Jon and Wilson from NOKO

00:00Hey guys, we are supported by Sharpies Bakery and we've been supported by Sharpies Bakery for the last year and I tell ya, I couldn't be more proud of this partnership. Guys, they're a locally owned and operated bakery right here in Nashville for the last 36 years. Yes, they deliver fresh baked bread daily to your restaurant's back door and man, is it good. You wanna know what kind of bread they make? Go check them out at sharpiesbakery.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S, bakery.com. So they have over 200 types of bread and if you're wondering, well hey look, it's a special recipe that I like to use, that we bake it in our house and it's just, it's kind of a pain but we like to do it. They can take your recipe and make that bread for you without any of the hassle, the mess, the labor. They'll just deliver it right to your door every single day. It is freshly baked. They love to give you a tour of their facility. Give Erin Mosso a call. Her number is 615-319-6453.

01:03You should do it now. We are supported by Robins Insurance, a local insurance agency providing customized insurance policies, sound guidance and attentive service. Robins Insurance is the go-to agency for hospitality professionals in Nashville. Listen, Robins knows how hard industry professionals work every single day. They also know how devastating accidents can be. Be it a grease fire that damages the kitchen, a severe storm that cuts off power or a customer slip and fall incident. Both the extensive experience and the savvy to create a policy that protects your business from accidents like those, you can rest easy knowing that the work you've put in will not be for nothing. Visit Robins website at robinsins.com to request a consultation or call Matthew Clements directly. His number is 863-409-9372. Protection you can trust. That's Robins. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City.

02:11Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We will be joined with Caroline Galzin here shortly and we are powered by Gordon Food Service. We are glad you are here for this episode with NoCo. NoCo is in East Nashville in the former Pomodoro East and it is the hottest ticket in town. Today we are talking with John Murray, who's the founder and Wilson Brannock, who is your managing partner over there and these guys are amazing. We talk a lot about operations in this episode and what they're doing for their people. How are they able to sustain vacation stipends and paid time off and all of the wonderful things that they are doing every single week.

03:12They're just amazing guys. So much fun talking about this stuff. We get into The Bear, which is something that's very popular to talk about right now and we're kind of split on this one. Wilson is a fan and John is a fan but kind of sides with Caroline. We did a thing on Instagram after this and we voted. We said, what side are you on? And 69% of you said that you're on Team Brandon, that you loved it. So thank you for going to Nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio on Instagram and placing your vote. Really appreciate that. And I get to take the crown win on this one as the winner for people who actually liked it. So if you have not seen The Bear, go check it out. It's on Hulu, it's really great. Oh man, so many things happening out there. Don't even know where to begin and not gonna do it today. We're just gonna do a quick intro on this show to bring you guys NoCo. So without further ado, we're just gonna jump right in with the boys from NoCo.

04:21Super excited to welcome in John Murray. He's the founder of NoCo and we have Wilson Brannock who is the managing partner at NoCo. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Appreciate you having us, man. Yeah, thank you, man. And this has kind of been a little bit of time in the making to get this thing going. We've been wanting to do this interview for months but we finally got everybody in studio. Man, I'm so excited to talk to you guys today. It's so many questions. Yeah, dude, we're excited. Fire away, man. Let's go, let's go. I feel like you guys are the hottest table in town right now. You know, people keep saying that, but it's pretty cool to hear. Yeah, it's true. We've got our heads stuck in the four walls of the restaurant and that's really the only thing we're focused on, so. Well, we called that, we're just extremely grateful. Yeah. That's awesome. Just bottom line, just extremely grateful. So tell us a little bit about your story. It'll start with you, John. Like, let's just, well, let's do the backstory before I get into like my specifics about what you're actually doing in your, I have a lot of operational questions for you guys because I love kind of what you're about.

05:24Sure. Tell us your history. What's your story, John? So specific to hospitality of our tenant and weighted tables in college. That's how I got, excuse me. Where'd you go to college? University of South Carolina. And then moved to Nashville in 2008 in the music business. So took a little hiatus from restaurants and then moved back to Charleston in 2011. Kind of fell into a server position with the Indigo Road. Yeah. Got a couple of restaurants here in Nashville. Oak and Okoo. Yep. And the rest is history, man. I fell in love with it and I've been doing this for just shy of 20 years in management for the last 10 or leadership, so to speak. And ended up in Nashville about a year ago to Doonoka. What is your, what drives you to restaurants? What do you love about working in restaurants? Taking care of people. There's an energy inside of a restaurant that can't be recreated anywhere, in my opinion. I think we have the ability to be more impactful in a restaurant than we think we can be.

06:28It just, I just love taking care of people, man. I love seeing people smile. I love nourishing people's souls through food. It's a beautiful thing if you really step back and like dissect it. Now you mentioned something kind of before we started that am I allowed to talk about it? Me not drinking? Yes. 100%. Okay, I didn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're good. Didn't know if that was something. So you're a sober guy. Yeah, I don't say sober. Okay. And the reason I don't say sober is I don't limit myself to things down the road. I will never drink again. I have no desire to ever drink again. But I don't wanna say I'm sober for the simple fact of like, I'm not saying that this would happen, but if 10 years down the line, some new exploratory thing came around and I wanted to try and compromise my sobriety. Yeah, I got you. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But I'm an addict. Yeah. I definitely am, yeah. Like, okay, so the good, yes. Perfect, I love talking to people who are successful in the industry, who have put that in their rear view and life changed because of it.

07:33Dude, I would not be here today if I decided not to stop drinking alcohol. Yeah, and that, I mean, that is, my life has been leaps and bounds different ever since October 20th, yeah. Wow, so we're like a year and a week apart on our sobriety. It's wild. Are not drinking this. Call it that. I don't know why I have such a stigma with that, but yeah. Hey, look, it's okay. That doesn't matter. None of that shit matters as long as you're being true to yourself. You know, on the little back of my little coins I get, says to thine own self be true. As long as you're doing that and make it happen. 100%. Wilson Brannick. What's up, dude? Same kind of question, man. What's your story? Man, restaurant specific. Grew up in Riverdale, Georgia, a little bit south of Atlanta. Started bar backing right out of high school. It was supposed to be a summer job in between semesters. It's always supposed to be a summer job, isn't it?

08:34Supposed to be, and then I ended up not going to college, staying in the industry. Started serving, and then I made my way to Oku, Atlanta, which is one of Indigo Road's outposts in West Midtown. That's where I met John Murray. Rose up through the ranks. Moved to Nashville in 2019 towards the end, right before the tornado and COVID. So it's a hell of a time to move here. Was here for about two years. Moved to Charleston as an opening general manager of Maya, which is one of Indigo Road's Mexican concepts. And then became the area director for King Street's restaurants, and then now I'm here. Wow. Back here in November of last year, and glad to be back in Nashville, man. What an awesome story. What was it about that bar backing summer that you fell in love with? Something about this industry that you were like- I'll be completely honest with you, dude. Before bar backing, I was teaching karate, and I made my paycheck in a night.

09:39So, fuck this, I'm out. That'll do it. Yeah, and I never went to college, and here we are. I started college, and then I got a manager job, and I was like, I can sit in a classroom and learn this, or I can actually go do the damn thing and learn through the school of hard knocks, and I chose that. I left college to go manage a restaurant at 22, and never look back. I'm still paying for college. I should have done what you did. It's a thing. So what made you guys decide that Nashville was the place for your concept? Or maybe I should back up a little bit and say, how did NOCO come to be your concept? And then why Nashville? That's kind of a long story. So NOCO came about during the pandemic. So the world shut down, the restaurants were shut down, and so we started having weekly cookouts, bi-weekly cookouts, where we would invite friends over and we would eat outside. And is this in Charleston? This was in Charleston at the time. Wilson was still in Nashville. Our partner, Junior, and I were both in Charleston. So restaurants were shut down.

10:40We started cooking. Chef cooked over coals, over wood fire. We used some of the kitchen, but we all tried to stay outside because of the uncertainty of what COVID really was, how it transmitted. And one night we were just sitting there going, we found a lot of comfort in solace in that time. We were like, it was 99% of everything we cooked was Asian. It's my favorite cuisine. If someone's like, hey, on Mondays, Wilson, Junior, what do you want to get to eat? It's 99% of the time it's Asian. And so we were like, what if we did Asian wood fire? And so that's how NOCO came to be, the idea of it. For Nashville, just because Wilson was here, I had spent time here. The two places we felt most comfortable, that we felt like we wanted to give a shot were Nashville and Charleston. So we had an offer, a LOIN in Charleston, and we had an offer here in Nashville. And within the first five to 10 minutes of walking in the NOCO space, we both knew that this is where we wanted to be. It just felt right, intuition led us here.

11:41And not long after that, the deal in Charleston fell apart. So it was kind of like a universal sign of like, hey, you're supposed to be in Nashville. So that's how Nashville happened. That's awesome. I actually remember before you guys came here, when the original business that was in that space closed, a lot of different people were kind of trying to shop that space around. And I remember hearing about this thing or that thing that was gonna go in there, and everything was kind of like, I don't know about that one. So I'm glad that kind of all the stars aligned for that space to be for you guys. I think we're super stoked. Yeah, we love this space. What does NOCO mean? So NOCO is a word that was cut in half. It's a Japanese word, nokoribi. Nokoribi translates to embers. Since we're cooking over embers, we just like, all right, we gotta make this a little bit easier. So let's cut it in half. And that's NOCO. So NOCO doesn't mean anything, but that's the story. But it means embers. It's about your wood-fired cooking. So you guys have been like, so you're all three hanging out, just eating food. Like you guys are all like best friends.

12:42So kind of like a backtrack. So, and I didn't realize this until recently, like within the last year, but I hired Wilson and Junior. I was the GM of Oku Atlanta. And I hired both of them the same day. I had no clue. Did we have any idea that six, seven years later, we'd be sitting here doing this? But I had a dream. I was getting the urge or the itch to do my own thing while I was with Indigo Road. And I had this dream, and I was driving to Raleigh, North Carolina. And Wilson was in my dream the night before that we were supposed to open a restaurant together. So I was like a high school girl calling a girlfriend, like that he was just trying to like court. And I called Wilson scared to death. Like, hey dude, I had this dream. Would you, you're in it. You're my business partner. We're gonna do these amazing things. Like, would you leave Indigo Road and come with me? And he was like, yeah, let's do it. Like no hesitation. And that took us what? Like a couple years to bring it to fruition after that. Took about three years.

13:42Yeah, yeah. So. And how's it going? Insane. It's going great. Both of you like, holy shit. It's like we can't even fathom what's happening right now. I mean, we, Wilson said, Grateful doesn't even begin to encapsulate like what we feel, the response we've received. It's, I don't even know what to say about it. What do you guys feel like has been the key to so much of this kind of booming early success that you've had? I think there was a hole in the market, cuisine wise. The level of hospitality the team provides is amazing. We've got a really good crew from the bar staff, service staff, down to the food runners, essays. Everyone's just so great. There's a level of warmth in NoCo that I feel even, I know it's a little biased for me to say, because we're in there day in and day out and we're the owners of the place, but it's hard to create that in most restaurant spaces.

14:45There's a lot of places where I'll go and I'm like, all right, they're just here to make a check. It's a little cold. It's a little different. And we usually just don't get that feeling at NoCo. I would like to say that. Well, here's the vibe I get, because it looks like you guys are very, very intentional and very thoughtful. And when I say that, I mean, it's not a place where you're just open because you just want to do that. Like the staff, I got reading your about, or just an about who you are. And it says, while paving the path for unique wood-fired cuisine, the NoCo team aims to be an agent of change for the hospitality industry in Nashville and beyond through an emphasis on mental health and extensive employee betterment program featuring four-day work weeks, a yearly travel stipend, access to an online therapist, a paid gem yoga membership, health insurance, and more. Like, that's pretty damn cool. I mean, that had to be something that you sat down, you thought about, and you went, we don't, where does that come? Did you, was there a past experience that was terrible?

15:47And you're like, we're never gonna do this? Or we want to be an innovator in doing the right thing? I think there was no, there's no past experience like specifically. I think COVID reshaped a lot of things for a lot of us inside hospitality and outside of hospitality. And I think there were moments during that whole transition of reopening, shutting down, reopening, shutting down, where Wilson, myself, we all did a lot of internal reflecting of going, I mean, is this really sustainable? Is this like, could I be 60 years old running a restaurant? And could I be 40, I'm 40 now, could I be 40 years old and running a restaurant? And Wilson and I said, man, there's gotta be a better way to do this. There's gotta be a way to take care of our people at a level that no one else takes care of their people. I would say no one, but. It's very few. Very few, because there are a ton of amazing companies out there that do a great job at it.

16:51But I didn't know what else to do. To go back to your question, I love taking care of people, but at some point, man, the last few years, it's like, I gotta take care of myself. And we were working so hard and so like intently that there's really not time to take care of ourselves. For me, when I stopped drinking, I realized a lot of things about myself. And it was still as every single day, a journey that I don't stop working on. You know, I was at a meeting last night until 9.15. You know, and I had a long ass day yesterday, but it's something that I still go and I do and I practice. Anything that you learned through that process that may be added to this, where you realize, because there were so many years in my life that I drank, I didn't take care of myself. I did not allow myself that opportunity. I just worked my ass off and no matter what trauma I went through, I realized that at nighttime, I would drink because I didn't wanna have to deal with it.

17:53And then when I started dealing with it and I realized all these emotions came up, I went, oh, so many other people are dealing with this. Was any of that happening for you in this decision-making process? 100%, specifically what? I don't know, man, I mean, we don't have enough time for me to unpack my closet right now, nor do I think anybody would really care. But yeah, I mean, you know, in that process of like quitting something that you've relied on so like, so much and you're weaning yourself off of that. I mean, dude, there's emotions and roller coasters. I mean, I'm over four years in now and I still, I'm like a little kid, you know, emotionally. Like I really am. Yeah, I agree. I mean, not agree with you, but like I can understand that. I mean, ask Willie, ask Junior. I mean, they, I'm like a little kid, man. I'm up and I'm down, I'm up, you know? But yes, I mean, 100%, man, without quitting drinking, I mean, we wouldn't be here. Because you figure out what's important in life.

18:55You find out what you value, right? And then you wanna figure out how to like expand that in outside of just your personal life. Yeah, I do. I do? It's a journey. 100%. The whole thing. Wilson, what about you, man? What do you think about just the people and this whole process? What was your take on this? Dude, we're nothing without our people, man. I mean, they're the greatest asset we have. We gotta take care of them. If you don't take care of your people, I mean, excuse my French, your restaurant's gonna go to shit. I have a, I'd love to hear a little bit more about kind of some of the specific programs that you have that, you know, particularly, you know, what's the gym you guys are partnering with? What's the mental health service that you guys work with? And how do you do that operationally? Do you guys have like a service charge or a, you know, healthy wages fee, any of these kinds of things? How does that all work? This is, yeah, we love, we talk about this internally and we're like, should we?

19:57I mean, cause that's actually a conversation that we've had a few times recently. My restaurant, we're considering changing to a no tipping service charge model, but I'm still kind of waffling. So maybe for my own selfish reasons, I'd love to hear more about that. So we take 1% of our gross sales and we put it at the end of every month, we transfer it into a new checking account. And at the end of the year, we'll take that pot of money and divide it up between every employee by the hours they worked. We offer two weeks of paid vacation. So if you're just using a server as an example, you make an average of what your tips are. So if you average $1,200 a week over the course of the last six months and we're gonna pay $1,200 on your paid time off. Do you do a tip pool? We do not. Okay. No. And do you do like the sub minimum wage with the tips? We do, so it would be like, basically it's your hours and your tips made. So, you know, like I've in the past, I've heard of places where like, oh, we're gonna pay you $10 an hour and that'll be your vacation pay.

21:01So we'll pay you $10 an hour, 40 hours a week, but that's not really what you're making. No. So after six months of full-time employment, you're up for a week of paid vacation. After another six months, you're up for two weeks of paid vacation or another week for paid. This is for full-time employees? Full-time employees. Yeah, full-time employees. Okay. Which is 30 hours a week or more. Yeah. And I mean, most of our employees are full-time employees, but and you can't roll those over. We believe that every six months, everybody should take a break. And so that what we're in theory, what we're hoping is that after your year, your first calendar year that on that second vacation, that 1% of our sales that goes in a pot will help pay for your vacation as well. So we're gonna pay you while you're off and pay your vacation. We partner with Gym 5 that's local to East Nashville. They've been wonderful to work with. We don't pay 100% of health dental and vision yet. We want to eventually, but we give them a monthly tax-free stipend towards it to like pays for just roughly about 50% of it.

22:03Yeah. We pay 100% of insurance for them to have access to mental therapy online. And they can see the same therapist over and over and over again. It's just a virtual session. That's fantastic. Is there a specific company that you've partnered with for that? It's called Healthiest You or Healthiest of You. Healthiest of You. It's an insurance that we pay for and then they have access to like five. Oh, that's included as part of the healthcare program. Oh, interesting. Yep. How many people take advantage of that? Do you get like a report that says how many people actually use it? I'd say probably half our staff take advantage of it. Either some that are young that are still on their parents and some that are like, I don't want insurance and that's their decision to make. Sure. I mean, ultimately the thing is like we're in the business of taking care of people. We have to take care of ourselves. So we have to, we can't make someone go to the gym. We can't say you have to have insurance, but we at least offer those things. So if they want to, they don't have to incur a cost for it.

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24:07John Ho at 615-483-0315 or you can follow him on Instagram at housepetality. Amanda Gardner with Foundation Mortgage is 865-230-1031. Find her on Instagram at mortgageamanda. We are so excited to welcome a new sponsor, Volunteer Welding Gases and Supply. Volunteer Welding Beverage Carbonation began servicing bulk CO2 and beverage gas systems in 1976. They're a service oriented company that is passionate about and dedicated to beverage only gases. How does a gas company provide service? Well, you either know or you don't know until you need it. And they use telemetry to monitor your system. Let's say you're in the middle of a busy lunch and you realize that your gas is empty. What do you do? You call an 800 number, be put on hold and be told that within 24 hours, you potentially can have your carbonation back. That is where the telemetry works.

25:08Volunteer Welding Gases and Supply monitors your tank for this particular occasion. If you get low or there's a leak, they're gonna contact you in advance and put a plan together to make sure that you're never in an 86 situation. Really, it's genius. If you wanna learn more, it's so easy. You give them a call, 615-394-4998. Yep, they're local or email BevCarb at volunteerwelding.com. We have to take care of ourselves. So we have to, we can't make someone go to the gym. We can't say you have to have insurance, but we at least offer those things. So if they want to, they don't have to incur a cost for it. See, I think that's so important, not only because mental health is so important, but I have this theory that in this industry, we experience trauma every day. And when I say trauma, it's not like somebody tries to carjack you every day. I mean, what it means is you start the day off and it's really chill. And then you go through this really hectic rush and it's just hair on fire, everything's going crazy.

26:14And then it slows down and you gotta come down and people yell and they get excited. And it's very matter of fact, in the moment, this gotta be done. And after that, it's like, okay, now do your side work. And it's like, but do you know what I just went through? Like that was, most people would quit their job if they just experienced what I just experienced. And then you're gonna do it again in two hours. And at the end of the day, you need to be able to express that. You need to be able to say, hey, look, this is what I deal with every day. That's why the therapy side of this thing is, even a virtual therapist, for somebody to be able to talk to on a weekly basis to say, this is what happened to me this week, or this is what I'm dealing with, just to cope with some of that stuff, I think is vital. And I think when you don't do that or you don't pay attention to that, that's where that buildup just kind of happens. That's where burnout happens. That's where these mental health issues come to play. Versus talking to a therapist about it, you drink, or you do drugs, or you do whatever it is. I think that's, it's a cycle. And I love the fact that you guys are offering people a chance to break that cycle.

27:18We want to, man. I mean, in my work, I mean, therapy is part of my journey. EMDR, doing a lot of work around the nervous system. That's real, man. I mean, you get smacked. And people are like, oh, you only work for five hours. Like, well, yeah, that's not really, you know. Yes, it may look like that on paper, but we're there before, we're there at the end. But in that five hours, man, it can be like zero to a hundred real quick. Real quick, right? Yeah. So you guys have a list of, I thought your mission, I thought was really interesting. I'm gonna read your mission statement. Sure. Is that all right? Of course. Okay, with you, Caroline? Of course. After many years, life in a restaurant industry takes its toll on their employees. Sacrificing evenings, weekends, holidays, and time with family in order to serve others has damaged the physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing of so many in our industry. At NoCo, we're committed to change the reality of the past and to focus on serving our people first. Change the reality of the past. That's interesting. That's an interesting choice of words. We believe that caring for our people deeply will in turn be reflected positively in your experience with us.

28:22Without our guests, the change we aim to make wouldn't be possible. We couldn't be more grateful that you are here and hope during your time with us, you're able to unwind, relax, and forget about the world outside of NoCo. Thank you so much for joining us here and being part of our mission to change the restaurant industry for the better and for the good. Then you have a list of core values. You have eight core values. We, so we- A lot of core values. It is, but we, so people are like, oh, you should only have this many. And Wilson and I, I'll never forget it. We were in Charleston, South Carolina. We were in a friend's that managed an apartment complex in his conference room because we had nowhere else to go at the time. And everybody said, well, you need to have like succinct, very core values. And I'm like, oh, this is our company. No one needs to, no one can tell us how to operate our company other than ourselves. And so we put those in there. I mean, those are things that are important to us, right? And we have a QR code on our menu that goes straight to that page. And that was one of our employees' ideas. We think that our core values should be known to our guests. That is something different that you're actually putting your core values on the page.

29:22I think that's the foundation a lot of restaurants miss, is having core values. This is how we hire, this is how we live, and this is how we fire. Really, I mean, that's the foundation for who we are. If you're living these core values, then you're doing the right thing. And your core values are positivity, gratitude, sustainability, fun, honesty, forgiveness, humility, and wonder. I think my favorite one there is wonder. Yeah, that's me. Tell me about wonder. Why is wonder one of your core values? It just goes back to having curious intelligence. In all our people, and definitely future leaders, we always wanna look for that sense of wonder in them, always asking questions, always trying to push the envelope, because that's what's gonna make our industry better, is asking each other uncomfortable questions. They're just questions in general. But always trying to push the envelope, dude. How can we be better? How can we be better? What can we do tomorrow to be better?

30:24Insatiable curiosity, as we call it. I love it. Insatiable curiosity, just constantly figuring out, wondering, hey, how does that work? What's next to you? My mind's always racing, always. I walk into a climbing gym, and I look up, and I see all the duct work in the HVAC, and I'm always like, one, how much did that cost? And then two, I wonder how much their power bill is. I do that all the time. I'm always like that with other restaurants, and I go, my husband, who's our chef at Nicky's, and I have this kind of joke when we go to places, and we look and we say, they didn't take out any of the lights, because you know your interior designer comes in with the schematic, and they've got 20 lights over six tables, and I'm like, we can take out two-thirds of those, and you go in a restaurant, and you're like, oh, they didn't take out any of the lights. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's funny, because I just did an interview in Destin last week with a guy that owns a restaurant called Beauchamp's, and every time my family and I go to Destin, we eat at Beauchamp's, and I do that, because they have these boats out back, and they actually have a boat that they go out and fish, and they bring in their own seafood.

31:29Do they, really? Yeah. That's awesome. I never knew that. Oh yeah, they have their own boat, and then they bring seafood, and then they own their own seafood company, and they buy off of their dock, and they do all that, but I sit there and I go, how the fuck did they do this? And so we're going there, and I was like, I'm gonna reach out and see if I can interview them, because I wanna know the answers to this stuff, and I was like, yeah, dude, come on in. So, last week on our episode, you got to hear me talk to Miller Phillips, who owned the restaurant, so I get to, through the podcast, I get to kind of sit in those rooms and go, I'm gonna see if they'll interview, I can find out the answers to all this stuff, and it was really cool. I feel like I have so many more questions for you guys that are not appropriate to discuss on the air, about let's really get into some of these more detailed questions about operations stuff. I just, I really wanna hear more about, you know, when I mentioned, like, do you guys do a service charge, or a healthy wages fee, or something, you guys kind of, you know, it seemed like you guys kind of reacted to that a little bit, and you said that you guys talk about that a lot.

32:31What are your thoughts about that? Because a lot of places, I think, are starting to transition to that kind of a model. It's like a, do we raise our menu prices? Do we add a service charge? How do we make it work? So this is, there's not a perfect answer, and so the reason we battle with this is because we're dealing with what we have. We have one restaurant right now, right? I've come from a background where we had almost 30 restaurants. I think, not knowing all things, if you are a good enough operator, and you have a concept that resonates at the level it should resonate, and you haven't walked into a rent deal that bends you over backwards, you should be able to afford these things for your people without having to pass the charge on to a guest. A hot take. Now, I say that, if NoCo wasn't doing what NoCo was doing, I may be singing a different tune. That was actually gonna be my next question, is, and you know, you guys are so busy right now.

33:37Things are really, and you've been open for how long? A little over five months. And that's awesome. But what happens, if you're not as busy as you are right now one day? We commit. Because I've been in that, I'm sorry, I don't mean to cut you off. No, you're good. And the reason that I'm curious is because I've been in that position before. Where, hey, you know, yeah, I'm sure you guys have been in restaurants for a long time. We've all been in that situation where we have that big opening boom, and then, you know, you're not the new kid on the block anymore, necessarily, and it's not that you've changed anything, or that you're really, I don't know. Yeah, I've closed three restaurants, and I've opened 16 or 17 of those. But that was with somebody else's money. It was. But I say that to say, like, I've seen things work, and I've seen things that were going to work, not work. It's, I don't know, I mean, hopefully we never have to have that conversation. Truly, truly. But with that being said, like, I think a lot of our fear and angst at the beginning was like, oh my God, are we offering too much right out of the gate?

34:45What if no code doesn't resonate? But that's a, I mean, listen, you know, it's all part of taking risks. And do I think we'd be doing what we're doing right now without us taking that risk? No, I know we wouldn't. And I'm not perfect, Wilson's not perfect. I mean, I'm human, I make mistakes on a regular basis. I got feedback from one of our employees that I can sometimes be intimidating because I'm so focused. But we wouldn't be, if we weren't loving our people at the level we were loving our people, they wouldn't be loving our guests at the level they're loving our guests. And so I will risk it any day that we taking care of our people. Like, if we go out of business in the pursuit of that, then we go out of business in the pursuit of that. Now, with that being said, we have to be very smart. We have to be strategic. We have to make sure that we don't walk into a ridiculous rent structure. Our occupancy cost needs to be at a certain percentage.

35:48Before we hopped on the R, what was the rent that you told me you saw recently? $67 a square foot all in is something we were looking at. What neighborhood? East. Wow. Yeah. I mean, does that blow your mind, Brandon? It blows my mind. It's crazy to me. It's the volume you'd have to do. I mean, McDonald's maybe, like, you know? I don't even think McDonald's. I mean, it's crazy. That's wild, that's wild. It's interesting because you talked about the 1% or whatever, and I think that the, I was meeting with a restaurant yesterday and we talked about their menu prices and we looked at what they're doing. So we need to raise our prices. I said, let me see your theoreticals. And they were like, we don't have theoreticals. And I go, well, how the hell are you, do you know what you're charging? And I think it goes back to charging the right amount to the guests. And there's, with social media, we had a long conversation because she had somebody put a review in. It was a one-star review at Nicky's that was like, never going back, paid $57 for a pizza, a shot, a beer, and a tip. And it was like. That's reasonable to me. That's what I thought. I mean, well, that's the thing. And it's like, what's expensive to somebody is not expensive to the next person.

36:50But I don't think the general public understands what it takes to operate a restaurant and rising food costs and all the things. And it's like, so many people price their menu around these two things. What people are gonna say and what their neighbors charge. And those two things have zero to do with your business. What you're actually paying for the product and what your overhead is should factor into a percentage of what you're charging for every single item. And you can factor this stuff in. If the meal costs $5.25 to make and your overhead is X amount and you want your food cost to be at a 28% or 30% or 32%, then just price the food that way. But people are afraid of getting that negative. Oh, it's gonna be too expensive. And it's like, that's what the world costs. But we do also have to toe that fine line between charging what we have to charge, but also not alienating guests who have the perception of this is an expensive place. I agree with that. I mean, I think it all comes down to operational things.

37:54If you've never costed your menu out, you can't know what to charge. And so there's your first thing that operationally to afford these things you have to do. We sat down and we costed the menu out. And we thought that at a raw cost, this is what we would be at. And guess what? That's what we are. But we give away, we give more food than, I mean, I don't even know how much, we probably give away $20,000 in food every month. Like if not more is gifts. And that's our love language. That's our form of advertising. We don't do traditional advertising. We haven't spent $1 on traditional advertising. Like everything is gifts in the sense of that. We feel like if you came in and say you were deciding between a salmon carpaccio and a hamachi crudo, and you couldn't decide, and you're like, I'm going with the salmon carpaccio. We have taught our servers to take autonomy to go, you know what, let's send them the crudo. So then that crudo comes out, it's more impactful when you're going, holy shit, man. These guys are actually listening, right? They actually care. Well, that's that unreasonable hospitality.

38:54Have you read that book? Yep, yep. That's a lot of that coming out. That's that understanding what the guest wants in exceeding their expectations. Yeah. I'm kind of spacing on what we were talking about. I don't know what pricing, how we're charging. Two things we were very intentional with was affordability and approachability. We're nestled in a neighborhood, right? And so the last thing we want to be is somewhere where you just come for anniversary or a birthday or whatever it may be. We wanted people to like homestead NoCo. And we found that. Like we have people that come two, three times a week every week. But it was like, okay, let's take a menu that's affordable where we sat down and we'd go out to dinner in theory for hours on end. Okay, where's a roundabout check average? So we created the menu where you could go high end. If you wanted to come in and spend an arm and a leg, you could. But if you wanted to come in and get out at reasonable prices, you could. And that was very intentional because of where the restaurant is.

39:54You can have that same Tomahawk steak that we have downtown and it's almost $100 more. But they are also paying probably, God knows how much more in rent than we are, so. Do you agree, Wilson, about the service charge thing? Are you anti-service charge? For me, for the service charges, if you're doing it as an operator or power to you, for me personally, you've got to draw the line somewhere. We can't pass everything on to the guests because there's been a couple of times where I'm walking down the street after I have dinner and a couple walks out of the restaurant, they already put 20% service charge on there. Then there was a $3 charge for this and then another $4 charge for this. And in my mind, I'm like, we gotta draw a line somewhere. The guests can't just pay for everything. As an operator, for me, I take that as a challenge. You know what? I've gotta operate better. Where can I save? So the guest doesn't have to pay for that. But we still take care of our people at a deeper level, whether it's through insurance or whatever it may be.

40:57I think people have to, we're passing along the tip to the guest anyway. The guest is paying the service now. So I think we're saying a service charge is saying, you don't have to, because sometimes people get guilted into a 30% tip or something higher than that because they got a free crudo. And now they feel like, well, I gotta hook them up now to pay for that crudo. So I mean, they could almost adversely, now I feel like I gotta pay more because they gave me something for free. And so now they're gonna tip more. And it's like, well, now, but like if there was a service charge on there, and I didn't have to think about tip, I just know I'm gonna put 22% on there. There's a relaxation of that to go, oh, I love going there because I don't, well, if I get Janie, Janie tells me about her, she's a single mom and she can't afford rent and this and this, and I know that's probably not happening where you are, but there's a side of a service charge that just stops all of that. I know when I go there, I'm gonna pay this service charge. I don't have to think, I'm gonna hook this person up or not do this. You just leave a service charge and you go.

41:58There's a side of that that's very relaxing. Do it in Europe, it's fantastic. Are you guys doing service charge at the new place? No. No. I think it's a one case by case. But we do a tip pool. So I mean, it's a similar, everybody comes in and that's part of our emotional tranquility for our staff is I don't want somebody to come in on a slow day and be like, I only made $9. We wanna end the $9, we want everybody to be equitable, everybody makes money. If you come into work, you're gonna make $50 at least. I think for us, the thought behind it really is twofold. I want to pay everyone a stable wage because right now it fluctuates. I want everybody to know what they're making week in, week out. We have too many, there's just too many ups and downs. And yeah, I mean, I think that that's really it for us. Listen, I don't think that there's one right and one wrong way to do it. It's what works for the operator because every situation is different. I truly believe that.

42:58Our next restaurant one day, we may come back in and be singing a different tune. So I think it's just leading and managing people so case by case basis. One size fits one. I'm still deciding. I haven't pulled the trigger yet, we'll see. The automatic gratuity service charge, I feel like that could be up in the air, but the two to $3 charges for like to go where, things like that. COVID charge, everything's gone up, we're just charging extra $3. That I don't agree with, like take that shit off the receipt. Well, you can just add that to the bill. Again, I mean, that's one of those things. If you know what all these costs are, you can add $3 to every entree and then that's just what it costs. Then you can kind of say, hey, look, everything's going up and I have to cover all of my expenses. I'm not breaking, I'm not breaking, I'm not sending you a bill that says, well, your steak was this much, the mashed potatoes was this much, the gravy was that, you're not breaking it all apart, which is essentially what people are doing because they don't wanna raise the prices. They want people to go, look, this is price of the food and then, hey, all this other auxiliary stuff costs us money and we're passing it along.

44:00And I think that's where people feel like they're being nickel and dime, like just add it to the total. Sure. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you can't add to the total if you don't know those numbers. That's the part of operations. If you don't know what those numbers are, you're guessing. And that is irresponsible. Yeah. I mean, it's just not being a good operator. Yeah, I mean, in my opinion, I mean, I'm not trying to be the end all, no all, but like it's math. It's all numbers, man. It's math. And if you can put them all together, it's an equation that you can figure out and go, this is what we need to charge in order to be sustainable. 100%. And to support our staff and to do all the things we need to do, this is the price we need to charge. Then charge it. Yeah. And go. Exactly. All right. This is a fun conversation. Sorry guys, we're like getting so technical. I guess that's why I'm like, I'm hesitant to ask you on the air because I know how deep Brandon and I can get into these like geeky operational talks. And I don't know how engaging that is for everyone to listen to, but I love it. Maybe surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals is important.

45:01So we could talk all day about this and I may ruffle some feathers, but. I want to get into a topic conversation though. I've got a lot of feedback on. I've been getting text messages. Oh boy. It's not Jason Aldean. Oh God. It's not Jason Aldean. We're not going to give him any more air time. The bear. Have you guys watched the bear? So I'm in season two right now. Okay. She's the one in season two. You finished it? We won't give any spoilers for you. Sure. What are your thoughts? Do you like it? So here's, I'll give you the, she's not a fan. I'm a massive fan. I've got a lot of feedback over the last few days that I'm with Caroline or I'm with Brandon. Brian Lee Weaver put on there online. But hey, look, I'm with you. And then I had a couple texts me. They were like, no, dude, that shows legit. Like everything about it. It's an individual thing. What are your thoughts on the bear? I like the show. Yeah. I like it. Team Brandon over here. I like that.

46:01Team Brandon. Yeah. I'm team Brandon right now. But season two, I liked a whole lot better than season one. Oh yeah. For sure. What's more of what you're doing? And then, yeah, just like when they started talking about, you know, electrical and like the TI and like people coming in to do inspection systems and like all that. I'm like, oh my God. I remember when we went through that. I can't tell you how many circles I walked in when we were waiting for the electrical guy to come for our electrical inspection. Just waiting. Just pulling my hair out. Fire suppression system. That was a three visit. I mean, it's, yeah. Yeah. Just seeing that I was like, oh my God, like, to see how they portrayed how stressful that was. And I just remember how stressed I was when we were going through it for no cause. Like, okay, this is like kind of real. Like, I think they portrayed that very well. And then I think the end of season two, you can kind of take and- Look at your ears. You know, whatever- I'll forget.

47:02Whatever lesson that you get from that walk-in scene is like what you take away with it. I think people have taken away many different things. But for me, without giving away too many spoilers, the lesson I learned from that scene was like, you just gotta trust your team more. I'm gonna like- That's big. That's big right there. That's a big one. I'm gonna kind of go with you. So I like it. There are moments of it. Kind of like the- Welcome to my community. Construction process of it that I love. I think there's a lot of like insightfulness. I haven't gotten to the walk-in scene, but I've heard about the walk-in scene. How many episodes are you in on season two? Eight. You've saw us episode seven, Polishing the Forks. Yeah. That was a beautiful one. Was that an episode? So there's, that's what I'm saying. There's elements of it that I love, but there's, so I- There are moments of it like the Seven Fishes one, the one that was an hour, where like, I'm like, dude, I can't watch this anymore. I'm getting so much anxiety. I have so much tension from it. It was quite intolerable to watch, but not for the reasons I think they wanted it to be intense.

48:03I think that they wanted it to be intense. To be like, yeah, this is like what it's really like to be in the middle of it. I'm like, no, no, no, it isn't. As a restaurant employee and a member of an Italian family, neither one, neither one of those things resonated with me. There's moments of it where I'm like, man, this, I can't watch it. It's too, I get so much anxiety. Yeah. Like, I mean, just the alcohol, and I thought the character development in that episode was everything, because you learn the backstory where they all come together, like, okay, I get it. And it's such a tumultuous time, the family dynamic of all those people, because you don't really know how Richie and- Right. They're just cousins. I don't know, but then you kind of go back and you're like, okay. You need that explanation. You don't know about, like, Bob Odenkirk's character. It feels almost out of place that episode. You did? It had to be an hour. I was like, fuck, dude. I know, man. It was, I was like- I'm like a little, like, scary movies on the bitch. Oh, man. Like, a complete, like, bitch.

49:04In that scene, I was a bitch. I was like, I can't watch this shit anymore. I had to, like- Well, as somebody who formerly drank, you can watch that. And you just, it's just my family. I don't know, I just, I go, I was, like, triggered. I mean, I was like, I don't, I know what this feels like. But that episode seven, polishing the silverware- It's a beautiful one, man, because he, it clicked, right? He had the light bulb moment and he became so intent in his intention with, and that's a beautiful thing when something like that happens, when the light bulb moment happens for people. And that's, I thought that, and I'm gonna go into salesman mode here, sorry. Cause I'm gonna sell you on why I was like, I think in our industry, we have people that chose not to go to college and they chose not to do with me. I mean, like, that are somewhat can be broken. We're all experiencing all this trauma all the time and they come in, whether you've been told you weren't good enough your entire life, whatever your background is, in the show, I saw people like that. And then they put structure in place and then they did something good.

50:06And they had this moment where they went, oh, I'm good at this. And you told me I was good at this. And they, that light bulb moment for people that were just doing a job, punching in, punching out at the beginning. And now they're like, oh my God, I love the scene where she gets the pan. Do you know what I'm talking about? She cracks open the box. And the new pan, she's like, what's wrong with these pans? She's like, no, no, no. And she was dealing with the old pans. She gets the new pan. And that respect for that new pan, that perspective, I just thought like, that's cool. You wouldn't imagine that character in the last season giving a shit about something like that. And all of a sudden it was really special to her. And I was like, that's, I've got feedback on that part of it. They're like, that pan thing was amazing, man. With that moment when she got the pan and this and that. And I was like, yeah, it's pretty, I don't know. I liked it. There's moments of it that I love. There's moments of it where I just can't watch. Like the owner sitting at the table in the final episode, the woman sitting at the table with her husband having dinner and keep getting up to go do stuff. She's like, why are you sitting down eating dinner? It's opening night. Like, what the fuck is this?

51:08Is that in season two? Oh no, you haven't got there yet. He's like, I don't know. That wasn't really a spoiler, but. Sorry, that wasn't a spoiler. That's something that happens. It's all good. I think it's all been spoiled. It's their first night ever open, friends and family PPX night. And she's just sitting at the table with her husband having dinner and they have to keep being like, hey, we need your help. It's like, what the fuck are you doing? She's like, I'm sorry. It's like, yeah, get your ass. Stop eating dinner. It's like, I guess I work. She goes, I guess I work here now. I was like, yeah, yes. Anyway, well, if anybody would like recommendations for good TV shows, hit me up. So if you're out there and you're wondering, so I'm gonna, I'll do this today, but this won't come out for a little bit, but you're gonna, I'm gonna put on Instagram and do it. I'm gonna do a story where I have people vote which team they're on and we're gonna figure out. Now here's a show that's a restaurant show that's a really great show. Do you guys remember the restaurant with Rocco De Spirito? It was like one of the first reality shows. It came out, it's produced by Mark Burnett. It came out like right around the same time Survivor and the Apprentice first came on and you can watch the entire series on YouTube.

52:12I, my husband and I have an annual viewing of this show. So it's a reality show. It's a reality show. It's called The Restaurant. It's called The Restaurant and it's Rocco De Spirito and Jeffrey Chatteroe opening a restaurant in SoHo. It's Rocco's first flagship restaurant that he's the chef owner and it is a wild ride, wild ride. Can't recommend it. Where can I find this on Hulu or something? On YouTube. It's like kind of a bootleg, but you can watch it in its entirety on YouTube, two seasons, absolutely phenomenal. Sweet, I'm gonna have to do that. I didn't know anything about that. It is, like I said, it's a wild ride. Well, we've talked about operations and we're getting pretty inside baseball stuff here. Let's lighten it up. Let's talk about what you guys do in your off time. You guys married yet? Kids, do you have a life outside of the restaurant? What do you do for fun? Oh man, dude, ever since moving back to Nashville, I haven't been as outdoorsy as I'd like to be. Oh, my bad, you know, I gotta stay close to the mic.

53:13All right, now I haven't been as outdoorsy as I would like to be. Living in Charleston, I picked up surfing, which was a huge challenge, but- Hard to do here. Yeah, can't do that in Nashville much. Well, on a wake, I guess, but. But yeah, dude, I love going out to eat, seeing what other people are doing, enjoying other chefs' food. Where have you eaten of note that you love the chefs' food? Who do you wanna shout out? So, my most recent visit. What Chefs Want's story is incredibly unique. The owner, Ron Trenier, met with a bunch of chefs in Louisville back in the early 2000s and asked them one simple question. What do you want? And the chefs, they responded emphatically. We want deliveries on Sunday. We wanna be able to split any item that you sell. We want a frictionless experience where we feel like we're being served. And so, you know what he did? Something crazy. He did just that. So, What Chefs Want is not only a company that's delivering fresh produce, fresh seafood, fresh custom cut meats, specialty items, dairy, gourmet, all of that seven days a week.

54:24They also offer 24-7 customer support. You wanna call, you wanna text, you wanna email, you can talk to somebody 24-7. Get your delivery seven days a week and an amazing selection of products. That is What Chefs Want. So, if you ever wonder why do they call it that? That's your reason. Check them out at whatchefswant.com. When you hear that sound, it's probably too late. You need a guy. I wanna be your guy. I'm Kevin with Corson Fire and Security and I'm a Restaurant Territory Account Manager. Do you know who's doing your inspections at your restaurant? Please reach out to me at 615-974-2932. I'd be glad to come out and take a quick look and look at all your fire safety inspection needs. If you're building your restaurant, we can help with that too. As far as kitchen suppression, fire extinguishers, emergency lights, we do it all, one stop, one shop. Call Kevin at 615-974-2932.

55:28Let me be your guy, Nashville. We are joined with Jason Ellis from SuperSource Nashville. They have been a sponsor for this podcast for almost three years. We are so honored to work with them. This is a great company and a great man. Jason, what can people expect if they give you a call? Come out, do a complete audit of their facility, see in which ways we could help them approve, if any, and see what we can do as far as helping them save some money. So the first thing they gotta do is just give us a call, 770-337-1143, or they can email me directly at jellis at supersourceinc.com. We'll come out, take a look at your operations, see in which ways we can help. That's amazing. So if you're out there right now listening to this, call Jason Ellis or email him today. Where have you eaten of note that you love the chef's food? Who do you wanna shout out? So my most recent visit, I was actually, not in town actually, so forgive me for that. I was in Atlanta. I went to Gun Show, Kevin Jalebi's restaurant. It was so upbeat, so chaotic, but I loved it.

56:32It was just like, hey, we made this today, you want it, yes or no? And I'm like, yeah, just bring it on, and just checked it off. So that was a pretty cool experience. But yeah, that was my most recent dining experience. That was really, really cool. We're around here though. Like, is there anywhere in Nashville that you've eaten that you love? Yeah, I love Ralph and Daughters. Okay, that's a good one. Hands down, Ralph and Daughters. Locust for me. I'd literally, probably my favorite restaurant. I've been four times. Do we need to say why? It just, man, the first time I walked in there, I was with the guy that helped us design the studio. His name's David Laboudier. And I've only eaten at 12 o'clock on a Sunday. I've never been able to get a reservation any other time. But we walked in, and there's like this, it's gonna sound stupid, but when I was younger, before football games, we would go to CeeCee's Pizza. And every time you walk into CeeCee's, they would say, welcome to CeeCee's. And the first time I ever walked into Locust, everybody genuinely lifted their head up and said like, hello, we're welcome.

57:37And it was this immediate like feeling of like, I belong here. And the last time I went in, they didn't do that. The meal was still wonderful. But that like, I'm a feeling person. I'm all about a feeling that's given. In the moment I walked in there, it was like, hey man, we're grateful you're here. And when I know that someone's grateful I'm there, like I can like relax and just let everything go away. Do you think that's the minority now? Yes, I do. I don't, man, and I don't know why, but yeah, a lot of times when you go out to eat, I feel like there's indifferent service. I feel like you just kind of, people just, you're just kind of lucky to be there. And I mean, man, when I was at Locust, every time I've been at Locust, even the last time when they didn't do that, I was like, this is a cool spot. And not only is Trevor and his team doing an amazing job. I mean, the food's executed at a very high level.

58:40They were very kind while they did it. I'll tell you where I've been going for lunch, pretty much three or four times a week. It was in the wash. Oh yeah. Yeah. Chad and Gracie are awesome with Eastside Fun, Eastside Bund Me, Chris at SS Guy. I think we can get SS Guy like five. That's SS Guy's fantastic. I just ate there a couple days ago. It's amazing, amazing, amazing. Did you have this? Chris, Chris is doing a fucking awesome job. He is doing a fucking awesome job. Have you had the Suiza Super Quesadilla yet? I had that last week. It was so good. I still haven't had the Quesadilla. Oh my God. If you get the Don Juan Especial, it's legit. It has like French fries in it and fresh jalapenos. I haven't gotten to that one yet. I've just gotten the regular Quesadillas. I haven't done steak and I've done chicken. I haven't done that one yet. No wash is a really cool spot though. It is. There's some really good stuff over there. It's a cool spot. Yeah. And it's like right down the road from No Crow. So like we definitely, we go there for lunch, maybe three or four times a week, whether it's with Chad and Gracie or Chris. Yeah, we're always eating.

59:41Yeah. I love it when people say they've never been to East Side Banh Mi and I'm like, oh, I've taken like 20 people for their first visit to East Side Banh Mi and I'm like, what is a Banh Mi? And I'm like, oh, I get so excited. The bread, yeah. I mean, that's what makes Banh Mi, right? The bread, but. I think the bread and the crisp, crispness of like the carrots and then the fresh cilantro and the whole thing, it's just like, I don't know, it's just heaven. Yeah. Never had a bad one yet. During opening, we would just be like, all right, it's time for lunch. Let's go over there. I think the crazy thing is that, you know, they have this really cool incubator system that you are here hospitality. I don't know if you guys know about what they do, but they partner. So like Chris and Emma were at East Side Banh Mi for like a year and a half and like an apprenticeship type program while they built up SS. Kind of did some pop-ups at East Side Banh Mi, but you could go to East Side Banh Mi and you'd have Chris and Emma like making your food. And you're like, well, this is pretty cool. This is an all-star team here. They're bringing people in and they're helping other people open restaurants and they're building. It's a beautiful thing. They're doing really cool stuff. I don't think there's two better people in this city.

01:00:44Chad and Grace are amazing. The most warm and welcoming from, we have a mutual, Chad and I have a mutual friend. It was like we'd known each other for years. We met for a cup of coffee and I mean, they brought us family meal. They fed our entire staff like the second week of opening. Just righteous people, man. They really are. They really are. All right, Carolyn, what else do you wanna know? You guys have, what kind of TV do you guys watch? We love trash TV over here. I love The Bachelorette and Bachelor. Home Towns was last night. I haven't watched too much TV, but I was a big Snowfall fan. I finished that whole series. Snow, I don't even know what that is. I don't even know what that is either. It's about a kid, grew up in the late 80s, early 90s in LA. And he was the one who turned cocaine into crack. He started selling it. Wow, yep, I've heard of that one. That sounds interesting. So it's an entrepreneurial story. Yeah, it's an entrepreneurial story.

01:01:44It's like, I try to find inspiration in the weirdest places. No, but there's this conspiracy theory, I don't know. I was born in 94. So there's, I guess like back in the day, they thought the US was the one who brought cocaine to the US and blah, blah, blah. It's a pretty prevalent conspiracy theory, theory. I don't know how much credence there is to that or not. I mean, for sure. So they talked about that a little bit, for sure. But yeah, I finished that series. It was a really good series. First season slow and then two through six were awesome. I'm not a big TV fan. No, movies? No, not really. I mean, I get very disinterested very quickly. And so like, I'll maybe like, oh man, this is the greatest show ever. And then I like, after season one, I just lose interest. So kind of, I'm very like ADD when it comes to TV watching. Like it's taken me a month and a half to get through season two of The Bear. I'm not even through it yet. Oh wow. So yeah, it's- I'm an addict.

01:02:46I started and it's like, oh, I gotta finish. Yeah, like, I mean, I am an addict, but it doesn't translate to TV necessarily. Interesting. It's weird. Yeah. I'm reading like six different books right now. That I can, I can, yeah. So I've got like seven books I'm in the process of reading. And I don't know if I'll finish one anytime soon. So single guy, you got a girlfriend? Got a girlfriend. Okay. Single guy here. Single guy here, okay. A restaurant life, man. Restaurant life, that's what it is. Living the life, living the dream. Yeah, yep. All right. Well guys, we've kept you here almost an hour. I think that we- It's been that long? Yeah, that's how fast these things go. Seriously, what do you guys want to know? You guys got anything for us? Anything you want to ask us or anything that we didn't talk about that you really want to talk about? We didn't talk about the food. You want to- Food's great, man. I mean, you know, it's, it's, we always wanted it to just be a comfort food for people to come in and find comfort in it. And Chef Junior has done an amazing job.

01:03:46And he's originally from Vietnam, moved here when he was 12. So he's got a, he's got a wealth of knowledge. He's gone to culinary school, but I'd say he's more like self-trained. Been in sushi for the last 10 years. So there's some of that reflection there, some crudos, some carpaccios, some tartars, but- No, he's going to get the sushi itch soon. Yeah, sushi itch soon. But no, man, we're just grateful to be here. Do you guys do sushi right now? I actually, I have an important question. Do you guys have a bar that you take walk-ins? We do. So we have a patio with 40 seats for walk-ins and we also have a bar that's for walk-ins. And if I want to make a reservation- Brandon added out the bar part so I can go in. If you want to make a reservation, open table, our website, or you can just grab my phone number and you can shoot me a text. Yeah, sushi and whatever, man. I definitely need, I mean, I will come in the next, like- You should, man. Once I open this restaurant. We'd love to have you. When's that supposed to happen? We start training today. In your year. Well. With us. Today because the episode comes out today. We actually started today on August 14th.

01:04:50We start training today. See what I did there? See what I did there? Today we are actively training today. All of the staff is here. Then we open on August 22nd. So a week from tomorrow, we're doing like a, next Monday we're doing a Belmont faculty and staff night. We're bringing all the staff from, people from Belmont in to do like a third kind of a friends and family night. Then we open to the public on Tuesday. What's your biggest fear in restaurant openings? I think that, you know, I think it's like throwing a party and nobody shows up. I mean, I think that's the biggest fear. I mean, or the fear is that too many people show up. But ultimately it's things that are out of my control. So I don't, I don't worry. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't worry about things. I control the things I can control. No, I'm actually the same way. I just do it. I mean, I'm not opening a restaurant right now, but I'm like, what's the biggest fear?

01:05:50And I feel like, none of the things that I should have been worried about were things that were worrying me. But I also feel like it's such a leap of faith. Kind of what you were saying earlier that you kind of have to go into it fearless. You know, you can't, you kind of just have to disassociate and go in and just be like, it's gonna be great. You can't think about it. Somebody asked me the other day, last night I was talking to a guy and he said, please don't take this as arrogance because you just see Caroline roll her eyes. He said, man, you open a restaurant, man, that's gotta be, that's a tough job, man. That's a tough job. And I went, yeah. I mean, I think the perception to everybody out there is it's a tough job because if you're an independent restaurant and you spend 70 hours a week in there and you do all these things, but like we have, you know, a couple healthy restaurants that do a good job and we use culture index and we hire the right people and we hire enough people and we clearly explain what our expectations are and we do a lot of the things to operate this business really well.

01:06:58And then when you hire the right people and you explain exactly what your expectations are, then you hold people accountable to those expectations in a healthy way. It doesn't have to be that hard. Does shit happen? I thrive on chaos. I like it when it's crazy. That's my go time. So that doesn't scare me at all. Like I'm ready for all like right now, this is leading up to next week. This is the time I'm in my element. It doesn't scare me at all. This would paralyze a lot of people. That's why we do what we do. But I don't, I didn't think of it as like it's a terrible thing or it's really hard. Like there's just certain things you gotta do in advance and do it well. And it isn't as hard. Am I crazy? No, I mean, I think anything's hard if you don't know what you're doing. I don't know. I don't know how to give stitches. That sounds hard to me, but I'm sure my doctor is like, stitches, no problem. I think though anything worthwhile has challenges, right? So it's all relative.

01:07:59Like get out of your comfort zone. I mean, running 30 miles is hard, but to the guy that runs 30 miles every day, running 30 miles is just standard. It's all relative. Right. Yeah, I can see that. You guys seem like it's natural for you. What you're doing, how you're doing it. And I love that. And I would implore everybody out there if you work in the industry to go check out NoCo. It's in East Nashville. What's your address? 701 Porter Road. 701 Porter Road. The former Pomodoro East location for Nashville. Oh, right off of Eastland? Yeah, right off of Eastland. Okay, right on the corner right there. That's okay. I didn't, obviously I haven't eaten there yet. You're good. But I didn't know that's the location. Yeah, okay. We love that location. We love, yeah, man, that. Couldn't ask for better. Yeah. No, that's fantastic. It's wild. Did Willie buy that previously? Or did he? Willie owned it, but he didn't own the property. So the property is owned by a nonprofit.

01:09:01And so it's kind of like, I don't know if an incubator, but sort of like that. There's like those shops up top, and then down below is a community for deaf people. And so there's apartments down below where a deaf community lives. Like one of our dishwashers, Thomas, he lives downstairs. Nice. He's like probably one of, he's so solid. He's probably the funniest guy we've got on the staff. He's hilarious. Anyways. That's awesome, man. Yeah, yeah. So 701 Porter, East Nashville, not too far from the Jenny's, Rose Pepper. We're closed on Mondays, weekdays. We're open from five in our last seedings at 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, last seeding is at 10 p.m. And then we're open for brunch on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 2.30. What's your brunch? It's fantastic. Tell us about it. So good. Why don't you talk about the menu, man? Yeah, man. So brunch, we've got a couple hits from dinner, like the tuna crispy rice.

01:10:03It's been the number one thing for dinner, so we brought it on for brunch. We take our burn ends, but we kind of brunchify it. We turn it into a rice bowl, has a fried egg on top. We do a Hawaiian poke, which is really good. We just take more brunch, some egg four dishes, and combine it with our dinner menu. Brunchify. Brunchify. Yeah, we brunchified it. I just came up with that on the floor. Brunchify that chef. It's a smaller menu, but we've got like four or five of the hits in there. But I mean, we've got waffles with ube butter. We've got karage, chicken, rice bowls. The chef takes the scraps from the wagyu brisket we do, makes a French dip out of it, and then he takes the jus sauce is like a fuzz sauce. So that's decadent and fantastic as well. Sounds delicious. It's pretty good. Do you guys do a happy hour? Mm-mm. Mm-mm. No? No, maybe one day, but at the moment we haven't.

01:11:05I mean, typically. We're full anyway, so. Not every day, but typically by 5, 45, six o'clock, the entire restaurant's full and it doesn't stop until the very end. What time do you open? Five. Five. So if you want to go in your kind of last minute, get there at five. Yeah, or come on a beautiful night because we've got 40 seats on the patio that we do not reserve. We're enclosing that this winter with retractable sides and AC heat, but that will never be reservable. That's for the neighborhood. I mean, we open the restaurant wanting to be busy, but we never in a million years do we think we'd be as busy as we are, but we can't alienate the neighborhood. I mean, that's what it's there for. So the worst thing would be like someone to walk in and could never get a reservation at NOCA. So we've got 40 seats that are only for walk-ins. Yeah. It's also really hard to do reservations when it could rain. 100%. And you put 40 people out there, you reserve those seats and then a storm comes and you're like, I gotta find a place to put them. Yeah. That's never a good thing. That's not fun. When you cover it and enclose it.

01:12:05Then we'll be good, but we're still not gonna reserve it. Okay. Yeah. Intentionally. We love saying yes, man. We're like, when you come on in, yeah, we'll get you down. Yeah. My hosts hate me for that. Yeah, mine too. People will come in and they'll be like, where can we pull? And I'm like, we'll find you a spot. Don't leave. Like, come on, let's get you in here. I'll get you a glass of wine while you wait. Just hang out. Give me 10 minutes. I'll figure out a table. Then you go and I got you. Then people are like, holy, that dude just made that happen. I didn't have, and it's like, yeah, I'm not turning you away. So we like part of our, you know, wonder, right? To go back to it as people wondering and like traveling as well. And so anytime, 99% of the time, someone wants to take time off, Wilson and I are gonna figure it out. So we've had a couple shifts where Wilson's hosted and I've managed. And all of a sudden I'm like, we don't have any room for walk-ins. And then I looked down like, what? Hey asshole, what the hell? Like we got, we'll figure it out. I'm like, you're hosting. I'm the one that's got to deal with all the upset guests. Dude, sometimes I'm just throwing darts at this one.

01:13:08Like, yeah, we can get you down. Sure. You ever do that, Caroline? Oh, I love it. I'm like a- It's a chaos. I love it. Yeah, I'm like a table Tetris master. Dude, I just figured out how to use the timeline on Open Table. Oh, it's the best. Oh, really? Yeah, it took me like how many years? Nine? It's pretty amazing when you do it. Yeah, once you learn it, it's like pretty cool. Like, oh, this will do it for me. This is great. All right, gentlemen, the last thing that we do here is we do the Gordon Food Service Final Thought. Gave you a heads up on this, John. Did not give you, we'll send heads up. So we'll let John go first. You guys get to take us out. Interview's over. I turn the mic over to you. You get to say whatever you want to say. Kind of as a final thought. Anything, it doesn't matter. There's no rules. If you want to talk about who you want to vote for, or if you want to talk about something about your restaurant or a philosophy, a favorite quote, I don't care. Whatever you want to do, whatever you want to say, the mic is yours.

01:14:12I would say for those that are listening that have dined at NoCo, we're extremely grateful. Without the Nashville community's acceptance and response to us, we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing. And so the word grateful is something that continuously comes to mind in our pursuit of trying to change hospitality internally. So we're just grateful to Nashville for receiving us well and supporting us. Love it. Wilson? For me, I'm going to say that too. Grateful for everyone who has chosen to be inside of our four walls as a guest. We are extremely grateful for you. Extremely grateful for the city of Nashville. And for those of you, maybe it isn't a restaurant, but who want to open their own business, just go for it. Just fucking go for it, do it. I like that. Caroline, you want to throw in anything? No, I thought those were great. There's nothing left to say. Amazing. You guys did. We said it all. I love your thoughtfulness. I love what you guys are doing.

01:15:13I cannot wait to go eat there. By the time this comes out, I will have eaten there. How does that sound? Appreciate you all having us on. Oh, thanks guys. Thanks for your time. We know you're busy. We love geeking out about this stuff. And you guys just right in there. We can dig in even more deeper another time. Well, we'll have to do it again. A lot of times we finish, we're like, we could have gone for three more hours. It's a thing. Thank you guys. Have a wonderful rest of your week. Wish you nothing but the best of success. And we'll see you again soon. Appreciate it. Big thank you to John and Wilson from NoCo. If you have not been out there, go check them out, East Nashville. And they're doing some amazing things, wood-fired Asian cuisine. And I like the hint. I like that they're gonna start playing with some sushi. So hell yeah. I think that's the number one thing people say is we gotta find some great sushi. And we've got some good spots in town. I think there's some great spots and let's get some more. So thanks for listening and hope you guys are being safe out there. We'll see you next week. Love you guys. Bye.