Mackensy Lunsford

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio powered by Gordon Food Service. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We've got a good one for you today. We're talking with Mackenzie Lunsford and she is the food and culture storyteller for USA Today. And she is the editor of the Southern Kitchen, which I think is a division of USA Today. And you can go check her out at thesouthernkitchen.com and she's got a really unique story. I had a lot of fun talking to her and I learned about her from a post that Tyler Cobble put out there.

01:01Sometimes I just see posts from people and she's relatively new to town and she's writing about all things food in the south. And I thought, let's learn about her. So here we go. So she obliged and came in studio and we just had a really fun conversation. And hopefully you can glean something from this from somebody who is a writer and who's visiting kitchens and just looking for interesting stories. And if you have an interesting story, I'm sure you can find her and message her and she'd love to talk about it. So we are going to be jumping into a Monday. This is my favorite day of the week, as we all know. Happy finals of CMA week. I know if you're out there and you have been just slammed all week, congratulations. It's over. You made it. Wow. Okay. What a, what a fun, what the heat is here guys. This week, I looked at this week every single day, we're looking at like 97 to 100 degrees. So go get your air conditions checked up, do whatever you got to do, but it's going to be hot as hell and hopefully you can make it through.

02:06Hey, I want to talk today real quick about two new technology companies that we have done interviews with the past couple of weeks who are also sponsors. And I kind of feel like, you know, sometimes I bring sponsors on because I'm really excited about their product and I'm just all in on what they're doing. And so I think the brands go, wow, that looks awesome. We love for you to talk about it. And I get genuinely excited. So that's the way that I feel about GoTab and maintain IQ. And I want to tell you on the front end, GoTab, Tim McLaughlin on the show was so much fun, but just the idea that they do everything they can do. They can do a little bit. They can do a lot. If you're somebody, here's the main takeaway I would give you. If you are somebody who's out there who knows that you generate a ton of data every single day, you generate all this stuff and you love to market towards that, like, hey, what do I do with that stuff? That's where you need GoTab. GoTab can come in as a plugin on your legacy system that you're using.

03:06If you're not using Toast, anybody else, it comes in as a plugin. The cool thing is that if you do need a POS system, you don't have to buy a bunch of hardware. It works. You can just upload it into your old, if you have a tablet, if you have an iPhone, whatever you have. And if you go right now to gotab.io forward slash E-N forward slash N-R-R, that is a special landing page you can go to where you get $500 in free hardware just for being a national restaurant radio listener. If anything, go call them, go to that website and schedule a demo. You will learn a ton about the capabilities of technology in the industry. You're going to love it. Now, maintain IQ. That's the other one that I really am just super excited about. And I've got my team on it. He was in town. Will was in town a couple of weeks ago. And we went over every piece of it. Every my team is just so excited to get into it because it's literally digital checklist that help you do all of the little things.

04:10If you're a manager of a restaurant, you're walking around all day long going, why didn't you turn the lights on? Why is the air conditioner down low? Why is, you know, these lights out? What is going on? It's so frustrating. But with these checklists, every little piece gets done. And with the work orders that you can create through it, the Bluetooth thermometers that you can do all of your line checks and keep it all in one neat little place. If you got an iPad in the kitchen, you can go through and just click on it, temp it and automatically uploads the temperature right into the app and maintain IQ. So go check out maintain IQ dot com. They're just amazing. And so those two companies, I'm so excited to introduce to the city of Nashville. You can't really call a bunch of people and say, Hey, what do you think? Because they're brand new to this town. So you could be an early adopter and you could be one of those people who's getting a level up on the competition right now. All of these big chain companies all use something like this. If they don't use GoTab or maintain IQ, they use something like it. This is your opportunity as a locally owned and operated restaurant to get involved and to start competing with the big guys.

05:16This is it. It's an inexpensive way to really leverage your data that you're creating and get all the details done. So with that being said, let's jump in with Mackenzie Lunsford and I hope that you guys have a wonderful, wonderful week and we're excited to get back to some more chef interviews coming up. So stay tuned. Follow us on Instagram at Nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio where we are going to be posting all the stuff that we do and go follow me. I am at Brandon underscore NRR. That is where I post all of my people I go hiking with and all of the fun stuff that does my daily life in this world. So we appreciate you guys enjoy this episode. Have a wonderful week. Stay cool. Mackenzie Lunsford. Super excited today to welcome in Mackenzie Lunsford, who is the food and culture, food and culture storyteller for USA Today South and she's editor of the Southern Kitchen.

06:24It's a mouthful. That's impressive. Well, thank you. Does that fit on one business card? No, no, I, I, I, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna put food person. I think food person. My boss actually called me the Southern food Sherpa the other day and I asked if I could have that on my business card. Hell yeah. The Southern food Sherpa. Yeah, I thought that was great. Yeah, that's an interesting. It's a perfect title. It's a great title. I like it. Yeah. Thanks. It's great to be here. Welcome to Nashville restaurant radio. Thank you. So I love I find interesting people that I see out there and I see people who are writing there's two different perspectives. I like to share, right? So there's the actual chef, there's a restaurant owner. There's the people who work as three people that work like the vendors and people who work with restaurant tours. And there's always like a behind the, you know, Paul Harvey rest of the story kind of a moment. And I saw you do an article about the wash and Tyler Cobble, who's a friend of the show, he's a good friend and he's he made a post. It's like, man, I really enjoyed this time with Mackenzie Lunsford and she's great.

07:27And I went, who's Mackenzie Lunsford? Who is Mackenzie? Who is this person? Then I did some, you know, amateur sleuth work and kind of looked you up and I was like, wow, that's really interesting. Some of the articles she's written and a lot of barbecue. You're an author. So you've you've co-written a book with people. Yeah, I wrote. Excuse me. I wrote. What? That's you got it too. Yeah, we have some pollen happening in here. Yeah. So I wrote a cookbook with 12 bones in Asheville, which is it's pretty well known there. Yeah. Yeah. Has word made it all the way over to Asheville about 12 bones? Yeah. No. No. But I love Asheville. I mean, there's there's an amazing food scene there. What is 12 bones? So it's just it's a barbecue restaurant that started as like a little brick shack. And its main claim to fame is that it's it was Barack Obama's favorite place to visit when he was in the area. So he went by there multiple times to get the barbecue there.

08:31And even independent of Obama showing up, the place is just like rockin all the time. Just you know, hundreds and hundreds of people go through there every single day. Really good barbecue. So they have a cookbook out there that I helped them write. How did that did you work for 12 bones? No. I mean, I just I was kind of, you know, the food sherpa there in Asheville. I lived in Asheville for about 20 years. And oh, wow. Yeah. And I was a I was a restaurant person. So you kind of have, you know, the best of both worlds. I I owned a restaurant. I worked as a line cook. I developed recipes and then I got into food writing basically to save my knees and have, you know, like a little bit more of a normal schedule. Yeah. Well, it's very demanding. Yes. Every part of your body working in the kitchen. Yes. Every every part of you. And so I had that kind of I had that unique perspective.

09:33I had that ability to write, but I also had the ability to like work with people on developing, you know, their style and their recipes and that sort of thing. Wow. There's a lot there. Where'd you go to school? It's a lot to unpack. Yeah. I did some culinary school, but I was I spent most of my I guess you would call formative late teens, early adult years traveling. OK. So you trial by by doing? Yeah. Yeah. I worked in a lot of restaurants. I did kind of a food truck situation when I was traveling around on the road. I guess what I'm trying to dance around is that I was yes, you got to follow fish around the country. I followed fish and veggie burritos, man, veggie burritos, really fast. Kind of a food truck situation to me. Yeah. Sounds like you had tickets for tomorrow's show. Yeah, you got it. You hit the nail right on. Man, just pull it out.

10:35All my secrets is this kind of show that can't be the situation. What is your food truck? What did you do? I had a Volkswagen bus with a kitchen. OK, so I wasn't wrong. I told you, wow, the next question is going to be like, tell me about your mother and I'll be crying in the corner. We're going to go deep. How did it make you feel when you did that moment in your life you go back to? Well, where are you from? Like, where did you or did you grow up your East Coast? Yeah, I I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, Annapolis, Maryland. OK, so you're I see why food is big to you. Yeah, yeah. So hidden crabs with mallets and all that stuff. That was a big part of just like family gatherings for me. We went to Boston this year in September for the first time in my life, and it was just amazing. Yeah, it's so much fun. And that's my perception now of what that part of the world is like.

11:36And it's it's I want to go back. All the coastal cities are just the same. I don't know. I've been all over the country. I'm originally from the West Coast and then Nashville. And I've traveled, you know, Charleston, Savannah. And but like I haven't spent really any time in New England. It's been in New York. Yeah, in Maryland, it's kind of more mid Atlantic. Is it more mid Atlantic? It's more mid Atlantic. It's actually technically below the Mason Dixon. Well, not technically, it's physically physically below the Mason Dixon. OK, what's the biggest difference in the two? Like you think like Maryland versus like Boston? Humanarily. Oh, I mean, mid Atlantic food is kind of a thing all on its own. You know, you definitely have the the focus on on crab. And there's Old Bay and everything that's that's not, you know, that's that's actually true. You know, we put Old Bay on our popcorn at the movie theater and on our boardwalk fries and stuff. Boston, I I'm not.

12:38Familiar enough with it, even though I've been there, I'm not familiar enough with it to compare and contrast. But Maryland, you know, it's no secret. It's all about crabs. Yeah. Crab cakes and football. Mm hmm. If you're calling wedding crashers. That's absolutely true. I grew up, you know, going to see football games and I've seen multiple Ravens games with my dad and nice. Yeah. So cakes and football, that's it. Where would you travel to just as around the country or outside the country? Around the country. You have a favorite place. I mean, so I think that you hit the nail right on the head when you picked out that I was on tour for quite some time. Oh, she did follow. Was it fish? It was. It was. That's freaking awesome. I know it's so funny. Awesome. I saw the dad at a young age, and then I did just a couple of different.

13:40They had a project after Jerry Garcia passed on called the other ones. No further, further tour. OK. I did that. And then I got into fish at a young age. And but the thing about being on tour for me, it was less about. I mean, of course, it was about following the bands, but it was a vehicle for me to see as much of the country as I possibly could. Yeah. And that was I fell in love with travel at an early age. And I wanted to see the world. But first, I wanted to see the country. And so I was able to go from show to show. And yes, sell food, veggie burritos, veggie burgers. You're very insightful. You just I've been to a show or two. Most people aren't able to just like pick out my thing that. But I was able to make enough money. I mean, gas was cheap back then. You know, I had a place to stay in the bus. I tickets were cheap.

14:44Much cheaper than they are now. Back then and often free. Yeah. And then you'd make enough money to have angel tickets. Miracles. Miracle tickets. Is that what it's called? The miracle ticket. A free ticket is a miracle. Yeah. Yeah. But we would make just enough to kind of hop off tour and go see Bryce Canyon or Zion or just go to all the national parks that we could. So, yeah, Zion was a huge highlight. That whole four corners area is just absolutely spectacular. It is. It's just amazing. And yeah, I mean, I've been back and forth and up and down across country a whole bunch of times and have been to every state except for Alaska and Hawaii and one of the Dakotas. I never can remember. I just call it the boring Dakota, the one without the badlands. And it was a really, really cool experience. It was a cool way to, you know, grow up. And then I took my my gypsy self to Asheville and I stayed there for quite some time, working through the restaurant industry and eventually becoming a restaurant owner and writing a cookbook.

15:52And all these things just kind of fell into place. Did you do any street performing in Asheville? No, because there's lots of that. There's lots of people that are like flipping sticks and playing songs and doing like Asheville's got a whole scene of like. Yes. Wanderers. It's busking. Yeah, busking. Yeah, I mean. Yeah. And when I moved there in 98, I'm really aging myself. But when I moved there in 98, when you were 12, yeah, sure. There were a lot of people kind of who were who kind of had lived a traveling gypsy lifestyle like myself, who were kind of starting to come together in that city. And it had a really independent spirit. It wasn't really touristy yet. It wasn't really built up yet. And there was kind of a sense of of you were creating something. Although, of course, the city had been there for a very long time. That's about when I feel like it was kind of starting to reach its peak as far as, you know, artists and music and all of that stuff was starting to really, really come together in that city.

16:56And now, of course, it's well known for being breweries and food. And and still it's known for being a place where artists are. Although that's less and less true because, you know, like you see here in Nashville, prices are just through the roof. And so a lot of the artists have been priced out of Asheville. And I think people still go there expecting it to be really funky. And, you know, the funk is slowly being rung right out of that city. It's a beautiful city. It is a beautiful city. And everyone that I run into here in Nashville, I tell them where I moved here from, they say, why did you do that? Which is really hospitable. Well, I mean, why would you move here? I know why you would move here. Nashville's amazing. I am a big fan of Nashville. And I'm originally from Southern California. So people would always tell me like, why? Why? You lived in Laguna Beach. You know, right outside, like right there. And I was like, yeah, I didn't want to move here.

17:57I really didn't. But once I did move here and I was when I kind of grew up here and just I still get excited driving down like McCrory Lane or Snead Road or any of these. Any road, there's just tons of trees and there's pastures and farm like those type of things you just don't get in California. It's dry and it's like dirt and sand. And it's not. I mean, it's beautiful if you go visit. But the daily grind of living there is a real pain in the ass. And I love the daily. I can drive down a street. I'm away to work here every single day. And I can pinch myself and go, I get to live here like this is. And 15 minutes from where I am right now is world class concerts. NHL, NFL, the whole thing is right there. But 15 minutes, 20 minutes away, I could be on a kayak and just downtown. But it's like, it's so amazing. Yeah, I'm a national such a cool city. It really is such a cool city. I also lived in California for a little bit. I lived in Ventura for like a minute.

18:57OK, we're more L.A. though. And then I lived in the Sacramento River Valley, Chico. Whole different world for a little. I don't know, nine months or something like that. Man, talk about hot. Well, the hot up there in the Sacramento River Valley. Yeah, it's like the desert is I. Once once it got to 115 or something. And I just decided that I could not live on. No, this the surface of the sun anymore. It's a thing. So let me ask you, you traveled a lot around the country. You lived out of a Volkswagen bus. Yep. What life lessons did you learn? Like what what through that experience? Do you still look back on today that you take into your current life? I think that before I did that, I'm I'm naturally an introvert, which really surprises people. But I had a hard time relating to people.

20:00I grew up as kind of a nerd who didn't have a ton of friends and always felt like a misfit. And as cliche as it sounds, being on the road with this kind of traveling circus was the first time that I ever felt like I was part of something like part of a community. Yeah. And there is a kind of. There's a spirituality that you develop in in having those kinds of relationships with people that are so incredibly random, but focused on. Joy. Does that make sense? Like following music around is a totally joy focused experience. And you have a bunch of weird, crazy circus performer types who all come together every night. Thousands of people experiencing joy together at the same moment. So that was kind of a like sort of a spiritual awakening for me as a person who didn't really grow up with that, with, you know, organized religion, because my parents were raised in Baptist churches that were very, very, you know, almost snake handling kind of situation.

21:11Yeah. So they fled that. And so I was raised basically without, you know, we'd go to church once a year. Easter was a great day to go. Yeah, they were kind of done with all that. So there was that aspect of it that that kind of. It sounds silly to say, you know, but anybody who's a music lover knows that there's a certain spiritual feeling about being together with lots of people who are feeling joy all at once. Well, I'm an alcoholic. Just throw that out there. And I go to meetings. I go, I could go to a meetings. And that's probably the closest thing that I get to that, because it is almost spiritual. There's a group of people that do not care what everybody's fucked up. Nobody here is perfect. We've all raised our hand. We've all owned our shortcomings. And we've said, hey, look, let's all just help each other. Let's all help each other stay this way. And it's it's one of the coolest experiences that I have, because you go into a room and you're never in a room with a bunch of people that don't judge you.

22:12And you're just good. You're all there to help each other. I think that's a similar. You're traveling with a bunch of people that nobody really cares all of your flaws, whatever they are. They're just it's all about celebrating this moment and helping each other get through it. It's a group effort. That's that's absolutely right. And there's a realness and a rawness to that group of humanity. And so it helped me start going through life in a way where. I with, of course, exceptions. I realized that we're all in this together. Yeah, you know, and it's brought it did bring me out of my shell. It helped me relate to people in a in a very real way, in a very authentic way as much as possible. Right. Because we all have our our things. We all have our facades. Sure. But I think just learning that and being immersed in that and also being immersed in a culture in which you learn to live in the moment and you learn to just kind of accept whatever, because there are a lot of things that happen when you're traveling.

23:21You know, there are a lot of problems that arise. You learn to problem solve. You help each other through it. I think that that prepared me well for life. Yeah, just being able to like take curve balls and live with it. I think that's a perfect setup to walk into a restaurant. You know, we do this exactly on the wall right there. You can't read it, but it's just a quote by Rick Warren. And it says endurance is achieved through the constant ability to never give up. And I did this line up topic that day and I said. Guys, this industry is crazy. There's not one day, maybe one day a month that I have a strategy going into a day as to how I'd like that day to go. That it just does that. Like every day, something comes up and it's like, oh, this person didn't show up today or looks somebody's choking or, you know, whatever the case may be in the industry. Like every day, something crazy happens, but you can't give up. Like you got to keep going.

24:22And it takes a village of people to do that. But like every day, it's not easy, but you've got to be able to constantly keep going. I think that's something that is learned. And for you, going from that city to city, figuring out what you're going to do next curveballs right and left. It's really a natural transition going into a restaurant. You're almost it's almost like training to be prepared to hey, shit's not going to go the way that I want it to. But it's OK, but it's OK. And further, that translates well into a newsroom. So when I started, when I got kind of thrown into daily reporting, it was OK because, you know, you never know what's going to happen, right? I mean, even a small newsroom, I mean, especially in a small newsroom where I worked in Asheville, I was a food writer, sure. But there are times when I had to work breaking news. I mean, I have a North Carolina Press Association award for breaking news, for reporting on a triple homicide.

25:27So and, you know, that's scary. So walk into the newsroom and be the only person because you're on breaking news. You're on the breaking news desk. And there's been this terrible accident. And you have to just roll with it and cover it and make it happen. And so somebody can come in to to back you up. This is exactly why I wanted you here today. Because because I've covered triple homicides. No, because I have no clue what you're talking about. No, no, no, I do. I mean, I totally understand the concept of breaking news. But I don't I've never worked for a news station. I don't know what that means. I mean, I get your food and your beverage, food and beverage. I'm writing about food, but like I get that much. But when you say I'm on a breaking news desk, I'm like. Is that like is that like detention? I mean, is that is that is that like when you're well, you got to cover breaking news tonight from four to eight. And that's my shift. Like, damn, is that mean you just sit in a room and wait for some shit to go down?

26:27Then when it does go down, you hop in a van and you run down there and you're like, it's Mackenzie Lunsford. I'm live at a triple homicide. And is that how that works? Yes, except newspapers, not TV newspapers, newspapers. Yeah, a daily newspaper. Yeah. So you just go down there and just start writing about it. Yeah, you have to go to the spot. Well, in this particular case that I'm talking about, I remain point person in in the office behind my computer while as soon as people were able to. They ran down. They were on the scene. I would take notes from them. And then you write the article about it. We would all collaborate to put things together. And in that particular case, I wasn't on the scene. But but yes, generally, it's like you see that something has gone down and you decide who goes out to capture, you know, sound bites to maybe, yes, get a little bit of video. But it's, you know, iPhones and, you know, interview people and get enough together to put a story together.

27:34You talk to the police. You talk to victims, families, that sort of thing. We had to take a technical break there in the podcast. We're going to pick up. We left off right after these words. All right. Today, we are talking about net checks, checks. Man, I tell you what, net checks. If you heard, I start thinking about net checks dot com and I just get I get excited. I mean, payroll taxes, human resources. Oh, this is my jam. Yeah. Hey, look, I'm a restaurant person and I'm good at dealing with people. All the things. But you know what? All this HR payroll taxes, that is not necessarily my jam, which is why net checks is here. They make it so darn easy recruiting and onboarding performance management, human resources. They do the scheduling. They're like a program. You can go and put your schedule. It'll fill it out for you.

28:35You need that. That makes your life easier. Stop using an Excel spreadsheet. They do payroll. They do taxes. And it's all wrapped up nice and neat in a mobile app. You need to go check them out right now. If you are like me and don't like doing all these things, they make it so easy that anyone can do it right now. Net checks is always on the employee experience. Hey, we're talking about the compost company, Jeffrey and Clay Ezell, who've been guests on the show, are doing amazing work. What they do is they take your extra food waste, all that food you scrape off your plate, you put it into a special green bag and in that green compostable trash bag, you dump it into a special waste container and then they will take it to their farm where they come. They turn it into compost. They turn to organic soil, which then gets in turn sold to Whole Foods, to landscapers, to local farmers. It's really kind of amazing. You see that food waste that you're putting in the dumpster. Then it goes to the landfill.

29:36It gets trapped underneath all that plastic. These other bags aren't compostable. And that's how greenhouse gases are formed. It turns into methane gas. Guys, you can do the right thing, do the responsible thing and take care. Let them come pick up your food waste. Let them come pick it up. They'll take it to their farm. All it is, is the cost of them coming to pick it up. And it's pretty inexpensive. So what I'm saying for you today is call Jeffrey Ezell, 615-866-8152. We put the green with the green bags in Green Hills Grill and already staffs like, Dude, this is amazing. We're so excited doing this. Another way to keep staff interested and engaged to do the right thing for Mother Earth, reduce your carbon footprint, the compost company. What chefs want has been serving the Nashville restaurant community for over 15 years. During that time, they've worked tirelessly to be, well, what chefs want? Seven day deliveries, no fuel charges, 24-7 customer care, unparalleled availability.

30:39And they'll split almost everything they sell. If you're the kind of person that wants to see what's new when it comes in stock, you should follow them on the socials at what chefs want and sign up to be a customer at whatchefswant.com. OK, so you're writing an article from a news desk. Is that exciting? Like, does that? What does that do for you? Are you like, yes, here we go. Like, that's right. Is there is it like you get amped for that or was that like not something that you enjoyed? The answer to that is yes and no. I do enjoy breaking news. I do enjoy that kind of adrenaline filled something's happening in the moment. I need to communicate it to people as quickly and concisely as possible. You know, it is similar to why people like working in kitchens like I did. You know, like there's this wave that's about to crash on us and we have to take care of it before it does. And we have to do it efficiently and concisely.

31:42However, there is a point where some people, most people, I would wager to say, who who do that kind of stuff often. Burnout. Burnout is real in the restaurant industry and burnout is real in newsrooms. So that particular occasion that I was talking about, that that homicide, I had a really hard time sleeping for four weeks after that because it really did get to me. And so that sort of reporting, I don't love it. I like I said, I love the adrenaline surge. I prefer if I'm going to be covering any kind of breaking news, I really like the weather stuff, like when we would get hurricanes and that sort of thing, being involved in tracking that and writing about it. And just because it's a nerdy, interesting thing to call the weather people and talk to them about what's happening in the atmosphere to make this happen.

32:43Of course, you know, I don't like the aftermath when people are injured and covering that, but it's still it's something different. I like to have change, something different to focus on other than food sometimes. So I want to focus on what you said about burnout, because burnout is a topic that I don't think we talk enough about. Like, I try and talk about my alcoholism and I want people to know that it's OK. Like, if you drink too much, it's not like I want to normalize it. And I also want to normalize the idea of burnout, right? Because I think that we live in a society where people tell you to suck it up. And I feel like we're in this crazy balance right now of like me around the customer generation X and boomers. And then you have millennials and Generation Z. And I think I'm I'm like the last of the dinosaurs of people that which are a lot of the leaders in companies right now who just you need to be doing this. You need to show why don't you have the work ethic? Why aren't you? It's like, why don't you care about me? I think that's a really big deal is why don't we care about the people that are working for us?

33:48And every day during the shift, crazy shit goes down. Crazy stuff happens, I think, in every job, especially, I mean, I look like musicians, writers or people who are in the media in restaurants, because it just stuff gets thrown at you right and left and you have to be good at pivoting on the fly and changing. And, OK, we're going to problem solve right now in the moment. And at the end of the day, I don't think that we as employers and leaders do enough to take care of people's trauma, because it can be really intense on any given night that you're in the weeds, you're short staffed, you're taking five tables and something goes wrong and it throws your whole night off. And that's really a difficult thing. And I think that that burnout happens because we don't open up the channels of communication, people to say, hey, look, this was a really hard night for me and I need to I need to take a day or I need to at least talk to somebody about it because I'm not OK.

34:55I think there's more people that walk out of the job and the restaurant and it's true. Fine, I fucking quit and they'll just walk out. And I'm like, how do we how do we get there? How do we not proactively as leaders walk up and say, how are you doing today? What are you doing? And I think that that's something that companies need. Have you seen anything like that in your industry? Is that do you feel like there's some similarities? I do feel like there are some similarities. I think that with with Gannett and the company that I work for, which is, you know, pretty much the largest media company out there, the Tennessee and USA Today and every Gannett paper. Yeah, that's everywhere. But there is some concern about mental health, especially during the height of the pandemic. Right. When we were all just kind of dealing with reporting on that as we were trying to absorb it at the same time. And people were just having a real rough time. But kind of bringing it back to restaurants and what you were saying, you know, talking about the burnout there.

35:58I would love to see a lot more compassion from the side of the customers, because a big part of the burnout that's going on. I've covered this topic a million a million ways since since, you know, 2020 basically brought the worst people out of the woodwork for whatever reason. But customers. Coin the term Karen. Right. I mean, that's always kind of been a thing the past few years. And our apologies to Karen's everywhere, like actual Karen's feel so bad. But hey, look, my name's Brandon. Right. So I mean, every time I meet somebody in a restaurant like, oh, you mean like, let's go, Brandon. I'm like, no, not like, let's go, Brandon. But it's like every time you're like, oh, I know I bet that's OK. So I just I feel like this is something that I've written columns about, I've written stories about. I just wish that there was more compassion from the customer side of things. Customers and the way that they are treating service industry professionals, the bad customers, of course, not all customers are driving burnout or driving people to quit.

37:10I mean, we all heard the stories, you know, after restaurants opened back up of people, customers refusing to wear masks, I heard stories of customers spitting on tables. I mean, well, Asheville was took covid very seriously. We got a lot of tourists from places that did not take covid very seriously. And they would they would rebel. And you would have wait staff that would completely just walk off the job. And I don't blame them. And this narrative that people don't want to work anymore is false. People just don't want to take crap and abuse. People don't want to be abused. And you were talking about the generational thing. I also in the last of the dinosaurs, I just had this conversation with somebody very recently, just where we are on on Gen X, you know, definitely the forgotten the forgotten generation.

38:10I'm good with that, too. Like, don't don't don't look at me. I'm fine. I'll just be over here doing my thing. But I have to hand it to the younger generation for saying, forget it. I'm not going to be treated like this. And I came up in the industry, in the restaurant industry at a time when it was very much a pirate ship where people yelled at each other. I've had things thrown at me. You know, I've I've I've I've seen it all. And I've been that jerk myself. And thank God I got out of owning restaurants because it was not good for me or anyone around me. But this younger generation has said, stop. This is this this is a profession. This is a career. This cannot be this way. And so I have seen a change in the restaurant industry. I have seen restaurants investing in the simplest things, like giving their employees time off when they're sick.

39:13Or mental health days, providing even access to mental to counselors, that sort of thing. And these things are changing. And it's absolutely huge. But the bottom line is that we just need to have more compassion for people in general and how hard this time has been to navigate emotionally, psychologically. All of that. How are you doing? Fine. I mean, I had that very well said. I think that true, we do need to practice much more compassion. But I also think that, you know, I I there's no also. That's just yes. I totally agree with that. You yourself throughout the pandemic, are you do you have children or? Yeah, I have a six year old daughter. OK, yeah. So, yeah, I have a six year old daughter. And that's a so you've had the child throughout the pandemic. That's been a challenge. How has she handled it? Yeah, I I've my husband and I have been blessed with a really resilient child.

40:18She I should also credit us, I guess, to we tried really hard to make it a very magical time for her. Yeah. We were all stuck at home. Obviously, all of us together. My husband is a teacher, so he we're fortunate that he was able to be with her. I was working from home, but I was working all the time because, yeah, working in the news industry. But also, I was having periodic furloughs. It was like one week a month throughout the pandemic. So that was a blessing. It was great. I was in, you know, I was able to apply for unemployment for those weeks. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So we were I felt like we were really for a lot of work online every month to do that, though. Yeah. Well, oh, my God, the North Carolina. I'm not even going to get into it. But I once sat on hold.

41:19I can still conjure up the hold music two years later because it took forever for my benefits to get in. I sat on hold for four hours and then got hung up on. And the control to not throw my phone against the wall was just a lot of deep breathing. But anyway, we created a lot of magic during that time for her. We did a lot of we had a third of an acre in Asheville, which is not unusual. There's a lot of space there. Yeah. And we would do scavenger hunts. We would do visits from the fairies where I would buy cool little stones and hide them all over the yard and, you know, wake her up and say, Lily, the fairies came last night. So, oh, man, how much fun is that? I think she her name is Lily. Her name is Lily. Pretty name. Thank you. I think she remembers as a time of joy. And we were not. We were not traumatized, or at least we weren't feeling that we were at the time and we were not expressing a lot of fear about it.

42:22So I think we all just kind of got through it well. So it's interesting because I asked you what you learned through your years around the years following fish. And I'll tell you that there's a there's a book I just read by Michael Easter. And it was recommended to me from Matthew Clements. He runs Robbins Insurance Agency. Robbins and I can do it. But it's called The Comfort Crisis. And it's a book about. How we we live in, I call it an air conditioned world where we go every single day and we really just do the things that are the most comfortable. We go from air conditioned room to our car, listen to music. We just were constantly distracted. And we do the things that are like the least path of resistance. And we get into these rhythms of doing that. And they did a bunch of studies that people who get out of their comfort zone, people who sleep in a van and make money from day to day and do stuff like that, who have had who've been tested and challenged the most are typically the most easygoing, welcoming, like friendly, because they are OK with change when you're OK with change.

43:34And when you can get out of your comfort zone and try something new, they found that people are generally live longer and that they are OK. Like they're happier, they're better mental health. And I think it's so interesting because those type of experiences that you had where you didn't know from day to day kind of how you were going to do it, but you made it happen, gives you a sense of confidence going into things like a pandemic, because you're like, hey, look, we can live out of it. If worse comes to worse, we're going to make it in that positive attitude going into something like that versus what am I going to do? I don't know. I've never done this before. Scares a lot of people. And I imagine you mean just the ideas of the fairies came last night. Those little things are a creative mind. But B, I think a lot of it stems from. Past experiences, my off base. No, I don't think you are. And I don't like that. I'm not sure if I ever came to that realization, but I'm sure at some point I did. That was a bit of a blur those couple of years.

44:36But but yeah, I would say that's a really cool way to bring it back. I mean, you you asked what I learned from that time, and the answer was my own long winded way of saying I learned resilience. I learned that we're all in this together. Yeah. And that that that helped. So there's my motivational point for you today. Get out of your comfort zone. Try something different. Try something new. Go live in a van. I mean, there's this whole van life thing that I think is so funny because I was doing van life before it was cool, but I highly recommend it. Well, now it's like tiny homes and people are converting old buses and like these really nice places. I want one so bad. It's my biggest regret that I sold my bus for. I don't know some ridiculously low amount of money, I'm sure. And then hitchhiked wherever I was going next, you know. But gosh, I miss that thing a lot. A lot of that. Yeah, a whole lot. But so we've talked a lot about your food writing. That's true.

45:37We've said absolutely nothing. I should probably like Southern kitchen dot com. Fantastic. There it is. Southern kitchen dot com. Sign up for my newsletter. OK, well, let's do some plugs here. Come on. We're like 35 minutes in. Yeah, we're about to take a break to hear a word from our sponsors. Well, let's talk about your stuff. How can people follow you to learn more about your food writing ways? So so, yes, southern kitchen dot com is the cooking website that USA Today took over. When I'm not going to get into companies merging and stuff, that's going to get really boring. So just that's enough. Thank you. And excuse me, it's a it's a it's mostly. Yeah, like I said, it's a cooking website. There's a lot of recipes, but also there are some stories for me as well. And that's one facet of what I do. But I also travel around the south and I stay here in Nashville plenty too.

46:41But I travel around the south. I write stories which go into USA USA Today papers around the south. And I have a I have a weekly Sunday column that again, all of the USA Today papers in the south. So it's like semi syndicated. That's pretty cool, though. And what was your what was your column last weekend? What was it about my column last weekend? What was it about? Oh, it was about it was actually about traveling through the south. And the joy of the roadside stand produce stand and how they all smell exactly the same. If you think about it, you can probably contour it up. It's kind of like sort of sour, ripe tomatoes and melons and onions. Each smell. Yeah, exactly. In the summer. Yeah. The peach smell and the ripening. Yeah, the ripening cantaloupe and all of that. Smell the Nashville farmers market. Yeah. The roadside stands are different, too.

47:43The Nashville farmers market is its own thing. Yeah, I used to be. So I'm a produce guy. OK, so I used to be in 2005. I ran a company called What Chefs Want to Creation Gardens and did that. And I sold produce for a company called Fresh Point. So I was in produce business for 10 years and sold produce to everybody. So I've been to that farmers market hundreds of times and knew all the people been out of it now long enough to where I. I. Forgotten a lot of it, but. What good times, good times. I know that smell of being around in many different facets. And then it did also bring up the peach smell, which you mentioned. And then there was a I provided a recipe for what happens if you buy too many peaches, because you always do, right? You you always buy because they smell amazing. It's no such thing as too many peaches, by the way, but I know what you mean. You can you can freeze them. That's the best way to do it. I once bought a bushel of peaches. They were almost ripe on my birthday for I guess this was in 2020.

48:47Yeah. And I thought a fun thing to do for my birthday, which is on the first day of summer, would be to buy a bushel of peaches and make stuff out of it. I don't know. I was crazy. I don't know why I thought that would be fun. Everybody at the time, though, was like turning into a DIY master. Right. Yeah. Do you know how big a bushel of peaches is? I mean, you're a produce person, you know. I know a bushel, a ninth is about 20 pounds. Yeah. A bushel is about 20 pounds. So here I am in my kitchen on my birthday, like boiling, like flash boiling peaches to get the skins off and making like jam over here and barbecue sauce over here and chutney over here. And then I just at a certain point was like, OK, that's enough. And I just chopped them all up and froze them. And you do a lot. You said barbecue. You write a lot about barbecue. Is that your favorite subject? Is your favorite type of food? Is it your you're talking about? You must have seen the most recent projects. So we do these premium sections for USA Today, and they go in all of the USA Today inserts in every USA Today network paper across the country.

49:57Wow. So those premium sections, we've done two of them. One was about cocktails and Southern Southern Maine spirits. And then the second one, which just came out on June 5th, was all about the art of cooking outdoors. So there was grilling and lots and lots and lots of stuff about barbecue, too. Have you read Pat Martin's book? No, I feel like I should the way that you're looking at me. It's right there. It's called Life of Fire. OK, it's a it's a how to build a pit, how to do all the things. And he teaches great how to do southern whole hog barbecue and that he outlines it, which is like the holy grail of outdoor cooking. It is. And this in the book, he outlines what you do with a green fire, what type of wood to use, what type of chairs you need to sit in for the 30 hour. I mean, he goes into the details. I saw your article on grilling and barbecue and all the different ways to do it.

51:00And I went, oh, it's kind of a kind of like the book Life of Fire. It's pretty cool. That's OK. So I'm going to go deep and make a major admission here. Let's go. I don't eat a lot of barbecue. I've written a barbecue book. Yeah, I've written stuff about barbecue to USA Today. I know a lot about barbecue restaurants, but it's just not on the top of what I go out to eat. And people are always like, where's the best barbecue restaurant? And I know of them, but I'm. I'm not the best person to ask that question. I'll tell you what's most popular. Yes, I can tell you like my favorite poke and stuff like that. So what is your favorite? Like, what is your go to? I love the the poke poke bar at the wash. I mean, it's hands down the best in town, in my opinion. I have yet to go. It's so good. I'll go check it out. Yeah. The poke poke. It's called Pokey P.O.K.I.

52:02And they sell poke poke and they sell poke. Yeah, I need to get over to the wash. It's great. It had most of them on the show. I haven't. I need to get the poke guy on. Yeah. And it's. Yep. And he yeah, he's great. Everyone who I've talked to who runs a place over there is just amazing. Young entrepreneurs just doing just killing it, killing it over there. What a neat concept that Tyler came up with just to this incubator for people. I think I read in your article, they've got 30 people on a waiting list to go ahead and do it to put a place in there. I'm like, wow, why don't they take all all car washes and just do that? Right. Oh, my gosh. Car washes. I'm sorry if you own a car wash, but it kind of a waste of space, right? We don't need a million of them. No. And there's the ones you can just drive through and they're pretty easy. Yeah, but it's a really incredible concept. And if you don't know what we're talking about at home, we're talking about the wash. It's a micro food hall. It's on McKinney.

53:03It's on the corner of McKinney and Gallatin over in East Nashville. Tyler Cobble, who is behind the project with his investment group, took this car wash that basically had six bays, had six bays, was very underutilized piece of important East Nashville lands and upfitted it for restaurant use and created a place where young entrepreneurs can open their restaurants for very low entry costs. So I've opened a restaurant before. And the hood system alone is tens of thousands of dollars. Right. And he's put all that stuff in there. You just come in and it's all you don't have to worry about tables and chairs and servers because it's all takeout. That's right. They just make food. And there's like a little kind of an area outside that has tables and chairs. You can go sit in, but it's as a group. I think you pay like an association fee and all that. The upkeep is all there. Right. Is that I think how he's done it? That's what I understand.

54:04Yeah. Five restaurants and they got a bar at the end that will. You that kind of has drinks that go with the five five other concepts there. So you got Tootsie Lou's tacos, you've got East Side Fuh, Pokey, Soy Cubano and the Peruvian. Two Peruvian chefs, two Peruvian chefs. OK. And it's right around the corner from my house. So I mean, we pick up food from there all the time. It's it's just it's very good. So the East Side Fuh is fantastic, too. It's all great. Well, Chad and Gracie are two of my favorite people in the city. They're just like if you've been you've been east side by me. I like crave East Side Fuh on me sometimes. I'm having a rose pepper for lunch today. I'm really excited. Oh, that's a good one, too. We really have the best restaurants over on the east side. I love it there. It's it's fantastic. I every time I go to East Nashville, I just feel home. I don't know why I go there. I'm just like, I just there's a vibe. I love it. It's how I kind of I've avoided being the person that misses old Nashville because I I like growth.

55:11I like change. We've talked about this. I like that. I think it's neat. But I went downtown the other day just because I had a show. I had a guest in here and he had never been to Nashville. And it was a Thursday night. And I just drove him down Broadway. I never got out of the car, just drove down Broadway. And he was like, what the hell? I know it's crazy. This is insane. I'm like, this is not the Nashville I grew up in. I lived here for 33 years. So there's a there's a side of old Nashville that I'm starting to miss. But I can feel it much more in East Nashville than I that is anywhere else. Yeah. So I signed on to take this job from moving from a tiny little newspaper to be like the regional food reporter here in the South for USA Today. And I'm based out of the Tennessee. And so I signed this contract saying I would move here. And I hadn't been here since. I mean, I don't even know. It's been more than 10 years, I think. And I thought, oh, Nashville's fun. You know, I'll move there. That's fine. I was kind of like I was ready for an adventure. And when I got here, I was I was really surprised.

56:15Yes, very surprised. And the first assignment that I I took was was I had to drive down Broadway at 1030 in the morning. And people, I mean, it was full. And people are like hanging out of the windows and drinking. And it's just like not not who are these people? Yeah, it was really funny. But then we had an Airbnb over in Laughlin Springs and drove over there and felt at home. Now, of course, we can't afford anything in Laughlin Springs. But, you know, just driving over the east side for the first time, it did exactly like you're saying. It felt like coming home. And we we we said, oh, God, OK, here. This is this is where people from Asheville move. This is the side of town because it did have kind of that artsy Asheville ask five for us. We're going to change gears with this conversation when we get back from this short break from our sponsors.

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58:23And, you know, I don't think people tell you that they just sell insurance. But what the cheapest is, but, you know, sometimes you're paying the cheapest for insurance you don't need. So that is why Robin's Insurance specializes in restaurants. They identify exactly the type of insurance that you're going to need to run your business so that you can sleep sound at night. And that's super duper important, y'all. So I would like for you, if you're curious about this, you want to learn more, give Matthew Clements a call. His number is 863-409-9372. Or you can shoot him an email at mclements. That's m-c-l-e-m-e-n-t-s at robbinsins.com. You have heard me talk about SuperSource for the last two years. And in that time, Jason Ellis, I feel like he's taken over the city. It is hard for me to get a guest in here that doesn't use SuperSource. And I'm telling you, everybody loves him. When you mentioned Jason, I'm like, oh, my gosh, that guy's legitimate. Ask yourself this question.

59:24Do you feel that way about the person that provides you with your dish machine and chemicals? Because he's the real deal. And guess what? He's not going to make you sign a five year contract. He's never going to say, well, you signed a contract. It's on you. He goes week to week. You never sign a contract. So he earns your business every single week. I loved it when we had Cam and Nickian from the Red Perch. And they said he's like one of our employees when he's in the building. He's that good. You should call him today. If you don't feel that way about your dish machine and chemical person, 770-337-1143 is how you get a hold of Jason. Or go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Click the sponsors tab. There's a special link on there that will get you special discounts for new customers. Call him now. What's a story that you've written that like shocked you or that you learned something profound from that you weren't expecting? Do you have it because you are the whole industry? Oh, food and culture storyteller for USA Today and the editor of Southern Kitchen.

01:00:31What like what's the story that like something you could tell us? That had a profound impact on me. Gosh. Or just a good story. I don't know. There's so many, though, I'm kind of going through it. So, I mean, I've been writing about food since. Oh, my gosh, since 2005. Yeah, I've been writing about food for newspapers since then in full time now for 14 years, I think. I know. And so just kind of going back through all of that. I mean, I think I'll focus on a topic, really, rather than a specific story. I think working to cover labor issues in the restaurant business has had the biggest impact on me. There was a story that I wrote that I also got a Press Association Award for. It was about kind of like what we were talking about before. Workers not having easy access to just PTO.

01:01:34You know, it's like an obvious thing, right? But I really dug into it, dug into the stats and how many how many restaurant workers were at the time, because this was about 10 years ago, forced to go to work, sick, forced to go to work, vomiting with all kinds of gross things happening. And I had some really interesting stats about norovirus and how much of that actually stems from from food service workers being forced to show up when they're sick as hell. And so that was not very romantic. I'm not. You asked me about my favorite food story. And suddenly we're talking about vomit. I'm sorry. But you have to apologize. I'm all about it. But that one was really that was really an eye opener for me. And I think it was really eye opening for other people. I think people who hadn't worked in the restaurant industry did not understand the scale of of the issue. So covering those kind of labor issues for me, that has felt like important work to be somebody who was in the kitchen, in the inside, being able to like amplify the voices of the people who maybe don't really get to speak out as much about what they're going through.

01:02:51That would be something I would love about it. Something I love about what I'm doing right now is having conversations like this that somebody might go, wow, I can't believe. You know, I think that like I was an active addiction, right, where I was drinking and I wasn't drinking in the morning. It was just it was a nighttime thing, but I drink way too much. But I never thought that I did at all. And I when I finally quit drinking, I kind of realized like, oh, shit, like I was drinking way too much. And I think I hope that the pandemic was a reset button for a lot of people. And I hope that when everything went away, kind of that you had to step out of your comfort zone again, back to that that reference that we're able to look back in hindsight and go, oh, man, I wasn't treating people that great. I when we real when we come back to this thing and if you're leading like you did in 2019, I think that you've got to stop doing that. You've got to look at people for who they are. And I think there's I think that being a pandemic with.

01:03:53Hey, look, if you had a sniffle, you don't come to work. I think it put everything in perspective. Yeah. We start looking at it like almost on a cellular level, like what happens when you breathe? You know, nobody talked about when I coughed that droplets go into the air. And if you're closer than six feet around me, you're going to be affected by that. I don't think anybody just come to work. Now it's like, oh, that's incredibly unsafe. But we need to not do that. It is. Yeah. Hopefully we've stopped that. Hopefully, hopefully. I'm not sure. But one of the one of my favorite stories that I wrote was was fairly recently about a month, a month, a year ago when I first came on to this new job. And it was for the American South, which is another USA Today vertical that just focuses on the South. And it was about rice farming in the mountains of North Carolina, Western North Carolina. And there's a huge Hmong population in Western North Carolina.

01:04:55And I didn't know that it's very, very interesting. They're in the like hollers of the mountains in Western North Carolina are tons of rice paddies. And they're growing this specialty sticky rice that the Hmong people enjoy eating and just going out to those rice paddies and just walking around and learning about rice farming was so interesting to me. I really, really love covering agriculture, which is, I think, boring to most people. But it's just it's so fun. It's so interesting to me. It's that kind of looking behind the curtain at where our food really comes from, you know, what what goes into farming and food production is is fascinating and, you know, incredibly labor intensive, just hard work. Well, I think that I feel the same way about what you do. I feel the same way about people who cover this stuff.

01:05:57And like, how do you even do you do you get a lead for that? Like when how do you learn about the Hmong people who are having these huge rice fields in North Carolina? Is that something you read about somewhere? Oh, I want to get in deeper. Like for me, I see somebody like you who's traveled around the South. You're writing about the South and you've co-authored a book and all these things. I go, she's constantly reporting on other people who's reporting on her. Like, I want to know how she gets her stories and what her life is like, because that's the peak behind the curtain that I'm interested in. And hopefully, if you're listening to this, you're interested in that, too, because you're you're constantly seeking your curiosity is with other people. I like to know what makes you run. So this is all interesting stuff. So thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. I mean, I think it really is just having curiosity about other people. Really, that's it in listening and reading and listening to people talk about what they do and then finding the finding the interesting thread in all of it.

01:07:03Like, what is the story here? What will people want to know about? And like I said, there's a lot. I do a lot of reading, just looking for interesting people around the South. What's the you do a lot of reading? Are you reading just random publications online or do you intentionally read cookbooks? What's what's a book you would recommend to people to read or an article or a website? Well, Southern Kitchen Dotcom. Yeah, Southern Kitchen Dotcom, of course. I read a lot of a lot of other journalists coverage. I mean, I read the New York Times food section religiously, just as much as I can absorb. I mean, even tiny little newspapers, you know, little little independent weeklies, just as much as I can just to learn about the the South. I'm still kind of getting to know some of these places, some of these states that I cover. I spend a lot of time talking, just talking to people about what's what's interesting in your city.

01:08:10I love it. Let's do a couple of rapid parks. We're almost to the end here. OK, I typically have an hour. We'll go over a little bit. It's fine. But what is an app that you use on your phone that you couldn't live without? Otter. I don't know what this is. What is Otter? It is a it's an app that oh, my gosh, if you are listening to this and you ever have to transcribe notes, Otter will change your life. It it it records what people are saying, but it transcribes it in real time. So you can just look on your phone and go quickly to the quote that you want to listen to. And in most cases, it doesn't spell everything right. So you get some funny things, but it improves over time with use. Otter, Otter. Yeah, I love it. What is your favorite movie of all time? Oh, man. Let's see. I know this is supposed to be rapid. My favorite doesn't matter.

01:09:10Just movie of all time, Apocalypse Now. No, wait. Full Metal Jacket. So now you sort of understand what kind of movies I like. Like, wow. Full Metal Jacket. I think that was kind of unexpected. Good movie. It's a great movie. It's brutal. It's it's so good. It's one I don't think people talk about as much as they should. That's true. I get Shawshank Redemption. You know, mine, I would say Silence of the Lambs for me. It's my favorite. I've always said that. I love like Pulp Fiction or Godfather Part Two. There's people, everybody has their favorite. I don't hear a lot of Full Metal Jacket. I have to go rewatch that now, too. But they told the psychological story of what happens to soldiers so well. And it's it's it is haunting. It is. It is haunting. It's great. And it's also violent and crazy. Joker and Rafter Man and holy shit, private.

01:10:11That drill sergeant is the best, too. Yeah, I have to rewatch that as soon as possible. That's such a great movie. I haven't thought about that in a long time. There you go. Would your favorite is a fish for your favorite band of all time. Yeah, I usually don't say that. But yeah, since we kicked off the interview, why don't you say that? I mean, because I think people have preconceived notions about excuse me, about who's who's a fish fan, you know? And I think maybe a lot of that's breaking down now because we're all middle aged and have real jobs. And it's OK. But yeah, that would be it. Yeah, that would be it. Don't ever not tell people that I think people immediately judge you when you say fish. I don't know. It's a little bit like jam band. Yeah, I'm not really a jam band person, but I do like fish. I also listen to a lot of in 90s era hip hop. I listen to the blues. I listen to all kinds of stuff. What kind of mood you're in? Yeah. You got something. Yeah. My favorite band is Pearl Jam. I listened to Nirvana yesterday for like two hours.

01:11:14I love both of those bands. Just I don't know what it was. It's the whole in utero album. I like some like some live albums. Washing my card took me like two hours. I was like, and I really got into some Nirvana yesterday and I just loved it. I was like, God bless. There's so much anger and so much just just screaming. That was like, wow, it was really kind of an outlet. It was really it was really nice. I don't know. What can I ask what year you were born? 1979. OK, I was born in 1978. I thought we were about the same age. Exactly. We're right there. I'm 43. I am going to. Oh, my gosh, I'm going to be 44 in just a couple of weeks. What day is your birthday? So wild. June 21st. Summer solstice. Yeah. Wow. That's pretty cool. It's coming right up. Yeah. Happy early birthday. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us on Nashville Restaurant Radio today. This has been I've enjoyed the conversation. Yeah, this has been a lot of fun. Good. Well, I've warned you ahead of time. Most people don't get this. We're going to now do our Gordon food service final thought. So.

01:12:18Thanks again for being here. You get to take us out, whatever you want to say, as long as you want to say it. You're speaking to the audience. The floor is yours. Yeah, I mean, I guess we've covered a lot of ground today. And I think one of the things that has stuck in my head the most about our conversation was that it's important to take the time to know the people around you, whether that is your server, look people in the eye, ask them how they are, but quickly because they're busy, you know, but just. Especially in this time, is everybody is coming out of historic. You know, we're still in the pandemic, it's not totally gone away, but everybody is coming out of a historic hard time. Be a little bit easier on people, be a little bit more compassionate and get to know, like I said, everyone around you, you'd be surprised who you meet.

01:13:20Compassion, it's a good thing. Mackenzie, thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your week. Thank you. It's been wonderful. All right. I tell you what, thank you so much, Mackenzie Lunsford for joining us here on Nashville Restaurant Radio. I tell you what, I get so lucky. I feel like I get a pinch myself sometimes because I just get to sit in this room and have these conversations with such amazing people. And I just absolutely love it. Hey, if you have somebody out there who you think is really interesting, that you would love to hear me interview on this show, find me on Instagram at Brandon underscore NRR and send me a message. Send me a message that says, hey, I'd love to hear this person or that person. Or if you know, if you're somebody who'd like to be on the show, then message me. Let me know. Let's find out if that is a good fit. Thank you guys for listening. I hope that you have a wonderful week ahead of you.

01:14:23And I don't know what else to say. And I can tell you that I hope that you guys are being safe out there and that I love you. Bye.