Josh Habiger-Chef/Owner

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. And our guest today is Josh Hobbiger. Josh is the executive chef and owner at Bastion over in the Wedgwood, Houston area. If you have not been there, you are missing out. Josh was the original chef for the catbird seat, moved to Nashville to open the Patterson house. This interview tells his entire story. We have such a good time. We talked for like an hour and a half. I know I say that every time, but we really cover everything and I hope that you enjoy what we talk about. First, I do want to talk to you real quick about Spring Mountain Farms Chicken. Spring Mountain Farms Chicken are doing amazing things and with all of this rise with COVID-19, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what they were doing. As a food manufacturing company, it is vital that we continue to provide a healthy and reliable food source.

01:13We have taken precautions against COVID-19 to protect the health and well-being of our employees, allowing us to continue to operate on a normal schedule. In addition, we have now increased production levels to help with the overwhelming increased demand at grocery stores and restaurants. We appreciate your confidence and support as we work to navigate through this difficult time together. So rest assured as we continue to move through this pandemic, they are with you. They're going to continue to supply the best chicken on the planet to you. Find them at every public grocery store around town. Select Kroger's has them as well. And then there's a full list. If you go to their website at springmountainfarms.com and check on the Find Us tab, you'll be able to find them all over the country. So with that being said, I wanted to tell you guys thank you so, so much for all of the love. We've had over 3,000 views of our video where chefs are reading mean reviews. We've got another episode coming up shortly, probably about this weekend with our second round of chefs reading mean reviews. So keep liking, keep sharing, keep getting the word out. If you like listening to these podcasts, you like watching these podcasts, subscribe to our YouTube channel. You'll get them automatically. Subscribe to our, subscribe on Anchor, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, subscribe on Spotify. We love it when you do that. We love it when you share what we're putting out there content wise. When you like it, just let us know. We're looking for feedback.

02:38Tell us we're doing great. Tell us to pound sand. I'm in, whatever it might be. I'll regret that last one, but we certainly do appreciate you listening and I appreciate you listening to this episode. So let's jump right in right now with Josh Hobbiger. All right, so we are joined here at Nashville Restaurant Radio with Josh Hobbiger. How are you today, Chef? I'm doing good. How are you doing? I'm doing great and I want to ask that question again because I think that we use that question as a general greeting and we kind of do the, hey, how are you doing? How are you doing? And right now, more so than any time ever, one of the ways I've been introducing guests is I've said, how are you? Like, how are you? I think there's not a more important question than how are you doing right now? There's a lot of insanity happening, a lot of trauma we've all been dealing with. So how are you? Yeah, I mean, I think I, you know, I answered with the standard response as well and just said, oh, I'm doing good. Yeah, it's not that easy. I think it's, times are strange right now. You know, half for a while, 100% of our staff was furloughed and now half of them are back. Half are still furloughed. Bastion, for those who, you know, know or don't know, is kind of two separate entities. Half of it is kind of a big, fun neighborhood bar with this little 24 seat restaurant tucked behind it.

04:10Currently, in order to kind of operate in what we think is the best way possible, we moved the dining room from the restaurant out into the neighborhood bar area. So rather than operating with a 50% capacity in a tiny space, 12. Yeah, we're essentially doing you know, we have, let's see, six, about, yeah, we can do about 26 or 28 people in the current setting with lots of space between people and, you know, everyone that's been in here so far has said they felt very comfortable. I think it's, you know, we're doing things the best way we could possibly do them in the current state of things, but that still means we're losing about 50% of our revenue and half of our staff is still unemployed. The country's rapidly getting worse as we speak right now and we're going backwards instead of forwards and I think at the end of this month, we're going to get to a point to where it's going to come to a head.

05:20I mean, I think that we're going to have to, our government's got to make some really big decisions and it's going to be a, it's going to get very, very interesting and I want to go in that route, but I first want to talk a little bit about where you come from to introduce people who don't know who you are or kind of that know who you are but don't know your history. I'd like to kind of just go through some of it and then get to how we got where we are. Is that okay? Yeah, let's do that. So let's start with you. You're from Minnesota. I grew up in, yeah, St. Joseph, Minnesota. It's a town of about, I don't know, when I was a kid, I think it was like somewhere in like the three to five thousand people range. When I was a kid, there was one set of stoplights in St. Joseph, Minnesota. And then you kind of got into the industry, busing tables, dishwasher, kind of just as the most people enter the industry, right? Yeah, yeah. I think it's an interesting, you know, kind of funny story. Like there, in this, you know, in St. Joseph, right, when I was born, right near like at the intersection where that one set of stoplights is, there's a, let's see, a diner, a funeral home, and two gas stations are like the four things on the corners. And behind the diner, there's a trailer park.

06:42And my family, you know, when my parents were pregnant with me, we were living in that trailer park, and my mom was working at that diner. And 15 years later, I was, you know, doing dishes at that diner. And it was, you know, it was a very strange place in the sense that these people were, you know, the tomatoes were coming from their garden. And we were, you know, we were putting them on slices of tomatoes on burgers and stuff like that, chopping up tomatoes to put them in a Denver omelet, stuff like that. But, you know, they really cared. Like a lot of the lettuce was coming from their garden. They were, they were just, I don't know, you know, later in life, I found out they had ties to restaurants in Napa and things like that. They were like really, I don't know, kind of, they happened to have this diner, but they were also like incredibly amazing people. And so I can see, the beginning of the picture is just kind of starting to begin where that kind of was instilled in your brain. Like in the early age, you start working in restaurants, that's the way things are done. They have a garden, they pull their own tomatoes, they cut their own tomatoes, they're producing what they're putting out to their guests. And it's a high quality product. It's not something that's manufactured and shipped in a cold cooler over the country. And you were staging in 2002 in London.

08:13Yeah. Doug, how did you get there? How did you make the leap from, I'm dishwashing at the local diner in my small town to, I'm going to go overseas. Well, so, you know, from the little diner that I worked at, you know, I went from washing dishes to cooking pretty quickly. From there, I, you know, went to the next town over, they had like a steakhouse, and I worked there for a while. And I was, you know, the youngest cook in the kitchen, but trying to hang with these people that were older than me. And I think I did a pretty good job there. From there, I went to one of those kind of fake Italian restaurants, not the Olive Garden, but our town didn't have an Olive Garden, but something of that, I would say, of that quality level. You know, we did have unlimited breadsticks and all you can eat salad with your meal. And the chef there was a guy that had gone to culinary school. And, you know, at this point, I was like in my first year of college, a place called St. Cloud State University, which I wouldn't recommend. But they, you know, he kind of convinced me like, you know, this is a, you know, this is a possibility.

09:24You could be a chef if you wanted to. And so, per his advice, I talked to my parents and told them I wanted to go to culinary school. Decided to go to New England Culinary Institute in Vermont. At that time, they had a campus in Burlington, which is a cool city. And the way the program worked there was you'd have six months of school, six months of an internship, six months of school, and six months of an internship. I had moved back to Minneapolis. Well, I guess to Minneapolis. Back to Minnesota to work at this restaurant called Araga under a chef named Doug Flicker, who is still a friend of mine and a mentor and just an amazing, amazing dude. And, you know, during my internship after, you know, I'm sure it was pretty rocky at the start where he was like, who is this guy? Like, why, you know, what's this guy trying to do? You know, I became friends with all the staff and became part of the staff. And he kind of convinced me, like, instead of going back to school for that second year, why don't you just go to somewhere else, travel and learn? And coincidentally, one of the kids I went to culinary school with hit me up and said, hey, I'm squatting in London right now. You should come here and live for free in the most expensive city in the world. And I was like, that sounds cool.

10:46So I got a ticket to London and had a backpack full of stuff and some knives. And my plan was just to kind of like dodge at restaurants. And after, I think it was at a place called St. John at the time, it was the first time I told somebody that I was squatting. Coincidentally, that day when I got home, there was a sign on the door or a note on the door that said, you know, we found you guys are here and living illegally. And if you don't, you know, vacate this premises and, you know, by this date, all of your belongings will be destroyed, blah, blah, blah. It's like, oh, shit, we got to go. And I think it was Fergus at St. John that had told me about the fat duck. And he said there's this restaurant outside of town that was doing some crazy stuff. And so I just showed up there with a backpack one day. All my stuff was, you know, they do like a lunch service, and then they close from like two or three o'clock in the afternoon to six o'clock in the evening. And I showed up during their break and asked if I could work there. And the guy said, I had to do at least a month, I think, is what he said. He just showed up for a month. That original chef at the Italian restaurant with the free breadsticks and endless salads, the one who said, Hey, I think you might be able to do it, kind of talk to you into maybe you could possibly become a chef. What were the things that he said? What were the enticing things that he said about chef life that made you want to do that? I don't, I think I just, I just liked the environment. I liked working in a restaurant.

12:29People were always the most interesting people to me. And it was like the, I mean, I think it's two things. I think, you know, that steakhouse that I worked at, there was a guy going to school for like, to become a meteorologist on one side of me, and a guy that just got out of prison on the other side of me. And I was like, this is like, where else do you find this sort of like, random chunk of people, you know, like, it's such a broad spectrum of the people that you find working in restaurants, you know, between them, the back of the house, the dishwashers, the cooks, the front of the house, the managers, like everybody has a crazy story in life. And I guess it's like that, you know, anywhere. Not like restaurants. I had an old restaurateur who told me that he loved his restaurants because he was the leader of the land of misfit toys. Yeah, totally. It's all these people that were kind of this melting pot of this guy did this, or this guy did this, but they're all kind of accepted. And they all kind of work together. And there's this acceptance of each other that is unparalleled, I think, in any industry, really. Yeah, I think, you know, it definitely has changed. I think with the, you know, the back in those days, in the, you know, late 90s, early 2000s, there were not a lot of culinary schools. And it wasn't like a popular, you know, thing to strive for. I think it wasn't until, you know, years later, after the Food Network and, you know, they did a lot for it. Top Chef and stuff like that. So you moved back to America, and you were in New York, and you were the chef de parti at Kraft, Tom Kalikio's Kraft restaurant. And then I'm sure that there's a million stories you could talk about with that.

14:17Then you moved to Chicago, where you were at Grant Eckert's, is it Elinnea? Elinnea. Elinnea. And you were at Elinnea in Chicago in 2008, the Hotel Ivy's Porter and Frye. And you moved to Nashville in 2009. And you moved to Nashville in 2009. And I'm not going to skip over those places, but just your progression went from, you know, just kind of trying to show where you, how you got to Nashville. When you got to Nashville, you were working with a consulting company called Alchemy Consultants? Yeah, sort of. Not, not really. So I met Alchemy, Jason Cotton, Toby Maloney. I met them in Minneapolis, and we had, they were working on a place in Minneapolis. I don't even know what it's called, Broad Street or something like that.

15:21Violet? No, no. Violet Hour was in Chicago. And we, you know, we had a drink over, you know, at a bar in Minneapolis and talked about Violet Hour. And, you know, the Elinnea and the Violet Hour had a, you know, bartenders and cooks like each other for some reason. So there was a connection there. And I think, you know, going to the Violet Hour, that was my first time watching a bartender and being like, these guys are chefs. Like these guys are, these guys are chefs, but with booze. They're like chefs with more, more fun and, you know, maybe more parameters as well. But I just was really impressed by how they did it. And it looked like, you know, it looked like a lot of fun. And I wanted to get into that world. And they had mentioned that they were working at a place in Nashville and they were looking for somebody to run it. And I was like, guys, I've never bartended before. I just think what you guys do is cool. And they're like, yeah, we know that. But we need, you know, you have a palette, you have work ethic, you can lead people, you have low pay expectations. They were like, you have all the things that we're looking for.

16:30So, you know, I was, it was funny because I was like, maybe two months ahead of all the other staff. Like I had, I was, I was working with, I don't know, it's like the, maybe like the, the teacher that just has like the teacher's edition with all the answers. And like I was, that's kind of how I felt. Like I wasn't, I wasn't faking it because I was really into it. But I wasn't really like that far ahead of the rest of the staff that we were training. I just kind of knew the answers before. We presented them to the rest. This is, this is at the Patterson House. It's at the Patterson House. Yeah, sorry. What was your first time that you met Ben and Max Goldberg? What was that like? Yeah. So I met, yeah, Toby, I met Toby and Jason in Minneapolis and they, you know, they said, working on this thing in Nashville. Have you ever thought about moving to Nashville? And I was like, no, not, not once in my entire life has that thought ever crossed my mind. Why would it? And you know, my parents are big, I'm a small town kid. My parents, my parents are big country music fans. I was like, oh, my parents would sure love it if I lived there. Perception of Nashville at that exact moment when they say, what about Nashville? I mean, cowboy boots and belt buckles and you know, I thought it was paved roads. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, I thought, you know, and I wasn't like lower Broadway at that time. It was kind of, it was kind of that. It was pretty, you know, if you went into Roberts in 2009, it was, it was pretty close to that. But anyway, I don't know. I said, yeah, I'll meet with these guys. Sure. And I drove down and I met with a, you know, I was looking for a new gig. So I met with someone in Atlanta as well. So I drove down, spent a couple days in Nashville, met with Ben and Max, then went down to Atlanta, met with some people there, and then drove back to Minneapolis. And I don't know, I just, I really, I clicked with Ben right away. He and I are about the same age. I think that, you know, he, I think we complemented each other pretty well. Like, I think I knew, you know, Ben wasn't really

18:34a foodie yet at that point. And I started telling him like, oh, if you're going to this place, check out this restaurant. If you're going, if you're going to this city, check out this place. And I don't know, I think we built a pretty cool relationship from the beginning. And, you know, there's definitely things that I can do that he can't, and there's a lot of things that he can do that I can't wrap my head around. So I think we make a good team as far as that goes. So, yeah. To me, he's, they're one of the most innovative people. They've changed the landscape of what Nashville restaurants and what anybody thought Nashville could be. And I consider them to be on the Mount Rushmore of national restaurateurs of people that have just come in and done just such amazing things. I have nothing but mad respect for both of them. Yeah, I have, I have, I have, yeah, I have great respect for both of them, too. I think, I think the lot, the thing that a lot of people don't know and understand is like just how, how generous they can be and how, I don't know, they are, they, they do care about all the people working for them. And they're always trying to do the best they can for everyone. If someone, you know, something happens to somebody that works for them, somebody gets, you know, I mean, COVID is completely another, that's just a different world right now. But, you know, they're very, they're very caring to the people that choose to work for them. Everything that I've read about them, and I read something, you know, I know that you watched the sites, there's some, I don't even know anything about the lawsuit, but I do know chefs and, and owners, they, they rely so much on the people that work for them. And they care so much about them. And it's just, it's just a challenge every single day with that many people to make sure. I don't know, it's just, there's a lot of different stories that get out there. And I think that they are, I know that they're trying to do the right thing on a regular basis. I just, I just, I think they're amazing. To get to, I don't want to harp on that too much, Patterson House, you get there,

20:36you've been a chef, and now you're gonna, you're training bartenders, right? You're opening a bar, and I was a bar manager at Amerigo at this time, right on West End right there. So I hear stories that these guys, the guys that had bar 21 are, bar 23. Bar 23, yeah. Bar 23 are going to be opening a new place that has like five different kinds of ice. And that was like five different kinds of ice. What are, what are they doing there? Like, what is this place? And then there was not going to be a sign. It was going to be hidden. And the first time I went there, it was like, everything clicked. And I was like, they're geniuses. This is the coolest place I've ever been. What was it like working there when it first opened? Yeah, it was, I don't, it's, it was just incredible to have like, you know, and I'm lucky because I've been, I've been a part of places opening that had this sort of like fire. I think when, you know, Alinea opened, and when the Patterson House opened, and when the Catbird Seat opened, and you know, like, I feel like these moments where like, everyone is just kind of on the same page, and everybody wants to like, everyone's like excited about this cool thing that they're doing.

21:49And I think that excitement then like resonates with the people coming in. And I mean, we were, we were just like living and breathing cocktails all day, every day. Like, everyone on the staff was like, I read about this thing. And have you checked out this bartender in New York, or this guy in Singapore? Like, I just found this, this blog of this guy, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, and look what he's doing. And it was all these different, like, every day, people from the staff were coming in. And I don't know, we're all just like exchanging information and learning at such a rapid rate. And then on top of that, you're, you know, with cocktails, you're, you're making the same, you know, we had 40 drinks on the menu, but there's probably like, you know, five that are ordered 50% of the time, you know, usually kind of the, you know, what, like 80 20, like, so you're like making these drinks every time and you take a little straw taste of every drink before you send it out. And so you're like constantly adjusting and you're just like analyzing every drink that you make and you just get to be really good and understand like the difference that, you know, one dash of bitters or two dashes of bitters or, you know, like all these little things that you can like slowly perfect your craft.

23:07And we were doing that, you know, with a, it was probably, I don't know, nine bartenders at the time, eight bartenders. So, I don't know, it was just, it was really cool. But you have the idea, you're in the middle of that, you're a chef, you're at the Patterson house and every time I read this about you, that you're, you're making drinks and every single time you set them in front of the person, you take the sip and you kind of identify little tweaks that you can make and the difference between being a chef in a kitchen where you create a dish, you put it in a window and it disappears, your work is done at that point. And you love the fact that as a bartender, you got to craft something, you're doing, you're putting ingredients together, you're crafting something, then you're setting it in front of somebody and you got to immediately see A, the reaction, B, what they did with it, if they liked it, and you could make tweaks real time based upon what you just served somebody. And is that where the idea for the catbird seat kind of came to play? You thought, hey, if I'm back there creating food, I could put food in front of somebody and have that same interaction and constantly be working on what I'm doing? Yeah, it's, I think that was the idea that I had. I think, you know, it was, it was all those things. It was, you know, it was the advent of, you know, the Food Network and Top Chef and those shows where people were so interested in what chefs were doing. And it was, you know, from the bartender in me now, you know, like, it was that perspective of like, I can, I can hand somebody something and be, you know, be a part of that experience, you know, like, it doesn't, it doesn't have to stop when I put the final garnish on and hand it to a food runner. It, it continues on and so like, oh, what did you, what did you think of that dish? And then you start to notice things like, oh, on this dish, everyone is leaving the garnish on the plate or, you know, people are, aren't eating this as much or they're leaving

25:10more food on the plate today than they were yesterday. So what's different between now and then? And you can, again, you can sort of like hone the craft based on, on those details that you pick up as opposed to being removed from that side of the equation. So that's incredibly innovative and that's incredibly like, what did that conversation look like when you had the idea, you talked to, to Max or Ben when you said, hey guys, I have this idea, how did that go? I pitched it to Ben. So when I, in my time at the Patterson house, I did a few like dinners, I guess, like tasting menu dinners. We did one for like a Valentine's day, maybe in like a New Year's Eve thing. And Ben was like, would you ever want to cook again? And I was like, I have this idea for a place, but it's crazy. And it would never work financially because I pitched it to other people before, like talked about it before. And people told me like, oh, it's a really cool idea, but it would never work. You know, like that's kind of the, the, I don't know, maybe that's how great ideas always start. But, you know, Ben finally, you know, he, I don't know if he went home and actually like did some math or what, but he's like, oh, we can make that, we can make that work.

26:24And I was like, no, no, no, it would never work. And he's like, let's try it. So it ended up working out. I'm saying I love that about them. They're like, I don't think people realize how, when you're an entrepreneur, how much guts it takes to do that. When everybody else is saying, it'll never work, it'll never work. They're the guys that say, let's make a bowling alley and put a pool in it. And we'll, let's make the catbird seat. Like, I just love that. I think that's so, that's, that's what defines a scene. That's what defines innovation in my opinion. Yeah. So catbird seat opens, everything's going great there. You got Eric Anderson. Yeah. Yeah. So I called, I knew Eric from Minneapolis. We were buddies. I was like, dude, these guys are gonna, they're willing to do it. They're gonna, they're like, you gotta, you gotta come to Nashville. And he had some family in Nashville too. So he came. I knew this girl, Mamie Gretch from Minneapolis. And she worked at this restaurant called Alma, which I had also worked at. And I think we, there's a restaurant called LaVon that we crossed paths at as well. She worked pastry there. So I called her and asked her to come. And then this guy, Tom Bayless was working in the, in the Patterson house. And I remember one of the times I came back to, I was in Chicago doing stuff with Aviary and came back to Nashville to do some, you know, look at some plans for catbird stuff, have meetings with architects and stuff like that.

27:52And this guy, I stayed with Matt Toko. I crashed on his couch one night and there was a French Laundry cookbook out. I was like, Toko, you reading French Laundry? And he's like, no, it's Tom's. He's always reading shit like that. And I was like, really? Tom from Patterson house reading French Laundry cookbooks? And he ended up being, I mean, he's one of the best cooks I've ever met. Like he's, he's incredible. And yeah, he came, he came on board with us. And then I knew Jane Lopes, who was the beverage director. I had met her in Chicago and she was willing to come and do wine. So when you're recruiting, when you, when you're putting together an All-Star team like this, what's, what type of sales pitch, and I don't know if you have to do a sales pitch, but one of the things that you have definitely as a culture, right? So to bring these people together for everybody to have that level of passion towards what you're doing, did you identify that? And just kind of, you saw the French Laundry book, but you knew these people, bringing them in, what did you tell them was the concept? Like, did you create core values? Do you have like, this is what we're going to be doing? I mean, there was, yeah, there was definitely conversations about like, we're going to do this tasting menu restaurant. If the kitchen's going to be in the middle of the room, we're, you know, we're going to be serving all the guests directly. We can do whatever the fuck we want. Like it was, it was just like a, I don't know, like a, I don't, I don't, it was like a dream job, I think for all of us. It was, it was crazy and it was, you know, it was taxing on all of us. It was only four nights a week. You know, we would come in on Tuesday and do prep and then work service Wednesday through Saturday and Sunday. A lot of us wouldn't get out of bed or like, you know, we just, your body is like torn. I think, I think they're, because you are having this back of the house role and front of the house role at the same time, at the same time, like by the end of the week, you're like, Jesus, I feel like I just, you know,

29:54when, you know, I was in a boxing match for 10 rounds or something. So did it work when you're there serving people, you get all these people together, you do the cappard seat, you're preparing this food, you're setting it in front of people, you're creating cocktails to go with it. And these aren't just like, every day, people walking off. You guys were one of the first people to really adopt online reservations. We did that. Yeah, I don't, I don't really know how or why anybody agreed to come in that place. I mean, I think, you know, Eric, Eric had a stash that he did his internship, the French laundry and did a, he stopped at Noma for a while. He was doing cool things in Minneapolis. He was in his time in Minneapolis. He was on the I think he was on the long list for the, I think Food and Line was looking at him and watching him for Best New Chefs, but he didn't, he hadn't received it yet. So I think, I don't know, we had some, I guess, resumes behind us, but we were, you know, we had to deliver, we had to like figure out how to, I don't know how to, how to do what we were doing. You know, we'd like led restaurants before, but not like that. So, but you had all these people that were coming in and you had probably had every celebrity in Nashville probably ate there, I would assume. What's that like when you have, you have to name names, like when you're serving food like that and you're handing it to these country stars and all just the celebrities that would be in there, is that added? Because normally before you could cook it, send it out and like, this is for Oprah, you know, and you're like, oh my god, now you're actually handing them the food and interacting with them while they're eating the food. Was it everything that you thought it would be? No, I think, I think I'm, you know, maybe if I was like introduced to one of those people in like a different setting, it would be a different story, but I feel like because they were kind of in my realm, it was a different,

31:59it was a different, you know, it was, it's like where I'm most at home is in a restaurant setting, so I think it was little. We're gonna get into the name Bastion, but I have this theory behind Bastion named after Bastion Balthazar Bucks, right, from the Neverending Story? Yeah, sort of, yeah. Well, I know he goes into this, into the Neverending Story and lives in this world and then comes back and I was like, is this a whole thing? Like when he's able to be behind the counter, he gets to go into Neverending Story that is the restaurant world where he gets to live in this world and be the emperor and then he's bringing people every single day the, the life water, the water of life, and he's bringing happiness to end people's melancholy. Is this the greatest scheme I've ever, that's named restaurant in the world? I wish, I wish I could take credit for all that, but I don't think, I don't think it went that deep.

33:01No, we, we were definitely looking for like, you know, going through kind of old nostalgic things from our childhood and the Neverending Story was definitely nostalgic for at least us on the opening team of Bastion when we were talking about things and we were like, what about the Southern Oracle? What about, you know, and there were some other, you know, ones that came across, but Bastion kind of made the short list for, for those names and then a friend of mine, Matt Toko, his wife, Avon, had sent this, this photo of, it was the Opie de Cachon cookbook, which is a restaurant in Montreal and there's this line where, towards the beginning of the book, I think the line was in a world of ever-increasing automation, the restaurant is the last bastion of fundamental human labor or something like that and I was like, there's that word again and then it just kind of stuck from there. Yes, I have the definition of Bastion written down, which makes sense there.

34:10So how did it end at Catbird Seat? When the whole thing, you decided to switch chefs and kind of, how, because that's, that's happened four or five times now, yeah, intentional or did you just get burnt out and you were like, more like, what was the end like for that crew? There was some, there was some burnout for sure, but it was when Ben and I first sat down and talked about this before, you know, before the Catbird Seat was a thing, he, you know, we talked about, you know, we're gonna do service four nights a week and have this one day prepping so that everybody's just working five days and there's two like actual days off and Ben's like, you still think this is sustainable? And I was like, yeah, for a couple years and he's like, so what do you think? And I was like, I think a chef could do this for two years and then they would want to like move on, do their next thing. And so right around the two-year market, I think is when I decided to, to go, go my own way and I was talking to Ben about it and we were trying to figure out like a more seamless way for that to happen and coincidentally, Trevor Moran had happened to be in Nashville, completely random, bizarre circumstances, but he had left Noma and he was just back in Ireland at the time and I think came to, yeah, he came to Nashville just for a little bit, came in to eat one night. That weekend, I was like, Eric was out of town and I had a dinner for four people at Catbird that I auctioned off and I was like, hey dude, I don't know like if you want to just hang out or what your plans are, but I'm doing this dinner on Sunday, would you want to help out? And he ended up like doing a couple courses for it and it was super fun to cook with him and I had said like, would you ever move to Nashville? And he's like, I mean, the only place I'd want to work would be the Catbird seat and it looks like you guys

36:11have enough people and I was like, maybe not exactly, there might be a spot opening up soon. So it all kind of worked out for that and man, I love that guy. Trevor's awesome. Now he's about to open his own place. Yeah, it's coming, I think slower than anybody, everybody wanted, but it's happening. I was there the other day looking at it. It's going to be an awesome place. So where'd you go after the Catbird seat? You joined as the culinary director? Yeah, you know, it was kind of a deal with Ben and Max where, you know, when I told him I was ready to move on from Catbird, I was like, I want to do my own thing and it wasn't even what fashion became. It was, I wanted to do, I kept calling it the sexy French restaurant. It's like, I want to do this like just dim, dark, like, you know, bone marrow and oysters and just eat it like really carnal. I don't know, I just kept referring to it as like the sexy French restaurant. And so we were looking at spaces for that. And basically, Ben and Max were like, yeah, we'd love to do that. But if you help us with our next thing, we'll help you with your next thing. And they were in the middle of Pinewood and they didn't really have anybody to like chef it yet. So I went and we did the opening menu and actually Julia Sullivan came and worked with us and Sky Randall Pruden came and worked with us and we had a really cool staff. We were working hard, you know, with kind of this more casual Americana sort of menu.

37:44And then after, I don't know, it wasn't that long. I was only at Pinewood for about, I don't know, maybe six months or so until I started to really like focus in on fashion. And I was kind of, you know, I would jump around to like merchants and Patterson House and Pinewood and just like jump around to the other restaurants and help out where needed and work with the chefs of the individual spots on creating new recipes and trying to push them to do, you know, do more. So I guess one of my back, we're going to go all the way back to the beginning of the interview with the original question of, there's some kind of sound happening in the sound here. Anyway, what is the, what is, how does strategic play into Bastion? You decide you want to do Bastion. You guys went, looked at the space. Yeah. Space. How does that work? Because I don't know. Cause Julia has Henrietta Redd and it's a part of strategic hospitality. Yeah. How does that work? It's just, you know, Ben and Max kind of help with the numbers side of it. It's nice, you know, for us to have access to, you know, there's a, you know, maintenance, maintenance people that work for strategic that if something goes wrong here, I can call them and they're going to, you know, assess the situation. If they can fix it, they will. If they have to call someone, they'll take care of that. As far as like our accounting department works, like we, we, we, we share that with them. So I think on, you know, a lot of levels, it's, it's, it's great to, to be a part of that. Yeah. Like I said, like I've always had a great relationship with Ben and Max and I enjoy working with them. They don't, you know, they don't yell at me about food cost and they don't, you know, and, and, you know, maybe that's because I, I do care and I, you know, understand that's how business works and I want this to be

39:48a successful business. I think a lot of times, you know, with chefs, they think things like food cost get in the way of their vision, which, you know, this, this way I look at it as a, as an entity, as its own business, as opposed to just like what I can get away with from the kitchen. Got it. So we've made it all the way now to Bastion. Yeah. So let's get into what you're doing there because I was, I go hiking almost every day. It's one of my things, my COVID-19, my quarantine things. I found Percy Warner Park. It's been amazing. Yeah. He's awesome. So I go hiking all the time and I go hiking with my sister and I told her that I was going to interview you. And she said that she goes Bastion was the best meal I've ever eaten in my life. She said, literally midway through the meal, we got pen and paper out and we were deciding our budget on how we can afford to eat here every single week for the rest of our lives. She was that's like, we decided we're going to start budgeting how to eat at this restaurant because it is that good. And I went, holy shit, that that's, I don't know if you can, I'm going to tell Josh this story because that's the kind of compliment I imagine you're looking for.

41:04But that's just an amazing story to even tell. Like that type of food, that innovative, that good, is that what you're looking for with Bastion? What was the story behind it? Yeah. I mean, I think that's, that's part of it. I think, you know, we wanted to, obviously it had to be different than the catbird seat. Otherwise, you know, why leave the catbird seat? I'm just going to try to remake the same thing. I think, you know, we looked at the space, like I said, I wanted to do like this sexy French restaurant. And then we looked at the space and I was like, no, this isn't like the right location for it. But I loved the space itself. You know, we looked at a bunch of different spots and this is the one where I was like, yes, we have to do something here. Not that, but let's do something here. And I told Ben, it was like, I think it could either be a cool like neighborhood bar or it could be a cool like restaurant. It's a little out of the way. Nobody really knows where Wedgwood Houston is, right? You know, at this point, like it could be either like a destination restaurant or like a neighborhood bar because there wasn't a lot of like neighborhood bars. There, I don't think there were any neighborhood bars in this neighborhood at that point. Or you could be both. And he was like, yeah, which you want to do? And I was like, I want to do both. Then I kind of explained to him the idea and he was like, yeah, it sounds great. But, you know, we had this idea for like this kind of hybrid prefix tasting menu thing where you kind of choose your own adventure tasting menu. Like you pick two people come in and this, again, this is all pre-COVID. You know, this is five years ago when we started talking about this and things were different now or things are different than they are now. So the idea was two people come in, they get their own essentially personalized five course menu because they're choosing the five dishes the way down. So between the two of them, they're getting 10 dishes. Now at that point, they can decide to share the 10 dishes and then they're essentially getting a 10 course menu because they're trying 10 different

43:10dishes between the two of them. And then there's this other option where you just try every all 15 dishes in the menu to share between two people. Those 15 dishes would be too much for one person but between two people it would be the right amount of food. So that was the original idea. We weren't, you know, I think we were trying to be less, I don't know, innovative maybe in a different way as far as the food goes. We weren't trying to like exploit, you know, rare ingredients or anything like that. It was more like, all right, let's get stuff from Nashville Grown. Let's try to make cool food with it. You know, let's get stuff from Leanne at Bear Creek and Brian over at Giving Thanks Farms. Let's put his ducks on the menu and things like that. And let's just try to make, I don't know, let's just try to make good food. Let's not try to overthink it. Let's not try to like make things with, you know, crazy serving vessels and stuff like that. Let's just try to make good food and really connect with people. I mean, that's like we have a meeting at the end of every night. Maybe I shouldn't tell this. I don't know. I'm gonna say it anyway. But we have a meeting at the end of service every night where we go through every single reservation that came in and we talk about like, all right, these two, they were the first two to sit at seats three and four tonight. One of them had a shellfish allergy.

44:40What can we remember about these people? And somebody will be like, oh, they said they liked the duck dish, but I noticed they didn't finish all the desserts. Or they said they'd liked, you know, that we played the Huey Lewis record or something like that. But it's more, to me, it's a way to make the whole staff, you know, knowing that we're going to talk about every reservation that comes in at the end of every night, it makes the whole staff open their eyes and look at the guests as more than just guests. You know, like we're going to be, there will be a test on this later. So pay attention. But it also makes every single person in hospitality, what we're doing here is we're creating experiences for people. And it's a in, it's exactly what you said that if you're in a closed kitchen, you put this food out, people can't necessarily, you don't see what the reaction is. But in this particular situation, in the instant feedback, do you make, when you have these meetings, you talk about that, do you make changes? And do you just say, okay, everybody left half of the duck on their plate.

45:49Let's change the duck dish. Yeah, I mean, that would be, that would be a, and that'd be horrible if that ever happened. But that would be something that we would talk about at the meeting, you know, like, hey, let's revisit what's going on with this dish. It seems like people aren't getting it. Or, you know, maybe we could work on changing the, you know, maybe in the explanation, we should tell people that these flowers are edible, and they're not just on the plate for fun. Like, this is a component of the dish. So maybe, you know, we need to figure out a way to kind of tweak the wording when we describe a dish, so that people understand. So do you have servers in the restaurant? No. I mean, not, you know, not, we're all servers in the restaurant, I guess, is a different way to say it. I mean, we have, you know, Adam, who's our general manager, my wife Lauren, who's like the maitre d', Alex, who is the son, we have a bartender in the little bar, and then we have the cooks, and that's a dishwasher queue, and that's the entire staff.

46:53You guys take care of everybody yourselves. Yeah. I love that. We try. We try our best. Wow. I just love it. I'm trying to just think about all of the different components there, and how you do that, and how you execute, and how communication has to be paramount, how you've got to constantly be on the same page. What is the, I mentioned earlier, kind of culture at Catbird Seat that you have to have? What's the one thing that, like, there's one trait that everybody has to have at Bastion? What's one thing that every single person that works there, what's one trait you all have to have in common? I mean, I think, I don't know. Hiring is hard sometimes, because sometimes somebody comes in and, you know, we have everybody starved once or twice before they, you know, and I think that gives us a chance to kind of see how they work, give them a chance to see how this operation works. You know, like, I think, you know, it's weird that other professions don't do that as much, but, you know, somebody will come in and work a shift here, essentially. Maybe not the whole shift. They'll come in a little later, leave a little earlier, but I just want them to see the environment and how it all works.

48:09Obviously, you have to be comfortable with talking to guests and that's not always, you know, sometimes there's a reason people work in a kitchen and they want to be in that other kitchen environment that's, you know, behind the swinging doors and not in the public's eye. So, I think, you know, for this environment, for Catbird or Bastion or places like that, you need to have both of those things. Well, it's funny, I had Nick and Audra Gidri, who own the Pelican and Pig on the show, and he said, we have the chef's bar because the chefs were going to take care of people and that was going to be kind of their, kind of what they were going to be doing as well. Then he was like, but chefs are only doing that. It's like, yeah, in the kitchen. They like being in the kitchen. They don't want to deal with the guy that's like, I don't like this or I think this could be different. They're like, oh, well, don't order it next time. Like, no, no, no, no, hold on. You got to be a little more gentle way that we interact. It doesn't just work that way, which I think also helps when you have the front of the house, back of the house dynamic, the back of the house, people can go, oh, the front of the house, people are actually doing something. There is a talent to this. They're not just out there playing grab ass. I mean, like there's really good waiters are really impressive people, kind of like what you're talking about bartenders, how they're, they have a craft.

49:22Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the gift of gab is something that not all, not all of us have. I, I don't, but I, you know, I think, I think the way for us to break through it is, you know, we, if somebody makes a reservation here, chances are they, they're excited to come in and they want to, you know, there's always people that kind of maybe don't see it that way, but you know, it's, it's, there's not a ton of, you know, bastions confusing to people. It's a, you know, people go to the website or read something about it and they're like, wait, it's a, is it a cocktail bar? Like what, what, what happens there? And then, you know, people, you know, pre COVID people would come in and they'd walk into this loud bar and be like, this is the right place. This can't be the right place. Like, why would I have a reservation? They're serving nachos. Like I don't need nachos. And, you know, so I think it's, I don't know. I like, I like to think that because maybe we make it difficult or a little more difficult than a normal restaurant would, you have to go online to make a reservation. You can't just call. You have to put a deposit down. I think, you know, if you're, if you're not willing to play along, you're going to stop somewhere in that process before actually making a reservation. But once you come in, like we're going to, we're going to take good care of it. We're going to, you know, we're going to try to make it as best as we can. Do you like the element of surprise?

50:44So, I mean, just having a couple of your descriptors on the menu being like, you know, this and that. Yeah. Well, not knowing what the actual dish is going to be when it arrives, is that part of the whole fun in this whole thing? I mean, it's got to be right. Yeah. I think, I think doing that on the, on the menu allows us to, you know, yeah, we can, sometimes we'll surprise people with it. Sometimes, you know, I mean, there's, you know, we'll overhear guests talking about like, oh, this one, this one's going to be this, these two things, that's probably going to be like a pasta or something. Like, okay, sure. Whatever. And, you know, sometimes that can build disappointment in a certain way. You know, if you think it's going to be one thing and it comes out into a different thing, maybe you had your heart set, you know, for no reason other than your own ego, you decided, you took it upon yourself to decide this is what this dish is going to be. And then you're let down by it. But hopefully that's not the case. Hopefully everybody's actually surprised. Well, maybe for another time, I'd love to get your wife on the show and I love to play the newly reopened game, which is a game I played with Tony and Caroline Galsin last week was kind of like the newlywed game where I ask you different, I ask her questions about you and she tries to answer them. If that was to ask her the question, I was to say, what's the biggest difference between Josh at home versus at work? What do you think she would say?

52:14Man, I don't know. That's a tough question. We'll have to try that and see what she says. I'm kind of curious now. What do you think it would be? Do you notice any glaring differences between yourself at work? Like the confidence of being behind there and being on stage the whole night versus when you get done? Do you just like crash when you're done? Are you just like, I don't want to talk to anybody. Pour me a cold beer and stay away. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I think, you know, having eating a frozen pizza on a Saturday night after service, you know, after making, you know, some, some cool food with good ingredients and then coming home to like DiGiorno's is probably a, you know, a little, a little disappointing, but sometimes that's exactly what you need at the end of a Saturday night service. What's next for you? What do you see? Where are we at right now? You guys are open. You said you got 26 seats. The big bar is closed. You're kind of doing what you're doing, but I heard a, I heard a rumor that we're going to go back to phase one. Yeah. Kind of by the end of the week is what I, it's just, I don't know. It's something that I've heard. What do you foresee is going on right now and what are you doing to pull your crystal ball? What is going to happen in the next couple of months and what can we do? What is your opinion? What can we do to prevent it or to pivot? I mean, the, you know, idealist in me is, you know, things like, man, if, if everyone, if we, if we, if somebody mandated like, and this would have to come from the very top and say, Hey, starting next, I don't know, next Tuesday, everything shuts down for three weeks.

54:11So do your shopping, get your stuff. We're strict quarantine for three weeks. I feel like that would, you know, that would solve the problem. You know, the 350 million people in the country decided to all quarantine together and people, you know, didn't decide that was up to them or not. That would, that would solve the problem. You know, that's not going to happen. Well, the debate for essential services would just be, yeah. And there would be, you know, there would, that would definitely have its own set of problems. Like I said, this is like the idealist pie in the sky. If I could just. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I think, I think things will maybe revert back. I don't, I don't know if people are going to revolt if that happens or, you know, how, how far that goes. I, I think we just have to roll with the punches, you know, luckily we got some PPP money to help us for, you know, and we'll try to make that last as long as we can. Our landlord's cool and we can work with him on things if we, if we need to.

55:30I don't know where Bastion itself is in a good place. I worry about, you know, the bartenders on that side of things are collecting unemployment right now. And if that unemployment runs out, then we're going to find a way to take care of them as well. But I don't, I don't, I don't know. I don't know what, what happens. You know, I think that we could run in this scenario for a while if we need to, if people actually show up. We've noticed at first when we reopened, you know, everybody thought like, oh, it's over. We can go back to normal or, you know, go back to some sense of normalcy. And people started coming out. We were full for every day for the whole month of, of June. We filled up every, every seat every day. And then once after the holiday, it kind of slowed down a little bit. So we're busy on the weekends right now, but not as busy during the Wednesday, Thursday shifts right now. So that kind of scares me, you know, like how sustainable is this business model if people don't show up.

56:37I do think we're doing things pretty safe here and it's a, a safe place to go eat. You know, you're not going to run the risk of a bunch of people running around. Everybody sat at a table and people put on masks when they go to the bathroom and stuff like that. Everybody's been really respectful, which I was nervous about. I didn't know if there was going to be people coming in here and telling me that my mask wasn't doing anything or whatever. Cause I know there's people that have that mentality. But I don't know. I mean, maybe I'll become a commercial fisherman again for all this. I don't know. Yeah, you did that. You, so I'm glad you brought that up. Good segue. 2004, 2006, 2008, you were a salmon fisherman in Kodiak, Alaska. Yeah. That was, it was a random, it was a random thing. I never, I, I was living in Vail, Colorado for a little bit, I guess in 2003, maybe.

57:42And I quit my job and I didn't really have anything, the next thing planned yet. And I was talking to this girl in a bar, a friend of mine, I was just catching up with her and she's like, what are you going to do next? And I was like, I don't know, maybe I'll be a commercial fisherman in Alaska. And I don't know if I was actually like intending on doing this or if it was just something I was saying out loud to impress a girl, but the bartender overheard me and she was like, Hey, I have this buddy that does that. He works over at Joe's. You should, you know, his name's Ryan. And so I show up at this place and I'm like, Hey, can I talk to Ryan in the kitchen? And this guy walked out of the kitchen, looks at me. He's like, who the hell are you? I'm like, my name's Josh. You work in Alaska? And he's like, uh, yeah. Why? It's like, I think I want to start fishing. What do I do? It's like, just go up there and try to get it. I'm fishing. Where do you go? And he's like, I go to Kodiak. And I was like, all right, see you up there. And so I went up to Kodiak in like a late May one year. I guess 2003, 2000. Yeah, that sounds right. 2004 maybe. Yeah. 2004. And, uh, I just beat the dock. I, uh, every day I would wake up and just walk around and try to find a job. Finally, there was this guy who said, Hey, do you need anybody? And he's like, have you fished before? And I was like, no. And he's like, no, we don't need anybody. And I was like, man, I'm just bored. Can I help you put away these groceries? And he's like, yeah, sure. So I go up and, you know, we start talking and I'm helping them put stuff, you know, load the boat with groceries. And, uh, we had a good conversation. He's like, hey, we actually do need somebody to tell you what I'll talk to the skipper when he gets back to the boat. And if you come here at like five o'clock tonight, uh, he can decide if you're hired or not. You can stage for a night. That wasn't even that he was, but he was like, do you, uh, oh shit, sorry. Some of my produce is here. I need to take a five second break.

59:43What's up? Check it all in. It's all here. It's all here. Hi. Thank you. Yeah, you're way down the middle. Who's delivering your produce? This is Alan. Hi. Nashville grown. I love it. Yep. Everything grown around here. Okay. Thank you. So what'd you get today? Uh, man, we got, uh, cherry tomatoes, leeks, uh, cilantro, flowers, chanterelles, chanterelles are everywhere right now. Oh, and Alan picked these, uh, some watermelons. Alan picked the chanterelles. That guy. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Uh, uh, yeah. So, um, let's see, where was I? Um, oh yeah. So I get up on the, I meet up with these guys later at five, five PM and, uh, the skipper comes, you know, he's there and he's like, you ever, uh, fished before? And I was like, no, never. It's like, you ever spent any time on the water? I'm like, no, not really. It's like, you get seasick. It's like, no, no, I don't get seasick. I'm trying to, what's that? So why do I think you're about to tell me a story where you got seasick? I mean, that, that does happen like the first day that we go out on the boat.

01:01:05Kipper just looks at me and he's like, oh shit. Uh, but, uh, anyway, he, uh, every, everybody has kind of dual duty on the boat, you know, putting the net out and bringing it back in takes everybody on board. Um, and you do that, you know, anywhere from, I don't know, eight to 15 times a day, depending on what's happening, unless you're traveling to a different spot. Uh, and then one guy's like the engineer. So if anything goes bad on the, on the boat, um, he's down in the engine room trying to fix it. And then one guy's a cook and I had not known that or understood, you know, even thought about that, but I was telling the guy like, like, man, I've always worked in kitchens, been cooking all my life. I always, I'm not trying to get a cooking job. I'm trying to tell the guy that I work hard, you know, I'm like, I'm not, I've worked 16 hour days. No problem. That's not, you know, I do that all the time. He's like, oh, you're a cook. And I was like, oh shit, what's going to happen now? And so I ended up, you know, not only doing all the other work, but cooking three meals a day for the four of us. And every time, you know, every now and then one of the other guys would be like, Hey, I'll cook tomorrow. You've been cooking all the time. And then after they cooked him, like, I can't let these guys cook anymore. I want to be able to eat it. I'm sure they appreciated that too. Yeah, it was, it was fun. I mean, it's always fun to cook with parameters. And I think that, you know, having, you know, you're, you're having the best fish on the planet, you know, fresh Alaskan seafood, but paired with like canned corn and uh, things like, you know, things like that, frozen beans.

01:02:50Well, all right. So I think that, um, we've got a good, thank you for telling your story here. I feel like there's, what are some things like, let's learn a little bit. And I know we're getting close to our time that I kind of mentioned, but let's learn a little bit about you. Is that okay? Yeah, sure. What do you, what are like your hobbies? What do you do for, do you play an instrument? Do you sing? Are you into arts? Cause you look like an artist. My, well, thank you. I don't, yeah, thanks. I guess. No, I mean, they're absolutely beautiful to be a creative artistic side of you. Where does it test itself outside of food? Man, I grew up, I grew up with a lot of music in my life. I, you know, I played piano when I was a kid and played guitar and stuff. And then I think once the more I got into restaurants, the less I did of that. Um, so I still have, you know, guitars and things, but I don't play them that much. Um, I would love to get more into that. Uh, again, someday, maybe if we, uh, quarantine again, I'll pick up the guitar. Yeah. But you know, the, the thing that I've been excited about, um, recently was, uh, maybe four, three years ago, I started doing a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at a gym called Artista here in Nashville.

01:04:08Really? Over in Green Hills. And it was a pretty random story. Uh, and it's going to feel like a name dropper story, but we were shooting stuff, uh, with Anthony Bourdain here in Nashville, a few years ago, several years ago. And, uh, every time the cameras were off, he was talking about Jiu-Jitsu. I was like, man, and I was going to this gym called Hotbox, which is kind of a cardio kickboxing gym. And, uh, he's like, man, I've always wanted to do Jiu-Jitsu. He's like, well, why haven't you? And he's like, I don't have a good answer for that. I don't, I don't know. And he's like, I tell you what, every day this week, he was here for eight or 10 days. He's like, every day we're here at eight o'clock in the morning. We meet at, uh, this gym out in Cool, Cool Springs. And, uh, we do Jiu-Jitsu. It's like a bunch of the cameraman, the guys on my crew, we all do it together. And I was like, okay, are you inviting me to do Jiu-Jitsu with you? And he's like, yeah, if you want to come along. So I talked to one of the cameramen later and I was like, dude, Tony just invited me to do Jiu-Jitsu. Should I do that? And he's like, oh dude, it's so much fun.

01:05:14You'd love it. You should come. And I was like, yeah, but I'm going to look ridiculous. And he's like, oh yeah, you'll totally look ridiculous, but you should do it. Uh, it's like, what do I need to bring? And he's like, well, they'll have a gi there for you to wear, but just, you know, wear some, you know, some, some rash guard or something underneath and, um, and, and you'll be, you'll be fine. So I show up and the day that I show up, all the crew was too hung over to come. So it was me, uh, Ryan Polly, who was at Cappard at the time, um, Anthony Bourdain and then two guys that go to the gym and the instructor, there was, yeah, what is it? Five of us or six of us and five of us. And I didn't understand what it was. I didn't really know anything about it, but it was, it was still, it was a blast. And I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to do this. And so I went to a couple of gyms around town and when I met Felix over at Artista, I was like, this is the spot that I want to be. And, uh, it's, it, it takes over your life and becomes this thing where you travel and you're like, oh, we're going to New York. I could hit Marcella's gym or I could hit, uh, you know, one of the Gracie gyms or you're like, and you make friends with people that, you know, much like I was talking about the restaurant, uh, world earlier about, you know, having the, the meteorologist on one side of me and the, um, guy that just got out of prison on the other side of me, like in Jiu-Jitsu, you, you just, you're, you're in this room with these people that you normally probably wouldn't end up being in a room with other than that. And it's funny because you're trying to choke each other. You're trying to like wrestle each other to the ground until the other person taps and submits. And afterwards you hug and you're like, oh man, when you swept me, that was, that was perfect. Like keep doing that.

01:06:57You know, like you're encouraging each other and you're like becoming friends through fighting, which is a thing that I don't think people understand unless you're actually doing it. Yeah. Really cool thing. You know, there's some of the most, uh, you know, right-wing people that I would consider friends are at that gym and, and, you know, people that are further left than me in the gym. And it's just really cool to understand, you know, I think it's, it's healthy for all of us and there should be more of this in the world to realize like, oh, hey, these are people that have differing viewpoints from me, but they're people that have, you know, lives and families and things. And we're, we're all the same. We're all, we're all in this together, even though we might have differing views and might think that, you know, oh, you believe this and you're an idiot. Like it, it kind of helps you from saying things like that and jumping to those conclusions. Um, all that being said, jujitsu is probably the worst thing to do during, uh, you know, global pandemic when you're actually like, you know, wrestling people on the ground and breathing in each other's faces. And you're not currently doing that, are you? I have not, I've not done any jujitsu since February or March, which is a bummer, but, uh, I don't know, I've been doing yoga and stuff at home, trying to keep nimble, spry. I'm a 40 year old man. I gotta get creative with how I, I went wakeboarding yesterday at my, uh, uh, father-in-law lives on Old Hickory. And so he took us out on the lake yesterday and I was like, I think I've wakeboarded once before. I'll try this again. And I got up on my second try and, uh, it uses muscles in your body that you don't know that you have. And today I am very sore. Have you tried wake surfing?

01:08:48No, uh, I was actually, I was on the phone with Max earlier this morning. Uh, he was mentioning that he said it's a, he said it hurts less when you fall and it's more fun. So maybe next time. It is. It's, I love all that stuff on a boat, just getting out there. Yeah. Yeah. And all of that. I grew up in Southern California as a, like a surfer kid. I was always in the water and I just love anytime I get to get out there. We used to do this trip every year with our restaurant. We take everyone on a boat trip and, uh, the owners remembers the boat club. We'd bring like 20 people and they all wanted to sit. We get like a ski boat and we get a huge pontoon boat and we all kind of find a cove and everybody just wanted to sit on the boat and drink. And I was like, I'm going to go skiing, man. I'm like, no, I'm going to go out and go skiing. And I would always be the guy like all day long. At the end of the day, I'd be like, how are you guys doing? Like I've been out skiing the whole day. This, I don't get this shot too often, so I'm going to take advantage of it. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's fun. I love all that stuff. And when I, when I lived in Vail, I was a snowboarder and we went snowboarding, you know, a hundred days out of 120 days or something like that. And, uh, and then I hadn't gone in a long time. And this past January went out to some people that we knew in Nashville moved back to Switzerland. So we went to visit them and we got to snowboard in the Alps, which, you know, I hadn't been on a snowboard in 10 years and they were like, I think a little skeptical because things are a little different. It's not like, uh, you go here for the blue run and here for the, uh, black diamond. Things are just kind of mixed in there. Uh, but it was fun to get back on the snowboard. It is. I did that last year for the first time, I think, and I had, I have a almost seven year old. And then last year, I was about six years in between when I went and we're going up the hill and the guy goes, let's go on up to the double diamond. I'm like, do this my first time on a board in seven years? Like I'm, I think I want to try the bunny slope first. He's like, you're fine. You're fine. You're fine. And I was afraid I was going to fall off the ski lift. Like I didn't think I was going to get off the lift.

01:10:48And I did. And all of a sudden I was like, I got like a hundred yards down the hill and I was like, I got this. I got, and I kind of snow plowed it down, but I was like, after the first run, I was like, all right, let's roll. Let's go. No. Yeah. I love that stuff. I don't know. The older I get, the more I can like, I don't know, the more I appreciate stuff like, like that, you know, I'm glad I'm in decent enough shape to, to do that stuff. The sound is kind of going out here on me. That's all right. I don't know what that was. It's weird. Um, okay. What's your, who's your favorite band of all time? Just going random personal stuff about you. I don't know. I mean, that all, all those things would kind of, uh, you know, I think that stuff would change day by day. I think then, uh, what are you into right now? I was listening to Fugazi on the way here, which is funny because that's a band that I listened to when I was 13 and now I'm 40 and I'm still listening to that band, uh, which, you know, that's a time, time approved. Uh, I don't know. Pearl Jam and like mad season. It's like my jam.

01:11:59Yeah. I don't know if that means that my, like, I had like some sort of arrested development where my tastes haven't changed in all that time, or if, uh, if they're just that kind of a band that I can appreciate them then and now in different ways. Um, but I don't know. Um, yeah, that I've been listening to during quarantine, I started a, you know, in lieu of jujitsu, I was running a little bit and, uh, trying to just do like two miles a day, uh, running and I would put them on hip hop because I feel like that's cool stuff too. Have you ever been out to Percy Warner Park? Yeah, not to run. It scares me to run out there. I see people running on those trails and I'm like, you guys are all maniacs. Uh, but people do it. Uh, I see him every, every time. Uh, but I go, I go slow through there so I can try to spot mushrooms on the, on the side of the trail. Well, you, I, I would officially invite you, I'll wear a mask. You gotta go do the red trophy someday. You can point out mushrooms to me so I can know what to look for and I'll show you all the owls. I know where they hang out. Yeah. Yeah. We saw something else there. Uh, yeah, I like both the, yeah, the red trail and the white trail. You're doing both in one day. They call it the pink trail. Yeah. I haven't done that. Neither have I. I'm a little afraid. That's, that's a long way.

01:13:12Um, who is your favorite chef in Nashville right now besides you? Obviously. Philip at, uh, Philip Kraychak at Rolf Nutter's in Falk is awesome. I mean, he's, his food is always super consistent. It's always tasty. It's always, you know, innovative. He's, he's smart. He's, I don't know, he's all the things that a chef should be. He's a good leader. He's got, always has a great staff. Um, yeah, I think he, he does the best. Uh, what's your favorite? So let's exclude Falk and Rolf and Daughters. What's your favorite restaurant in town? Uh, if you and your wife went out to eat that you want to go, it doesn't have to be the craziest, most innovative, just like if I was going out to eat every night and I was going out somewhere, what's the most consistent, best value I can afford to go there? Best restaurant in your opinion? Uh, I'm going to say too, I'm going to say if I could eat anywhere tonight, like, you know, eight o'clock tonight, go to a restaurant, uh, the way things were pre-COVID, I would go sit at 210 Jack. I think that would be, uh, my, I don't know. That's, that was like, uh, in the rotation of date nights for my wife and I. All right, Jess, love for Jess and Trey. Yeah, yeah, they're, they're awesome people. And it's funny too, because when you go on a Sunday, Monday, you like look around and it's like all other like bar, you know, bar, restaurant, hospitality people, like throughout the whole room. Uh, so it's always cool to see a bunch of other people there. Uh, but then our like kind of hole-in-the-wall place that we go to, uh, similar in, you know, Japanese cuisine, but, uh, Sonobana over on, uh, what is that? White Bridge Road, a little sushi place. We, we were going there, you know, every other week on a Sunday or Monday night. What part of town do you live in? Uh, we live in 12 South right now, but we're, uh, in the process of moving. We bought a house in, uh, North Inglewood. So

01:15:18in the process of moving right now. Oh, wow. Or it's like the best time to move. Yeah, maybe, maybe. I don't know either way. Um, all right, um, do you have a book, the best cookbook, anything you could recommend to people? Like the, what's the book that's changed your life, anything like that? I mean, for me, you know, this is like a different, I feel like a different generation completely. But when the first cookbook that I saw that like just blew the brain out of my skull was, uh, the Charlie, the original Charlie Trotter's cookbook. The Lesson in Service. See, no, no, that's his like, uh, that was his like service book. You know, the first cookbook that he had, uh, which was just called Charlie Trotters. And it was, you know, just looking at the pictures, the food, like now it looks super dated, but at the time I was like, this is, this is fucking art, man. This guy's doing, he's making art on a plate. And I was blown away. And then, you know, I think that came out around the same time as the French Laundry Cookbook, which was, you know, obviously a very, uh, innovative and inspiring book for so many people. And then, you know, and then along the way, things like the Noma Cookbook came out. I think everyone in a different direction. Have you been nominated for a James Beard Award? Uh, I've never made the, uh, this short list, but I've been on the long list, uh, several times. I think, yeah, the Cap Herd is on for Best New Restaurant. Uh, Finer is on for Best New Restaurant. Bastion is on for Best New Restaurant. And then I was on for, uh, for Southeast, uh, I think four or five times.

01:17:05It's pretty impressive. What would that mean to you? I mean, does that kind of stuff mean anything to you? Like these awards and accolades and stuff like that? I mean, it would be cool. My parents would be proud of me or whatever. But I think ultimately like, you know, if that happened, I'd come back to work the next, uh, Tuesday or Wednesday and do the same thing that, you know, do what I do. Like it doesn't, it's not going to like, nothing would stop for you. A retirement home or anything like that. It's just gonna, it's just gonna, you know, it's just an Instagram post, you know? Uh, I don't know. All that stuff is cool and I'm glad that, you know, those things are around. I think, you know, it's, it's cool to, uh, yeah, to give, give people props for that, that deserve that. I don't know. I, I have a weird relationship with that stuff. I think, I think in my, you know, in the younger, like when we opened Cap Herd Seat, I think we were all striving for like, let's try to, you know, I want this to be like, you know, nominated for best new restaurant, you know, food and wine, Bon Appetit. We were like chasing all these things and trying to get all these things. And, you know, at the time, like Nashville was going through a change and, you know, people like Butch at the CVC were trying to get some publicity for restaurant stuff in Nashville and it kind of worked out timing wise where we happened to be, you know, doing this, this thing that was kind of new for Nashville. And, um, you know, at, at the same time that Nashville was trying to get a little more, um, tourism dollars in, in town. And I think we were in the right place, the right time when it all happened. And then I think when bashing up and I was like, ah, I'm not, you know, I did all that already. I'm just, I just want to like have a fun restaurant with people like to get to. So what's your motivation? I know that the motivation isn't to win a James

01:19:07beer or you do it. There's something much more intrinsical about it than that. But I mean, that it seems to me like, like that would be something that you just like, where does your innovation come from? Is it just to put out great food for the people to enjoy or is there some sort of ulterior motive? I mean, I think it's a lot of things like it's a, you're, we're creating an ecosystem in, in, in doing this, you know, like, where do you buy your food from? Who do you buy your food from? Where, where's your, where are your dollars going? Like how sustainable is this lifestyle for your staff? How, you know, how can you, you know, we, we have this business model where all the staff is in this like tipped environment. You know, we had a service charge onto the bill at the end and we can afford to pay our staff more so you can work here and make, you know, hopefully more money than you can make elsewhere other than, you know, running a restaurant or hotel. But what, I don't know, we just, we just want to contribute to the community. Yeah. Contribute to, you know, the, the people that, that work here and the people that, you know, on the receiving end of it, hopefully they don't feel like they were, you know, gouged in, in pricing, you know, I think we keep our, our menu pretty, like right now it's at 80 a head, which sounds like kind of a lot, but you know, I'm not running a 10% food cost. I'm running a 30% food cost, which is, you know, we, we budget, I think 34 is kind of our ideal on our P&O. And I think that it's because I don't want, I want there to be perceived value to what we do here. You know, I don't want to just make as much money. We could, we could charge more, you know, we could probably get fancier and charge more, but I don't want that. I want people

01:21:09to be able to come in, you know, there's people that come in once a month here and I want them to keep coming in once a month. Yeah. So what is it, I mean, just for you purchasing from local farmers, you've talked about Bear Creek and the Nashville Grown, taking care of your people that work there. What does local mean to you? I've been standing from the rooftop on this podcast, urging people right now during this particular time to not go eat at big chain restaurants, not like to keep their money local. What is your stance on that? I really think that's the thing. I mean, we're, we're in no way perfect. We're not, you know, we're not a hundred percent, you know, we have a creation gardens truck that comes in here and that's like a, I guess it's a Louisville based company, you know, and their produce isn't necessarily the best around, but there's certain things that they have that, you know, that's, that's my access point, you know, if we use vacuum sealer bags or frying oil and stuff like that, like, you know, I don't know if anybody's doing local fryer oil. Yeah. I mean, you've got to get some of that stuff for sure. I think, you know, like Leanne and Bill at Bear Creek are some of the greatest humans I've ever met in my life. And, you know, of course I would rather give my money to them than to, you know, some big factory farmer person that's doing, you know, like it's just, that's not even a, that's not even a contest. Like if, if we can, I don't know, the more local we can keep our money, like if everybody actually, like every dollar they spent, if you actually thought about like who that dollar is going to, and like I said, I'm, I'm guilty of this. I, you know, I buy shit on Amazon all the time. But if you, you know, if you actually spend some time and think about like where your dollars are going, you'd want to take care of the people that take care of you.

01:23:07You want it to stay in your circle. I don't know. I've always found it amazing when places close, and I use the Davis Kid reference. I don't know if you were even here when Davis Kid was a bookstore that they had. It was a local bookstore in Green Hills and they had a little bronto bistro there. But it closed and everybody was up in arms and it was, how does Davis Kid close? And I think that then what was the last time you were there? Like, oh, it's been years. You're like, that's why they close. Like go visit your local people and keep your money local. These are the people that are hiring people locally. They're spending money with, they're the ones who are nourishing the community. And right now I think it's more important than ever to continue to support local. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have to do it before, before it's too late, you know, do it while you can. I don't know. I mean, I hope for continued success for Bastion. I don't know what the future looks like. I hope for the best for all of us.

01:24:11All right. Making it easy right now. We did it. I think we're there. We've got a little over our time frame. I said I could talk to you, I feel like for hours and maybe we'll do this again. I guess I'd love to have your wife on and I'd love to play the game where we kind of play like the newlywed game, talking about stuff that happens in the restaurant, what each other would do. I think that'll be a lot of fun, but yeah. What's that? It might start a fight or it would be really fun or both. Hopefully not, but it'd just be fun. You get the pillows, you can each show the pillows like they'll show, you know, be fun. Tony and Caroline Galzin got two questions right off the five. Okay. 10 total for each other. They got two. They're like, I can't believe we didn't know that. I'm like, well you do now. So it's a game where you can learn each other, learn a little about each other. I give the guests of the show kind of the last word. If you were to say anything to the people of Nashville, we've got a pretty high content of the restaurant community listening to this podcast. I know people are going to tune in to hear what you have to say. It's a very influential member of the restaurant community and just the community at large. Floor is yours. What do you want to say to the city of Nashville? Take your time, whatever you want to say, and then we'll wrap up the show.

01:25:25Oh man. Yeah, I don't even know what to say at this point. I mean, I guess I would just say thank you to everyone for being supportive to us. You know, one of the things that, and I'm not saying this is like a pandering thing, but one of the things that drew me to Nashville when I first moved here was, you know, we opened the Patterson house and I had been the part of restaurant openings in Chicago and Minneapolis and that's, you know, and I've obviously been the part of the restaurant community and a lot of other cities as well. When we opened the Patterson house in Nashville, all these people came in from other, you know, establishments and they were, I was so ready for people to just, I don't know, for there to just be this, you know, community antagonism of like, oh, who do these guys think they are? What do they think they're doing? But instead everybody came in and was super supportive and we had fun together and, you know, they thought we were doing something exciting and we thought we were doing something exciting and, you know, we just had this incredible outpouring of support from all these people around town and, you know, and I was just blown away by that and just kind of the youthful energy that Nashville had at that time and I think still has. I think when Cappert opened, same thing, like we just had this incredible support that we wouldn't have gotten in so many other cities and I think, you know, I just am thankful for that aspect of Nashville and hope we can continue on that path and, you know, we're all in this for more or less the same reasons. We're all trying to, you know, feed people and make people happy and in our own way and I don't know, I just want this community to continue to grow together, you know, in a nice happy way. That's it. Well, I think you're one of the people who perpetuates that community and when you say stuff like that, where you show a humility and just graciousness for everybody around, it's one of the things that

01:27:30draws me to the community and I love it. I think it's one of the most special places in the world being in Nashville and being part of this community and I thank you so much for coming on today and telling your story and just talking candidly, telling stuff that's behind the scenes and I look forward to doing it again sometime. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks. All right, man. All right, so there it is, the interview with Josh Hobbiger and if you want to watch that video, it is available on YouTube. You can go to our YouTube channel. Like I said, before the show, if you want to subscribe to that, that will automatically show up for you, get a notification. Please subscribe to this podcast and we want to thank you guys again for sharing all the love you give us on social media. We hope that you guys are being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.