never seen. I saw ice cream made out of basil and things that you know at that time it was it was the forefront of food innovation in a lot of ways and really inspired me to want to be in the industry long term. I really met a lot of great people, was inspired and mentored by a great chef there named Steve Scalise who was from New Orleans and so he brought in a lot of the Creole Cajun kind of influence that they had. They were famous for their gumbo and among other things a magical place. My sister worked there for a few years back I think 97, 96, 97-ish and I'll never forget I still crave the Arby gar. Oh my god. It was like the best sandwich. We just made the stuffed potatoes the other night here you know that's that was the large part of my job was making those potatoes every day that they that they sold in the deli but yeah there's so many recipes and items that were classics you know or just people were craving them all over town and it's funny that place taught me a whole lot about cooking and about you know what how magical a kitchen could be when you get the right mix of people in there.

07:17It also taught me about when that you know the dangers of expansion you know because they were they were cranking and then sometime around 99 they decided to expand into the space next to them so I did a big remodel changed the layout changed the flow and they lost something honestly I mean I love them to death and still do but they lost something when they tried to make it bigger and better. Did they take over Bradley drugs? Yes they took over Bradley drugs and it just it just wasn't the same you know before it was kind of packed in and there was a vibe to it and there was just kind of a an ethos and you could just feel it and then when when they expanded you lost a little bit of that energy and something something was off so I think you know a few years after that I think they decided to change their direction and move the operation but that taught me that no matter how great something is you can ruin it by trying to make it perfect. There's a great saying in France called perfect is the enemy of good and that means that you know you can have something good and if you keep tweaking it too much you might lose the element that makes it special so just you know it taught me to kind of look at things from a different perspective and not worry about making sure that every single thing is perfect as long as you get you know as long as you get the majority and you have something great don't disrespect the fact that it's it's good already. I just love your mentality and some of it comes from the corner market I think it's kind of who you are in your DNA though when I first met you I was at Creation Gardens and you were at Fido and what you were doing to this coffee shop which is essentially a coffee shop but you were turning it into something completely different I think you've called it a gastronomic coffee shop.

09:02When I first met with you we started talking and you said I want to use local farmers I want to use small production I want to help my community and I want to create food that's really second to none and we're talking about 2006 yeah yeah I mean this is 14 years ago that was your mindset back then and what you completely did to Fido tell me about how that just that whole time was for you. You know yeah Fido I worked there for 12 years I was an executive chef in GM I started in 02 and for a couple years you know I was just trying to get my feet on the ground there Bob Bernstein you know hired me in to you know to his credit he wanted to find somebody that was young and had their own ideas and wanted to take you know Fido in a cool direction he was all he's always been about you know organics and things like that so he had it you know we had a good understanding of what you know I was allowed to do what he wanted and what I want it took a couple years but around 04-05 things started picking up and we started getting noticed because I was doing that I mean I'm I really am proud of what we did there because we were on the forefront of you know kind of that transition of coffee shops from coffee shop with a bagel and a donut to places that could really be the third space for everybody including the third space for their food as far as you know we could elevate what we were serving in coffee shops to almost the same quality as that of great restaurants you know at a fraction of the cost you know we were in the right neighborhood for that for sure but people really really appreciated that and I mean by the time I left we had we had grown you know five or six hundred percent you know over over 10 years it was a good run we had a good run there you know I learned a lot I had a great you know I it was kind of atypical of a chef gig I didn't work a ton of nights and I got a lot of weekends

11:03off and you know I got to really focus on what we were producing you know our producers and our vendors and you know work with great people like creation and a lot of local farms Kenny's Cheese and that was kind of the pre-dawn era of Nashville's explosion you know about 06 to 2010 was kind of like that was the before time when you know nobody was noticing us yet but we were still growing and getting ready for the for the giant explosion that happened you know 20 onward it's kind of like that 2005 time I started in creation guards 2005 and we exploded I mean we just exploded with people that were just wanting what we were doing and then the economic downturn hit in 2008 2009 and it's almost like everybody shifted and we all became lean and everybody wanted to help each other and we kind of became this community of people that which I think is not dissimilar to what's happening right now but everybody wanted to help each other and it really began like the community got so strong in 2010 we had a flood which really brought the community together and then I think Nashville never looked back until right now that's that's one of the things that I always loved about the industry especially from about that time onward it's exactly that it's that it didn't feel like a cutthroat competition it's always felt like all of us all of the chefs and all the restaurateurs you know sure they want to be successful they don't want to be the the one to lose you know lose the game but they always wanted to help new people they always reached out to you know talk about what was going on you know seeing people at the generous helpings food shows and things like that everybody has been has always been so supportive of each other because they know that you know this is this is a system and in a city that you know if we lift everybody up it's

13:03going to be better for everybody so that's one thing I've always appreciated about the industry in this town and and you're right it doesn't seem like it's dissipated hopefully it'll just continue to grow and we'll see what happens during this thing but yeah the the 2008 turn down was what's tough and it's funny that you know recently I've been thinking about what's going on now and a month or two ago I was thinking okay well look we weathered the 2008 storm pretty well we've weathered the flood we've done we can do this and um you know I was really positive about it initially and and then it started to dawn on me that this is a little bit you know it's a little bit different kind of challenge to face so there are going to be different answers and different responses I still think we're going to get through it and let me we're all going to have to but um this is a particularly unique set of circumstances that I think is uh man it's uh it's frightening it's frightening in a lot of ways and uh I am I'm somewhat excited to see what how we come up with a you know a response to it and how we respond how we come back but man there's a lot a lot of unknowns right now for sure let me ask you a question so let's pivot to that we went to um you've been a chef we've talked about you working in Nashville in restaurants since 1991 you've been out here working it's always been for somebody else yeah right so in this type situation in 2009 you weren't the one holding the note and now here we go you open Hathorn in 2018 right at the end of 2018 and now you're the owner and there's this it's a different responsibility that you have how how does your mindset change from being an employee to an employer yeah that's funny uh there are a lot of changes but I've always had the attitude of an owner you know I think one

15:04of the reasons I've been I'm not wildly successful but I've had some success I've had you know I've created a decent following among clientele in Nashville I have some respect for the things that I've done at various places especially fight up I've always gone to work with the mindset of like I got to treat this place as if it were my own because that's what the owner is paying me to do you know he wants me to look at it from that perspective but part of that perspective is always as an owner is to make sure you are seeing it from the perspective of your of your employees and your guests but your employees first make sure that they love coming to work and they love working with you so I always try to come to work with that perspective but yeah it's a transition that before I open the restaurant I've never experienced a level of anxiety and trepidation and just you know once you get the the ball of opening a restaurant rolling the momentum is terrifying you know because once it's set in motion it's like there's no there's no stopping this you know there you can't turn it off but you know you have second thoughts you know after it's going it's going so that feeling is pretty terrifying I love your answer that you come to work and you've you you act like you own it and I've always said that to anybody that's worked for me I've said if you come to work and you have the mentality that this is not let's just say you know fresh point or place where this is not fresh point produce this is brandon still produce and you got to cut the check for this stuff do you make decisions differently and there's definitely something to be said for people with that mindset and success there's a correlation between those two because if you act as if you are the owner of the company you make better decisions on a daily basis but there is a difference when your mortgage is on the line when you actually sign a piece of paper saying I'm accountable and I actually am writing the checks and famously Steven smithing

17:07of greenhouse grill and in maribor who I reference a lot because he's one of my good friends and we talk a lot has famously said I'm the only person who can't quit oh yeah the only person who can't quit in this company so I don't have a choice like I have to keep going every single day and that's kind of the little difference in the mentality that I'm I'm asking you about oh absolutely no you know you're you're absolutely right and uh like like I said it's um it's a whole different level of of uh you know intensity being the one who's signing you know the mortgages and the leases and the and the personal finance sheets and you know all the the banks need and and the weird thing is is that you know people ask me how I'm doing during this during the pandemic and you know I think I'm doing about as well as anybody I'm someday it's good sometimes bad but it still hasn't reached the level of anxiety and fear that I had before I opened my own restaurant you know I've always gone through daily or weekly panic attacks where I would have to sit down just be like it's going to make through like we're going to get through this one way or the other so I'm not saying it's not it's just it's just personally it's not the same kind of feeling of that you know I'm I am concerned about what we're going through I'm terrified for myself and my business uh and for the nation and the world but man it's for some reason there's a calmness that I think that because we're all in this situation together there's not that kind of like oh my god I'm gonna make this huge mistake and ruin my business I'm like look we're all approaching the same challenge at the same time and essentially the same basket for the most part and we have to figure it out together so we're gonna have to work together and we're gonna have to come up with some new solutions to some of these problems and there may be some changes some major changes you know and there will be some major changes to the industry to the way we do business to the way we hire and you know pay employees I mean there's going to be some opportunities to make some changes for the

19:09better on the backs of all the pain and if there's not I'll be very disappointed what are you anticipating anything that just off the top of your head that you're referencing well you know I think for a while I think there's going to be you know uh for dine-in restaurants there's going to be some some some pain in that you know until people feel comfortable and there's a vaccine that's going to be a different situation for a while and I don't know how long that's going to be I have ideas and guesses but you know for longer than most people are going to want I think practices and and small restaurants like mine are going to have to really be creative in you know maximizing their business that they can get whether it be through carryout or pickup and then the in-person dining when people start feeling comfortable enough to do that we're going to have to figure out how to operate on whatever percentage of capacity we think we're going to get 50 30 70 you know whatever that is so hopefully it's a lot are you um are you guys currently doing to go and take out no um you know I made the decision about March 15th that and it wasn't I didn't necessarily make the decision I looked at our books and saw the numbers on our on our books um just plummeting so I went ahead and decided to close for a few days you know this is pre kind of shut down advisory or anything because I was like people are people are themselves are self you know isolating already before anything got blew up so I decided to shut down for a few days and then the the shutdown advisory came and you know the decision on whether to stay open and do carry out and take away it wasn't that hard for us because that's not was never a huge part of our business to begin with so it would that would not have been an easy kind of like okay let's just do that sure I also considered that I I didn't know enough about the virus and how it was transmitted and and how virulent it was and still don't to want to bring my people in together to work you know and take the chance of getting somebody sick or somebody

21:13having you know no symptoms but caring and then they take it home to my kids or my you know their kids their mom I just didn't want to take that risk and I knew pretty quickly that it was going to be more than just oh we can just do carry out and take out it's like yeah that's not that's a band-aid that's not going to help right now we're going to have to have a bigger a bigger solution for this I wanted to you know save some money and so we shut down and have remained shut now we're we're in the process of getting our kind of plan together for that slow reopening but that that to me is not in two weeks you know it's it's not it's not made first certainly not made first well that's my next question when is the government now is now saying the governor is saying that in non you know in kind of rural areas that they're going to start reopening real soon the highly populated areas these urban areas they're not going to yeah well kind of what's your what's your take on that well I mean my take is like I said before when I decided to shut down in March this was pre-shutdown advisories and the market kind of made my decision for me people will listen to what you know our quote-unquote leaders say but they're going to do what they feel is right so whether or not the governor or the mayor says you can go out to a restaurant is not going to affect most people they're going to look at what they consider to be the facts and the science and and and people that they trust and they're going to make those decisions themselves I don't think that just because the governor or the mayor says we can be open in a restaurant that people are going to rush out I think they're going to wait until they feel like it's safe they're going to wait you know until there's more idea of you know when there's going to be a vaccine when there's going to be you know a better testing and then they're going to start coming out and that's a moving target that changes day to day with you know how we're responding to the virus in different places and how well lockdowns are being repeated for me personally and for my

23:17restaurant I know it's not going to be in two weeks and it's probably not going to be in four weeks and my best guess on when we can have guests in the restaurant again is you know mid to late June at the earliest maybe yeah yeah no but that doesn't mean that we're not we are going to start doing I've retained a couple people on on staff on salary sure so we are going to start doing some you know pre-ordered carry out family meals and we're going to start getting ready for that because that's going to have to be a big part of any restaurant like ours it's going to have to rely on take take home and cook meals or or ready to eat meals that are carried out curbside and if you're not ready for that you're going to be in trouble so we're going to take the next month essentially hone that and probably you know two to three weeks hopefully start rolling out a little bit of those options where you can order online and pick it up just like everybody that I know is still operating you know that's that's what we're going to have to do and then add in a little bit of the in-person dining when we figure out what that looks like we may be able to bridge the gap depending on what happens with the the ppp and the eidl you're you're you're getting way ahead of me my next question was going to be were you able to to secure me one of the big news stories out there is ruthcrisp and shake shack giving back their money but ruthcrisp taking money and potbelly sandwiches these big national chains taking the ppp money and running it dry i think they have a new additional funding coming right now maybe tomorrow yeah were you able to secure any of those uh we honestly we did we did apply for the ppp and i received it uh received it last friday it's in a brand new account of mine at truckston trust which is my local banking partner fantastic people by the way truckston trust i always like to shout out great local people so truckston trust yeah truckston trust it's a local private bank who has funded our venture and there are partners here and you know they've worked with sba before and so they you know they were

25:23probably what better position than some of the larger banks because they have such a great relationship we when we applied we had that we had a pretty quick response and we didn't apply that early on i mean i'm during that process i think it was halfway through the process the first two or two weeks or so that we applied so we did get that and we're in a much better position as far as like okay we have some cash now but you know as far as what the money's intended for it's it's almost counterproductive in in some ways unless they change some of the rules on how and when we can use this money it's just going to turn into a loan for us um you know it's intended to pay your staff during the next eight weeks and that's just really silly to me because then i'm going to if i spent if i use all that for the next eight weeks when we're not open what am i going to use to pay them when we're open and there's 30 of our normal business i mean it just uh it's a little bit frustrating i think a few small rule changes with just the ppp would allow a lot of businesses like mine to make better decisions with that money for instance you know instead of having to use it as soon as it goes into your bank account they should start the clock on that when you reopen and hire back let's say 50% of your staff then you will have money to spend on the staff you can start getting your business ready to open again it's like reopening your businesses or you know relaunching your business and you might that might be enough to kind of get you through from you know where we are to where things start to look somewhat closer to normal than they are right now but as it is right now if you can't open your business you're just basically being a substitute for the for the unemployment insurance you're just taking money from the government and giving it to the employees just like the unemployment insurance would do they're just putting a middleman in and it just doesn't make sense to me you know i

27:26what sense is it to pay people for eight weeks and then shut the doors and fire them again if the idea is for businesses to survive long term they need to amend that they need to amend those rules to you know be a little bit more lenient on when you can start the clock on that money in which you can use the money for yeah yeah right now that said if you if you don't use it for payroll it turns into a one percent loan loan for a couple of years so it's not it's not the worst deal ever you know it's it's it's still money that you can use if you want it forgiven you have to spend it all on essentially being the unemployment insurance but if you don't then you you need you got a couple years to pay back a very low percentage loan on some cash that you need right now so you know i'm not saying it's the worst thing ever i'm just saying they could make one or two tweaks and it would be really really beneficial and it would do what it's intended to do but as it is it's not i think there's a way if you go to save ppp i know john brock is big on this right now i follow him on instagram and he just continues to post about things the ways we can tweak ppp so i don't necessarily just blowing up his instagram but he has links on there that if you're listening to this and you want to help fix the ppp so that restaurant owners like john and so many other people uh people like me who own a business that uh i it's a tough time to have a restaurant consulting business to be honest but um how we can use the money to continue to keep our businesses from folding i think that's the main thing keep these small locally owned restaurants which are really the one thing i've learned so much throughout these interviews i've been doing is that locally owned and operated restaurants are really the lifeblood of our culture uh that and of course in nashville music is is so imperative as well but just all of the different restaurants in these chefs the way that they cook and what they cook and how they share

29:30all of this stuff is is really part of what our culture is it's pretty it's pretty amazing and we've got to preserve it i mean we live in a town that includes al's deli and arnold's and hathorne and the catbird seat and you know folk and i mean we have so many different restaurants that are operating at the top of their game it was crazy it was just we were living in the peak restaurant culture of nashville's history and it was amazing the past you know year to five years and in just the past year you know has been we've seen amazing things so the culture here is incredible and that's what i've always loved about it you know it's these small places that are exactly doing what you said just doing it their way trying to find trying to work together supporting each other so many cool things happening and um you know it's a it's a huge it's a huge blow to our our culture um what's you know what's going what's going to happen of course so yeah i want to i want to transition because i don't want to keep you here forever although again i feel like i talked to you for an hour and a half and keep going i want to talk about hathorne and i want to talk about your restaurant in you know six months ago what you guys are doing i want i want to bring a smile to your face right now thinking about that place hathorne at a full full capacity rocking and rolling what that looks like if you're a listener and you've never been there you don't know anything about it i'd love to hear you talk about your restaurant well thank you i appreciate that um look um hathorne i've been thinking about what my restaurant would be for a long time you know i've had different ideas for places but like you said at the beginning i'd always been a hired gun and i'd been hired to take somebody else's vision and elevate it so you know getting a chance

31:30to do your own thing is um it's incredible it's an amazing opportunity but it's also incredibly challenging because then you're like well here what would you do uh with a restaurant and so i got to i really fortunately got the opportunity to found this building um you know i was fortunate enough to we were able to raise enough money to buy the property by the building so that's a that's a great advantage to us but found this building and hathorne is my grandmother's maiden name it just fit the feel of the building it's an old church building um and so hathorne kind of has an old churchy kind of feel to it and it's an old fellowship hall of a church and so as i started putting together the menu everything just kind of fell together in a way that you know felt like it was meant to be um you know i've always as you we've already discussed i've always been a proponent of local regional producers small vendors uh working closely with with farmers and and and other producers and uh this was the perfect opportunity we're right across from the west nashville farmers market you know we're on the west side of town where we are we are close to a lot of these farmers that live out in ashton city joulton you know up north and that kind of thing so had a real opportunity to to use some of these things and like you said six months ago or even three months ago february was our best month since we opened we had our best sales our best cost of goods and labor we had our you know our continued to get amazing uh press and accolades you know our reviews were good things were humming people were happy um that's the first month i actually um made money um you know and after about 14 months of business that's a pretty good schedule so i can imagine to go from that to to march was uh was pretty shocking and and heartbreaking but at the same time i want to be like hey we we got there you know in february so if you came in and you know on a busy night in february you know we had three record days in february we were turning people away at the door and and people standing and waiting and it was

33:34just a good vibe a good feel we had our little private dining room um was booked up quite a bit we were about to open the patio so we were on track for a great spring which was hopefully going to set us up for you know many years of of good business i'd started to see the kind of the horizon and be like okay we're gonna we're at least gonna make it to where we're gonna be in business for a little bit that's never a a certain thing obviously well congratulations i mean i just want to say congratulations because i know going from what you're doing in all of the work i don't know if anybody out there's ever opened a restaurant sure most of you have but what you were discussing all of the things you got to do to get the restaurant open all those decisions all from from just the conceptual idea of what it's going to be to putting it into fruition in 14 months to have the best month that you've ever had to see something that you've been dreaming about for so long actually work yeah that's got to be that's got to be just the best feeling in the world isn't it it was feeling great and in february i mean january and february being our two best months yet i mean those are typically fairly fairly slow months in a lot of places so it felt it felt so good the culture was there after going through many many different iterations of people and combinations we we had the right group of people in the right places and so yeah it felt really good how would you describe the culture well i've always been one to try to hire great people uh don't i mean instruct them and train them but don't over train them don't over kind of don't try to make them do everything the way that you would do it just set personally i've always just tried to get in there and work alongside people lead by example but really just hire people that you trust and then trust them you know until you know hopefully they will they will fulfill that and and it'll be great and if they don't then you make a change but hire great people

35:34encourage their own you know personalities and let them be creative i mean that's one of the things i learned early on is that if i found a great bar manager or beverage director don't dictate too much give them a you know a direction and be like however we get there i want you to be a part of this you know same thing with the food you know i've you know been in the kitchen for most of my career but when you open a restaurant you really have to kind of step back to some extent if you're the owner and gm and all that you can't just be in there prepping all day so and to step back and and take and give my chefs a little a lot more free reign um than i would normally and then you know if i were the chef and they're in the in the restaurant so let them be creative let them come up with stuff encourage them support them and that worked i mean i had you know i've had fortunate enough to have two great chefs come on board with me a joey multini uh at first and then just recently promoted evan la giocchino and these two guys i just two of the best chefs i've ever worked with young ambitious creative nice to work with nice to the front of house staff i mean just tick off the box of everything you want from a chef and i've had two of them in the past 18 months it's been it's been incredible they're really lucky about that and um but that's it just hire creative people support them as much as you can and then trust trust them a little bit you know yeah trust trust the plan you know uh i think once people see the culture of the place and they see that you know we don't you know we help each other we're not out you know we don't deal with a lot of drama you don't do a lot of outside drama you know that gets shut down pretty quick i mean god i mean the first week we were open brandon it was you know i fired somebody on the spot because i walked in and saw them sticking their finger in a jar of coconut oil to to to moisturize their hands and i was like what do you do that's a food product i was like well sorry man it's cool i won't do it again it's like no

37:37you're fired get get you know get out of here that's crazy you know i think when people see that you you you you have a pretty clear line of like this is how we do things then hire the people that you know are going to strive to go past that and support them your finger in the coconut oil finger in the coconut oil he kind of looked up i was like uh what's going on yeah i'm not i'm not supposed to do that i was like you asked me i would have given you a jar of coconut oil i would have given you that if you would have just said hey can i have this for my in my dry hands i would have given it to you oh no problem sure it's great but don't take it take it and put it back on the shelf like no one's been in it anyway that was probably maybe you should cut that out of this interview that's a little a little behind the scenes that happens a lot of that's that's kind of part of the fun part about this you know i mean i think that there's so many people that work in restaurants there's so i'd love to do a show i just strictly talk about stuff like that oh god because that's that's every single day i've always thought i said the funnest part about working in a restaurant to me is that every single day i get up you may get up the same way every single day i may wake up turn to my right walk to the bathroom brush my teeth turn around look at my phone kiss my wife say the kid i could do the same thing every single day but the second i walk into those doors it's all different like you have no clue what you're walking into every single day and you just have to be ready you can't be set on today we're gonna do this this this and this because it never goes that way you have to be a little bit willing to pivot and there's always something so i want to do a show where i just talk about all of the random one-offs that happen to people oh man you got that would be a great show you gotta you gotta do a show on the there's so many little things that you know little quirks and tricks that happen in the restaurant that you would have a you'd have a very popular show i think that was my original goal with the podcast was to do a call-in show at the end of

39:41the day every day like you know i said this dream like on lightning 100 would pick me up for nashville restaurant radio he would call in and tell me the craziest stories of that night so when you got off work you get in your car you turn the radio on you could listen to nashville restaurant radio and hear people all over the city tell their stories that's great that was my original idea maybe one day but this is a i'm enjoying this equally as much getting to know in depth with the chefs and people in the town that are making it happen yeah yeah so thanks john anything else you want to say i mean we're right there at the 45 minute mark anything you want to say to people in nashville anything at all you know i want to say thank you to everybody especially thank you to all our our guests and employees and people who have supported me throughout my career but uh also hang in there and you know this is again one of the most challenging times anybody it's definitely the most challenging time any of us have faced especially as restaurant tours adapt as much as possible i don't think any of us have really the true answer i think we're all fighting to find the best way to deal with this and uh you know it's going to be a lot easier if we try to work together as much as possible but uh yeah stay safe hug your hug yourself and your family and uh hopefully we'll uh we'll figure out a way to rebuild the the vibrant culture that we have you know once this is all over i think we're going to and i think that we're going to be uh i think everybody's gonna be okay i think the fact that we're all like you said earlier it's not just heathorn that's dealing with this it's everybody and everything can't happen and uh to everybody at the same time in a bad way something will fix us just stay strong i put a podcast out on monday and i said my key my three keys are stay healthy mentally first and physically second stay hungry get out there and figure

41:43out what you're going to do do something to help yourself grow and then help help people as best you possibly can in whatever way you can the three things you could be doing right now yeah i agree i totally agree well i want to have you back on once this whole thing gets going i can't wait to kind of see the transition once you get going i want to do 45 minutes about you talking about your restaurant and what you're doing i want to talk about menus i want to talk recipes i want to talk happy hour cocktails all of the fun stuff that is happening at heathorn on a daily basis when you reopen sounds great i'm looking forward to that and i appreciate talking to you today thank you yeah man it's great catching up with you thank you so much john stevenson for joining us here on nashville restaurant radio if you want to follow john on instagram he is at chef john stevenson and his restaurant is heathorn at heathorn nashville i want to thank john still for post-production and editing and i want to thank you the listener for stopping by and checking us out today so as always we hope you are staying safe love you guys bye