Julio Hernandez

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01:03Additionally, they have trucks from coast to coast bringing products to farms and artisans across the globe. You can order through your phone app or online. They truly are what chefs want. Check them out at whatchefswant.com. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello, Music City. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your host. Today we are talking with Julio Hernandez, who is the owner and chef at Mize DLV. And we go back to the first time he was on our show on May the 5th, Cinco de Mayo, 2020.

02:04And coincidentally enough, that is actually his birthday. So the first time he was on the show, I knew him because we had been friends for a long time as he'd been a chef at Hillwood Country Club and out there in Hendersonville. And he was currently the chef at the Nectar Urban Cantina. And he told me on the show, he said he's starting this new thing. He bought a mill and he started an Instagram called Mize DLV. And I went ahead and during the show, I think I followed him. And today's episode, what we're going to do is we're going to catch up from that moment when he said, I have an idea and we're going to walk through exactly what his life has been like for the last year and a half from the farmers markets, moving all around, doing all of the stuff that he's been doing to being out front of Chopper Tiki. And then he has breaking news announcement to make to everybody out there today. So very, very excited and proud of him. Love this guy. And at the very end, he, the very last five minutes are, I always feel like are the best, but the last five minutes, he gives a shout out to all of the vendors that he uses.

03:12And they are basically all the vendors that I work with. So big shout outs to Cytex, big shout outs to Super Source, and big shout outs to What Chefs Want. Thank you guys so much for supporting me and Nashville Restaurant Radio and locally owned and operated restaurants, helping me tell the story out there. It means a lot. Don't want to forget Aaron Mosso over at Sharp Yeas Bakery. Just amazing people. Guys, we're going to take a break for the whole month of December. We are not going to have any new episodes. We are going to take some time off, spend some time with the family, and we are going to work our ass off. It's a busy time of year, but we're going to hold off on new episodes. When we come back in the new year, we have got lots of plans. We've got special series we're going to be doing. We're going to be delving into some topics with some panel conversations, continuing to work with Ladam Descafier, and of course brand new interviews with the chefs, the restaurant owners, the people in the industry that you want to hear from.

04:16We enjoy sharing your stories. If you want to be on the show, if you're somebody out there who's like, man, I want to tell my story, I've got something interesting to say, feel free to hit us up. My email is Brandon at NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Or if you want to nominate somebody that you'd really like to hear their story, do the same. Send me an email, Brandon at NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Guys, I'm so excited to share this news. We're going to jump in right now with Julio Hernandez. Super excited today on a bonus Thursday episode to bring in my good friend Julio Hernandez. He's the chef and owner at Mays DLV. What's up, man? It has a great tone to it, doesn't it? Mays DLV, de la vida. It's like a sub-opera, de la vida, that is coming. You know, it's really cool. I agree. I love it.

05:16I want to catch up our listeners. If you don't know who Mays DLV, if you know Mays de la vida, if you know Chef Julio, he was last on our show. Well, you've been on all kinds of shows because we talk about you all the time and you've been on the, when we do live shows, you always chime in and we have lots of conversations. But you had an individual show. It was May 5th, 2020, like two months after starting the whole podcast. And I introduced you that day as the executive chef for Nectar Urban Cantina. And I think by the end of that episode, you were the chef owner at Mays de la vida. I was the Instagram owner of Mays DLV by the end of that episode. Yes. And I think in the middle of that episode, I think I went and started, I think I'm like your second follower ever as Mays de la vida. Yeah, it's my mom. First was my mom. And then I told you about it. And then you follow me at that moment.

06:18So yeah, second one. It's amazing. So we've, I said all these things before the pandemic and I wanted to motivate people and I want to talk to people. And I said, we're going into this crazy time where we're going to be locked in our house. We're not going to be able to do a bunch of stuff. This pandemic is going to be insane. You're going to be able to do two things. You can either sit in your house, smoke pot and watch movies and play Xbox and hey, if that's what you want to do, that's what you want to do. Or you can hustle and put in a ton of work and make your dreams come true. I said it's kind of like if you if you're a caterpillar and you're going into a chrysalis when you come out of this thing, are you going to be a moth or are you going to be like a swallowtail butterfly? And I feel like you're the guy that we more of a phoenix of dragon type of guy. You know, OK, go either way. You went into this thing and you you said, I'm going to leave my executive chef job and I'm going to bring authentic.

07:25My corn, I'm bringing in corn for Erwin corn. I had no idea what I was doing. In all honesty, it was I had an idea. I had I've been researching at that point tortillas for four years. I had made terrible tortillas for four years. And, you know, I was learning from how to press to what is a tortilla. And I can talk about that for hours. But, yeah, four years prior that it was all research. And when we last talk and my is DLV came across, it was how I freaked out for coming. And that's the truth. It was everybody freaked out in one way or another. I had a secure position. Nectar is moving and they're doing great things. We're still good friends. I hang out with a sway who is running the kitchen very often. I'm very proud of them, very proud of him. Things were good. We had a virtual store. Remember those virtual markets that the restaurants did?

08:26We were selling toilet paper. So that means I had toilet paper. It was good. The great toilet paper shortage of 2020. Man, we never have that happen again. So we had that already. But I snap. You know, I freaked out as a way of what if the business doesn't work? What if my boss's some shit snaps? I don't know. This is just me overthinking, right? So I decided to start doing tortillas, my is DLV. I needed to start something. I needed to make a business. And I happened to be next to mine. So what is what is next to my next email? What is that? Well, next to my it's a word that dates back to the aesthetics before the conquistadors.

09:26So when you say next to my you're not speaking Spanish. You are actually speaking now what next mile means cook corn. And can I tell you a funny story about dialects and how conquistadors? It's really fast. So, yeah, for example, next to my good corn, when you think about Yucatan, that's another word that we will say in a dialect that is over 4000 years old. Yucatan literally translates to I don't know. Really? When the conquistadors arrive and they're all fancy and, you know, they got their beers and they look cool. They got a sword. They find this native Mexican and they ask you, where are we? Where have we landed on this toy? And he replied, Yucatan. And the guy looked back and goes, guys, we're Yucatan. And that means I don't know. It means I don't know.

10:26The guy said, I don't know what the fuck you're saying. They name it Yucatan. And it's how it dates back. So next to model is one of those words that we use for our company. And I love to see, we need to have Ramones shirt because I'm a heavy CBGBs, New York City punk rocker. Yeah, that's a whole other story. But so next to model means who corn a dialect word that is for 5000 years old. And it's kind of cool to see all over East Nashville when people wear it, like it's almost like a rock band. And it's a proud moment. We got to do a shirt trade. I got some shirts for you and a hat. I need one of those shirts too. So picking up your story, so we get off the home, we get off our interview. You kind of you make an announcement. Hey, I'm leaving. I'm leaving my job and I'm going to start. I'm going to start milling corn. You bought a mill.

11:26Am I correct? Am I correct? Brought it in from Mexico. And there it is right there in the bag. I that guy weighs close to 600 pounds. Wow. So sometimes people will ask me if I can do a demo. I'm like, I can do a demo. Well, you got to come here. I'm not thinking that would be so. So how do you start off? I put my notice and I called my wife and shout out to her because she helped me a ton building a business. I told her, hey, I just put my notice. Kombucha. And kombucha. People see me drinking this. I'm like, it's kombucha. So I tell her, hey, Emma, we are. I just resign my position and keep in mind this is during heavy COVID, right? It's like the second week of May. Yeah. And then on top of that, I tell her I am going to use her savings.

12:27She got a new already. So it's not like I just took these decisions. But I said this is happening and I'm going to pull 2000 pounds of heirloom corn, which now you see over there. And we're going to start mailing tortillas. There was not enough income to jump into the food industry yet. All we had was a small amount of savings. We got four kids. We stay busy. It's expensive. So I used every single penny and we purchased the Molino, 2000 pounds of corn. And I started making tortillas in my garage. There's no money. Yeah. I could make two tortillas at a time. Two tortillas at a time? Yeah, two at a time. Because again, I had a propane little griddle that you take to the lake. Wow. But that's what you get.

13:28And where did you sell these? I saw you online. You had this Instagram account. You started selling them. And you're selling out every day. So before all of this stuff, we got to come back a little bit. So while I'm still at Nectar, we're having fun. Busy, busy, busy as hell, too. Because they allow liquor to go on margaritas. So that was just the perfect storm. I got a message from one of my good friends, Edgar Victoria, Oliver Hey. He sent me a message and he goes, hey, dude, I see you're doing tortillas. And I have this great idea for a pop-up. And I want to cook on those. And like, oh, this guy gets it. It's not just a tortilla. It's not a Kroger brand tortilla. He gets it. So we connected. And throughout pop-ups, I was able to. Because I'm working at this point, I think I'm working 65 hours at a restaurant with a skeleton crew. And those times were crazy.

14:29Because you have too many people in there. They're six feet close to you. You have more people. They're now wearing their masks, whatever the case might be. So skeleton crew. So 65 hours a week. Plus then tortillas. That put me at 90 hours a week. Plus day off doing pop-ups. But it was worth it. It was like, all right, there's a guy worthy of cooking. Let's make it happen. It has to be spicy. It has to be fatty. It has to be a good taco. It has to be original. So we did a bunch of pop-ups together throughout the whole city. Which was fun. And it was perfect. It was a good timing. Because it was, you know, everybody was on Instagram. And to us, that was our brick and mortar. That's how we communicate. I mean, till this day, to be honest. That's how we were able to tell people what we were doing. So fast forward. And it's free. And it's free, yeah. Instagram. What an amazing, me too. I mean, everything I put on Instagram, it's big.

15:31I was following you. I mean, just watching every little thing you're doing. We had a great time. I got to make lots of tortillas. You know, it's like, hey, no money. I got this. I want to get really good at tortillas. So I'll just press away. You just cook away. So it wasn't a partnership. It was just a brotherhood, you know? So moving forward. Now I have, say, 500 bucks. So I can buy me a Academy Sport griddle. So now we can cook 10 tortillas at a time. Hey. Hey, moving up in the world. So we decided to go to the farmer's market. My good friend, Levon Wallace, he told me about it. I didn't really know much about the business. And I said, how does it work? Do you just show up? Do you have to ask for permission? Like, do you have to be a farmer? Yeah. You know? Like, these are dumb questions that back in the day, who knows? So we made tortillas.

16:32There was no money to make tacos. We did not have the option. You can buy the meat. Meat's expensive. Meat, equipment, and all that stuff, right? Yeah. So we started pressing tortillas for farmer's market. Shout out to Rebecca at East Nashville. And then it was insane. We set up and magic happened. You know, magic happened. We set up at the tent. I can say this now. I'll say it here. So you are supposed to have liability insurance for a business owner, as any smart person would. Yeah. I'm on a budget. There's 80 bucks left. That's enough to cover insurance. But I told my wife, I'm getting a banner. You got to have a banner. You know this. You got to know who you are. And she goes, yeah, what if they turn us down?

17:33No, they won't. She goes, how do you know? I say, well, if you have a banner, they think you have insurance. Am I right? I guess. I don't know. It's ballsy. It's super ballsy. Definitely. You know, we got insurance. We're good. We're covered now. We do now. But you know, the first time I'm like, am I going to like it? Is it going to work? Is this something I want to do? So we sold out. We had 100 plus dozen tortillas to sell. And we sold out within an hour. Wow. The magic happened week after week. We kept trying to pump more. But at this point, I was going to sleep at 9 a.m. or not sleeping. So I was like, that's it. I can't make no more. So it's a lot of work, man. Class four. You know, we had. Hey, let me apologize for a second to make a tortilla. What do you see? You have to take the corn and look at the machine behind you.

18:34You put the corn in and what does it do? Is it grind it up real good? Yeah. What's the process? How do you make a tortilla? We can do a demo right here. Check this out. So super messy, but this is a volcanic stone. Yeah. And this is a grinder. OK. There's two and five horsepower behind me. And if you do it wrong, you'll break your stones. And you're looking at 200 plus dollars to replace the stones. So you got to think about five horsepower and a huge amount of torque power. So that machine is crazy. So you got to cook the corn and then you got to let it rest. How do you cook it? How do you cook the corn? So we have this thing called Cal calcium hydroxide, which helps the corn. I know this in Spanish better, but essentially it kills the outer layer of the corn to allow the vitamins and nutrients to develop.

19:38But it mainly develops the elasticity that makes it. Yeah. Because otherwise you're making formula grades. OK. Yeah. Process. So really the key word is cooking your corn properly to develop that elasticity that allows you to lay it in tortilla that is almost like gluten. But there's no gluten. It's all corn. There's two hundred twelve different types of Mexican corn. That's what we work with for now. And every corn is cooked differently. So at that point, I found out and I realized I have found a career. I want to be a tortillero. I went from executive chef, you know, with, you know, my background, mainly New York City and heavily country club in Nashville. Big shout out to Hillwood, Mark, Josh and Colin. You know, if there was a place I would ever go back to work at, it would be Hillwood. Folks over there. Yeah. It's just, I mean, you can spoil.

20:38Let's be honest. Yeah. We have this running joke that say you can wash your hands with water. It's a fun place to work at. You get to work from. With super expensive cut proteins to. I mean, there's a game. Yeah. A wild game dinner. Yeah, man, that wild game dinner is the best. Yes. So anyway, back to tortillas. So I like Hillwood. And then so you cook the corn one time. And then while you're passing it to the stones, you're essentially cooking it one more time because this creates heat. So now you have cooked the corn two times. And then you take your dough, you hydrate it with enough water to get the right texture. It should feel almost like your hand is wet, but it just kind of blew at it. Yeah. You know, that is hard to describe. It's more of a artisan feeling. And then you cook your tortilla again to end up with a tortilla. So essentially you have taken here, I got some corn here.

21:40So essentially you have taken corn into the most delicious tortilla like this one right here is from Oaxaca Bolita Azul. And I just finished cooking some and it's so sweet. It's super sweet. It's like, wow. We're excited. We're going to be using it with sweet potatoes. So that makes sense. Well, Thanksgiving, right? Yeah. Thanksgiving. Just yeah, we run in a new taco at the truck, which is sweet potato. So that's tortilla. That's okay. So sorry for the sidebar, but just the process and how you make it, I think is important because it's so unique. It's not just like, hey, I'm making like anybody else. You buy this machine from Mexico. You're bringing in heirloom corn from Oaxaca. Each way you have to cook it differently. You've got to mill it down. You've got to hand add water to the touch. I have cooked so much corn and I have not been successful every single time. You know, it's there's been times that I'm like, there he goes, 50 pounds, you know, and you can do stuff with it.

22:42So we don't throw it away. But definitely if you don't do it right, you can not make tortillas or they turn out green instead of blue. It's not pretty. Everybody, white and yellow are the friendliest because they're forgiven. When you start diving into the colors, the red and the blue, they're not forgiven. So if it turns out green, does it taste worse? No, no, it's the same. It's just green. You know, it's not. They'll be good for St. Patrick's Day. Yeah, I guess we can wait for that. But also all that comes with if you overcook your corn, if you over rest your corn, if you use too much calcium hydroxide, if you meal too hard, if you meal too not too tight. So all this will show at the end. So you're at the farmer's market. I see online, I see Sean Brock picking up a bunch of it. Sean Brock's posting. Hey, look, I got this new corn for my new restaurant.

23:45And I'm going, wow, man, he's got. Shout out to Sean. We call him on the truck. The boys and I, we refer to him as T.O. Sean, Uncle Sean. He's super nice to us. He, him and also Colin Shane, the CDC, the Continental. Great guy. You can taste it. You know, you can see you got Sean's vision and calling, executing. And I wish we had eight days a week so we can actually do it. We had eight days a week so we can actually hang out. Yeah, I know that feeling. So anyway, we did a really cool pop up with Shane when he was running Embers only. This was short into our tortilla career. And do you remember Embers only pop ups? They will happen at the parking lot of Audrey before Audrey open. I don't. I didn't. I was.

24:45They did some insane food that you could pick up to go. So he hosted us for a pop up of Embers only. He had a whole pig that he cooked slowly over Embers. And I was. He asked me if I wanted to help. I said, how about I just make tortillas? Because that's a shit ton of work. That's enough. Yeah. Anyway, that was a great pop up. I think that's one of my highlights. My favorites that we've made throughout. Isn't it amazing how through a pandemic we're all supposed to stay apart? The one thing about this community is that people just, they kind of came together to collaborate on so many different ways. And you kind of were like this glue that kept at, you were at all of these different pop ups. It was this Mais de la Vida was with everybody. So we did Hathorn. Our very, very first pop up was with John Stevenson and Evan, who led us in their kitchen and they believed that we could pull it off.

25:45They were the first ones to invite us to do a pop up. And until this day, I keep hearing people talk about Chef's Evan cooking. So I only did the corn again. I told him I'll do corn and you do the rest. So Hathorn was the first one. We did Embers only. We did one with Redhead Stranger. That was a great, that was a really cool collab like Tex-Mex. Let's come together for this one. We did a bunch with Josh Cook for his Taco Bell pop ups. We did all the tortillas. The discontinued Taco Bell. That was a beautiful, that was an awesome idea. That was such a great idea. Smart marketing from them. And between Josh and Ana, that was a blast. But again, I have a burner that I can cook 10 tortillas at a time. So it was a lot of work. Let's see who else we did.

26:45Oh, Oh, I wrote this down because actually I don't want to forget anybody. I probably will. We did a pop up with Delia Joe. We did a sound bites dinner. Yeah. And like that was in her apartment complex, wasn't it? Yeah. In the condo building overlooking Arnold's. Yeah. It was a beautiful setup and it was just a perfect storm to have it. It was, it was a chef Brad from Seasalt currently. It was us. We have black dynasty. Edgar Victoria. We had a la brie hay. The funny thing about black dynasty, we tried to make Rooney do the soup course and he does ramen for a living. She's like, Oh fuck you guys. I don't want to do fucking soup again. We had Josh cook there too. So it was a great pop-up between in the middle of pandemic, super bolsy, super risky to do it because if nobody shows up, you have all these money with all these tickets that you didn't sell.

27:46Luckily we sold out. And I mean, it was a great event. It was a great time to become friends with everybody. I think we have to also tell our listeners right now that you have an announcement to make here in a little bit and we're going to go right now. We're kind of just walking back. And I feel like this is a fun stroll down memory lane to kind of get to where you're at today. And I've, there's so many people along the way that have got you here. I love this. I love the storytelling. Hang in there because you want to hear what you have to say. I'm trying to hear this. So what are the pop-ups? Is there any other pop-ups? What was next after the pop-ups? So after the pop-ups, I started something we call other people tacos. So at this point, now that we're doing pop-ups, there's some actual income coming in and you know, like anybody trying to start a business, you got to put it right in right back in the business.

28:46So I started making other, meeting other friends throughout the country. Tickets. Remember airplane tickets were so cheap. I flew to New York city, stay with my brother. So there was no hotel. And then I got to meet a good friend from, for all things good, which they got a, this year they got a huge shout out for a Michelin hub. On the guy Michelin. They also wear a pandemic tortilla pop-up. I met another guy, a great friend who loves to rock the next to my share in New York city, in Brooklyn, a sack from Sobre masa. He two weeks ago, just got a shout out on the New York times for tortillas. Then we went to Las Vegas with my good friend, Mariana from masa. Sue. And I'll list all these places. We're making tortillas. It's not just hanging out. You know, we are learning. We, we've been, you know, corn nerds. There's Chicago.

29:47We went to Chicago, Carlos Gaitan, and we got to see, you know, what they're doing over there. Oxumoco cloud on New York city. Wow. I think that's, I'm sure forgetting some, but you know, did you ever get COVID? No, no. And I got, I got it tested. I, I did not have, what was the test? So my mother-in-law works for the health department. Okay. So she is, she managed the COVID-19 hotline. So you can imagine how we are monitoring the house when she comes over. She comes like, Hey guys, I got, I got a Q-tips for your noses. We got tested a bunch and I never got it. I worked with people that had it and we did, you know, the right thing to do, but I've never personally got it nor my kids nor Emma, you know, knock on wood.

30:48Wow. That's just a lot of traveling and going all around and, you know, and I, I, as soon as the vaccine came around and like, you know what? I just get vaccinated. Cause I want to keep working. Booster boost me up. Let's go. Yeah. If I drink a red bull, I shouldn't be afraid of the booster. It's a, it's a good point. You know? So yeah, it was, it was, I guess lucky. I don't know. We, but yeah, I never had it even. Cause the, when you do the test, it tells you if you have the antibodies, antibodies, there you go. Yeah. I'm good. So it's weird. So you did a lot of travel and you came back and how did you end up at Chopper Tiki? So we did a pop-up at Chopper Tiki with Josh Cook. It was our very first pop-up that we did. And then the conversation of the food truck started happening. Maybe some of you guys have eaten at the food truck. We had the food truck, which we started taking it to the farmer's market.

31:49Big shout out to anybody that runs a food truck. Fuck. That has, it's a lot of work. It probably has aged me at least eight years. Just, you gotta, besides the food, you gotta make sure to, you grab the right handle and you're putting diesel cause you're tired. You know? Same one. I don't know. You gotta make sure the engine is running. You gotta make sure you have gasoline for the generator. You gotta make sure you have propane to cook on. You gotta make sure you got a table, the payment system, the wifi. Oh yeah. It's a lot. Man. So Chopper came about after we did Richland, which again, Rebecca, she manages East and Richland. Big shout out to her cause she pushed me to go to Richland. She's like, that's big. That's a lot of work. She believed that we could do it. We pulled it off. And then one of the things that brought us to Chopper after we did the truck and decided to stay was because I started to notice the business was coming and that's great.

32:54But the main problem that we had was that people, how Richland works, everybody goes to get their produce. They run to Fat Belly to secure their goods, right? You gotta get your banana pudding. You gotta get your radishes. You gotta get what you're there for your bread. We are the after show. So we will have, after everybody had secure their may pop water and all that good stuff, then they'll have a head for the tacos. Cause now you're tired. You don't want to go home and cook everything you just purchased. You want to smash the tacos so then you can go cook. So I started to notice the line was just big and that's a good problem. But then I realized we were just doing the same menu and could not move forward with more cooking. And that's when we decided to pull the trigger and permanently stay at Chopper because it worked out. Also Chopper hosted us for a whole year before we decided, you know, before it's been a whole year of Chopper and Andy, Nick, Texan, the GM, they took us in with full arms.

34:09There was, you know, there was nowhere to talk about, hey, you gotta pay me this much to park outside. It was straight up, let me help you. And it kind of worked out to where I decided to use Chopper as an advantage to give people a table. You know, now you can wait while you sit, while you drink some may pop water or your cocktails, Tiki cocktails, and now it's more reasonable. Now your kid is not telling your papa, I want to go home because I've been at the farmers market all day. Yeah. So that's the main reason that took us to Chopper. Not knowing we would sell, not knowing people would come, but we decided I needed to cook more than just cafeteria lunch line. But now you're not, you're not doing it alone. Who are some people that you've brought along, who are some people that work, now you've got like a team of people that work in that truck with you. Who are some of those people? Let's give some shout out to some people that hustle with you. So we have, we have a great team. It's we have had, we have, okay, so also we have worked with everybody.

35:11Everybody has come by. Our very first employee was a Virgil, Virgil is not in the industry. He builds stainless steel, cool refrigeration equipment that no restaurant can afford. He works for FWE and, you know, you're talking about a $20,000 cooler. So they're super fancy. They're hospital quality. And maybe, you know, he helped me actually when I had the garage kitchen set up, he gifted me one of the coolers that was in the company, you know, just kind of put away to the side. He gifted me a cooler and he was our first employee, not knowing how to cook. He became a badass on the line. He's, you know, from her to behind to on the fly to, hey, sir, you bring your bitch hands to work today, like faster, you know, all that comes with it, all the, all the, all the conversations. So Virgil was a very first guy. Big shout out to Virgil.

36:12Okay. Hopefully he'll listen. And then we had, man, we had Joey Mottini come cook at the truck our very first week. What's up fam? Like, hey bro, I see you posting on Facebook. Can you come help me? I got nobody. Yeah. So he came over. Even Troy from Black Dynasty, he has never like cooked, but he comes hang out with us and he's there and we're like, can you run this food? Like do something. He would stay there for hours just hanging out with us. Currently though, now we are more of a, now that we run in the trucks these days, we actually have a real staff. We have Alan Davis, also known as the fun guy. He he's obsessed with mushrooms. He grows mushrooms. Yeah. Yeah. He's the mushroom guy. Fun guy, super cool personality, you know, nice guy, positive attitude.

37:13I don't know how the fuck, I don't know how much coffee he drinks, but he's got so much energy. I tried not to, he asked for coffee today and I pretended I forgot. You don't need any more. No. So, and he takes care of what we cook. I like to say is Mexican food, but I also like to think is new Mexican food because people like him, I'm from Mexico, I'm from Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala translates. It's another word in dialect. It's now what? Tlaxcala means land of corn, of bread, tortillas, I'm from tortilla land. Makes sense. Yeah. Anyway, so. It's your birthright. Yes. I love to think so. So I try, I cannot say I cook in authentic Mexican food because I am not. I am also, I mean, I had a career in Nashville for over 10 years, so I love some smoked brisket tamales.

38:13Why not? You know, so Alan brings the fermentation side to the concept. He has a great brain for fermenting, keeping numbers, temperatures. He loves to read a lot. He devoted to Koji. And at first, you know, you will think a little like, hey, we want Mexican food. We're in Nashville and I think it makes sense that let's do it, let's make it taste good. Another guy that works with us right now is Matt Royer. He was once upon a time at Hathorn. He had a great run at Hathorn. I know he's working at Oak Steakhouse and he's got his own private chef, super fancy food, super skillful, private chef gig that he does on the side and music, super talented in the music, better than some stuff I hear on the radio, to be honest.

39:17Another guy that we had swing by recently that just left was Chris Gass. He came from the continental and decided to work at the truck with us and great attitude. He's I'm not going to say much where he's going because I'm not sure if I'm supposed to, but he's got great things lined up ahead of him. So he recently left to be a dad. Yeah, Thursday. They are like maybe so the day this comes out that morning. Congratulations. Yeah. So he's one of the good things that everybody moving to Nashville is bringing. He just moved to Nashville and we gained a great cook, you know. Hell yeah. I love that. All right. So you're at Chopper Tiki. You've got some amazing people working for you now. You've got a team. You meet Andy Mumma. Andy Mumma. Sorry, I said that wrong. What's that relationship like? So the first time I saw him, we're making tortillas on the sidewalk of Chopper.

40:22I got a flat top, you know, Academy Spore, Blackstone, you're right all outside. He's taking pictures of me like, yo, like back off. I didn't know who he was, you know. Great guy. He when we started all this, we did not know if we would actually have a good, how do you say that? A good chemistry between each other. And it turns out that we do, we love, we're equally, I like, I'll say we're equally nerds in our own right, in our own way. Definitely entrepreneurs. Anybody can do a pop-up. Anybody can try to start a business, but it takes a next step to really go for it like he has. You know, there's a barista parlor anywhere you look. I've stopped at one of the airport twice in the last couple of months. It's been great. And they have Hi-Fi cookies there too. Yes. I love Hi-Fi cookies. They're the best. Yes. Everyone. I've never had a bad Hi-Fi cookie.

41:23So Andy, super great guy. Like I said earlier, he hosted us a Chopper without the interest of anything from ourselves. And that big shout out to the Chopper crew because, you know, they have put up with us the bossing the tables to telling tables, yeah, dude, try the taco trucks, it's really good. And putting that, you know, Nick, the GM, if there's a, yeah, he's a hard worker. If you just look all around, he had called me over there by himself. So. So. Barney was struggling. Remember that? Oh man. Everybody was. Yeah, but Barney was just like, you're close. Can't even do anything. So we're going from May 5th, 2020. You're on the show. Which is my birthday. Which is your birthday. You're telling me that we have. Over the year that I work the hardest, it happens to be my birthday. You have this new Instagram page.

42:24We start talking about it. You got no money. You call your wife and you say, Hey, we're going to do this. You start buying corn. You buy the mill. You're, you're, you're making two tortillas at a time. Finally go to Academy Sports. You can make 10 tortillas at a time. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You go. I, I actually got kicked out of my house. That's how I ended up in the garage because I was making tortillas on our electric stove. Oh, I had two little griddles and Emma kicked me out because I broke the elements because I was making too many tortillas. The elements overheat and the stove broke. So now we're broke a negative stove. So you got to go to Facebook, Facebook marketplace, you know, find a stove and she's like, yeah, you can't do this here anyway. So fast forward. So you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you get a banner. You're at the farmer's market. I don't know how to do a farmer's market, but you do the farmer's market. You elevate to the Richland farmer's market. You're doing pop-ups all year round with everybody. You travel the country to work with other people, to make tortillas.

43:26You've get this spot at Chopper Tiki. And now I think that you have, I think that this is like the culmination. I think this is what we're waiting for. And then we had the opportunity to partner with Chopper and do six days a week tacos. So we got a taco truck that has a neon open sign in the back of it that shines towards Gallatin Pike six days a week that says tacos. And now, I mean, yeah, it started from a pop-up, started with two tortillas to a six days a week with a talented crew. I mean, yeah, it's pretty. So what's next? What do you want to tell the world? All right. Are you ready? I'm ready. Pretty much. You're the first one where we are saying this, but we went into a full-on partnership with Andy Muma and we have merch as of Thursday and we're now one company.

44:29We have signed a lease for our Maize brick and mortar. So there'll be in the spring, there will be a full blown out restaurant with not just the tortillas. It will also be Nashville's first Nistamal Mexican, New Mexican restaurant that is emphasized on tequila and mezcal. Yes. So that's... There it is. Ain't that... And well, big shout out to Khalil from Arnold's Country Kitchen, because we had our first meeting there months ago and we're going to be located right across the street from him at the antique mall in the Gulch and he kept it to himself and they didn't tell anybody. So here we are Thursday and we get to be neighbors with Khalil across the street from Arnold's at the antique mall on the back part.

45:30There'll be a patio. It's going to be a 2 a.m. patio, you know? Dude, I'm so excited. Your brick and mortar in the Gulch. There's going to be a Maize DLV. You can go get this every day. Wow. It's going to be... I don't want to give too much away, but we are definitely working on a wood fire grill that's going to be... It's a huge part of Mexican cuisine. We're going to be able to bring that, not just the maize, but bring elements that make it taste that way. How does it feel saying that out loud on this show? What does that feel like right now? Do you feel like... Are you energized? Do you feel like you have a weight on your shoulders? Yeah, I mean, definitely it's a worst kept secret because we have so many friends and we tell our friends, but it has not been social media available till now. So definitely, and it's...

46:32So like next week, two weeks, I'm off to Los Angeles to meet other friends in the industry of the tortillas. But more importantly, I'm going to pick up our new Molino, which is our grinder. So this grinder can do 100 pounds of mass per hour. We are upgrading to a grinder. The stone is going to be this big and can grind 700 pounds per hour. That's next level. That's next level, dude. That is next level. It's a... It's like, you know, I like to think I have a Cadillac of the Molinos. I'm on my way to pick up the Mercedes of the Molinos to be able to... Ferrari. Ferrari, there you go, much better. To share the knowledge with other people. We have taken several notes and we cannot wait to teach people how to use this, how to make the tortillas, how to process everything.

47:35We will have an actual kitchen to walk on rather than the car. When are you taking... Are you taking applications right now or are you building your team already? We have started building the team. However, I think the social media is going to be our key. We're going to start looking in 2022, January, heavily start going for it. We're shooting to open in the spring. So by then, yeah, definitely we're going to need all the help we can get. Anybody that wants to... If you're... It's never too early. If you're out there right now and you're listening to this and you go, holy shit, I want to go work with this guy. I want to be part of this wood fire cooking with... I want to learn how to use that Molino. I want to do the whole thing. We're just making a tortilla. You want to learn how to make that or... And that's not all you have. You have Alan's skills where he's doing the fermentation process and he has... One of his goals is to focus on waste, the waste that we all produce during cooking and how to take that waste when it's clean.

48:45For example, Chopper, he goes through a lot of limes. So they squeeze the limes and they end up with... Rind. Rind. So now we have a salsa on the truck that is made out of that. We also have vinegars that is made after that. We have tepache, which is from all the skin of the pineapple that Chopper uses. We now take that and he takes this and he converts it into a product that you can use, which are our seasonings. So that's pretty... That's kind of... So you have like two old school kitchens. You got the fermentation and you have the nixtamal and then we have the opportunity to do a new Mexican cuisine at a great location. So everybody go right now and follow... Your Instagram, is it maizdlv? Yeah, just maizdlv. Maiz underscore d-l-v.

49:45Go follow them right now if you don't already. I'm sure that you already do if you're listening to this. Also, another one I forgot. I mean, think about... That's just back of the house. I'm a back of the house guy, right? You met me when my hair was down to my lower back in 19. So I'm a back of the house guy, always been in the kitchen, but there's so much knowledge to be learned about mezcal and tequila and all the different things that I'm starting to learn. And that's another great thing. If you're into mezcal, if you're into tequila, there's going to be a lot of time to learn in huge opportunities for all these tasting menus, pairings that we're thinking. It's another great opportunity. So hit them up. Follow them at maiz underscore d-l-v, maizdlv on Instagram. Send them a message if you're like, hey, I want to be part of this. This is my name. This is what I want to do.

50:45Start hitting them up now because before you know it, you're going to be at the time where you're hiring people and brick and mortar, brick and mortar from this. I'm cooking two tortillas at a time, a year and a half later, almost to the... Well, it's 10 days away, but a year and a half later through all those hours and everything. You're just getting started. You've got a lot of hours in front of you, but so far, is it all worth it? Is everything... Yeah. Yeah. Would I do it again? Yes. If I knew how hard it would be, would I do it? Maybe not. It's been hard. It's been a lot of hours, lots of giving up sleep. When I think back of all the work that we have done and how we have pushed it to the last mile, it's like, holy shit, I can't believe we were able to pull that off, but it's definitely worth it. I have the opportunity now to put a voice in people from my culture as well.

51:54It's no secret that we are always in kitchens. Mexican people, Hispanic people, or even other minorities, we are heavily invested in the restaurant industry. I love the Mexican restaurants that we have learned to love and all the queso, I can throw down some queso too, but I think it's time to do something different, to do it right. I love it. It's cool to have that voice and give them that avenue. Well, you're an absolute leader and I'm super excited for you. I'm going to be a big supporter, I always have been. Thank you for being a supporter of this podcast. I appreciate all the shout outs and everything that you've been doing throughout this whole time and we're just getting started, man. We're just getting started. I'm so proud of you. I can't wait to see what it looks like.

52:55It's a lot of work coming, but I do know it's going to be, my goal is to make it local. I understand we're in the gulch, but I think we can all, we all found a house in the gulch. I can see pop-ups in there. I can see collaborations in there. I think we know how to do one thing and that's work with people, so I don't think we'll ever stop. I think you're going to be a staple in the gulch. I think it's going to do amazing. We are getting late tonight. One thing I do, I'm sure you're fully well aware of, is at the end of every single show, I like to let my guest take us out and I'm excited to hear what you might have to say. We said it all. We put all the feelers out there. There's nothing left. Whatever you want to say, you got to take us out. You could just say nothing, but it's on you.

53:55Go. All right, so an advice from a cook to another cook, always when cooking, think of substance. Cook something that provides somebody substance, don't just cook because it's trendy. That's what makes people happy and if it makes somebody happy, make their day, that's hospitality from a plate to a person and if you can translate a message of a little bit of who you are and they get it, I think you'll be back tomorrow. Absolutely. I'm a huge hospitality guy. I did four years of Front of the House and I had a great mentor back in New York and hospitality was always key. You know how, what is it, I think Anthony Bourdain's book talks about Big Food, how he has his Big Food that teaches him everything.

54:56I had mine and he was a Front of the House guy who passed away of cancer, but his last days of the industry of living were spent in the restaurant because he wanted to. The owners of the restaurant pay for all his chemos. They pay for everything for him. You know, this is Lydian Joe Bastianich, super famous chefs, restaurateurs in New York City. They took care of Jeremy so much, but still he decided to be in the restaurant on his chemo days, like where he shouldn't be there, he'll just let me be here. That's amazing. Yeah, it's kind of, so that, and this is me being 16 watching this. So that got in my brain and it's all about hospitality, dude. Speaking of hospitality, you got some vendors that you like to use there. We are like the National Restaurant Radio.

56:00You're not lying. They're good people. We have... So I'm looking for actual references. Tell me who you use. So Super Source, Turnout, at first I was like, ah, dude, they're sponsors. Maybe it's not true, right? So I didn't know what anybody should do and I looked around and I ended up with Super Source. Boom. Jason Ellis, is he not just amazing? He's cool, man. He always comes in when I'm the busiest. But yes, definitely. He's like, oh yeah, Julio's busy, let me go say hello. But yeah, it turned out to be the right business to use for all the chemicals. And then Linens, Cytex, I have been shopping around, again, as you should, you should always shop around and I'm calling them tomorrow just because that's it. That's the end of the line and that's for me right now. That's the one to make the decision. I love it. What do you buy? How do you buy like your stuff from? Do you have a company that you buy that delivers maybe every day?

57:05Maybe has no minimums you could do, buy anything from? So my kitchen is located in the Bordeaux area, four minutes of Germantown, and Creation Gardens do not have a single account on this street. So they do not have a route. I call Randy and I'm like, hey dude, like, can you get me on there? He goes, shit, we don't have anything going in that direction. Ten minutes later, he's outside the location knocking on the door and he's like, oh, it really is four minutes from our warehouse. Yeah, you're on the route. So they do deliver seven days a week and they do deliver to any location because they just didn't know we were here. So shout out to them. That's where we get our stuff from. Good people. So there it is. I use all these companies at my restaurants also. So SuperSource, Cytex, and What Chefs Want, Creation Gardens, we're trying to get the word out that it's What Chefs Want now because that's who they are.

58:12I'm old school with them, you know. I know. Creation Gardens, you know, it's old habits die hard, you know. Actually, now that you say it, I don't think it's there anymore, right? It doesn't read that way. It's just What Chefs Want. Oh, wow. I think I need to change the colors. It's just like McDonald's changed the name but not change the yellow and orange. I'll still call it McDonald's. Long after. You can still count the colors, am I right? Yeah, they do. It's all the same. Everything, the logo is all the same. But Creation Gardens is now their produce since they have so many different things. It's Creation Gardens' produce, then they have their seafood, then they have the butchery, you know, the meat, but then it's all What Chefs Want. Got it. So they're doing amazing things. It is. They got everything you need. All right, dude. Thank you so much and thanks for breaking the news here. Yeah, first one in. I always love talking to you. We can go hours and hours. Hours and hours. It definitely can happen. But we gotta go. We gotta go. Thank you Nashville.

59:13Yeah, man. See you soon. All right, so the cat is out of the bag. There is going to be a brick and mortar. Mize DLV. It's going to be across the street from Arnold's in the Gulch. This is going to be amazing. There's an actual press release that they're putting out today. And if you didn't get the actual press release, I will tell you what it's going to say. Mize DLV Brick and Mortar Opening Spring 2022. What first started as a table pop-up then turned food truck is transforming into a 3000 square foot brick and mortar serving brunch, lunch, dinner accompanied by a full bar with each menu providing a different food and drink experience. The partnership between Chopper Tiki and Mize DLV launched summer 2020 during COVID-19 as a next-to-mile fueled pop-up by Chef Julio Hernandez at Chopper Tiki Bar in East Nashville and quickly turned into a food truck serving six days a week, often selling out within hours.

01:00:18Nothing will change about that. Mize DLV truck will stay at Chopper Tiki in the future and work in partnership with the brick and mortar location to keep the traditional taco truck experience. So wow, 2022 promises a new look in Mexican cuisine with an authentic to heirloom corn tequila mezcal in Nashville. They're coming to the Paseo South in the Gulch. Paseo South is a partnership between Julio Hernandez and Andy Moma from Chopper Barista Parlor and Modo Motor Shop. So good stuff out there. Good stuff. That's your official press release. Today's the day. If you can, go follow at MAIZ underscore DLV and give them a shout out, tell them congratulations. We are getting a badass restaurant here in Nashville. Happy to bring it to you guys. Hope you guys are being safe out there. Please go get vaccinated. Get your booster shot and I love you guys.

01:01:19Bye.