Brandon Styll broadcasts live from Tennessee Flavors, the annual fundraiser benefiting Nashville State Community College's Randy Rayburn School of Culinary Arts. Joined by Vince Lanni, Brandon works the room talking to chefs, restaurateurs, and community leaders supporting the next generation of culinary talent. The event honors the legacy of the late Randy Rayburn, a foundational figure in Nashville's independent restaurant scene.
Guests include Nick Guidry, who gives an update on his new role as Director of Culinary for A. Marshall Hospitality (Puckett's, Deacon's, Scout's) after closing Pelican and Pig. Chef Marcio Flores and his wife Cynthia of Limo Peruvian Eatery share their journey, including how Marcio (a Nashville State alum) won the San Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef competition in 2016. Smoking Joe talks fried chicken catering and grandma's recipe, and state representative candidate Rick Ewing discusses his platform on affordability, healthcare, and education.
Brandon and Vince also recap their first trip to the NRA Show in Chicago, sharing pro tips for navigating massive trade shows, and Brandon promotes the upcoming NARA Independent Restaurant Show on September 1st at Fat Bottom Brewery.
"It's the heaviness of closing a restaurant, but then the old thing of when one door closes another door opens. This was a very good door to open."
Nick Guidry, 16:32
"We took a southern dish and made it more southern."
Nick Guidry, 20:40
"The first thing that I do in the morning, set my mind, be positive, and work hard, and I know there's going to be the support for you."
Marcio Flores, 31:14
"Unfortunately he doesn't get to see the reaction of people after eating his food. I get all that, and I am so lucky because that makes everything else easy."
Cynthia Flores, 32:48
"If you have to go out and choose your voters rather than they choose you, you're doing it wrong."
Rick Ewing, 53:56
"You might think that nobody pays attention to you politically. How they learn to pay attention to you is that you become a likely voter."
Rick Ewing, 1:00:24
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02:12music city welcome to nashville restaurant radio my name is brandon still and i am your host we are powered by gordon food service you are listening to the sweet sounds of down river collective this is a song called come on back and down river collective is going to be playing at our september the first independent restaurant show uh september the first between three and six in the afternoon we're going to be hosting 30 plus vendors at fat bottom brewery at the reserve very excited to have all of you there this will be a nara function sponsored by no one this is not going to be a big large brand food show this is a kind of a for us by us food show bunch of brands that want to help you win so if you are somebody out there who owns an independent restaurant you can go to nara nashville n-a-r-a nashville.com and you can register for this event it is completely free there will be food there will be drink there will be music it's going to be a big old party stay tuned for information about the after party so put it on your calendar right now september the first from three to six make sure you got everything covered so that you can be there to hear this band live and check this out well there you go they're uh they're amazing life and i'm really excited to have them there how's everybody doing today today is the tennessee flavors episode and this is a uh a fun episode we talked to i think five or six different guests uh one of them being nick gidry formerly of the pelican and pig and he is uh now the culinary director over at a marshall hospitality you are going to get to hear his uh kind of how he's doing check in we talk about all kinds of fun stuff this is a fun episode it's kind of loud in the background but uh and vince lanny joins me on
04:14this episode just a good time all the way around and we're thank you for being here we're gonna have another episode coming up right after this uh this is gonna be two for this is kind of a bonus episode so we'll have another one coming right after this with one tap if you guys don't know what one tap is you're in for an absolute treat because these guys are gonna blow your mind if you own a restaurant the number one thing that people ask us i'd say the number one thing this really is the number one thing do you have a guy for appliances for plumbing for hvac for whatever it might be electricity we need a guy i need somebody to come fix my low boys whatever it might be one tap fixes all of that yes i know and it's going to save you money and it's super easy and you're going to absolutely love it we're going to have a hundred restaurants on this thing by the end of the week after you listen this next episode but this one is a benefit show this episode today we were at the uh nashville state school for culinary arts the randy rayburn school for culinary arts and uh we just talked to people as they came by so we talked to rick ewing who's a state representative and we talked to all kinds of people it was just a blast um our friends from limu peruvian cuisine are on this episode as well just a good time so enjoy it thank you for listening you are listening to nashville restaurant radio we're recording yes we are we are live right now we are at the tennessee flavors at the randy rayburn school for culinary arts at nashville state and it is just beginning at six o'clock yeah i'm here with vince lanny present and attentive we have already ran into so many people this is uh it's been a lot of fun well to a good start how are you doing man i am uh better than donuts that's that's my it's my tagline i stole that but
06:15there's nothing better than donuts so how can you be better than donuts exactly that's how good i am that's how good i am feeling i want to i want to make that clear it's not like an ego thing it's like a you know i'm grateful like you know did you get to rest yesterday at all what's that what do you mean rest i mean did you take a little time for yourself we we took a uh a hellacious road trip this past weekend friday we got in the car busy morning friday like all morning going for the place on friday and then hopped in a car and drove to chicago yeah and saturday morning we went for the first time for both of us to the nra show which was awesome what was your what were you expecting going into the nra show i i mean kind of i was kind of expecting what we got but the magnitude like the amount of vendors there and the size of the space i mean on day two when we stopped by we saw a whole other wing that we didn't even know existed yeah it's like and thank god that christine gave us a kind of a tour or like a you know because we started just going up and down every single aisle so this was vince a nice plan first of all we went uh we were staying in the river north area yeah amazing spot lake lakeshore drive drive is that what it's called lakeshore river north area i don't know what was these who's telling us about the v where the restaurants are we were like a minute and a half from where gibson steakhouse was but anyway we go to breakfast and we have like i had like chicken schnitzel and then says let's order a stack of pancakes for the table oh yeah this is the life this is the move anytime you go to breakfast no one needs a whole thing of pancake because i love pancakes everyone wants some pancake yeah just get a short stack for the table or get like a couple depending on how many people are there get it for the table and everyone can have a little bit of pancakes but then you can also get like the omelet the
08:17breakfast tacos like whatever you really want and we're sitting down at brunch and he says this and i'm like that makes so much sense because i would like to have like a pancake yeah but i don't want like six exactly and that's just too much this is the ultimate move so we both got but we got we were full and then we go to the restaurant show and and we decide we're gonna walk up and down every aisle and after about two hours we've gone through like four aisles her friend christine miles calls us says where are you guys i like to think i'm an efficient person in most things not that scenario well we're like on aisle four and it's like every vendor has a number we're at like 1412 and i said where are you she goes i'm in the eight thousands and i went holy shit there's eight thousand of these and she goes oh dude no no she came over and met us and was like yeah we're gonna but the story about the food is is kind of the rookie tip but also what we identified is now a pro tip that we want to share with you yes we uh yeah i thought it was a rookie move to eat first but we were we were hungry i mean and we had time because we were up early we didn't have to be there to like what 10 it started so we decided to go out to eat and when we got there there's food everywhere but it's all kind of bs restaurant show food fried this fried that sample here that little sample here and to fill up that would take hours and like a hundred different bites of different crap putting here but so we realized that when you show up to like that and you're already full you stop seeking food and you just start looking for cool stuff that you want to learn about and we weren't like enough food and there's so many people there just like i'm so hungry and they were just like walking around trying to find food and i was like we didn't have that i don't want to be the person that's like just walking up for a sample and running away like i want to talk to the people so then you're really going to slow down if you're stopping talking eating at every single one so it was amazing um we got to see i felt i you know i
10:19kind of feel sometimes like a big shot walking around i have a whole swagger about me sometimes i have this helps the height helps but you know you walk in places you know people and you you feel like oh hey i can walk into this room i felt so small in that place like i don't know the first thing about restaurants in here like every dish manufacturer there are every technology if you can dream it for a restaurant that's a thing didn't know the drone delivery stuff all of that did you know that there was 400 different brands of people that make coffee yeah and coffee maker which i'm thankful for i like yeah i want i want the coffee but it was like there's so much coffee everywhere energy drink was there too every your first celsius i had my first celsius which was good yeah it's not bad it's good first celsius i'm a coffee guy i'm not an energy drink guy if i'm gonna get energy it's from coffee yeah me too but if you need that like real two o'clock in the afternoon and i kind of kick in the ass to get you going that'll crush a can of that it's like 200 milligrams of caffeine and it'll get you there well we learned a lot um great connections for nara and now we are back at it we're at a tasting event this is just your first time at this thing this is my first time at this thing people are walking around with food i'm like looks good damn i'm actually hungry tonight i did not eat before that no now i removed that we learned i did not follow i did not either i meant to um well we'll take turns here we'll have a good time we don't know who we're going to be talking to we just ran into lisa la claire there's all kinds of beverage people here chef max is here uh we're right next to buttermilk ranch and urban grub gosh we've already ran naima germantown pub yeah here i see deacon's over there yeah claire corral just stopped by she's a president over at pockets yeah uh great nara member so if you're if you're going to be
12:24coming tonight does pockets have something here or is she just walking yeah no they have pockets deacons and scouts there's three separate tables for them deacons already they're all doing their thing yeah so we're here tonight to support uh the randy rayburn school for culinary arts that was actually at this event the last time i saw randy we just ran into deb packet uh talk to her for a little bit uh i think etch is here and we're selling some t-shirts too and whatever five dollars from every t-shirt is going back to this school right absolutely yeah absolutely five dollars from every shirt sale we'll be giving back to the school tonight and to let you know we have brand new nashville restaurant radio t-shirts and we have brand new nara limited edition eat local shirts that is going to be up by the time this comes out that is going to be up on our website at nara nashville um go check it out go to the merch page you can buy the nara shirts we've got pink ones we've got black ones we've got white ones uh we've got the the logo we've got the ones that say that people call the star wars shirt the nara shirt then we've got this eat local shirt which is really cool limited edition we're not going to do another run of these i think we're going to start doing some limited edition shirts uh like we sell out of one we're going to do another one yeah cool things that support restaurants very cool and these are really i mean these shirts are cool the thank you bag kind of uh yeah pattern or whatever you call it butter soft let me feel oh yeah yeah yeah they're like the uber soft that's been sitting on the table all day and it's not the butter that just came out of the walk-in my wife was like i'm gonna not only wear this like everywhere but i'm wearing it to bed because it's like so soft yeah i got a coffee stain on my white shirt while we were in oh that's all right we'll get you a new one i got we have another white shirt for you so stay tuned we'll we'll be back in just a moment uh we're gonna hear a quick word from our sponsor and then we're gonna jump in with our first interview we'll be interviewing people all afternoon and this is gonna be a lot of fun heck yeah let's do it you need to grow your socials
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16:32on life it's going very well man it's uh a bit serendipity setting in you know it's it's the uh the heaviness of closing a restaurant but then the old thing of when one door closes another door opens this was a very good good door to open so i'm it's going very well i'm very glad to be here um really really great teams really great company to work for yeah and you get to work with claire crowell and i i told you when you first left there i said she's one of the best leaders in the city and i absolutely adore her enjoying that relationship so far i couldn't agree with that sentiment more yeah i i've been i've always been very impressed with andy and and his entire family but to get to know claire a little bit uh i agree with that sentiment entirely incredible leader really cares about her people very driven and and inspiring to see the direction coming through 100 now you also how's audra doing she's great kids kids are great she's getting to spend a lot more time at home with kids kind of focusing on taking care of the kids our oldest will start kindergarten in the fall so just kind of soaking up what little time is left of childhood dude tomorrow my 11 year old graduates elementary school and you're saying there's you going into kindergarten my kid is going out about i'll have two kids in middle school and it's like that same thing it's like that where what where does time go what i i somebody the other day said like it goes by so fast i know it's been long you know these are long days are long long days short years the years are short i i definitely agree with that my daughter will be three this year and i can't believe it's been three years the personality coming about out of
18:35our kids you know just it feels like yesterday they were the size of a football but that's how life goes it is a thing i'm looking forward to knowing that i don't have kids yet this is brace yourself having two under six is it's a circus it's legit yeah i've got i'm gathering the advice i'm gonna have two teenagers like back to back oh teenage hormones because i think that's your ribs about to blow off like that's the next thing it's like when they're like two like the two under two and you get two three majors and then you actually have two teenagers and that's what i hear i don't know i'm just i'm i'm blessed and excited for all of it i saw something a while ago that was said uh one kid is one kid two kids is a kid in a circus three kids is two kids a circus and a couple of dinosaurs and that's incredibly accurate it is a thing uh tennessee flavors it's your first time here it is my first time what do you think so far so far it's really great man this is a great turnout i seeing the other restaurants representing nashville i think we've got a really awesome selection of what nashville is all about you are keeping your composure really well because the air conditioning is out in here i'm dying on the inside me too we're we're protecting the face but we're dying on the inside i was dying on the outside when we first got here now it's just on the inside carting everything in from the car and there's a wave of heat hits as you come to the door like okay i'll just wear the apron all night to hide the sweat running off of me vince walked in right as i got everything inside what you made a good choice what are you guys serving tonight uh we have a play on strawberry shortcake it's our cdc brandon came up with a strawberry mascarpone bourbon creme anglaise macerated
20:40strawberries and i made uh buttermilk biscuits this morning so we took a southern dish and made it more southern we've accomplished that uh you win on that i think that's the best thing i've had so far thank you the trifecta wings over at germantown pub are tre magnifique urban grab this little uh croissant is good limu peruvian cuisine i've got to go check out some of this stuff yeah i think you need to take a lap get here take a lap see what all's here then take a second lap come back for dessert i got it i got it i got i keep coming back and i'll bring him like one thing he's like this is all that's out there tiramisu i'm like guys sabrinos is here and talking about this strawberry shortcake thing i'm like i didn't get that you didn't bring that back to me i was standing there talking to him i just reached down and ate the whole thing in one bite i had a plate of chicken just drop in my lap i don't know where it came from but somebody brought me a plate of chicken well when life gives you chickens that's all i got uh they do have the donut envy is here and they have little donuts over there too so he said how you doing he goes i'm better than donuts and i was like no you're not that's not possible than donuts it's pretty damn good that's how i feel i feel if your life is better than donuts you're winning you're winning the ball is better than donuts it's all about perception really my life's better than a croissant now i don't know well day old croissant man yeah the donut that's like still there at the end of the day well thank you for stopping by nick guidry uh anything else anything you want to promote anything you got on here anything that's going on in the events that you've got anything like that man we are we're involved in every event that we can find in the community so come check us out check out puckett's check out deacons scouts if you're down in franklin uh we've got nascar coming up we've got every week cma week every festival under the sun franklin farmers market we just started popping up down there
22:40so come check us out all right again nick guidry thanks for joining us and go you get a line at your table they're like where is nick what is going on thanks for stepping away to talk to us for a minute good to see you brother anytime one of my absolute favorite parts about the nashville area restaurant alliance is i have been interviewing vendors like crazy over the last month and one of my favorites i've got to meet is peter david rodriguez they own cooler control solutions ccs for short let me tell you what they do they help restaurants improve food quality extend shelf life and reduce waste by controlling humidity and ethylene gas inside your walk-in coolers okay brandon we get it if you ever have like the the air or those little plastic flaps when you walk into your walk-in and there's water on them you have too much humidity in your cooler if you ever have water at the bottom it's the standing water any kind of moisture in your cooler too much humidity you're losing produce faster you're not getting the shelf life you need these guys will come check that they'll test that they have a humidity control system that they place it is unobtrusive it's a quarterly service they put it in there it will reduce the temperature in your walk-in by four degrees it makes your system work a lot less and it makes your food last a lot longer this guy has a medical background they did hospitals where everything had to be perfect for blood samples and different things these guys have said hey let's figure this out for restaurants and they are doing it we're doing some tests right now but if you want to be on the forefront if you have cooler issues and if your cooler is not keeping cold like it should you need cooler control systems here's how you get a hold of them you call them 615-567-3014 and you tell them you heard about it on nashville restaurant radio we all know that there are things that you can potentially save money on one of the areas you don't want to skimp is when you have
24:46your hoods cleaned kitchen fires can put you out for weeks and weeks and weeks and having somebody come in at a cheap price so that they can do a subpar job just isn't worth it that's why we are recommending kitchen guard kitchen guards been operating since 2009 and are the trusted experts in the kitchen exhaust industry they service all of nashville in the middle tennessee area and they can do a free inspection and consultation all of their cleanings are done in accordance with strict nfpa 96 guidelines you get professional service every time they have properly trained technicians to keep your equipment and restaurant clean safe and compliant there's pre and post inspection reports for compliance full exhaust cleaning from hoods to fans they exchange filters and they clean the filters they do repair and maintenance services clear and consistent communication every service call kurt kowalski with kitchen guard he will get you set up he'll come in check it out take pictures let you know what's going on you can call him at 734-344-2010 or you can email him at kurt.kowalski at kitchenguard.com and we are back at tennessee flavors and we are joined with chef marcio flores and he is the chef and owner at limo peruvian eatery how you doing man very well excited you know like this is fun i love to do this type of things you know did you do you guys do stuff like this often like where you go out in the general public and just serve tastings well i used to do it a lot with the food truck before because i used to own the inca trailer um we still have it but uh we're focused right now in the restaurant and uh every once in a while when uh there is an event you know we are there to support i saw you at the um music city food and wine festival that's right i did i was running around and i saw you there and i was like i love it i didn't get a chance to go by but
26:51of course is that a good event for you yeah it was great uh we brought uh tiraditos tiraditos are like sashimi style ceviches uh we want to introduce that to to nashville to let them know that peruvian cuisine we have much more than your ceviches we got like japanese influence italian influence and spanish influence and we want to showcase that you know in every single event i love being introduced to new foods so that's great yeah so tell me more let's introduce our everybody who's listening right now if you don't know where limo peruvian eatery is where are you located we're located in east nashville in fatherland street um our location is 1008 fatherland street very close to five points are you close to my sister's place killjoy yes that's right very close are you right that you're i didn't know that yeah you didn't know my sister owned that yeah i didn't know it was your sister yeah stephanie of course i know her yeah yeah that's amazing little world she's tall too yeah makes sense right yeah i love it when people figure that out they go that's that's right yes i see that i can totally see that yeah it's a whole thing so what do we if i go there what do i have to order if i've never eaten peruvian cuisine before tell me what you're doing so uh at limo we have ceviches we got a lot of lomo saltados which is like a beef stir fry but that's what you see the different kind of fusions that we have besides being authentic peruvian cuisine we have this uh chinese influence japanese influence the spanish influence so we have the arroz con mariscos it's almost like a paella we have our lomo saltado we have the ceviches now we introduce the tiraditos so it's a sashimi style fish with different sauces so i would definitely um you know uh suggest you to have the lomo saltado which is our main dish what are you serving here tonight tonight uh we have a braised beef uh it's we cook it down for about 12 hours slow and slow uh it's called seco de res and taco taco is canary beans from peru
28:54with rice we made a cake we uh pan cross it uh with a panko and we deep fry it and we just serve it with a little pickled onions and our signature sauce it's delicious man oh my god nice that'll be my next stop yeah and bring me back an extra one because it was fantastic um you got how's uh how's the the industry today like everything that's going on out in this world today how are you guys doing well we're making it work you know um it's tough but uh as long as you do your best you know like you keep going it's hard to find people of course it's a little bit more expensive all of that yeah but um you know we find ways to always survive and look uh and and you know like get better all the time so for for us you know like we have a great support from east nashville and for all of our customers so we because of them we're still in the business you know every time that you vote with your wallet and you choose to go eat at a local restaurant you're helping people like marcio you know versus going to the local chain because it's easy go try something new one of the greatest parts about america and east nashville and the dining scene is learning something new and trying something new and you're introducing people to a whole new style of dining at limo and i absolutely love it and if you're an adventurous or just not adventurous you just want to try ceviche yep go check it out for sure no and um thank you for all the love and support and uh this means a lot to us you know what you do is also so grateful so thank you for that as well you know oh man it's our pleasure and um it's people like you to keep us going every day you know it's meeting people like you who are in the building who are at the event passionate hustling and you're doing like you just said everything i can
30:59do to make it work every single day and if there's any little bit more that we can jump in and help kind of accelerate that or in any way it motivates us every day that's what sucks me out of my sheets every day that's true that's true that you know the first thing that i do in the morning you know like you know set my mind uh be positive you know and you know work hard and i know like there's going to be the support for you you know yeah a hundred percent yeah that's it just keep down and it'll come back yes well we get to meet your lovely wife tonight to your wife this year does she work in the restaurant with you she's in the front of the house yeah yeah we see each other every single day so every so it's a true mom and pop that is all right yeah that is that is so perfect with her and we we make a great team you know um back in the house she's in the front of the house and there she is yeah what is her name again cynthia cynthia i'm gonna bring her on the show you get to be on this mic what are you doing come on we're just saying hi you just get to say hello to everybody this is now we have cynthia flores hi how are you good how are you wonderful are you having fun today always he tells me that he works harder than you in the restaurant he did he said nothing of the sort he said that you run the front of the house and he does the back of the house we're a great team um we trust each other but for sure he works more than me what is your favorite thing about hospitality and working in the front of the house well i love taking care of people i love people you love people it makes me happy i love people you love people it makes me happy do you love turning people on to new styles of food and new flavors yeah um unfortunately he doesn't get to see um the reaction of people after eating his food i get all that and i am so lucky because that makes everything else easy
33:02um but honestly we touch so many people's lives and he is so talented he really is and he's so humble but um i just love being part of the team and and do whatever i have to do to make him successful so well you guys are a dynamic duo and if you're out there please go support them over at limo they're on fatherland street go give them a shot it may be the last restaurant you ever go eat at because you might just eat there every single meal and make sure that you say hi to cynthia when you come in i'll be there and make sure you say hi then make sure you say hi to marcio if you can and uh let them know that you heard about him on national restaurant radio let them know that hey look this is working we were coming out because of this so we appreciate it so so so much all right guys thank you for joining us and thank you for being here supporting nashville state the randy rayburn uh school for culinary arts this actually i went to school right here so you went here to school you can live with my gut oh you got it yeah he not only went to the school but he also won a national competition for the school in 2016 yeah back in 2016 what tell me about that that was called the almost famous chef uh competition um from san peligrino yeah we went to napa valley california uh when with different schools from america and uh we we had the honor to win the competition yeah we made a meat and three with peruvian ingredients wow it's like like that's the tennessee twist yeah yeah don't you love seeing a guy supporting his alma mater yeah when he went to school here and now he's a small business owner and he's back here in his own time supporting his old school it's pretty cool isn't that like everything yeah we always have a dream you know that was my dream back in the day and uh we worked hard for that so it happened eventually
35:06congratulations dude i love your story and i gotta we gotta get both of you into studio and do like a full interview because i want to know the whole story i don't know how you met i don't know how you proposed i want to know the whole story yeah i want to know your last fight in the restaurant and what it was about yeah through the expo window every single day but he always said that's good you know yeah there's no problem when you get home yeah let's just say it's not even that but let's just say when you get home and you both are lying in bed do we talk about oh hell no i mean it's okay if you do we do okay he's like no she's like yay we do because you know you're only time alone you have dreams and we want to expand and we want to have other locations so we always have to talk on what we can do to improve what we can do so that we don't need to be at limo all the time so that we can expand so we talk about the restaurant the goals all the time well we are going to come talk to you guys about nara we've already talked about this we're going to come in and have a full nara conversation with you guys and we're going to help you get there amazing we're so excited we appreciate it yeah no absolutely like i said you guys are the reasons why we do this so thank you love you guys thank you for coming by and have a great rest of the show thank you for having us thank you twine graphics has filled a massive void that we have needed at nara we now have a custom merch supplier that's local they're right in downtown franklin let me tell you they're absolutely amazing it's one of the questions people ask me the most do you have a great merch contact yes i do twine graphics and screen printing everything is handled in-house by their team creative design to production so you're not juggling multiple companies to get things done they offer custom apparel including screen printing and embroidery whether it's staff uniforms branded teas or retail merch your customers actually want to buy beyond apparel they also produce drinkware decals and branded goods so your brand stays consistent across every single touch point the best part is they have a it's a
37:12showroom where you can actually feel the fabric wear the hats check them out see all of their products before you buy them that is twine graphics you can call brandon hagen at 629-281-0838 email them at brandon at twine graphics.com or go visit them at www.twinegraphics.com running a restaurant is tough staff turnover rising cost and the endless tasks that bog you down and take you away from what you love let adams keegan lighten that load they're privately held tennessee-based restaurant and hospitality focused outsourced hr payroll and benefits firm the team at adams keegan removes the administrative burdens of hr administration payroll benefits management garnishments unemployment claims compliance 401k and so much more from their proprietary hris platform to seamless payroll and competitive benefits that keep your team smiling they've got you covered adams keegan lets you focus on what you do best creating unforgettable dining experiences while they handle the rest essentially think of adams keegan as your back office hr department right here in music city one of the many things i love that adams keegan is that unlike big publicly traded companies out there they have an incredibly high standard of customer service and that that's what we all need is really good customer service in these areas they don't give you a 1-800 number and make you fill out an it ticket submission they surround every client with a team of experts all based right here in tennessee you can call them today at 615-627-0821 or visit adamskeegan.com that's a-d-a-m-s-k-e-e-g-a-n.com for your free hr consultation and see how they can create a customized solution to help your restaurant thrive we are back at tennessee flavors and it is rocking in here we are joined with joined with smoking joe smoking joe smoking joe is here
39:13and we're having a fantastic time hey welcome welcome nashville come on down our students need you right here at the culinary school south south branch and hickory hollow hickory hollow hell yeah yes we're looking for a million dollars tonight we're looking for a million dollars tonight uh go online and donate to nashville state community college i love that we're doing we're selling t-shirts tonight donating five dollars from every shirt sold to nashville state community college very good very good what's up now what about that chicken what about the hot chicken burger now you were here last year yes sir now i think that the best part of last year was me talking to you guys in the parking lot yes and and i parked next to you and i was like what are you guys cooking and you're like man and i got to eat your food right in the parking lot last year dude i i felt like i won the jackpot because it was the best damn fried chicken i've ever had hey tell me about it tell me about it that's what we do this is grandma recipe so she put her foot in it and all we do is just pass it on to other people now tell me the name of your company where can people find you how do i eat this fried chicken i need it in my mouth okay you can call smoking joe 615-715-2983 we do catering all we do now is catering okay we used to have our products in crowville walmart different stores and we lost all of it all of it uh when covid came in oh man so we lost it but we're back we're back we're rounding back we're gonna have it back again we have the smoking joe everyday seasoning that's what we're using on the chicken today we use the everyday seasoning on vegetables oh man it is delicious it's awesome awesome thank you thank you you never let us when you pull up in a parking lot you're eating fried chicken in a parking lot you're like dude this is so legit i don't even know what to do about it and today we have the hush puppy too oh we had a hush puppy today as we go along with the national hot and i'm telling you it is the bomb
41:19hey with the hush puppet don't let your tongue slap your brain you can find smoking joe smoking food.com on your website and as well as we got a qr code on the website you can go to the qr code you can learn about what smoking joe do with his product just go to smoking joe food.com and learn what we do and how we do it with our products well thank you for being here what's your history with the actual nashville state uh culinary school we've been doing it for a long time i mean i'm vocationing myself uh coming to nashville and uh as a bricklayer and uh making seven dollars fifteen cents an hour at home working on the farm making four dollars fifty cents a day so when i got to nashville making seven dollars fifty cents i thought i was in heaven wow jackpot baby and you know it your smile is infectious i love your vibe your aura everything about you got joy emanating from you i love you man thank you i love you too thank you for sharing the chicken all right the chicken is here come on out and support nashville community college you can do if you don't come today you can still go online donate money and we need it we need your support our students need you we're losing too many students in the streets nowadays so our students need you as well well thank you for joining us today and we will we'll see you next year thank you we'll be here all right very excited to be partnering with c and b linen if you know me it's my number one topic of conversation is linen companies and how shady linen companies can be i am just disgusted with how the business practices work in this industry which is why i was so excited when i found c and b linen they're out of waynesboro tennessee and they don't charge any fees so the linen price that you have whatever that first linen price is that's your price and so you may say well every year they must raise the price on this seven-year
43:25contract right no because they don't do any contracts there's no gas fees there's no clean green service fees there's no replacement cost there's nothing the only price you pay is the price that you pay for the actual product i know it's too good to be true no contracts they do formats uh they'll make custom formats for you they do fresh linens cleaning supplies and guys i just did a tour of their facility and it is immaculate it is state-of-the-art uh i'm gonna post pictures on my instagram you can go find them and you can see how absolutely gorgeous this is to the point that they even wash and sanitize every one of their used laundry carts it's just absolutely amazing if you're looking for a linen company you can trust who wants to earn your business every single week go back and listen to our episode with jason cruz the owner of cnb linen hear it from his straight from his mouth exactly what they do or you give them a call at 931-722-7616 super source develops and distributes high quality cleaning products and supplies as well as delivers wear wash housekeeping laundry programs and food service training they partner with restaurants golf and country clubs hotels and resorts schools universities and health care institutions save time and money and reduce inventory by utilizing their high quality products and engaging with their highly trained service specialists if you're looking for wholesale cleaning products like dish machines in nashville tennessee they have you covered listen guys this is way more than a dish machine and chemical company they do not make you sign a contract they earn your business every single week and let me tell you i will personally vouch for jason ellis and his entire team over at super source if you want a dish machine and chemical company like this give them a call 770-337-1143 and if you are a member of the nashville area restaurant alliance make sure you tell them that you get these special nara pricing and we are back on nashville restaurant radio we're here back at tennessee
45:30flavors and we are with a a very amazing man of stature i'm gonna stop talking about it because i am six foot six and he's six foot eleven mr rick ewing who is running for state representative district 59 59 what are you doing man i'm having a great time here yeah district 59 are we standing in district 59 we're standing in district 59 right now here at the at the southeast campus for for nashville state and i have been blessed of being on its board at the foundation board for the last couple of years and so nashville state is all about making that educational opportunity for that next place where you can get that career not just that job but that career and this particular event for tennessee flavors it's near and dear to my heart because i remember when randy raven opened up the sunset grill back when i was a grad student at vanderbilt and me and my classmates spent way too much time and way too much money we didn't have there um and this is the legacy of that i did my rehearsal center at the sunset grill 20 years ago 21 years ago yeah the last place i saw randy was here uh last selfie i had with randy was here and his legacy is alive and well through this program here and it's it's really fun to be a part of yeah i'm i'm fortunate to have counted him as a friend for you know 30 plus years um and you know still awfully awfully crushed that he's gone um but again i love this legacy of what he did for nashville's restaurant community i mean we have so much here now you know we've got michigan star restaurants we've got things that we never actually dreamed about and you can sort of all go back to ground zero um with with with randy um and jeremy fazon and and embargo and all of these
47:36you know all of these great independent restaurants you know and and some are still with us and many are gone but nashville's food legacy is just just absolutely crushing it right now okay so what do you do right now you're running for state representative what is your current job the day job i'm at oracle so i've been um you know people ask it's like okay it's like you know so you're one of those people that came in you know once oracle decided to make nashville its world headquarters like no i'm a i'm a 20 almost 27 year veteran of oracle but i'm also a ninth generation nashvillian so for most of my career i've been working remote until the company decided to come here so well that made it easier for you makes a little bit easier of course i i joke you know with our facilities you're losing a lot of miles i imagine yeah i joke with our facilities folks you know with with with the campus that we're building it's like is any of this going to get finished by the time i retire and they all shake their heads my question is are you still remote or do you have to go in now i don't have to go in that's actually the great thing is that i get to great question i just get to work from my home office um you know i go into the office about maybe like you know a couple of times a month just to wave people's like hi i'm still here i work here but um but otherwise thank thankfully i do not actually have to change where i work so so with you um what makes you want to do this you know i've thought in the past about politics because i am a what can i do to help my community kind of a guy like i want to get involved but then there's a side of it that's like well that's a whole different level how involved do you want to get yeah like what is it that made you decide to run like what's the driving force behind you it's really about helping the community and community service and specifically nashville um my wife sandy is on the metro city council in fact she was in a
49:37council meeting right this second and you know 23 years ago we were blessed with our with our first child a son who was born with intellectual disabilities and so you know after a grieving period you know we realized that okay we're not alone in this there are other families that need help and so with another family we we co-founded the nashville chapter of the tuberous sclerosis alliance and as time went on we really felt that public service was part of our mission it wasn't something we just sort of just made a hard decision but it was kind of an organic thing over time and so over time you know i would i would join boards you know be at the nashville opera be at the national state foundation be at 50 forward um and and as time went on when this opportunity to run for this office i just considered it a natural progression to take a lot of the things that i've learned in the non-profit world and learned as a parent of an intellectually disabled child and take it to capitol hill and maybe do some good i love it that's a is there anything that needs to be day one you're elected what what can you do what do you want to do what are the things if you could do anything in district 59 on day one what are you doing well the things that i talk about um are affordability health care and education and they all sort of you know are are neatly tangled with each other i mean i don't have to tell anybody that it's just it just costs too much to live in nashville district and there's a lot of things that that we could do as a state that say like okay you know if we could just get away from the you know the party like okay it's like you know we can get away from the party games and actually just sort of be for the constituents you might be able to get something done you know that kind of thing but they're the i know and
51:40and that is i mean it's it's it's it's harder than it looks especially in a state where everyone thinks it shouldn't be everyone seems to love doing that um but that's not how i'm wired and i don't want to if i end up getting wired like that you know then then please like you know take me out because because this is not something that that um i think our elected officials need to spend the lion's share of their time which just seems kind of debilitating at times even looking at policy in tennessee because it's like this boys club that is a what's best for us we just redrew redrew these lines that are just it's absolutely asinine the stuff that gets put through in tennessee and we need more people that are like let's look out for the constituents let's look out for health care affordability these are the things i think that 90 people want but the 10 that run the stuff don't give a damn well i i'm i'm running as a democrat you know but you know you know when nashville got carved up as far as for his congressional district it wasn't because that this was good for nashville it was good basically for partisan politics and that's all it was good for and back in 2010 um the state republicans were saying it's like okay we'd never get away with carving up nashville and then in 2020 it's like okay i think we can get away with this and then here we are in 2026 it's like okay i think we can like get away with like carving up this little corner of the state and disenfranchising you know you know all of memphis which is you know a majority black city yeah you know and and radio audience i'm black and so ultimately um ultimately disenfranchisement is not good regardless of where it is regardless if it's conservative republicans in california or or memphians it's it's just not what you know it's just not what our founders had had envisioned when they created the house of representatives in the first place where you have you know at least you know a you know a an area that made sense on a map you know
53:49and having those people select whom they want to send to washington or send to their state capital to represent them if you have to go out and and choose your voters rather than they choose you you're doing it wrong well said you can't hear the applause button because i it's just kind of quiet in here but like yeah i would i'm full applause at that but that seems like such common sense it is common sense like that is such common sense but they just another day and that's what i'm saying bless you i'll vote for you if i was in this district well here's here's the thing about health care is that um i i began my career um working for a small tin care health care company back in the mid-90s right after business school and at that particular point tin care was created you know as a replacement for medicaid for two reasons one to solve a huge state budget problem but the other is like while we were at it could we expand the number of people that were actually covered you know could we give more people some extra security that the next time that they got sick or they think this feels strange i can go to my primary care doctor instead of waiting and waiting and waiting until something gets really awful go to the emergency room which is the most expensive place you have health care and then they've got something worse with a worse outcome yeah so so um um but then 10 years ago when it came time to expand medicaid again and we had the opportunity and we as a state just decided not to do it not because it didn't make sense but because one politician's name was attached to it and that was barack obama and when you make a policy just because you have to be contrarian well then that's not a good reason um and we were literally the template one of the templates for medicaid expansion way back in 1994 and you know and
55:53it's largely worked so why aren't we doing more of it and and here's the other thing about about bringing more people into covered health care it makes us more competitive because the large companies i mean i work for oracle so the large companies you know provide health care but the smaller medium-sized or small businesses often cannot and cannot afford it so their workers might be on on either medicaid or or the affordable care act which we call obamacare and and so the more people that do that again are going to be less stressed that their health care is going to be taken care of at a price that they can actually afford and for those companies that want to invest in tennessee they know that okay you've got some good workers that we're not going to have to worry about this stuff and we are not just competing against the kentucky's north carolinas georgia's alabama's we're competing against the switzerland's we're competing against japan we're competing against china we're competing as all these places around the world that frankly do health care with better outcomes than we do and that's an absolute shame my wife and i did a budget the other day and we were talking about how much we pay in health care and how much we owe for health care and it was like this is effed yeah like this is this is just wrong what is going on and bless you for stepping up and saying i want to do something about it i'm going to run for this thing and if you want to learn more about rick ewing how would people find you how would they where is district if the people don't know what district they're in i don't know what district i live in where is district 59 well district 59 first of all on my web my website is voterickewing.com that's so ewing e-w-i-n-g so voterickewing.com any relation um i'm six foot eleven when i was in high school i was recruited to go to georgetown and so pat ewing was a sophomore
57:58at the time got a chance to meet him we had a big laugh over the comment that gee it's a couple of seven footers on the same it's on the same team the same one and and i ended up turning them down and going to yale and that was a whole it's like if nil had been a thing back then this would have been a whole different story but um but we had a good laugh over it but the thing is is that his family's from jamaica and so i we have no idea whether or not that we're actually related or not you could have been the hoya destroyers yeah of course like i turned georgetown down and then they win the national championship the next year so it's like decisions decisions so it's tough so voterickewing.com and you asked where the district is so it's basically the southern lip of davidson county mostly on the west side so you've got a good chunk of bellevue um all of westmead hill hillwood a little slice of green hills all of forest hills all of oak hill bellevue um and then to the east of 65 you've got you know the creep hall nicklaus corner area southern antioch and then finally out here um um ending in uh cambridge who are you running against uh we've got three other democrats um in the race and one republican so who are the three other democrats um mark proctor beth west and angie lawless okay i don't know them i didn't learn about all of these people and i will tell you right now i appreciate your straightforward thank you for coming and being on the show right well the the election is on august 6th um early voting starts about three weeks before that i think on july 17th um and we ask voters to get involved be engaged um you know spend the time to elect your local state and federal officials it's that important our last local election we had maybe eight percent turnout of the people who could vote and this is the important election this is what i keep telling people people are blue in the face me telling them to vote yeah because i get people on the show all the time to complain about local
59:59government and complain about local policies and like did you vote it's like well i voted for the president like you need to vote in these these are the important elections for locals i came out to cambridge high school i guess about a month ago um and and you know my my my thing was to try to get the attention of 18 year olds who were just you know available for their first election and i told them as i said you know you might think that nobody pays attention to you politically you know how they learn to pay attention to you is that you become a likely voter how do you become a likely voter you show up at all of these local races and what happens is is that once you become a likely voter then when the next election comes up you know their campaigns will start filling your socials they might even show up at your doorstep to shake your hand and ask you what you think you know i think i'm a likely voter then because they come to my door all the time yeah they don't come to my door they never come to your door no we just had our elections the primary in williamson county it was uh people knocking away man yeah well i mean that that's how you win races is i've got to knock on about 4 000 doors i voted on one of the dudes that came and knocked on my door i voted for him yeah that's how it works you know why not you got to put the effort in yeah yeah i think this thing's wrapping up go make your final rounds thank you for stopping by and maybe uh to be close to the election we can have you back onto a full conversation i really appreciate and thank you so much for the time thank you for your time thank you for standing up and doing what you're doing no you know it's it's important for this it is absolutely important that we get good representation at all levels be it at at the federal level state level local level um and the way you do that is to um is to put yourself out there feels nice doesn't it yeah it's hot as hell in here it is hot i am on fire when we walked in and it was hot moving stuff in and it was like there's no air conditioning today in this building so uh but there's really
01:02:00good food i made a fun fan though i've been fanning uh mr ewing yeah all right thank you very much and it was a pleasure to meet you thanks for joining us on the show thank you all right thank you so much for listening today thank you to our guests nick guidry marcio and cynthia flores uh we had uh smoke and joe and rick ewing that was a fun night uh it was so loud and so hot in there and um you're probably listening to this and it feels like your whole tension like wow this sounds so much better without all those people talking behind it um gordon food service final thought uh we are gonna talk about tennessee flavors and we're gonna talk about showing up you know i go to a lot of these events when i get invited to an event where there's networking uh i go because i think it's important to show up i think it's important to be there we had this really uh interesting demo the other day we actually recorded a full intro to the show that i did not use so i just didn't i don't know something about it and we were doing a demo with this company called nibble and delivered a lot of restaurants are telling us they want to do catering and they want to simplify it and so we've been looking for different solutions in the tech world as to how we can do that so we were doing this demo and the guy says and he was going into all different things this looks like a lot this looks like a lot for an operator to do and one of the comments he said was well if you want to get more out of it you got to get more into it and i thought that was really interesting um and that's kind of this business you got to if you want to get more out of it you got to get more into it you got to show up you got to be at the places i mean last year i got to meet the police chief drake i interviewed three city council members uh rick ewing today got to catch up with so many people at that event and seeing people and you know lisa leclair from the greater nash hospitality association was there max nope fell from the music city center was there
01:04:03if you're somebody out there who's looking for a job or you're looking for just connections these events are amazing these events are really great places to see people to support these people and my recommendation is to go show up when one of these things happens go um that's it show up and go if you want to get more out of it you got to get more into it i thought that was a really uh interesting insight into the guy and uh that's your final thought today so thanks for listening and i hope that you are being safe out there stay tuned for our next episode with one tap it's coming up next love you guys bye