Margot McCormack

00:00We 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 your 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 Guard's 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 with every service.

01:05Call 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. Welcome 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. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service and man, I've been excited to put this one out. We are talking today with the queen herself, Margo McCormick. We all know about a month ago she closed Margo Cafe and Bar in East Nashville and what has she been up to? What are her plans going forward? And also just wanted to say thank you for everything that she's done to this community. She's one of the most special people that we have in Nashville. I'm 100% convinced and she changed a lot of trajectory of what I was doing from our second interview.

02:37When I first started the podcast, I wanted to be able to communicate. A lot of stuff was going on with the pandemic. My first episode was March 14th, 2020. I called Kerry Bringle and I called Margo McCormick and I said, I'd love to get your take on this. And the same day, March 17th, I went out and I interviewed in person. My very first two interviews in person was Kerry Bringle and Margo McCormick. And Margo was so amazing in that interview that it changed the way I looked at a lot of things and go back and listen to it. Go back to the very beginning of the podcast and there's some really good stuff back there. I really love the fact that this podcast is a time capsule of what the world was going through during the pandemic. And you can go back and listen to chefs and just everybody right in the middle of this whole thing that we were going through. And you can hear the fear in their voice and all this stuff. The sound quality was horrible, but it was a really good time to kind of get back and realize what we were dealing with.

03:40Margo made it through and this episode is just going back and talking about all the things. So I hope that you enjoy it. After the interview was really special, I said, can I take you out to lunch? And we went to Perrine Bakery in downtown Franklin as a she loves French food and the whole thing. And I said, let's go to Perrine. And in the middle of our lunch, Emily, the manager, walked by and she had a little plate of like banana bread. And she said, our cooks in the back saw you when we were walking in and they just wanted to say thank you. And they wanted to give you a little something and just say how special you are and thank you. And I was like, I didn't put them up to this. I didn't let them know in advance. That's just the respect that she commands. It's not that she commands it. It's just that overall a body of work and a lifetime of doing what she's doing. 25 years of Margo, she walks into a restaurant and people just see her and go, wow, we just want to show our gratitude. And it was a really special moment. I really enjoyed it.

04:50Just that she came by and Emily, the manager, came by and did that. And I think Margo felt it was pretty special, too. But I love that lunch I had with her and just love this woman. And so this episode today is 100 percent about her. I do have a little bit of housekeeping because we are full at NARA. I know I've been talking about NARA on this podcast because this is my channel. This is what I do. The Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance. We have 90 restaurants in the alliance now and we're full. I don't. Between Vince and I, we just can't, we can't get to all of the people that we have right now. So we are putting a pause on bringing on new restaurants and we're focusing our time and energy on helping the restaurants that we currently have. And helping we are. We've already added over a million and a half dollars back into the pockets of our member restaurants. And it's making a difference. It helps me sleep at night knowing that we are doing really good things for a lot of people that really need the help. And it has been awesome. Even if you don't need, like don't need the help, there are still ways in which we can help. And that is where I will send you over to naranashville.com. We now have a wait list of restaurants. So if it's something that you're kind of like, hey, let's get involved. We'd like to, we'd like to be a part of this thing. Get on the wait list because we are going to start visiting new restaurants the last week of July. And it is kind of a first come first serve basis.

06:26So if you go to naranashville.com, you can join the wait list. There's no cost associated with joining the alliance. Main thing is that you are here to support local restaurants. If you're a local restaurant and you don't consider other local restaurants as competition, and you want to help support other local restaurants, then yes. If you're one of those restaurants, if you want, if you go to our Instagram page and you follow us, we have these really cool little flyers that have a QR code that leads to our page. And if you go to our page, we're transitioning that page to be a page where customers can go find local restaurants. We want to be able to drive people to our members. If you are out there and you like to dine, go visit the website and find your places to eat. That being said, in the next three weeks, we are going to be visiting these 90 restaurants and we're going over a couple topics. One of them is OneTap. OneTap is a really cool technology.

07:29If you go back and listen to our last episode with Eric Schell and Drew Strom, they're the two of the people, Eric is the co-founder and CEO and Drew runs their marketing. This is the, if you need maintenance done in your restaurant, this is a no brainer. Everybody that we've walked into and started talking about this, this just creates value. This is a way in which you can save a bunch of money on all of your repairs and get repairs done in a timely fashion. It costs you nothing to sign up for OneTap. But the way in which you do that is you got to go to NARA Nashville, click on our vendor page. For all these, I'm about to tell you about three or four different people because I don't want to bog you down with ads throughout the interview. And these are really cool things. Go to our page, click on the OneTap and schedule a demo. Have them come and show you exactly what it is. We just signed up. We have Puckets, Daddy's Dogs, McGuffin Catering. We've got some great companies that are just starting with us and we'd love to have your restaurant involved. The other one is Cooler Control Solutions. David and Peter over there, they are, they have a technology that they put these discs in the top of your walk-in and it soaks up all of the humidity in your walk-in and it helps your walk-in run more efficiently. It doesn't take up any space. Your food will last longer and your cooler doesn't have to work as hard to maintain temperature, right? So the ROI here is your cooler lasts a lot longer. You have less maintenance areas and it costs a lot less electricity to run it. And on these 108 degree days, you need that. Puckets in Franklin did a cool test with us and their cooler temperatures, their coolers outside. So it is amazing every time you open that walk-in how much humidity and it is reduced. It is amazing the numbers. You got to go and check it out. If you're, if you have a walk-in cooler, you need this in your own cooler. It is inexpensive and will save you tons of money and your food will last longer. This is what you need. The other one is insurance.

09:30Insurance, everything's going up these days and if you don't have a great insurance company that you're working with, I'm telling you, you need to call Matthew Clements. This is one of the things we're asking every member to do just as a fit check, right? Call Matthew Clements, get him to to do a bid for you. Just see what your insurance would cost. Now doing an insurance audit, seeing what your insurance cost is one thing, but having Matthew Clements as your agent, he'll come and eat in your restaurant. He knows your restaurant. Anything happens in your restaurant, you call his cell phone. It is so easy to get a hold of somebody who understands your business. The level of service he's going to bring is unparalleled and again, if you go to NARA Nashville.com, N-A-R-A Nashville.com, you will see links to all of these people under our vendor tab. They're all amazing people. The other one is Shared Spirits. Shared Spirits is a really cool marketplace. It is an online marketplace. It's free. Again, all you have to do is sign up and what you do is people will find you in this marketplace and they can buy drinks. So they can buy drinks for their friends.

10:39They can go into this marketplace. They can purchase a drink, text it to a friend. That friend goes, hey, somebody bought you a drink at Cletus Burger. And then you can go to Cletus. You show them this text or this text message. They go, no problem. They make you the drink. The tip is included, everything. It is so cool. And I hear so many people say, we just need more butts and seats. This is a free way to do it. And we're really building up this marketplace. We would love to have you there. So again, Shared Spirits is something that you need to be on if you want to add people in your restaurant. Cooler control solutions. Let's save money. Let's keep your food better, longer. One tap, all of your maintenance. And then, you know, one of the things for me, because I don't drink alcohol, but if I'm with small, I'll have like a THC beverage, like a two milligram or a five milligram or something. We've got two great THC partners. One of them is Wild, W-Y-L-D. And they are the number one THC brand in the nation. Really good stuff. They have a white peach that's a two milligram. They've got a clementine that's a two milligram.

11:45Definitely something. And Andy Herrera here in town is just the most educated guy when it comes to this going into your restaurant. If you want to explore using a THC beverage, another non-alcoholic option, I highly recommend Wild. And North Canada is another amazing brand distributed by Lemon Brothers. They have some just really good flavors. The strawberry melon, the prickly pear, lime. They've got a pineapple, orange, different berries, and they're not high caloric. And they have five milligrams and 10 milligrams. And they are delicious. We're also working on a plan with these guys through NARA to help you get that license, whatever it takes to do it. But this is a really big untapped revenue stream. And everybody who has gone through and got their license to do it is selling a lot of them. The stigma of ordering a THC beverage is pretty much gone. They are selling tons of it off-premise. It is a thing. So if you can get this, these two brands we would love to have in your building. They are committed to supporting local restaurants. They have reps that will come in, walk you through everything, and they will both be at our NARA show. September the 1st, we have got an independent restaurant show. We're going to have 35 vendors. We're going to have Pepsi there, Toast, North Canada, Wild, Pliny Crane for marketing. There's going to be tons of giveaways. We're going to have live music. It is going to be a blast. So these are the brands. I want to talk more about Pepsi, but we're going to do that another time because I know you want to hear Margot. And this is a long interview. We think we talked like an hour and 35 minutes. So enjoy this.

13:31Thank you for listening to me rambling on about all these things. We are so excited to have Margot come into the studio. You are listening to Nashville Restaurant Radio. All right. Well, we are super excited today to welcome in the queen, Margot McCormick. Thank you. Welcome to another episode of Nashville Restaurant Radio. The first time that we did this, it was St. Patrick's Day. I don't know if you remember this. I don't know if I do. I don't know if I've told you this, but you were my second interview I've ever done on the podcast. I think the first real episode that I put out, I interviewed Kerry Bringle, and it was his birthday, and it was March 17th, 2020. Wow. Do you remember? I called you. Did you come to the restaurant? I came to the restaurant. We went upstairs.

14:37I had one microphone. It was a USB microphone that we had set in the middle of the table. I had no fucking clue what I was doing at all. And we were about to go into one of the most unprecedented times we've ever experienced in our industry. Well, in life. In life. You changed me that day. Wow. You talked about love languages, and you said, this is what we do. I'm so afraid for my people because spirit of service, the way that we give love is that we provide hospitality for people. The way that I receive love is by creating this food and giving it to people, and then when they enjoy it, that's how I receive love. You had so many people on your team that felt the same way. You said, I don't know what we're going to do if we have to close.

15:40And I was looking at it from a business side of this whole thing going, well, this is going to change. It was an employee's market. There was no staff. And I'm like, well, now this is going to change. Well, there'll be tons of staff now. I had it all wrong in my head, but after talking to you, it changed my entire thought process of what a real local restaurant, what it could be to be an operator who genuinely cares, and it opened my eyes to so many things, and it propelled the podcast in a different direction. Day one for me. I'm glad to help. So thank you. You're welcome. I guess it's my initial thank you for saying yes to doing that, and thank you for all that you have done. How long has it been now since the restaurant's been closed? I think we're in three weeks. Three weeks. Tell me about the last three weeks.

16:42Well, they're just weird. I was really hoping that starting out in November with our realty company that we would have had a nice bow and everything would have been wrapped and tied up and we would move on. And unfortunately, that's not how things have gone, and we put a lot of eggs in one basket. And those people have not given me a lot of confidence that this is going to go forward. So we are now expanding to a wider market, and we're putting a sign on the building, which I didn't want. You own the dirt there? Yes. So you own that building? Yes. Okay. Fortunately, my landlord, March Edgerton, sold me the building in 2015, 16, 17. I don't even remember. And that just really secured my destiny. He offered it to me. He said he had a deal, and I said, oh my God, I just bought my partner out. I don't think I can afford to extend myself any further than that. I'm pretty conservative financially. I'm like, I need to keep the money. So his original deal fell through, and he came back in February. And when I bought Jay, my partner out, it was November. So I came back in February, and he offered it to me again.

18:08He said this deal fell through. And I was like, I realized in those few months, like, okay, I need to buy this space. How did you realize that? What was your process? Did it just come to you in the shower? How did you realize? I only think about food in the shower. I'm kidding. But I do think about food in the shower. I think it was just getting my bearings and getting under me and thinking, you know what, I need to control my own destiny. Without the dirt, you work hard for however many years, and then you sell. And my business, because my name's attached to it, isn't really worth a lot without me there. So I was like, and I didn't want to sell my name to someone who may sully it up later. I didn't want to be connected to that. So buying the property just kind of secured my future. And it was very important. And I felt also very proud to have gotten to that point. I did not know that you own the actual dirt there. I think it's interesting because you said, I don't want to sully up my name.

19:33And I over here would say, your name is absolutely marketable if you were going to sell Margot to somebody else to come in. What does that mean so much to you? I can't hear. I got to figure out why the sound's doing this. So I guess that I think your name is absolutely marketable and somebody could come in and do that. No, my name is marketable. I don't want to give someone else control over my name. That makes sense. And so now your name will live forever with this amazing memory of what it is. Do you have an idea? What do you want to go into that space? Do you care? You know, I do care, but in the end, this is my 401k. This is my retirement, my investment. So we were trying to do the highest bidder thing, but still keeping in mind what would be better for the neighborhood. And so that's why we chose this first group. And I thought that'd be a great fit and I'm digging it. There are some other groups that I'm not exactly sure what their plan, their realty investment groups. I don't know what their plans would be. I don't even know if they have a plan. But at this point, I just want to be done. What are you going to do?

20:54What do you want to do over the next, what's your goal in the next 12 months? Well, first I'd like to sell the building and then I have a torn rotator cuff that I'd like to get a surgery on. Everyone is worried about what I'm going to do with myself. So everyone has offered up ideas about what I could be doing for the next foreseeable future. And so there's been an idea about it around about a cooking studio. We have an Airbnb in our property that we're kind of like, and so we could outfit a little cooking studio in there and then do an office in the upstairs part. So that kind of appeals to me because I would be taking all of my Margo memorabilia and some of the stuff and making a little Margo in the backyard, which is very sweet, sounds very sweet and comforting to me because standing in Margo is one of my favorite places to be. So it wouldn't be like I would be giving the whole thing up.

22:04I would be taking some of that with me and putting it around. But in the more immediate future, I am working with a book agent on trying to get at least one book up and running. But I've got two in the works. Is this a cookbook or a memoir? Well, the first one's a memoir and the second one, well, the first one's a memoir and has recipes that you would go to that are in my home recipe book. We have a little red book that has all of the pancakes, the pancakes, the waffles, the biscuits, the kind of stuff that you make at home. No one's making a Thomas Keller smoked salmon ice cream cone at their house. That is a coffee table book. And it's beautiful. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. But for me, I'm most likely grabbing a joy of cooking, a better homes and gardens, a better a silver palette for the recipes that you want to do every day. So the memoir sort of tracks how I got my start making doughnuts with my mother, going to UT and working at Bennigan's, coming back and getting a job at Faison's and being encouraged to go to culinary school and then getting into New York and then coming home, working at Ebscott's and then going to, you know, 1017 Woodland Street. And each chapter has or each they're more like stories, they're little vignettes and each story tells something of that or people that are important to me and a recipe that goes along with it. And sometimes they're not even my recipes.

23:39They're, you know, Greg White's award winning peach jam. I'd like to put that in the book. I'm still have to get with Greg on that, but I think he'll be amenable. And then Heather, my wife says, Well, what about the recipes that you cook in the restaurant? Those are the things people are really going to want. And I said, Okay, well, we'll do we'll do a second book of those recipes. I mean, I'd like to. So in the meantime, I've been teaching cooking classes at the restaurant. This week was my first run of we did fish, we made a trout dish that will be in the book. And it's so it's really good for me to have to to force to be sit down and write the recipe out because I don't do that. That's not how I cook. And then when I demonstrated and then when people have to do it in front of me, I see where Okay, I need to tweak this language or I need to be more specific here. Or I'll say that's one tablespoon and they'll be going no, it's as to as two tablespoons. And I'm like, you know, thank you for the correction.

24:47Sure. Yeah, I'll make a note of that. And for the home cook, because these are just people, regular folks coming in to learn things. They'll tell me, well, hey, my stove is not that hot. You know, how am I going to get this sear on this trout? If I don't have this kind of flame. And so we talk about things like that. We talk about pieces of equipment, we talk about where to buy things. And it's just real fun to get to, you know, when you're a professional cook, and you're cooking five nights a week or days, whatever, you're back there, you don't get to visit that often, I come out of the dining room, I say, Hi, how's it going? How the kids How's your trip? You know, real, you're connecting, but it's table visits, brief, brief, brief interludes. So at this point, I'm spending two hours with these folks. And they tell me their story before we get started, we introduce everybody, we get back in the kitchen. And you know, there's nothing more. I mean, I think some people are intimidated to prep professional kitchen, Margo, some people are like, just thrilled. They're just like, I can't even believe I'm standing. That would be me.

26:03Um, and but there's nothing more that connects people than you know, food and making food. And so I demonstrate a dish. And then they prepare the dish. And that's what we all sit down and eat lunch together. We have wine, we have snacks, we have dessert. And it's really sweet. I've met some beautiful people this week. I love that. You know, it's funny, there's a lot of beautiful people that you've met throughout this entire journey of yours. Yes, I think that there's somebody who's special to me. I've known this person for a really long time. And they met one of their good friends. Let's see who is this person on the Who is that right there? That's Kimmy Totski. Oh, wait. Yeah. Hi, Kim. Hey, y'all. How you doing? We're at my grandson's seventh birthday party today. Is it baseball thing? I just wanted to take a pause and say, man, I love that woman. Oh, you're so sweet. And it's hard to believe that my 31 year old son and I used to date. When you opened and as somebody who, you know, was a chef 1 million years ago, I remember Heather and Margot coming into the yellow porch and sitting there and Margot and I talked about the fact that I had at least four dried beans on the menu.

27:37I really like dried beans, you know. Go for it. And we were talking today and I said, you know, I met you and Laura at the Wild Iris in 2005. Yeah, well, I met her at I met Laura at Margo Margo. So Laura was at one end of the bar. I was at the other I was near the service well, and she was over by the door when you walk in. And, you know, I still took time to myself, even though I have an amazing husband and son, you know, and family. And she was, you know, trying to find her way through Nashville. And she looked at me and said, when she saw that I was on my second course, I had more courses coming. I had my own bottle of wine. And so did she. And she did the most aggressive. Hey, what's your deal? And we've known each other ever since. We went over to Slow Bar at the end of that night and became friends for eternity. But six months later, she called me and said, hey, I'm kind of looking for a gig. And I said, great. My chef at the Wild Iris just gave her notice. You're the chef. And she was like, do I need an interview? And I was like, no, man. Just get in here. See old times. The best. We met at Margo. You get it. Yeah. I don't know what just happened to our video feed. Kim, can you still. She's right there. There she goes. Kim, can you hear us?

29:16I wait. Are you getting. No, you're good. There you go. So, yeah, it was great times. And I just want to thank Margo for giving so much of her time and so much of her life and so much personal for the best and worst days in our life that we that we did there. Well, thank you. Did you hear it? Kim Tosky wanted to join in and say a couple of words. And we're glad that she did. Oh, that's so cool. It's it's very rewarding when you hear back from peers that you admire and that you think they're the bomb and they think you're the bomb. That's pretty cool. So thanks, Kimmy. How many of those type experience? And we were in the middle of a conversation about what you were doing with the cooking school and what that meant to you. And I asked you how the last three weeks had been and you said, well, we've had some technical issues on some of this stuff. We wanted to bring in a couple of her friends to say a few words to her and we get back. We are going to have another one of her good friends join the podcast right after these words from our sponsors. 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.

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34:45Hey, look at this. How are you? I'm wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I wonder if I can move this to where you can see the queen. Hi, Kitty! Hi! Okay, now you can go. Oh, I just adore Margo. I just want to say congratulations on 25 years. 25 years is not, I mean, it is a feat in the restaurant business, as you know, and I have to tell this story about Margo. I guess it was 2019, 2018. Margo came in to work one day, and we're all prepping for lunch, or for dinner, that is, and she said, oh, you know, LaDom's, they asked me to do a luncheon, and I'm just not familiar with the person, and I said, oh, who is it? And she said, it's Natalie Dupree, and I said, you're kidding. I said, I grew up watching her. She had her own show on Georgia Public Television. She had this property in Social Circle, Georgia. I was just just word-vomiting on her about Natalie Dupree, and before Margo, I mean, just a beat, she was like, she didn't even miss a beat. She said, oh, well, then we're going to do it, and I was like, oh, my God, we're going to do it. We're going to do a luncheon for her, and I had just told my mom I don't think I'll be able to meet her because she's in her 80s at this point. She had one book tour the year before, and then I was like, she's probably done, so I brought in my 90s, like, Natalie Dupree book that I had forever because, I mean, I watched her show growing up with my grandpa and my father, and it was just very special. It was like one of those touch points in my life where I was like, that's what I want to do. I want to be in culinary. I want to feed people, and she was just so gracious to be like, of course we're going to do this, of course, and I got to meet her, and then I have a photo of myself with her, and I'm in tears, and I had to walk in the kitchen and cry, but a few years later, Margo ended up giving me the book that

36:46Natalie gave her for that luncheon and signed for her, and she gave that to me for my birthday one year, and she sadly passed away in 2021, but it was such a core memory for me as a child, but also as an adult being able that full circle moment of having a female chef I work for be like, absolutely, we're going to do this, and she's just such a gracious, giving human being that she just didn't even think twice about it, and it's just like one of my favorite stories about her. Oh, good. I was worried about what story you might be telling. Well, let's tell that story. No, let's not. No, no, no, no, no, that was, I mean, there's so many good. There are so many good stories. Yeah, too many. That one touches my heart, and that one is one of those that's so special because it was special to me, and she knew how special it was to me, and to be able to cook for such amazing people and be able to work side by side with her for so many years was just a gift. I mean, when I say that Margo changed my life, I mean that. Like, she literally changed my life. I moved here in 2013 and just walked into her restaurant, and she gave me a job. She took a chance on me, and I will be indebted to her forever.

37:58You earned it, Kat. No debt required. You earned it. We're lifelong buds now. Oh, she's one of my dearest friends. I love Margo, and, you know, I can't wait to see what happens for you next. I can't wait to see what next thing you get into because we know you're not an idle person. No. You're going to find something to do, and I just, I'm so proud of you for so many reasons, and being a female chef in the industry you're in, and just being able to go out on your own terms and do everything you wanted to do. Walking into Margo's is like walking into Margo's kitchen at her house. I mean, she goes, she floats like a butterfly through the, you know, dining room and talks to everybody, knows everybody, and it's just, it was one of those things you can't, you can't manufacture. It's so organic. You just, it just, it is. Margo's was like a feeling. You walked in the door, and you just, you just knew it was somewhere special. So, you know, kudos to you for 25 years of doing that for people. Well, thank you, Kitty, and kudos you for being there for a lot of it. You know, I say that when Cat and Hadley both started up the street, we unleashed a barrel full of fun. Barrel of monkeys, barrel full of fun. I don't think I had more fun than when the three of us were back there cooking away, and one of the saddest things about COVID was losing Cat. We could only keep so many people on, you know, the management salary and, you know, going along with no money. So, Cat, I mean, didn't sit home and, and watch Tiger King and bake sourdough. She went right out and got a job at the turnip truck, but I think it's been an amazing step for her to make as well. So, I'm just so glad that you've been successful, but that will always be a hole right there. And now she's the coordinator of Fresh.

39:56Yes, yes. I'm the coordinator of Fresh for Turnip Truck National Markets, which is, you know, John always loves to tell the story about how Margo and him were, you know, at the Lowe's or the Home Depot just buying stuff for his store and the restaurant. Like, oh, what are you buying today? Oh, I'm buying a toilet, you know? I was so jealous of his toilet, because we were still going to the bathroom at the gas station. So, I really wanted a toilet. You didn't at Margo? Yes, while we were doing the work on the building. Oh, okay. We didn't have plumbing. And so, when we bumped into him this one day, I was like, what are you getting? He's like, toilets. And I was like, man, I want a toilet. Because the guys were all peeing in a honeypot, and mama don't pee in no honeypot. So, this little racy segment for you right there. First time urinating in a honeypot has ever come up on the show. And I'm happy that today was the day that that happened. I didn't even know what one was.

40:59I'm assuming it's like, what is a honeypot? Is that a term for something? Just a jar or a bucket that they're peeing in. Yeah. Yeah. All right. It's like a road trip. I never understood that. One of the misfortunes of being a woman is that you just can't pee anywhere you want to pee. I really want to be a dog because you can just pee anywhere. Anywhere? Anytime. So, now that you have the time, you're just going to find different places to go pee? Well, I mean, I just peed at your house. So, there you go. I've marked my territory. He's like, the real reason she's leaving. Yeah. We get the hard-hitting stuff here on the show, of course. Juicy. Well, Kat, thank you so much for stopping by today. And sorry about the technical difficulties getting you on. Oh, no problem. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to see Margo. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's always a blessing to be able to see her. Yes. I missed Kat was on a trip, John. John sent Kat on a trip for our party. I mean, I don't think it was just it was a coincidence, but I really missed her being there because one of the biggest things was seeing all the people that have made Margo what it is. And I missed her.

42:15So, I love you. We need to get together and hug soon. I will. I'll give you a big hug. And don't worry. I came right back off the airplane and got my Margo tattoo. I heard. I heard. So, I have my Margo tattoos to commemorate my... What did you get? Where is it? Can we see it? No, no, you can't see it. It's on my leg. It's the pots, the copper pots. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I forgot. I mean, that's like iconic. And I can't tell you how many people were in line that Monday or that Sunday, excuse me, to get their Margo tattoos because they couldn't get them at the party. There was like four or five people who were like, I'm here to get my Margo tattoo. You guys still doing it? So, that was really, really cool. So, how many people got Margo tattoos? I think he told me that he did 24 at the party and he had three tattoo artists. He set up in the patio area, the covered patio. And it was, you know, I'd never even heard of a micro tattoo and did not know this was a thing. And he, this guy, Butch, he started coming in the restaurant for lunch and bringing all his tattoo buddies. And he just offered, like when he found out we were doing this party, he was like, hey, let me come down and do some tattoos. And I was like, sure, sounds fantastic.

43:34And so then he chose things from the restaurant. And one was a little guy from a Kermit Lynch bottle of Cote D'Orene, a little guy on it. And then the pots and there was an oyster and there were a set of stairs. I was like, the stairs, nobody wants those stairs. I said, everyone hates those stairs. No one needs a reminder of the stairs. Well, you know, I feel like Deb Hugh, one of our bartenders said that she, that those stairs spoke to her. I was like, okay, cool. Yeah. I mean, so cool to see people just commemorate Margo's like that. I mean, who gets to have a tattoo, you know, on someone's body about, you know, just other than my wife. Yeah. It's crazy. Now I'm looking at your arms right now. Mine. Yeah. Okay. A lot of chefs who have been in this industry for a really long time, have a lot of tattoos. I don't see any tattoos on you. You know, it's because I think I'm an older person. I don't think Deb has any tattoos either. Um, it's just, it wasn't the trend, you know, when I was coming up through the profession and then when it got to be the trend, it was pretty macho, um, stuff. Um, now a lot of women have tattoos as well, but, uh, it just kind of wasn't my thing. I'm not big into pain. So heard. Yeah. So you don't have any tattoos. I do. I have one tattoo that I want to change. It's on my ankle. I got it when I was 30 and I would rather have a dog paw on this area that Butch said he could do for me. I take a blood thinner. I have a heart condition, so tattoos are not a great idea, but he was like, Oh, you can do it the further away from your heart.

45:28It is the better. Don't drink while you're doing it. Oh, well, I don't drink. I don't drink really. So, um, but I'm like, but you're not a cardiologist. I don't know if I should take medical advice from you, but yeah, perhaps one of these days I'll, I'll get a tattoo when I, when I have to have my rotator cuff surgery, I have to stop taking the Xarelto, the blood thinner. Okay. So maybe I could coordinate getting the tattoo right then. See, I've got a plan. Just bring the tattoo guy while you're under, if you're doing this, they have to put you down for something like this and then you won't feel the pain. You'd wake up and you could just have a nice. Oh yeah. No, I don't want anything that big tempting, but no, I have, I only have one tattoo also. And it's on my, my butt cheek. Nobody's ever seen it except for my wife. It's a thing. Yep. There it is. You guys can't see me nodding or anything, but I'm over here too. I never, I just never, I've never had something that like, I just wanted that was like that passionate, potentially like a rainbow or something somewhere because of the meaning of what that means to me. But I don't know, I don't know what to put on me. Yeah. Yeah. I have a chicken. I have like a heart thing, you know, a beat. But yeah, there's, there's kind of too much.

46:49And then I'm like, eh, like even this thing that I have, I got it when I was 30. Now I'm 62 and I don't like it. So Kat, how many tattoos do you have? Uh, let's see. I've got one, two, three, four. So I have four and each of them are just like different parts of my life. Like good or bad. They're just like mile markers in my life. So it had been about, I would say 20 years since I had a tattoo, 15 or something like that. And so I said, well, there's never, I mean, I'm 40 now. So it was like, might as well just get, you know, a tattoo of something that's always going to bring me joy. That's always going to make me think about, you know, having this like amazing experience because I mean, working at Margo's, you just never know who was going to walk through the door. You never knew who was going to walk up to the window and say, Hey Margo, you know, you didn't, you just didn't know. And it was just one of those cool experiences that only Nashville can also provide. And, you know, just thinking about all the people that I cooked for and cooked with and just the amazing people that walked through the doors every day that were just, just gems, just people, like people that literally just loved Margo was, it was really amazing to see that. And so nothing like commemorating that kind of camaraderie and, you know, joy, like a tattoo like that. So it's just always going to remind me of this amazing time in my life.

48:07I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to show it to you. Well, thank you Kat so much for joining us and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your Saturday. Thank you for including me. I love you, Margo. Love you too. Bye. Bye. Bye, Kat. Bye. Oh, that was so much fun. We're going to see if my meeting owl picks back up because that would be really cool if we had a real camera view of us. Otherwise, I'll just turn it on you. I don't even need this. Okay, we're back. Wonderful. So there is a couple of people that wanted to kind of say, tell a story, talk about what you meant to them. And I, I wanted to facilitate that. Thank you. That's special. We were back to what we were talking about. You're talking about doing your cooking classes, potentially doing a little Margo cafe type small thing in your Airbnb outside. You still got your place in Cape Cod?

49:08We do not. We sold it. And it was a very hard decision when Trump was inaugurated for the second term. My wife just lost her mind and she's to this day, still very scared. And if I said, honey, we're going to France tomorrow, she would, pardon me, have already packed our bags. So it's, it looks bleaker and bleaker every day. But all of our money, we have a house here. We have the restaurant and we have, we had the house in Cape Cod. And so all of our money was tied up in dirt. And she wanted a cushion. She wanted to know that if we needed to take money and go, that it would be there. We had to go get passports for our children. She was like, if we have to get up and leave, I don't want to be stuck here. Similar type thing. Because you never know in this world is right now. I mean, no offense, but you guys are a white couple, two boys. No one's knocking on your door to take your kids away. We have a 15 year old son who's adopted. And he's a 15 year old son who's adopted. And she is, you know, she of course reads the doom scrolls and always gets the worst of the worst of the worst. But we wake up this morning on, you know, pride and San Francisco is getting beaten down. The trans people are getting arrested and beaten up.

50:44Yeah. Check it out. I haven't seen it yet. Bad. So that doesn't help her. It doesn't help me. And it's also one of the reasons why I decided to sell the restaurant now. I mean, the bottom line was, we've been there 25 years. That was my goal. We're done. My body can't take it anymore. The restaurant seems to change. I mean, there's an umbrella of reasons, but also we got to cut and run. Like, I don't know how much longer we want to stay in Nashville. If Marsha Blackburn is elected governor, I don't know what I'll do. It's going to be really difficult. And that's saying a lot. You know, we've like Bill Haslam was a perfectly nice guy, Republican guy. He came in the restaurant. I don't have a problem with you. It's getting worse and worse. The political climate for us is frightening. So yes, we wanted to make ourselves a lot lighter. We do want to make it. I mean, if the world doesn't completely turn upside down, we would love to be back in Cape Cod. That is my dream. That's always been my dream retirement spot.

51:54But you know, France won't be bad. It's just not home. I just think it's terrible that we live in a time where people who are amazing pillars of our community and do all of the things live in this level of anxiety. And I'm not saying you live in fear, but like there is a fear of the unknown of what this administration and this far right Christian nationalist movement is doing in our country everywhere. That's scary as hell. I know my wife is probably right there with Heather. And again, we don't have a lot of that. We were, like you said, a hetero couple that it's two boys. We check off all the little boxes. They're not coming for us. Yeah, they're not. There's a level of security I have with that. And I know that. But that doesn't mean that. It makes you comfortable. Yes. Yeah. So that's the, I was going to, I mean, I know that this has been documented. I'm sure you've talked about this. I haven't done a lot of research just on why now, why closed restaurant, but there's your reason. 25 years. 25, health, changing scene, the money. It's just becoming increasingly hard to make a living running a restaurant, a small independent restaurant.

53:17You said the changing scene. Tell me what you've seen. Cause I think a major topic conversation people are talking about now is local restaurants closing. And that's what we've formed NARA to try and stop, but tell the general are listening audience. How has the restaurant scene changed? I feel the focus of Nashville has become very, uh, downtown. And, uh, when people, the, I don't, and I don't know who's responsible, the city, the chamber of commerce, but that's where they funnel people's attention. That's where the money is funneled. It's, I mean, we're building a ridiculously new football stadium just so we can have a Superbowl for a team that doesn't win any games. Sorry guys. Um, but that's true. And it's been true for a long time. And why are we doing that? Why are we funding a football stadium when we can't fund schools, healthcare, when we desperately need better infrastructure, um, desperately when, yeah, it's just like the, how it's a story of the haves and the haves nots. And, uh, I'm, I'm kind of a have not kind of person. And if I want, if even if I had, I'm always the underdog, I'm for the underdog and I'm always wanting to help people. Um, I don't see how a stadium helps people. This East bank development, um, we've, we've got our, you know, sites on that now. And I don't know if I like that. I don't know if I want Broadway sneaking up Woodland street.

54:52Um, and it already kind of has, we've had our shares of pedal taverns. We've had our party buses riding through. And so that's not a part of Nashville that I like. Um, our neighborhood has really changed. Um, we have several businesses that are empty. Now mine's one of them. And then we have more corporate restaurants that are there, um, that are just, uh, you know, spinoffs of somewhere in another neighborhood. Margo was about terroir. We belonged in East Nashville when two years in, we were being offered all sorts of things. Come to Nashville West, come to this neighborhood. I'm like, no, Margo belongs in East Nashville and only in East Nashville. And, um, you know, I remain firm to the day. I am not sad that I didn't go to Nashville West. Margot doesn't belong in Nashville West. Um, the neighborhood itself, that the inhabitants, a lot of the do-it-yourselfers, the artists, the writers, the musicians, they've moved on. And now we have lovely people. I'm not, um, saying they're not, but it's different, different people. Um, it is great. I, I'm live on Riverside drive. And when we first moved over there, we had a lot of people.

56:11I, I'm live on Riverside drive. And when we first moved over there, it was pretty scary. We didn't know our neighbors. Um, no one walked around. We didn't know anybody. And now you've opened the front door and there's kids and dogs and people pushing baby carriages and bike riders. And it's great. Um, and you have to have Shane, you know, you have to have that to have change and change is just inevitable. I think speaking to restaurants specifically, you see, you know, a lot of, um, fast casual is now very, uh, inviting for owners because what, how can I cut down on some of this overhead that I've got? Um, but you're taking that, that piece away of that interaction. You're just going to a counter and you're ordering and then you're paying and you're sitting down and some random person brings you food or you get back up and go to the counter and get your food. I don't like that. I mean, don't get me wrong. I love Baja burrito, but I have more interaction with everybody on that line than I do going into, I can't even name another place, but it's restaurants to me are about relationships.

57:27And you, I think it's hard to form relationships in the kind of restaurants that are popular right now. Um, so I think that the younger generation, the 20, 30, 40 people right now are making those decisions for everyone else, where they're going, how they're spending their money. And, um, it's not necessarily what the whole wants, but that's what's happening. And so that's what we're catering to. Do you think that the technological age and millennials of growing up with computers and doing everything online and not necessarily having the human connection? I mean, I'm a Zenny, all I guess I'm 47, but I didn't, I've, I've never been in a relationship during the Facebook era. Like I got married 21 years ago. We've been together for 25 years ago. I've never gone online to, I don't know anything about that. You've never swiped left or I had to, I had to actually approach her and ask her on a date, go on a date, learn about her, ask her for a second date. Like I had to go through this process and I love that. I love human connection. Cause that's what I grew up on. Today's kids grew up with a phone in their hands. It's not real connection. They say the most, the craziest things to each other online behind a keyboard. And then when you put them in front of somebody, they don't know how to respond. And I think that those are the people who are now your main consumers who are spending the money. And when it comes to a fast, casual restaurant, I can get in and get out and I don't have to talk to anybody. They almost want to avoid that.

59:03They'd rather have all that interaction online. It's where you and me prefer to walk by a table and say, Hey, Dr. Johnson, great to see you. How's the wife kids? How was that trip to Florida? And to hear that story and to see the kids when they brought them in, when they had you, Oh, you had a daughter. Great. And to see that daughter turned one and five and seven and 12. Hey, Sarah got her driver's license. Like, man, I remember when she was born. Like that's the special thing I think about the hospitality industry is like building the community and growing with the community together. And what you're saying is that's kind of deteriorating and that makes it a lot less fun. Am I right or wrong? We're still having a lot of fun. I mean, we were at Margo. We were not, that was not part of our problem. I just noticed that in a lot of the restaurants that are popular, that that's not what's going on. I don't want to bash people, but it started with the influencers and the Host Brandon Styll. Co-host Vince Lanni. NARA, Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance. Guests include Caroline Galzin, Tom Morales, Josh Habiger, Nick Guidry, Stephanie Styll. Guests include Caroline Galzin, Tom Morales, Josh Habiger, Nick Guidry, Stephanie Styll. Guests

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01:04:22The online critics and I'm like, you know, you're just pushing an agenda out, as you say, with your phone to a certain group of people and they're just taking that like, oh, here's this girl and she's popular and she said to go here. I'm like, why would you listen to that? I mean, I think another just hole we've left is that no one here in this town has got like a real restaurant review section. There is nobody writing the way Kay West wrote years ago about Nashville restaurants and I think that keeps people honest and it keeps people, you know, paying attention to what they're doing in a different way than, you know, likes on an Instagram post or any of that sort of engagement. And I have to tell you that I hate the phone. When the cell phone came out, I was, or the smart phone, not the cell phone, I was like, this is the downfall of our society and I don't think I'm wrong. I still don't think I'm wrong. You have people that are sitting next to each other that are at the same table that are on their phone the whole meal. And I used to go and ask people, I said, can you put your phone down? I didn't have a television at Margo because I wanted people to have to look at each other and talk and communicate.

01:05:51That kind of connection is what being in the restaurant is all about. Otherwise, you sit at home and watch the news and you're lazy boy, you know. But there is something really special about coming out and communing and enjoying the same things that other people are enjoying. So yeah, the phone, and we didn't have a website for three years. I was so resistant to the technology and I've slowly over time given into it and some of it has been good and some of it, I don't know. I don't know. I think there's positives and negatives. I was at the FS Tech Conference in, I don't know, it was Dallas or something. But they have these lockers and it's like five grand but it's like a tower of lockers and in each one you put a little combination in. You create your own like a safe in a hotel room. You kind of create a combination and then it locks.

01:06:51But inside of it is a bunch of charging ports and they have these for restaurants to put like the front of the restaurant or whoever wants to do this. But when I was at Greenhouse Grill, I said, I want to do this so bad because we're so family friendly and people with regulars. It was the same people three and four times a week, which was the greatest community because I love running a community restaurant. It was the best. But people would just sit there on their phones and I was like, hey, what if we gave you a free appetizer? If everybody in your party put their phone in one of these lockers, charge their phone, then you had to eat and you know what the biggest pushback was. Well, then people won't be able to take pictures of their food and post it online. And I went, I don't care. I don't care if people can't take pictures of the food and post on. It's their choice. But like if I'm having dinner with my two boys, I want them to be engaged with us. This is our time to connect. They're so busy doing all these other things. Like I don't want to sit at a table at a restaurant and watch you watch YouTube videos. I want to be able to like if they could charge their phone while we were doing that, we don't want to take it into the restaurant anyway. But I don't know. I think that should be the next thing that real good community restaurants start doing. I don't know.

01:08:01Yeah, it's hard. It is. Because people want to take the pictures and it's flattering and you want to see them engaged. But at the same time, I'm like, oh my God, they're not even tasting their food right now. They're taking pictures of it. It's like a prop. The camera eats first. The whole idea of the social media is like, look what I'm doing. Look at me. Here I am. And I just don't like that. Face brag, face brag. I think it's a necessary evil that we have right now. I think it's an amazing opportunity for marketing for restaurants that need to bring people in. But also, I think that people focus on new restaurants too much. I hate the coverage of new restaurants. I've always said this. Focus on the people that have been there for their community for the last 20 years. Yeah. A woman wanted to pitch one of the magazines, Bon Appetit, I don't remember, a story about me. And well, they were like, well, is she doing anything new? And this was like 15 years in. And I'm like, well, the menu changes every day. I'm pretty sure that counts for something.

01:09:16And I'm like, you mean like a new concept, like a new what? And I was like, no. This is what I do every day. This is what I work for every day is to make this better than it was yesterday. And that wasn't good enough for the magazine. They didn't want the story. So I got kind of a chip on my shoulder about, oh, what's new? I'm like, screw what's new. I'm like, I've been doing this for 15 years and changing the menu every day. Why isn't that? Yeah. Work from the. Yeah. That you've been doing it long is not rewarded. It's like, hey, look, guys, anybody can come up, get financing, blow a million bucks, make a pretty room. And are they going to be there in a year? I don't know. I can point to a lot of restaurants that just spent their money all wrong and folded within a year or two. And I even have, you know, I hear obviously people tell me, have you been to such and such? Have you been here? I'm like, no, I like to wait a few months and make sure they're still going to be there, you know, when I go and maybe they work out some kinks and whatnot. But and then they're gone or the most of these chains are local people you're talking about because I'm thinking prime and proper. And I don't mean name names, but there's this restaurant in the Hyatt, the Grand Hyatt downtown that just opened where Sean Brock's old place used to be in the bottom level down there. It's called Prime and Proper. Have you been there yet? No. They have one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in meat, dry aging in their lobby and, you know, three hundred dollars, three hundred dollar seafood towers and the stuff. And I'm like, what? And I was there with a guy and he said, go into the Grand Open. They buy the PR company buys the grand opening. And I said, sure, I'll I'll go check it out. Yeah. And he goes, man, this place is amazing. This is amazing. I know how anybody local could compete with this. He goes, I think this place will be here in five years

01:11:17ago. I don't think it'll be here in two. This isn't sustainable. There's no way. Like there's fifty two steakhouses downtown. You're going to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in meat just hanging there. See, that's just incredible to me that that's what people think they need. And we opened we did the building for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. We were rubbing our pennies together. We didn't have money to buy pants. We were reusing containers the way my mother did at home. And, you know, we put our money in food and our staff. And for the entire twenty five years, that has always been the, you know, hierarchy, food, staff and all the rest of the stuff, a chandelier. Not important. You know, this over here. No, unless it directly impacts food and staff, then I don't I don't do it. I could have gotten a valet, you know, when the parking started to become tight in the beginning, you could park anywhere and then, oh, you need to get a valet. And I'm like, that's several hundred dollars, maybe thousands off the bottom line every month so that you don't have to park your car. And I'm like, I can't afford that. That eats into everyone else's money pile and a PR. I was courted there for a while after I think my first beard nomination and they wanted two thousand dollars a month to pipe my name into people's ears. And I was like, first of all, I just find that's cheating somehow. And they promise you beard awards. And I'm like, you can't promise me that. I mean, maybe they could because they know it's kind of I don't know that it's very authentic. I don't know. And I just wanted

01:13:20to be organic. I'm like, you find me. You did a good job because there's nothing more fun for me than to track down this really cool little restaurant that no one else knew about or off the beaten path. And I go in and I'm like, oh, my God, this is wonderful. Instead of just reading always over the list of this and that and the other, because those lists, where are they generated from? Who's making the list? You know, I'll never forget Delia Jo Ramsey on the podcast. The first time I did, she was the editor of Eater Nashville. And I said, so what's your restaurant history? And I'm not talking smack about it. Just go back and listen to the episode. And I said, she's like, I hosted it like Red Lobster or something. It wasn't like a real shouldn't have a real restaurant history. I said, how did you do? I did journalism and say hired me for this job. And I said, so you have the Eater top 30 of the hot list and whatever this is, how do those get created? She goes, I just make them up. I go based on what? And she goes, what I like. I went, so Eater Nashville's top list of all the restaurants are based on what you like.

01:14:28And that just affects so many people's bottom lines. It's exclusive. And it just tells the same narrative. If you were the mayor or if you were the mayor of restaurants, let's just say you were the mayor of Nashville restaurants. What do we need to do? What does Nashville need to do? What needs to change? What's the perfect recipe to help the city right? It's ship. Well, I think that number one, I take restaurants in a, in a different direction. My restaurant is very personal. It's a personal expression of who I am and what I like and what I do. I don't think that every restaurant has personal connection to it. You know, you can't have personal connection when you have a group telling you, this is what you should have on your menu. What I have on my menu is what feels good in my soul. How I treat people feels good in my soul. So, and people have come up to me in the last seven months. Where are we going to go? There's nowhere like this. And I said, you need to find a place. You need to find a young chef, just like I was. And you need to support them through all the trials and tribulations. We were not perfect when we opened. Oh my God, we made so many mistakes. We've had so many crazy stories to tell, but people supported us and got us to this to 25 years because they connected to us. So I said, go out and find somebody that you can connect to. And it's not going to be in a hotel lobby. And it's probably not going to be some concept from out of town. It's probably going to be Baja Burrito or hot kebab, which unfortunately doesn't exist anymore because people were afraid to go there.

01:16:32Or, you know, Taj, Taj, Indian restaurant on Nolensville or, um, Odessa. Great, great cafe. Raqqa. And I know I'm naming a lot of ethnic food, but you know, can gang Taylor's another, I love. Yes. Vivek's place and city house. They tell a story and, um, there's meaning behind what they do. So I think that the quality there, that's why there's such good quality. Um, Julia Sullivan at Henry at red. Oh my God. Um, and there are a lot of people that are doing great food, but it's, you know, when Kat said you walk into Margo and it's, it's a vibe, it's, it's a feeling. You don't always get those feelings when you walk in, especially, I don't know. There's just seems like maybe I'm rejecting the modernity of it all. Everything's modern and sleek and industrial. And that doesn't feel warm and cozy to me. Um, so there's that, but the number one complaint we would get at green Hills grill that it doesn't look like all these other restaurants. And it's like, we want this. This is California. Revival is the style we have here intentionally because it feels like it's not all these gray and Barnwood was really big for a while. And all these different things, trends, trends, not trendy. It's been the same the entire time we've been open and people know when they come there. Oh, it's not pretentious. This is our local neighborhood restaurant and we knew everybody's name. Yeah. And the hardest thing was seating a table. Cause you'd walk somebody back to the back of the restaurant. They'd stop six times on the way to say hi. Oh, that was my dentist. That was my neighbor. That was my, and it's like, that's the stuff I love the most. That's the best part about it. It is.

01:18:16I love to look out in the kitchen when I get a second and go, Oh my God, people are up and talking over here and these people have joined these people. And that's a, to facilitate that kind of party is pretty cool. Day in and day out. So you'll figure out a new way to curate that, but you're not retiring for good. I'm retiring from Margo cafe and bar. I'm retiring from having the responsibility of the guests, the staff, the purveyors, um, which I feel awful about. I feel that all my farmers were like, Oh, we're going to miss you so much. You did so much for us. And I'm like, it hurts my heart. Um, and people who have told us that, where are we going to go now? Where are we going to celebrate our birthday and our anniversary and just any, just regular day of the week. Um, and so much so that I almost reconsidered closing. I was like, Oh man, this is awful. You know, I feel terrible.

01:19:17Do we need to do some more of that right now so that you can reconsider some more? You still have the space. I think my wife would kill me because she's, she's also ready to be done. She has worked her fingers to the bone at that restaurant and a labor of love for me, because that's not her labor of love for sure. Um, but it's just, it's gotten too big to tame. And I don't know if it's because I'm old and jaded, but I'm like, I don't have the energy after COVID. Um, and then Trump being reelected, Trump being reelected, I do not have the confidence. I don't have the energy. I just can't do it. I understand that. I think that's, I think that's a sentiment that a lot of people, I think there's a lot of talk about taxes. And I think it's an, if you ask me personally, I think it's kind of, not that it's not real. I think that it is real, but I think it's the straw that's breaking a lot of backs. A lot of people are tired. They're exhausted. We're looking at Trump being reelected, tariffs, war with Iran. People are like, Oh, gas is fine. Like, well, no gas, like every stick of produce that you don't buy from a local farmer is coming from across the country on a truck that takes diesel. Every plastic is made with petroleum. Like everything is going up and that's hard to navigate as a restaurant because you have people that come in that know your prices. If you go to Kroger, they can raise the price of milk in a day and they don't care. You're just going to pay it.

01:20:49That's just the price of it. But price goes up for you too. And it's harder to change your menu every week to be, well, this dish that was $32 is now $48. Like, and then they blame you for that. Yeah. I remember when eggs just went through the roof and I'm like, we're going to have to, we can't eat this. Like it's one thing for the case of eggs to be $46 and then go to 56, but not to $96. I'm like, whoa. And I'm like, y'all be careful with the eggs. Okay. Don't drop any, don't waste any. But it's not just about the taxes. I think you're right. I think that's probably a tipping point, but our financial situation, I mean, our overhead is wonderful. We have a very low mortgage payment. You know, as far as you can use an occupancy, very manageable. Hadley Long, my chef, did a fantastic job with food cost. Jada Hampton, my bar manager, fantastic job with liquor costs. We had the sales, but when you're talking about taking $10,000 a month off the top for people to use their credit cards. So $120,000 I paid last year so that whoever could come in and use a credit card.

01:22:09Then when you try to recoup that and say, Hey, we're going to charge a 3% fee for this. People freak out, lose their minds. It's not very supportive, you know? So we felt kind of hamstrung. And now it's funny. A few years later, we're down at the East Nashville farmer's market getting a lemonade from this truck stand. And they're like 3% charge for your credit card. And I'm like, why is it okay? And nobody's arguing with these people. And I'm like, why did I get such pushback for this? Because it was out of the norm. In the beginning, we didn't accept American Express because my partner, Jay Fryan, had worked for American Express and he kind of had a beef about them. And he was like, no American Express. And there were people that wouldn't come because we wouldn't take their American Express card. And I was like, okay. Um, so it's just, it's weird lines. Like after COVID and we put a kitchen tip line in the, in the, uh, bill. Yeah. Optional, completely optional. It was like, Hey, if you really enjoyed your meal, you can throw the kitchen a couple bucks. Great. It's not, I mean, tipping in general is optional. And people just got so freaked out about that. And they're like, you just need to pay your people more money. And I'm like, Oh, wow. And the restaurant business is, has been this way for years, for hundreds of years. I don't know how to fix it. You know, that the equality between the front and back of the house. And so just attempting that little bit of equity and people freaking out. I think this is part of what you were talking about earlier with the phones is that you can't go and Yelp and leave Kroger a bad review for raising the price of milk because the farmers raise the price of milk. And that is a trickle down effect that leads to you. And then your, you know, Cisco or whoever you're using

01:24:10is going to raise the price of milk. And then you don't, if you raise the price, then somebody goes on Yelp and says, they're expensive. Somebody goes on Google and says, they've done all these things as if it's your fault. And I think so many restaurateurs are afraid. Like we're living in fear that somebody is going to go online and just lambast us online. And you don't have where they have a recourse because this is the world we live in right now. And it's not, it's not, I don't want to say it's just not fair, but I mean, you talking about the downfall of technology and everybody's hand, we don't have somebody who's legitimate like a K West or, you know, Jim Myers back in the day would come in and they would eat there three times and they would give an honest review of what it was. I remember K West at Mario's sending the, was it the veal to a lab and finding out that it was chicken and like, what a scandal, like what a great, like that's whole, that's accountability from somebody who has respect and knows what they're talking about. Jimmy from Dixon, I went to Margot and there ain't no parking. It's expensive.

01:25:20And these people are, it's a bunch of rain. I don't like that place. And it's like, keep it to yourself. It's okay. Preference is one thing if you didn't like it, but like to go online and share it throughout the kingdom. Yeah. It's, it's rough. It's a, it's a real challenge that every restaurateur faces today. And this is where again, these chains come in and they got a PR team. That's getting that they're researching who that person is. They're getting ahold of them. They're getting that review taken down. And there's, they have a whole team that handles all of that. Yeah. I have my wife and she writes back to people. She's this last seven months, she didn't hold back. She was like, okay, I'm letting, I'm off the leash, but that's neither here nor there. But we don't, I mean, we generally don't have a huge problem with Yelp or complaints, but sure. There's always that one person that's going to ruin your day. And it's like, do you really think I'm back here working this hard, sweating my ass off, getting burned and cut because so I can make you bad food.

01:26:27That is never our goal, you know, but we are human beings and we make mistakes. And, and I think the average diner has no idea how professional kitchen runs. So when somebody is in and it's Saturday night and you're slammed with 180 people and you've got a table upstairs that says, I've been waiting 25 minutes for my food. I'm like, holy shit. Can you make dinner for four at your house in 25 minutes? No. That's why you came here. Sit back and relax and shut up. Enjoy your wine. And look at the, well, I've been looking at my phone for 25 minutes and I'm tired of scrolling. Like, well, look at the person sitting across me and say, how was your day? Yeah. Talk. But, um, it's just crazy what some people, you know, their allegiance or their, where their mind goes. I'm like, yeah, I, I'm not, I'm not doing this on purpose. And we're very, we're genuinely like, if we make a mistake, we're generally, you know, upset about it. We're like, Oh God, it wasn't our intention. No, never. But you know, but it happens.

01:27:32It does. There's a lot of things that there's a lot of moving parts in a restaurant that it's like this symphony. And if one person's music, their, their instrument is out of tune, you can hear it. It's hard to keep everything in tune every single day. This is a daily thing you have to do. That's a grind. It's and, um, it's a flow. And, you know, sometimes the ticket machine goes down and the internet goes down mass. And, uh, you know, sometimes you just rotated the wrong chicken and you sent the wrong chicken out and it's not as cooked as it should be, but it wasn't like, it's not because I don't know how to cook chicken, you know, or I don't know all the other random things. What's the biggest calamity you've had in the middle of a shift? You don't want to know. I mean, we've had the grease trap overflow. We've had the plumbing go out because of something that happened down the street. We have, although never lost power for any significant amount of time. So I'm, I've always been like, excellent. Don't lose power. Cause that's awful. Um, we've had the toilet from upstairs, uh, overflow into the downstairs. Nice. That was always a good one that you plan for that one. That's a winner. Air conditioning, not working, hood, not working in the last couple of weeks of the restaurant. We were down one oven and the pizza oven on a regular basis. So we're cooking with one oven, the stovetop works, the griddle works, the grill and the fryer. But to be down two pieces of essential equipment kind of sucks. Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's always, I mean, you, you go in hoping for the best and you're, you're prepared, but, and you know, after 25 years, I'm like, there's not a whole lot I haven't seen.

01:29:28So I'm pretty comfortable in the beginning. It was like, what do you do? Yeah. Oh. And we used to get flooded regularly because of the way the driveway was report. And up until very recently, every time a hard rain came, water was coming in the front door. And in the beginning it was, I mean, all these things are all also terribly embarrassing. You know, you're like, God, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Um, I didn't plan for this. And, uh, people would actually help us squeegee the water out. And my staff was just so like rough and ready all the time. They roll up their pants, take off their shoes and bucket things. And, uh, but a nightmare. And then you get the, where's the shop vac. And a lot of times we would get it all vacuumed up before the door even opened and no one would be the wiser, but we would already have gone through an hour of hell, you know? And, you know, we talk about this stuff and I don't want to go down this road of like complaining because I, Oh, I don't, I don't think they're complaining. It's a story.

01:30:29It's a story. I mean, but these are the things also that build teams, you know, like when you look back on these things over 25 years of running a restaurant, it's a resilience that like, come at me. I don't care. Like I will handle anything because. Yeah. I think people in the restaurant business are problem solvers, you know, big time problem solvers. How do you fix this? Like, what do you do? And I, yeah, I was just in awe of my team all the time, especially when the flood happened that people would just like go, you know, okay, it's done. I'm getting it. And we would just spring to action naturally. It was great. It was great. Yeah. And that's the choice I had. Everybody just jumped in and like, how can we help? And it's like, there was no, I need you to do this. People just start moving in that direction. It's really a neat thing to see. But at the end of that, whenever he goes and has a beer after that shift, that's, that's bonding. We all went through this together and we made it out alive and everybody pitched in. And that's like what the people talk about having a team, like this is a team where it's a family, you know, it's like, it's not my actual family, but damn, it's close because we've been through some shit together and we made it. Yeah. And I think when you look back on 25 years, sometimes you kind of feel that way. Like, man, we made it. We, we accomplished all of these things together.

01:31:49I am so proud of what we've done and I just couldn't be happier. Cherry on top and yeah. Well, I hope, I hope you get to enjoy some time and just kind of sit back and relax. Do you, when you go out to eat, do you get treated like a celebrity? It really depends. Some places Tandy, like he never charges me and I'm like, please let me pay for my food. I have fights about that. Um, and sometimes people recognize me, but I, you know, it's interesting that I don't really go out very much. I've got his 15 year old and Heather. And when we, we just recently, you know, stopped working and we were working lunch every day. So we get home, we'd be exhausted. We make dinner and we sit on the couch. Um, we weren't looking to go out because we have a, so my wife and child have a very low social bar, like of two or three people. I'm more, you know, social than that. But after serving lunch to 150 people and having the two staffs come in, I've already met my quota of socialness for the day. Um, and it's perfect. I'm, I'm safe behind my line, you know, I can wave and Hey, how are you doing? And that's good. Um, I do want to get out and go to some of the new places or some of the old places that I haven't been able to get to for whatever reason.

01:33:20Um, I like to go to places in the fall when, uh, there's a crispy air and there's just this, like, I don't know this vibe and you're hungry. Like right now I'm like, it's dark at five 30. Yeah. You just eat a little earlier in the night, but it still feels like you're out later. Yeah. So yeah, I will be excited to go to many places. Well, when you're looking for a place, I'm gonna do a shameless self-promotion right now. Um, we've started the Nashville area restaurant Alliance and we have a list. We have 90 locations, 90 restaurants that are members now. And if you go to Nara Nashville.com, we have a list of all of our local restaurants that are awesome. And anybody out there that wants to do, wants to support local restaurants, it's getting harder and harder sometimes to tell which restaurants are local. And I think you mentioned earlier the idea of supporting local spending your money at places like Margo and other places that genuinely care about the community. And it's my comment. I don't care if you're brand new. I want the people that have been doing this for a while. Go support them. We have amazing list on our website of all the restaurants. Please go support the local restaurants in Nashville. We're going to be adding more. We're full right now. We're on a wait list right now, but we're going to be adding more at the end of every month. Oh, wow. And that's great. I mean, that's very helpful. And I think the more people that know about that, the better. Um, yeah, maybe that can be your go, go on there and find all the cool places you want to go eat and go support those people from our website.

01:34:59But, um, I don't even know where to go. I had this idea earlier when you were talking about making a dish that you don't write your recipes down. And I was thinking, I wonder what her process is. You said you think about food in the shower. What when you're, you do a menu daily. I know Hadley did a lot of that. And then we didn't talk about Lou, the Sioux who was there forever. And I just love her who is pregnant and she lives in Maine with her boyfriend and very excited about having this baby. She was just in for the party. So it was great to see her because she was a big part of the last three years. She was awesome. She came in with you. I think last time you were on the show and we all chatted and Hadley was with you last time you came in on the show. Lou is at the, um, hockey game. She was at the hockey game. Hadley was on the show. Okay. I knew Lou otherwise. Cause, uh, anyway, long story short, when you create a recipe, what is your process? You said, you don't know tablespoons. You need somebody will greet you and say, no, it's actually two tablespoons. You're like, I just do this and this. How do you get ideas? How do you formulate a menu item or a new dish?

01:36:11Well, I've always said that I'm not trying to reinvent food. Um, I'm trying to reintroduce it to people. So I have this passion for French culture, really not so much the food all the time, but the culture that makes going to a restaurant special, that makes going to the market essential. And they buy, I mean, I'm sure that there are some American things happening, but typically they're buying their, you know, they're very invested in what they purchase and they're not hopefully buying, you know, I don't know. Anyway, food is important to them. It is a main focus to their lives every day. And they have customs and habits that support that. And it's almost like they work to do that, not the opposite way. It's like, Oh no, I've got to go have a, have an aperitif. I have to go now.

01:37:12And then dinner's at seven and it seems all very, very civilized. So when I got to New York, I worked around different restaurants and just to get experience, I didn't really care what I was doing or where I was. Um, because I think you can learn just as much from a bad experience as a good one. And it's almost better if you know how to fix the problems than if something you're just going along, going along and everything's perfect. And then something happens one day and you have no idea what to do. This broke. How do I fix it? Um, so I started reading in culinary school back in the day, they did not offer the history of cuisine or the history of kitchens. And I thought that was a big, um, void. So I started reading. And of course, everything we always heard in cooking school was Escoffier, Escoffier, Escoffier. There were never any women mentioned. Um, I really got, I don't know how, but Julia Child became a main, uh, focus. And then from there it was MFK Fisher and Elizabeth David, um, Richard Olney. And I started reading those books that were kind of story recipes, but not your typical cookbook. Um, and I became enthralled with this life in Provence, with this life in France and these people are coming together and cooking together. And so I started looking at those recipes and they became like the, I'm going to try this. I'm going to try that. I'm going to do this. And I look at a recipe and I go, okay, I got the gist. And then I just kind of make it myself. Um, we have, you know, our mise en place in front of us every night. Um, there's always garlic, shallots, parsley, basil, hard herbs, and butter, wine, salt, pepper, and chili flakes. So that's my palette that I choose from. And, um, you know, you just

01:39:12begin to know what goes with what and how things taste. Um, when I was probably right out of culinary school. Oh, wow. I hope I'm remembering this right culinary shoot. There was a book made by this husband and wife team. And it was essentially this whole list of what goes with what, um, and then little sample recipes, culinary artistry, I think is the name of the book. And so right then I was like, okay, yeah, I have this piece of trout. What goes with trout? Well, bacon goes with trout. Well, potatoes go with trout. Well, some kind of greenery goes with trout. And you just start experimenting. Um, in the restaurant, we were hyper-focused on our farmers and our vegetables. And we became like, instead of going, what do you do with trout? It's like, what do you do with cabbage? What goes with cabbage? Well, trout goes with cabbage. Pork chops go with cabbage. Duck goes with cabbage. And so cabbage, that's kind of cabbage's identity.

01:40:20Well, what else goes with, well, bacon goes with cabbage or potatoes, or, you know, then you, you go back and you go, well, this is a choucroute garni. This is a very famous dish. Or you get bean, you know, we got a little guy come in and giving us, uh, these, uh, heirloom beans, tarbay beans that make cassoulet. So you go, I've got beans. Oh, I need to get some duck. We need to make a cassoulet. And the recipes aren't verbatim Julia Child or verbatim Escoffier. We take our liberties for sure. We use our Southern ingredients to create some of these French dishes or French-like dishes like pâté. Pâté is meatloaf in America. You know, don't be afraid of pâté. It's meatloaf. I mean, most people are like, oh, cold meatloaf, gross. But you know, the French people love it. And so we serve ours with some like, um, instead of cornichons, sometimes we'll make our own pickles and we'll make our own mustard and we'll serve cornbread with it. So it has this, um, connection, both the French and the Southern are connecting together. So that's kind of like the basic tenet of the menu is it has to be fresh. It has to be seasonal. It has to have the French, um, Southern connection. Hadley got a little, you know, off the, off the reservation there for a minute. I guess that's not nice to say anymore, but off the path with, um, uh, you know, in the beginning I was like, you cannot use cilantro.

01:41:46You cannot use soy sauce. And, um, we certainly got into the cilantro and the soy sauce and some miso and say, cause I think everybody was like real smitten with Japanese food a couple of years ago. So it's like, oh, let's dabble. Probably still pretty smitten with Japanese food. Yes. Um, so we started kind of allowing more different flavors. I was like, okay, check it out, try it out. I'm not going to be, you know, um, real hardcore. We'll see how it comes out and then I'll let you know if we're going to continue that. But it was always successful. So I was like, and which is another thing. I'm like my voice and my point of view, I feel like there's not that many of me anymore. This is the new voice. Hadley's voice is the next voice to come. And wherever Hadley goes, you should follow. Where is Hadley going? Hadley doesn't know where he's going yet. Um, he is meeting with people. Um, he's, he's resting because that was a long, long, hard fight. Um, yeah, he's weighing options. I mean, I think he would like his own place, but then sometimes in the, in the landscape of things, it's like, can I do that? Do I want to do that?

01:42:59Um, do I want to be committed to a brick and mortar? Um, he's doing a lot of work with Kimmy at Placemat. I was gonna say, is he still doing Placemat? Yep. And, um, you know, if we have anything pop up at the restaurant, we just did a birthday or he did a birthday for a guest after we closed at the restaurant. It was really cool. It's like in-house catering. Um, so Placemat, let's give Kimmy a little bit of a plug here. Sure. She has a company that you, so if I wanted to have a Margot dinner at my home, you can go to Placemat, uh, it's placemat.com. I would assume, I don't know the exact website, but Placemat, you can Google it and you can go and you can sign up to have Margot and Hadley will come to your home. A lot of the food's pre kind of prepped and ready to go, but he'll come and cook a dinner in your house for however many people you have. Yes. I think there, it's normally like 12 to, I don't think he's ever done more than 20, but, um, I don't know the parameters. I don't know the scope, but, um, yeah, he goes out, he, he writes a menu, you communicate, um, with the guests, you go out and purchase all the things that you need. Um, you show up at four, you start prepping, you serve and you it's, he does a family style dinner. Um, and he has had the best time doing that and meeting people. And, uh, he really seems to enjoy that. It goes to the farmer's market, still with the farmers, gets the product and, uh, they've been very successful. Something he's still doing today. Yeah. So if you wanted to do a Margot dinner at your home, you could still get that. It'd be more like a Hadley dinner, but Hadley dinner, but a lot of Margot. Yes, yes, absolutely do it. So that's a thing right now for all of your listeners going, man, I never got to eat there or I really miss it already. It's been three weeks. I want to do it. You can go to placemat and you can make that happen. And it's

01:45:00just also kind of a cool idea that you're, you've got this restaurant quality food in your own home with the people of your choosing. It's a very relaxed, fun evening. Um, yeah. And if you are looking for an amazing chef and you're willing to pay a lot of money for somebody to have that, uh, to bring that style of chefing to your restaurant, yeah, look up Hadley long. Definitely, definitely. And we are, um, I'm taking the, the management crew to Bordeaux in a couple of weeks. So a lot of us are just resting right now before we jump back out into the, into the world. I'm just taking a little break. Um, Tom Huber, my pastry chef is also probably looking for a job in the world somewhere. So if you want a solid French train pastry chef, there you go. See, we're listening to the shows is something that's going to help you out today. We love it. What have I missed? I didn't have, I guess I didn't have an agenda for this. I just wanted to catch up with you and kind of see how you were doing, uh, anything you want to say to anybody or anything you want to finish the, the episode off with.

01:46:14I just think a big round of thank yous, um, for everybody supporting me, uh, encouraging me. I'm so sorry. I didn't get to hear many stories until the very end. That's probably my a big regret, but, um, at least I heard them now. Um, yeah, support local, um, support your farmers. Like that's my biggest thing now is trying to make sure my people go on and succeed somewhere else. Um, so whether it be the farmers, I'm like shouting out the Amquist station, the Nolensville market, you know, the, um, the East Nashville market, go see those farmers or the 12 South or the way. I don't think there's a 12 South market anymore. Downtown Nashville. Um, is there, I don't, maybe they, maybe they stopped doing it. I think one of my farmers, there's one here, there's one in Franklin, big one every Saturday morning. Yeah. It's crazy. Huge. Um, yeah. And, um, Richland, uh, got a couple of farmers at Richland. So yeah, just trying to make sure everybody's good. What are the name of some of these farmers that you're using? So at Richland is Jim day from timber top farms. And he was our very, very first, uh, mushroom grower. He grows amazing shiitake mushrooms. Um, at Nolensville is a Brittany from blue Heron farm. And in Amquist, Madison is our Una acre farmers. Um, and then Sam from farm and fiddle. I don't actually, she's way out in the country at a farmer's market that I'm blanking on at the moment. I also got, uh, bear Creek farm, Lee and cherry. Um, I don't know if they're still in the Franklin market, but they do have their own farm stand that they operate, I think on Wednesdays. Um, so go check them out best meat you'll ever eat. Um, and yeah, and just, I mean, they don't have to be my farmers. You can support other farmers too.

01:48:12I love it. Well, you have been a, uh, inspiration to so many, I know not only, um, diners out there that love to eat there, but I think everybody in the restaurant community just thinks so highly of you and how many people you have mentored and how many restaurants out there are chefed by people who have learned under you, your impact is second to none. I think that, um, you are a bright, shining light. We're going to miss that restaurant. I'd, I don't live anywhere close to where you are, so I couldn't be a regular there. I mean, maybe half dozen times I've eaten at Margo, but there's so many and I, you know, it is, um, but I haven't, I get it a thousand percent what you're doing. I understand why you're moving in a different direction. I get it all. And I wish you nothing but the best of, I would say, say I wish you'd put joy. I just wish you joy every day, no matter what it is.

01:49:13And I'm sure you'll find it. You and Heather and your son, I don't have to look far. Yeah. It's all around you. So thank you. Well, thank you friend. Thank you for being so generous with your time and for all that you do for local, local restaurants in town. Uh, I see people, I have a really weird, unique skill in operating businesses like that, like helping people because I've always said people are very creative. They're very understand hospitality really, really well, but sometimes they get slammed and there's a bunch of line items on a P and L and part of this business is that word. It is a business and you have to manage that sometimes. And I love helping people that that's not their number one thing. And it's, it's impossible to have the hospitality and the creativity and the business acumen without a massive team. It's a lot. And we have, we've, we were always the mom and pop team and now we're the mom and mom team. And, um, we pretty much do everything ourselves and it is a lot to keep up with. So we're trying to help. We're just trying to find that piece where we can come in and help people stay around for a long time. We're trying to make it not as stressful so you can focus on the things that you love to do. So I call it living in your genius. And a lot of times there's things you have to do every day, like you cooking, being with your team, going to farmer's markets, that's you living in your genius. Um, negotiating a linen contract or a dish machine contract, those types of things and reading over all that stuff. And what does this mean? What is a one eighth millimeter pole? And how come this makes, I don't understand maybe a do, but like, it's just there. They're trying to be intentionally deceptive to where they're making you think something they weren't trying to siphon off. We love managing those things for restaurants, which is something that you would be fine to go, please, somebody else make sure that they got our back. And so I love doing that. Yeah. And that providing that level of hospitality to

01:51:15people who are providing the hospitality. I remember when we first started at creation gardens, I was the AGM at Amerigo in Brentwood and I love taking care of the guests. And when what chefs want or it was creation gardens back then approached me and they said, we want to do this differently. All of the vendors tell restaurant owners, they make all the rules and we want the rest. We want the chefs to make that. I said, so you want me to treat chefs like I treat my front of the house guests here? And they go, yes. And I went, that's cool. I could do that. And I wanted to provide that level of service to the people that were providing that level of source because it just was non-existent. People are so rude and there's, you can't trust anybody. And I was like, I want to do that for them. And I think that's just kind of been something that's stayed with me my entire career so far. Well, creation gardens is a great company. They really revolutionized and gave Cisco a run for their money and put chefs first. So what you see on the side of the truck is not a lie. And they're also super willing to like, I loved when they switched over from bringing everything in boxes and bags to using these plastic crates.

01:52:33And I was like, see, now that's helping me because I don't have to throw away this massive amount of cardboard, which I never did, by the way. That's one thing I don't miss is going to the dump every week with my cardboard. But, and I just got a shout out to, to the drivers that make all this happen. I'm super missing my, my creation guy, James right now and my Cisco guy, Avery and, and all the other guys too. But, you know, you see those guys every day, they come in, they're working their butts off for you. They're nice. They're happy. And sometimes they make a situation better and or worse, you know, so it's not just about your rep coming in. If your driver is not any good, it doesn't matter how good your rep is. So those guys made my day every day. I'd be like, Oh my God, James is here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The eggs and the bacon are here and the milk. And you know, we preach teaching those people with respect. So many people just put it over there. Like they treat drivers like they're dirt, dirt. And it's like, every time a driver, I'm like, do you want some coffee?

01:53:41I'm going to send you away with some food. What do you need, man? Like happy to help you. You're like, Hey, do you want a biscuit? Do you want a piece of cake? And yeah, just humanity. Humanity. A hundred percent. Well, thank you for all your generous time and spending it with me on a Saturday. You've got a lot going on and, um, I just, I just love you and I just appreciate it. Oh, thank you so much. Thanks for being the first guest on the show and continuing to support us. You make sure everybody's as good as me. Okay. There's no way. There's no, I can't, can't do it. Well, I appreciate all your support and your generosity. Oh, it's my pleasure. And any, anytime you ever need anything, uh, you have my number and we'll definitely still go to some more Preds games. Yeah. Let's do that. And we'll you can invite whoever you want. We'll bring Heather in the kit. We'll have a great time. Heather's Heather's Canadian. So she has to go. It's a, it's a thing. Yeah. All right. Well, have a wonderful next couple months. Good luck on the sale. Hopefully you get like $50 million for it, wherever they assess them. I don't think it's going to be quite that much, but yeah, we'll see what the, they assess these buildings. We'll see if we actually get that. It's a thing.

01:54:51Yep. All right. Thanks, Margo. Thank you. All right. Big thank you to Margo McCormick for, uh, coming in studio. I really wanted her to come in studio because I wanted her to sign the door and take the picture. And now we have Margo's name on the door. It says bon appetit, Margo. And, uh, I just absolutely love that. Now, I guess it is time for the Gordon food service. Final thought. And you know what? These final thoughts are, are fun to come up with. And I just listened to that entire episode because I kind of forgot, like, just you're in the moment during these interviews. And we had some technical issues at the beginning and you had to go through and fix all that stuff. And I almost like cried at a couple points during this, because I think we just get so caught up in the business and she never did. You know, I thought when she talked about her guests saying, what are we going to do now? And she said, go find somebody like me. They're out there.

01:55:59And it's true. You know, I went to my, I'm going to my Delavita tonight. It is a Sunday and I'm going to go watch the Mexico England game. And this is a Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant, James Beard nominated chef. And he closes the restaurant down at seven o'clock. He brings in a big TV, invites all his friends out the community to watch this game together. And it's just, it's one of the most special things. I think that what Julio Hernandez is doing over at Maiz Delavita is the epitome of community. It's not about his business tonight and will the guests. It's about bringing people together. And that's what it's all about. And I think I've had to go back and think about the pandemic and where we couldn't go out and see everybody and millennials and phones and Gen Z and all the different things. And life is about connection. It's about the people you see. And last week when I was there to watch this, I went for dinner with a friend of mine at Maiz Delavita and we stayed for the soccer game. And so many restauranteurs started just showing up. We had Troy from Black Dynasty. I think it's Black Dynasty. Is that it? Secret Ramen? They have a brick and mortar now that they're going to be in. Emma and Chris from SSGuy were there. 1111, Sam and Son and Sam were there and everybody was just hanging out. And it was so beautiful in this gigantic city that is so fragmented and segmented. And just to see all these people hanging out together, that's what it's about. And supporting those people, supporting the people who are supporting the community and finding a place for fellow people to come watch

01:58:00soccer together. It was just really, it's really special. Football as they will be calling it tonight. And that's my final thought. Don't think too much into it. Go find the chef. Go find the restaurant that cares about you, that remembers your name, that wants you there. I had lunch at Gordo's Tacos in Wedgwood, Houston the other day. Best damn taco I've ever had in my life. Besides the quesadilla at Maíz de la Vida. But the carnitas taco there, I had a steak taco, it was the best taco in the world. And the people that own that place are just the nicest people. I just want you guys to find those things. And I love doing this show and I love having conversations like that with Margot because it fills my heart with joy. And I can't wait to do more of these every single week. Our next episode is going to be with an influencer. We have The Tip Jar Nashville is going to be here. It's going to be awesome. I can't wait to share it with you. Working on the audio is going to come out before Margot, but it's going to have to come out after Margot. And I think you're going to love this one. Another one where just somebody who loves going out to eat and loves to share it for people who are millennials, Gen Xers, Xennials like me. And it's my final thought. Go find your next chef. Go find your next restaurant and go to naranashville.com and there's a great list of local restaurants and go eat at Baja Burrito. She mentioned that like three times. The line at Baja Burrito is the thing. Go stand in that line. You'll see any and everybody. You'll see the community show up. Wilson Smith and his family run in that place for over 20 years. Just an amazing Nashville institution. Go check it out.

01:59:49Go to Naranashville. Find your next chef. That's where you need to do it and tell people about it. Let's share the word. If you're a local restaurant and you want us to fill your little napkin caddies with these things, send us a DM and join the wait list. Hope that you guys are being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.