Kim Totzke

00:00Hey everybody, this is Brandon Styll, host of Nashville Restaurant Radio. There is a new way to hire and be hired in the Nashville hospitality industry. Ladies and gentlemen, Faux & Beaux. That's F-O-H and B-O-H. Faux & Beaux is a local company, locally owned and operated right here in Nashville. When you log in, you don't have to click which city because it's only here. Here's how it works. Industry professionals, you create an account, you complete a profile, and BAM! You are uploaded into the system for employers to find you. If you are an employer, if you own a restaurant, you want to come in and join, all you have to do is go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com, go to the home page, scroll down, click the Faux & Beaux link where you will get a 90-day free trial. It is a 100% free trial. All you have to do is go to the website, log in, create a profile, and choose between 2,500 people who are ready to start a career. I know, it sounds too good to be true, but it is not. It is amazing. There are so many benefits and features to this website. Please go create a profile now. Just see, just check it out. It literally costs you nothing. Go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com and scroll down from the home page, click the link, and start today.

01:30Welcome 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. Today, my guest is going to be Kim Totsky. Kim is the Chief Operating Officer at the Turnip Truck Grocery Store, which is your local natural grocery store. They've been around since 2001. They're doing a fantastic job for their communities that they're in. They have three locations. One is in DeGulch. One is in East Nashville. They have a new store in Charlotte Pike. We get into that in the episode. One of the topics that we touch on is buying local and why it's important to buy local and purchase from locally owned and operated businesses, which they are. And I wanted to talk about that for just a moment because that is something that's very near and dear to me of being a local business owner, as well as somebody who wants to promote and sees how important local businesses are. What is local? Local is anything from your community, people that you see that live, work, your neighbors, if you can support them whatever way you can, then it grows out from there. So a lot of people consider local produce or local food to be anywhere within a 250 mile radius of Nashville. So it's not, you're not buying it from New Jersey. You're not buying it from Colorado. It comes from, you know, kind of Kentucky over to Knoxville, Georgia. Anyway, we have a bunch of things going on right now in this country and locally owned and operated businesses need your help.

03:32Black owned and operated businesses need your help. And if you have a choice, I'd like to tell you right now that you need to support them. You need to support them because when you support, when you purchase, when you have a choice, if you can go to Whole Foods or you can go to a turnip truck, sending money to Amazon versus sending money to people who live in your community is a no brainer. And a lot of restaurants right now are feeling that pain. A lot of restaurants downtown, I mean, we just heard learned yesterday, the Green Pheasant will not be opening again. And it won all kinds of awards in 2019 for the best restaurants in the city. But COVID-19, I mean, no tourism, nobody going downtown. I mean, it's just, it's part of life right now. And we need to be supporting these people who have put their their hearts and their dreams into creating these restaurants that create experiences for you, and for your friends and for tourists and people that come to town, we got to keep them alive. So I'm gonna ask you to go to my website, which is NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Start there and click on the episodes button and scroll down and everybody has been on the show. Every restaurant that's been on my show is a locally owned and operated restaurant. Purchase, go to these restaurants and start purchasing food. Whether you can go dine there, do to go food, start there. If you see them on the list, go there. The next place I would go is to the Nashville Originals website. The Nashville Originals is a collective, I don't know how many restaurants there are now. There's a bunch, but they're all locally owned and operated restaurants that have kind of banded together to help help each other grow. And you can get gift cards, you can do all kinds of stuff there. So check out the NashvilleOriginals.com. I think that's what it is. You can Google it, Nashville Originals. And identify a restaurant you want to go eat at and go do it. Go eat there. Do not go eat at a chain right now. We have one less red lobster after this thing's over. Great. Let's save green pheasant all day long.

05:37So speaking of local, we do have a sponsor for me that supports local restaurants all over the city, all over the south. And that's Spring Mountain Farms Chicken. Spring Mountain Farms is a family-owned business. They're nestled in the hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They have over 50 years experience in raising chickens. We exercise great care in all that we do, they say, and our dedication to proving our chickens with the quality of life, providing chickens with the quality of life and healthy diet results in healthier, more delicious chicken for you and your family to enjoy. Try Spring Mountain Farms Chicken today by locating a store or restaurant near you or ordering online. So if you go to their website and you click on the Find Us button, just scroll on their homepage, and there's a button that says Find Us. You can find everywhere in town that sells Springer Mountain Farms Chicken. So if you want to have the best chicken you can possibly buy, go to their website, springermountainfarms.com, and click on the Find Us. If you want to order their chicken online, you can do that too. There's an online order button. So do that, support local businesses, and I hope that you enjoyed this interview with the amazing Kim Totsky. I am so excited to welcome in our guest, Kim Totsky. Kim, welcome. Thanks for having me.

07:06You are, it is absolutely our pleasure, and when I started this podcast, you may not know this, when I started this podcast, in my brain I had like half dozen people that I wanted to interview. I'm not kidding, I literally, it was like Kerry Bringle, Marko, and like three other people, but you were one of those people. I'm just so excited you're here because you have always been such a bright shining light in kind of my career for a really long time, and I wanted to tell you that. Thank you, and I think that most people, including my self, would say the same about yourself watching that big splash of Brandon walk into the room. You're like, ah, hey, Brandon's here. I've been told I cannot sneak into a room. Truth. Like, oh, Brandon's here. We knew that 10 minutes ago. Like, you can't sneak in. It's not happening. You, I met you a long time ago.

08:11Wild Iris, I met Laura Wilson, and she kind of introduced me to you, and then you guys took over Ombi on Elliston Place, which is now, I think, an IHOP. Yes, people like pancakes. It's a sad thing because that was a really cool restaurant what you guys were doing there, and I wanted to start this interview by just kind of doing a background, like just kind of people telling about who you are and what you're doing now, and so you've, but you've been in the restaurant business for a long time. You haven't been an active cook for a little bit, but like, where'd you get started? I started in Florida. I lived in Winter Park, but then moved to New York for my internship, but I moved to Nashville in 1992, and I first started working at the cake walk, if anybody remembers what that was, for Deb Paquette and Rick Balsam, and that was the beginning, and then I worked for Robert Siegel at the brasserie in those restaurants, and then actually with the Boundary opening back again with Deb Paquette, and then ultimately I started shifting into some other things. I went to Fido Bongo World for like three and a half years and got more involved in different aspects of the industry, you know, coffee, wholesale business, all of that combined, and then I went to Nashville Restaurant Group, and that's where I became culinary operations and wine programs, and then from there I went on and became the chief operating officer of Provence, and for eight years I was with them, and for the last five and a half years I've been the chief operating officer of the Turnip Truck Natural Markets. And absolutely crushing it, might I add. Thank you, and we have a great team, and we have a strong leader

10:12and our owner. You know what, I agree with you. I have nothing but positive things to say about that, man. I want to go back to your Fido days real quick. You said that when you were at Fido, so you were cooking cakewalk boundary, and I could probably do an episode on what it was like opening the boundary and the insanity around that. I was pregnant with my son, who's now a chef, so I was not part of any of the shenanigans. I was part of getting the food made. You were the one, huh? Yeah, your son, Vincent, is now a chef at Tenfold Brewing. Yes, he is. They're doing a fantastic job over there with Edgar and Hunter Hackinson. Yes, yes. Vincent's fortunate to get to work with some seasoned Nashville pros that you can trust. Randy Rayburn and I, social distance, hung out in the backyard a few times talking about. We can't believe that that generation's out there now.

11:16They are, and I think the generation with role models such as yourself are I feel like we're good capable hands. You go back to Fido, you said that that's where you kind of mixed it up. Something changed there. Was there a mentor there? Was there somebody there that kind of led you to want to see more sides of the business, or was it just the fact that they were doing so many different things versus just food? I think that for me, that was when working as a chef of places and working with strong chefs, you're always trying to make sure your data was accurate in terms of cost of goods and labor. But I feel like when I was at Bongo Fido World, Kate Sage and obviously Bob Bernstein really got me more involved in the total P&L and just trying to make sure that your actions and your operations, you're seeing those outcomes and data points was my first experience of being a bit more involved with that.

12:23When I went into the National Restaurant Group, taking that step farther and being able to be a part of writing a bonus program to make sure those actual items landed so that we are always giving a share back but also able to drop more to the bottom line. Absolutely. So if I'm somebody who's out there right now and we've gone through this pandemic and we're at home, a lot of people are listening to podcasts. They're trying to identify what they're going to do. I think that there's going to be a lull. I mean, you see restaurants closing right left. A lot of people aren't going to be able to have necessarily jobs. It's incredibly sad. What advice would you give for somebody who's there who wants to step up into leadership or wants to grow? What's the thing you think that somebody could do right now to invest in themselves? Honestly, understand, learning how to read a PNL. Really understanding how each action drops to the bottom line. And an easy place to start is your cost of goods, your labor, which we all know those. But you know, then going line by line and looking through that and making sure you're not holding on to that data, that you're working with all of your team members to help them understand their part in that data. I think that's the thing is having as much of an open book accounting as possible is going to help everyone be on the same page on the goals you're wanting to achieve. So really getting some basic knowledge on those pieces. And I think that's very, very good advice. And if I'm somebody who's out there who's a server or even a line cook who's not in the management position, anybody out there that wants to get interested in that type of stuff, just ask. I'm sure if you walked up and said, Hey, what are

14:24some I mean, this is the main thing I don't think that people if you're the CEO of a company, I walked up to you and said, Hey, I'd like to become more invested in what we do as a company and how I can help drive. I want to help drive. What can I do to learn to become better? What would you say? Um, well, I mean, even things as simple as is, I think that we even in terms of something as basic as sales, that we're passive about that. And if you look at somebody and you're like, this is the data that we need to hit, these are the numbers we need to hit in terms of sales growth, but we're not sharing what that part is breaking it down and talking to someone. Okay, if I know I've got 2000 customers walking through that day, if I get another dollar into each basket, this is where that goes in the bottom line and and and how it affects everyone, you know, and I know that a lot of times in service world, it's like, hey, that upsell and upsell doesn't have to be the, the thing that we saw, you know, in the movie waiting, hey, can I get you, you know, extra ice in your in a drink or whatever, you know, it's like, but having an being honest with your customer, and sharing that information of like, I know that when my husband I go out, if somebody actually just asks, if I want something, I usually buy it just because the person took the effort to do it. And I'm pretty easy to get extra money out of my pocket when I leave my house. And that's why I don't leave my house very much.

16:07I think you're right. I think a lot of people if you put a little bit extra effort, but you're also I think it's more fun. As an employee, you know, we used to do wine contest and different like features chef selling. It's much more fun if you can walk up to the table. It's an icebreaker. They're giving you icebreakers to walk up table and go, Hey, do you drink wine? Well, let me tell you, we've got this wine feature tonight. And people always go, every time you do that, their heads go, what is it? And they look, just tell them about a wine and they go, Yeah, I'll try that. Why not? I don't have to make a choice. Now you have 912 wines. Just bring me that one. So I mean, the thing in terms of education, and pretty early on, Dan Einstein, who owns Sweet 16th Bakery with his wife, Ellen, and he and I became friends. And I knew that there were changes I wanted to make in my career and go down a different path. He was doing a nice, he was being my friend and talking to me about what he would do for me. And that's when I created my first board of directors of my life. And I took three people who I felt like it was going to be a stretch for them to even be involved with me, you know, just sitting down and chatting about things. And then what I did is I took them out for dinner. Individually, these three gentlemen, Jim Blackstock was one. He had been senior vice president of Cracker Barrel for some years. Dan and Randy Rayburn. I had these had these gentlemen where I'd go out with them and talk about where I was at in my life and where I should go. I remember specifically, Jim Blackstock saying, you've talked about a few different things. And so you have a why in your road right now. And in order for you to move forward and be successful, you need to go ahead and narrow that down so that you are following a specific path. And so once I got my end, my mind aligned into this is what I want to do. This is where I want to go. I sought out

18:08specific mentorship, started making decisions that would support that vision. And that is how it's done, ladies and gentlemen. That's just there's that's so eloquent, just the fact that you had a goal, you had a vision, and you made it happen. You went out and you found wise counsel, and you listened to them. And then you acted upon it, right? Yes, I am. And sometimes just like any board, it's healthy, you know, people roll on and off your board of directors. And then I refresh that. And, and when things aren't going right, you know, making sure that I do a strong internal look if there's behaviors or decisions I need to be making differently. And they're a part of that process for me. Excellent. Well, I could talk to you about this. I could talk to you about business for hours and hours and hours. You yourself have had an interesting 2020 has been interesting for you. Is that an understatement? Yeah, I live on Holly Street in East Nashville. And we got hit pretty bad by the tornadoes. And my house is standing, fortunately, a lot of damage. We'll see how long it takes for the insurance company and I to come to a meeting of minds. But you know, there's not a lot of people living back here in our neighborhood on our street. And during this time and seeing a lot of the houses people dozed and things like that. That's been it's been pretty crazy. But again, we've had the good fortune to be able to live in our house right now took a couple weeks. But again, legions of folks surrounded us and supported us through it. But the biggest part in terms of the business was a warehouse that had most of the equipment for the new store got hit. And so we were already behind on getting that open. And when that happened, and again, referencing john, my owner, he went out there with a truck and some folks and started trying to just sift through equipment and that we we needed to do a lot of finding

20:09stuff on the fly. So john was on online looking up equipment and getting it shipped in. And but then just as we were getting ready to pull all that together and need an inspection to get that space open, they said that we're doing any inspections anymore. And so we had a friend able to I guess an emergency inspection because we are considered an essential business. And so that got us so excited. I already hired over 40 people who are about to get laid off because when we were told we were going to get it inspected because all the people were going to be at the new store. It's like, Oh, I don't have a store for you. But then and then, you know, got the inspection and we were able to hire another 30 people that week instead. That's amazing. And I want to I kind of want to, will you go through a timeline with me? Can we talk about what it was like? So I mean, March 2nd, what you did on March 2nd, and then what, like what the actual night was like, I don't want you to relive it. But I'm curious as to like, how the whole thing unfolded for you.

21:13Yeah, we are, you know, we were focused on how, how much sooner is it going to be until we can get the Charlotte location open? That was our, our, our driving focus. And then that night, you know, you personally though, like just you, like, what did you do that night? Like, how did you know that there was a storm? How long did you have? Were you home? I was with my husband, Lars William, and we were hanging out and it's like, Hey, these storms are coming. And then my house was hit in the 98 tornado, too. So I'm a little bit sensitive to, to tornadoes. I have them and no weather radio. Nothing says you're almost 50, like having a no weather radio that's got batteries in it, you know? So we, we were watching it. And then my son and daughter-in-law and grandson live a block up the street. And we had this moment, I was like, man, I really wish the kids were here. And as I was saying that they walked into the house. In that moment, we all ran into the basement and it hit and you can hear the glass breaking, you can hear everything happening. And so then we were walking upstairs and my son was three when the first tornado hit and was laying underneath me. And we were in the same exact spot. It was so odd to have my grandson standing there and all of them to all of us together there. And as we were walking out, my son said, I need to go first. Don't I, mom? And I was like, yeah, Vincent, you go first. And then he's like, he just called back. He goes, it's bad. And then walked out front. And one of our managers from a turnip truck east was, ran up because he came to my house first and saw us coming out. It's like, get out from underneath the porch.

22:55It's about to fall on you because one of the pillars was gone. And then pretty traumatizing night. And then the next call was somebody who I knew lived close to the turnip truck. It was like, I need you to go see if we're still up, if we're still there. And that was the beginning of the next two days was just trying to get things pulled together. Edgar Penley and a crew of eight guys showed up at my house while a friend picked me up to go get plywood. And when I got back, there was a backhoe in my front yard with a crew of guys trying to dig in the neighbor's couch out of my yard. Wow. And so it was amazing. And I just, you know, you cry and we boarded up the house and got a hotel room for a couple of days, but it became obvious we weren't going to be living here for at least a couple of weeks because we needed electricity and things. So some good friends let us stay in their house for a couple of weeks. So that was, that was that. And I had took two days to get my family life in order. And then it was, it's been nothing but go and we didn't have any weekends off for the next weekend or so. Just trying to get the turnip truck sorted out because it's all hands on deck. Even if, you know, the first day it happened, John was like, Hey, go take care of your family. And so I took that first two days off. And then after that, it was okay. Now that my family's taken care of, I've got to be there for my work family. So that was my problem. Wow. Well, thank you for reliving that just now. I know that that's, I could just tell me. It's not an easy story to tell, but I think it's one that is interesting because I think people are looking at a bunch of, um, a lot of people don't have jobs in your situation is one that is you're looking at opening a new store on Charlotte and you're getting all of that together. The tornado happens on March the 2nd, March 3rd, I guess, right? You're at home, technically the third, your, um, your,

25:00your, your hit, you are, you're able to sell his house, but you're, you're out of your house. You've got the community rallying around you. Did you just feel just an incredible amount of love? Oh, it's, it's unbelievable. I have like, I feel like, um, my experience of, of Nashville in my life has been, um, constantly one of great support. I have worked for what I consider the best owners in Nashville. And, um, and I've had so much support in my friendships that the restaurant industry people, I mean, you know, Edgars, you know, and Hunter trying to get this business open, you know, and it's all a focus on that. But yet that day, you know, um, I just went in there last week and all of these people who I didn't know before, um, who are working there, I walk in and all those people were in my front yard that day. Um, and, and just, and just helping us. And then it's, it's unbelievable. And then, you know, my best friends, I mean, just, I can't get enough support. It's, it's been crazy, but it's been also in a time where I think we're so focused on all the hard things. Um, there's always a way to look at things as positive. I think that, um, a friend put it well to me recently, everyone's trying to avoid 2020 because it feels so hard, but ultimately, um, hopefully we'll all be able to walk away with the change that we need within ourselves and, and, and around us to a better version of ourselves because of the trials, because, uh, we're forged in fire.

26:38What does not kill us makes us stronger. I made a reference. I, I, I can, I'm a super positive guy. Um, and I know some of this, it's been just insane, but I said, uh, earlier on multiple podcasts, I've talked about this, just the idea of during this quarantine or this, just this worldwide pandemic we're having that everybody kind of is, is like, we're all caterpillars before and we've all gone into this chrysalis right now. And when this whole thing's over, we're going to come out of it. And what do you, do you want to be like the beautiful swallow tail or like a Monarch, beautiful butterfly, or are you going to regress and where are you going to be? And I feel like I don't want a vacation at some point. So I want to get back into that. I think that you go through the tornado, you get two days, your house is, is completely damaged two days later. You don't have power for, for weeks, but you're, you're kind of the opposite of the general restaurant community because while March 13th, everything closed in the city, you guys went the opposite direction, but just for business. I mean, you, you almost think like, wow, it'd be really nice to have some sort of a little bit of a reprieve to get some of this stuff done. But you in a sense kicked it in to another gear because not only did your business, I would did it triple. I mean, I don't know what happened to business, but then you successfully opened the Charlotte location.

28:10Yeah, it was, it was a lot of energy and time again. And I don't, you don't usually talk about these topics, but that was a moment where we all had to be pulled through because we did need to be there for our community because as a grocer, you know, and Nashville's local grocer, as we like to draw attention to, and we've got to be there for our community and serve them and serve them safely. And John did a really great job on just looking at it all and saying, you know, we've got to pull through, we have to do this for everyone. And so it was really just going in there and asking everyone at a time where they, our entire team, you know, is having that stress, asking everyone to step up to another level is difficult, but what everyone did, because everyone wants to be there for our community and, and, and be a part of the solution and knowing that a lot of times, maybe the only interaction somebody's had that week is coming into our stores. You know, it's our obligation to make sure it's a, a positive experience, but also a very safe experience. So lots of sanitizer.

29:22So that happens, that happens because you're genuine. That doesn't happen because you're profit driven. That doesn't happen. That happens because of your culture. What are your core values at the Turnip Truck? Community, very much community and wanting to go ahead and nourish our community with food that we stand behind in terms of, you know, where, you know, is it sustainable? Is it, is it, is it safe? You know, just making sure that we're local as much as possible. You know, just going ahead and making sure that we're taking care of our community. And when they did the store design for the East store, there's that bridge that goes down the entire length of the store upstairs. And it's about how the community is the core of the store. And so that's, it's really awesome. But I think the thing people don't think about, they think, okay, grocery stores are killing it. Well, yes, there's a spike in sales at East, you know, a big one. But, you know, our gulch location is, you know, centered in the gulch. That's mostly, you know, a food service driven business with the businesses that work around there support that as well as tourist business. And so those sales are drastically off because the core demographic is not there. And then opening up the Charlotte location, we've had, you know, really great numbers coming in terms of people wanting to shop with us. But you know what, during a pandemic, people aren't necessarily changing their shopping patterns yet. So if they already were shopping at a conventional type store, there, maybe it's going to take them a minute to go ahead and try something new. And so the East store has definitely been the backbone for the company. It can be elusive, you know, what it appears to be and depending on your location.

31:14And while I am a, you know, I guess I'm kind of either one way or the other, I'm not a huge fan, but I don't dislike Whole Foods. You had a gigantic Whole Foods open like three blocks, maybe four blocks from the gulch location. And I think that this is a good time that I can say it, that if you're good, if you live down there or you're going to be shopping somewhere, support the turnip truck. Go there because like you just said, they are local there. They're the ones who are giving back to the community. I'm sure Whole Foods is great. But I mean, Amazon, Amazon's good right now. They're going to be okay. They're going to be okay. Please, if you have the choice, go support the turnip truck. I sent it for you. I don't know. Has the Whole Foods been a, has it been a big, obviously you have a competitor like that open up? Is it, have you, did you notice an immediate sales drop? They're suffering the same things we are from what I understand of just that neighborhood isn't out there shopping in the same way right now. But every time a business opens up around you that similar, it's going to have an effect.

32:21But if you take that and you're like, okay, how do we differentiate ourselves? How do we go ahead and try to do something even better and continue to focus on yourself? We don't really spend a lot of time focusing on other grocery stores and what they're doing because we need to keep the eye on our own focus. Again, that focus I was speaking about earlier, in terms of where I want to go with my career, it's the same thing in the business. What is our focus? Who do we want to be? And don't get caught up in trying to be somebody that you're not. So that's a good segue into this past week. This past week has been, I think, gosh, it's weird. How do you put this? I think it's been amazing. Yeah. I think it's been, for me personally, it's been very eye-opening. I've been able to look introspectively at myself and come to some realizations that I could do better.

33:28Yeah, I think we all can do better. The fact that we're still having this conversation, so many decades later when there was people fighting for equality, the fact that we're having the same conversation means that we haven't been doing the best we can. And that's all of us as a collective, and we have to take individual responsibility for that. And how do we go ahead and make sure we don't have to cap the same conversation over and over again? What can we do? You know what? I agree, and I will say this. I was talking to somebody close to me the other day, and I said, what can I do? I had John Miller, who wrote the book, QBQ. If you haven't read the book, QBQ, the question behind the question, I highly recommend it. But he is a proponent of personal accountability. And the only person that you can change is yourself. And I am under the impression that versus trying to change everybody else, we need to stop, look in the mirror and see what...

34:35Let's start with ourselves. I think so many people are just trying to change everybody else, everybody else. It's like if every single person looked in the mirror and said, what can I do to stop racism? What can I do to stop my mind from doing... If we're having any kind of... That's the word I'm looking for, bias or anything along those lines. And what can you do to fight racism? I think that's the main thing. How do you become an anti-racist? How can I become an anti-racist? That's the thing that I've really jumped on the most is what can I personally do? Something that we all can do, just as you were saying, hey, shop at the turnip truck, support local, because I can look you in the eye if you have a problem with something. You're not a nameless, faceless person. The same with the racism is, hey, spend your money with black and brown businesses, because that really is a way that we can affect change. Because as we know, being part of our government, it's all about... It is about money. And so if we start voting more and more with our dollars and are conscious in how we're spending our dollars, I think that's where we'll see effective change that lasts and not in the moment. I completely agree. Any other thoughts on that? Any other thoughts of just people that... Any stories or anything that you've seen or... You know, all I know is that it's not my place to tell that story because I'm not gonna tell it well, because I don't have that experience. I don't know what it's like to be a black or brown person living in the United States. And so that's not my story to tell.

36:31But I think that this is the moment for us to do a lot of listening and again, be effective where we can be effective and spend our dollars with the businesses that need that support and we'll see effective change. Amen. And vote. Make sure you get out and vote. By all means, get out and vote. So there's still... I think that with everything that's going on in this planet right now, and there's a lot. Tornado still happened. I drove through East Nashville a couple weeks ago just because I had to go down there for... I went to Joyland. I was really excited to go have Joyland for the first time. And it's not fixed. Like it's... There's not... There's still a bunch of businesses hurting. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to live back here. Fortunately, the kids' property that they live in got hit, and I had to get a new roof.

37:34But walking around our neighborhood and folks that babysat my child as an infant, their houses aren't inhabitable. So many people lost their homes. They lost everything. I have to see the good fortune that, you know, I've got to... My world's fixable. But yeah, this isn't gonna be a fast recovery back where we live. Kim, how can my listeners actively, right now, help the East Nashville community? Honestly, support the businesses. And that's huge because there's a lot of owners that, you know... Those businesses are such a nice resource for us that live back here, just to be able to go to... I live a block from Loughlin Table, and that is my oasis in the middle of everything, is that I can go there and pick up dinner. But also, Margo's just up the street, and so it's kind of unfair. I mean, maybe the tornado came after East Nashville because we're so fortunate to have the best restaurants in town within a block of us, you know. They don't deserve all that. One way to look at it. No, I think just going to, again, supporting the local businesses back here, because the local businesses are the ones that really... Are the ones that are stepping up with everything that we needed in the tornado. I mean, the turnip truck didn't have electricity for some weeks, and John went and got a giant, really, really expensive rental on generator. And we weren't doing a ton of sales during that time, but it was like... So people could go to charge their phones and have a safe place to have during that crisis, like a meeting spot for our community. And so I think that, again, supporting local businesses, they're always the first to support us. Hal and Kara had food out right

39:37away. Margo put on... Even though they were hit, she's putting on a dinner that... An event to make sure that everybody knew that we were all gonna be okay. And that period didn't last long because then we got shut down. But that really is... The best way really to support everyone is support local businesses, because they're the ones who are always stepping up to duty. It's always the restaurant industry, and the retailers like ourselves that are the ones that everybody goes to for help, so help them. That's one of my missions as a podcast, is how can we talk about and support locally owned and operated businesses, because they are the backbone of our community. And if you're out there, just order to go, go out, order food, do whatever you can, go visit, find out what shops are open, where you can go.

40:38But don't go to big chains right now. Please don't. Don't send your money elsewhere. Our community and our town needs it more now than ever. I mean, you saw just this past week, they announced that Marche is closing. And I mean, I couldn't be more sad that these things... This is very real. This isn't just a, oh, well, I'll just go to Red Lobster today. Don't do that. Like, stop. So Kim, thank you so much for spending the time today and telling me just kind of your story and what your life has been like for the past week. I feel like I kind of had to cram it in. We've been talking for a little while. I could talk to you for hours and hours on end, and hopefully you'll come back another time a week and talk some more detail. We'll hopefully still be able to do that in person. Yes. And have some good times. I'm looking forward to that. Anything else you want to say? Any kind of final thoughts that you'd like to give to the Nashville restaurant community or the community in general?

41:42We will all get through this together. And let's keep working on being a better version of ourselves. Let's continue to work on being a better version of ourselves. I think that's a good thing to end on. Thanks, Brandon. Thanks for coming on today. All right, everybody wanted to say another big thank you to Kim Totsky for joining us today. And thank you, the listener, for joining us today and watching us today because this has all been recorded and is going to be out on our YouTube channel very, very soon. You can watch it on YouTube or you can go to the website where I will have a tab that says, watch. You can see me right now. We're all in this together. So give somebody a smile tomorrow. See somebody, smile at them, tell them hi, be friendly, love wins. And you all know that you're all doing that every day. And I love it. I love seeing all of the positive stuff. I hear a lot of crazy stuff and I see a lot of crazy stuff. I feel real fortunate because I got a lot of people in the socials that are just that really get it right now. And I love that. I just love it. I'm still a working prime. We all are. Keep working on it.

43:11Keep getting better. Shop local. Go spend money in black owned businesses. Support the community. Thank you guys for being a part of this episode. Big week this week. Got some big podcasters coming on. Eric Cacciatore will be on tomorrow and Howie Kahn of Takeway Only will be on Wednesday. So very, very excited this week to talk to them. I hope you guys are staying safe. Love you guys. Bye.