Michael Hanna

00:00This is Manik Chauhan and you are listening to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City, welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. Today's episode is kind of like therapy for me to a degree because I'm gonna get real. So I sometimes get on here and we talk about how great things are and you guys gotta do this and you guys gotta do that and positive energy and I feel like the last couple weeks have really kicked my butt.

01:02They have been really, really hard, just in kind of an everything way. Life is tough and these last two weeks for me really made me look deep into a mirror and think about so many things. And I'm not gonna go into details, but I'm just telling you, sometimes you have good weeks, sometimes you have bad weeks. It's okay, it happens, right? The thing is, I think it's not measuring your life on tough weeks, it's how you come out of it, right? So I'm living my own motivational journey right now of going, if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. And I'm trying to believe that, I really am. I'm gonna believe that. But today's episode, we're talking with Michael Hanna and Michael Hanna is the owner at St. Vito's Focaccia in East Nashville. It's taken over where Set Sun was in the Van Dyke Bed and Beverage. And this guy is such an amazing story because, you know, he was working in a restaurant, he got laid off, came back, got laid off again.

02:09And he started his own company out of his house, making pizza out of his oven and just blew it up. I mean, dude is on fire and his story is fantastic. And it was the kind of motivation I needed today, you know, to kind of realize that through a pandemic, it's been hard as hell. And we're all going to be stronger. We're all going to be better for it. I posted today, I saw that Julio Hernandez posted that a year ago, Maiz de la Vida and Alabrije were doing a collaboration for the first time. And it was like a whole thing. I was just so excited about it because a year ago we didn't have those guys. And now we do. And we've got people like Saint Vito's Fecaccia Ria and so many other amazing things have come out of this whole pandemic, just the way we see things. And I, for one, am tired. I'm tired and I'm exhausted. And I'm going to get through all of this.

03:09I'm going to get through it. It's been a challenge, but I'm there. I'm going to work hard. And hey, prayers are always helpful. But I hope you are doing okay. And I hope that if you're out there and you're listening and you're having a hard day, know that it doesn't last forever. That these things are fleeting and we will all get better. Think of the great days and think about how much you're going to learn going through this situation right now. Look in a mirror and go, what can I do to make a difference in my own life? And I need to listen to my own advice sometimes, but that's what I got today. And I'm just excited you guys are here listening to this episode. You're going to love listening to Michael Hanna. But first, we're going to do our on-brand segment with Jason Ellis. I love these on-brand segments. They're my favorite thing to do besides the interviews because we get to take smaller companies, companies that aren't things that you may not know all about.

04:10And I want to bring those to the forefront like Dish Machine and Chemicals. Jason Ellis, who was on the show two weeks ago, did a full interview. Go back and listen to it if you haven't. But Jason is going to join us today. I'm going to bring him in right now, actually. Hey, Brandon. Hey, I like your shirt, man. I know, right? We got the blue going on. Yeah, blue polo day today on a Monday. That's it. How are you doing, brother? I'm doing well, man. It's a bit humid out, but I mean, hey, we don't have any rain, so I can't complain with that. I cannot complain with that. So like I was saying as I was introducing you, I love doing these segments because Dish Machine and Chemicals, it's a part of a P&L that a lot of people just overlook and go, yeah, we have a Dish Machine, yeah, we have chemicals, but there are so many factors in this thing that if you're a savvy restaurant manager, you can save a lot of money by using the correct product and the correct applications and educating your staff. And I love talking about small individual pieces of what you do on brands.

05:14So today, you reached out to me this past week and you said, hey, man, we've got latex gloves. Here's the deal. I want to hook you up. Let me know how many you want, which I thought was amazing. And I was like, yes, definitely. You've got a deal. I love that. What's the situation with like gloves right now? Man, it's crazy. It really is. When we came to Nashville, what, man, January of 2020, gloves weren't a thing anybody was thinking of. I mean, we had nitro gloves, we had latex gloves, we had vinyl gloves. We had pretty much everything. And then all of a sudden COVID hit and gloves went away. So and then gloves have just gone through the roof as so many of your restaurateurs, chefs and managers have seen. And it's just it's been crazy to get gloves. But SuperSource has been very fortunate with our procurement team and our vendors to be able to get at least some sort of glove for our customers and clients, which is one of the things we offer in our service is gloves, trash can liners and other things.

06:19But gloves specifically have been one of those things that this year has been one of those hot button items for a lot of people. And we just try to be competitive in the market and try to help our customers and save money. At the same time, that's amazing. And I will attest that that is exactly what happens. You guys are I've never been more excited about a dish machine and chemical company. And I say that because I am a customer. And if you do not know your dish machine and chemical company, like the guy that services you or the manager by his first name, you should because all kinds of time stuff happens to your machine. You need more product. You need somebody to come in and educate your staff on what to do. And that's what you do, Jason. You do on a regular basis. Appreciate that. I mean, our major goal, our major goal is just at the end of the day is see whatever ways we can help and whatever way we can help you save money.

07:23That's that's our whole team. That's our whole company's philosophy is how we can help you and help your operation become better and more well-rounded and save money and then bring the service that you guys are deserving. That's our main goal. See, it's weird to me because I like the fact that you want to save money, but I think it's a bad business strategy. I'm going to be honest with you because while you guys save us a ton of money, I would pay more for what you do. I shouldn't say that out loud to you. But I mean, like I almost feel like you guys are under charge. Like the amount of service that you give and the things that you do are so far and above what we pay. I mean, your prices are so low. I mean, the idea that you guys are inexpensive, but yet you provide such a high level of service and such a high level of quality doesn't make sense to me. But that's that's a good thing not to make sense of better. It's not the other way around. Like I said in the last two weeks ago when we did our main interview is we look at it as customer retention.

08:23You know, if we do it right from the get-go and right from the beginning, we're not having to go back and trying to get another customer or regain you as a customer. You know, because as you're aware of in the restaurant industry, customer acquisition cost is your highest one of your highest things to get people in your door and get customers. And so if we do it right from the beginning, we're not having to go back and continuously get customers that we already had because we lost them for whatever reason. If we provide the great level of service, if we provide the quality products that you guys need, the training and the service, and then we kick it off with a phenomenal pricing structure, then I mean you have nothing to lose. So we really try to encompass the whole thing. So you heard it from the man right there, Jason Ellis. If you want this level of service, this level of quality, and you want to save a bunch of money, one of the conversations Jason and I, I don't know if he'll get mad at me for telling this, I can edit it out if you want me to. But one of the conversations that he and I always have is a level of frustration because he goes in places and he ends up saving like, hey, look, I can save you 20% plus.

09:30I mean, that's not everybody, but a lot of places he's like, I walked in and I could save these people so much money and they're like, it's too good to be true. What's the catch? He's like, seriously, these other people are just speeding that much that that's an industry term for charging too much is that you're speeding that there's a it's just unbelievable. And I think that's if that's your biggest problems that people don't believe that you can save them that much money. It's true. It's true. It's amazing how much these other companies are overcharging. So if you want to have Jason come to your restaurant and to do an assessment, give him a call right now. 770-337-1143. It is scrolling at the bottom of the screen right now. If you are watching this 770-337-1143, give Jason Ellis a call right now and tell him that you heard him on Nashville Restaurant Radio and you want to give him a shot. So thank you, Jason Ellis, for stopping by today. As always, we appreciate your support.

10:31Love you, dude. All right. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Have a good one. All right, brother. And now we're going to jump in to our interview with Michael Hanna. Super excited today to welcome in Chef Michael Hanna, who is the executive chef, the prep cook, the dishwasher. He kind of jack of all trades. Owner at St. Vito's Focaccia Ria. Welcome, Chef. Yeah. Hey, thanks for having me. So I'm excited to talk to you, man, because I've been following what you're doing. I will first admit that I have not eaten your pizza yet or anything. I have not been there yet. Last time we were in East Nashville, like to go do like a big dinner down there was one of the last times was at Setsun and I hated to see that place go. But really excited to see you step in. You're you're a pandemic business, your pandemic story, aren't you? Yeah, I guess it's the silver lining of covid to an extent, but really created out of necessity.

11:41And honestly, my lifelong dream has been to do my own restaurant. I've always wanted to be a chef. So, you know, the time was now. So either, you know, get off the pot, as they say. So I went for it. All right. So good. I want to dive into that. Let's jump into some of the some of your background. You've been in Nashville, what, six years now? Somewhere around there. Yeah, it's six pushing. Where did where'd you come from? Memphis. I was in Memphis. I worked for Andy Tyser and Michael Hudman at Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen in Memphis when I was in my early 20s and then was promoted to a sous chef position at Hogan Harmony, which was their big time restaurant. And it's actually burned down. It's pretty sad. I think it burned down last year. And they're in the process of trying to get it rebuilt.

12:42And they've got sort of a restaurant empire in Memphis now. They own quite a bit. And they also run the Ace Hotel down in New Orleans. So kind of, you know, I before then I was kind of all over the place. I was young, was in Dallas for a little bit. I've done some starships. Bless you. I had a mute. Nobody would have known. Thank you very much. Sorry. Yeah. So. So working for those guys in Memphis. Memphis is a burgeoning. They have a burgeoning scene down there. I've eaten at Hogan Harmony. It's wonderful. What was the thing? What did you learn the most from working with them? I think that during that time, that was kind of when Southern cooking was taking off and it was really cool.

13:43You know, Sean Brock was getting all his accolades and MacCready's and they were doing this Southern food and Italian fusion. So my mother's side of the family is their name is Tarantino. And my grandparents were Sicilian and so on. Large Italian family. And we owned a little deli in Dallas. Like my first food memory is like getting a cannoli from the from the restaurant. And all four of my uncles are chefs. So I grew up in the blood. Yeah. And I grew up watching them open up swanky, awesome, cool restaurants throughout the years and eating, you know, some pretty specific, you know, Sicilian and Italian food, something that was always kind of part of our family. But then on my other side, my dad was, you know, my great grandfather on my father's side was, you know, a poor sharecropper who worked his way up to owning a very small farm.

14:52And that farm was passed down for generations. And my grandfather was a farmer. My dad was a farmer. And like so it was very like Southern and meat and potatoes and that kind of thing. So when Andy Tiser and Michael Hudman were starting, that was their kind of fusion. It was that Southern cooking and then that Italian cooking because they both come from large Italian families. And they did things like black eyed pea tortellini and a ham hot brodo, you know, a classic play on tortellini and brodo. So it caught my eye and I loved the restaurant. That was exactly where I wanted to work. So I just, you know, made a push and tried to get in from, you know, before then. I was basically just a kid, staging at different places across the country and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I didn't want to go to culinary school. My uncles pretty much told me that the most important thing was to find a mentor and stay in a kitchen and learn as much as you can.

15:54And I found that with those guys, certainly. They kind of pulled me into their family and I knew their kids and their wives and their parents and really became part of it. But I wanted so much more. I needed to keep pushing and learning. During my time with them, I actually started an organic vegetable farm with my father in our family land in Arkansas. So on my days off, I would drive over to the farm about 45 minutes and we would pick vegetables and I would load them in the back of my truck and I would sell to restaurant to restaurant. You know, people like Kelly English and Ryan Trim who owns Sweetgrass there has been an incredible mentor and supporter of me for years, my whole life pretty much, my whole professional life. And then Andy and Mike would buy a whole lot and the rest of the city. So, you know, I wanted to kind of see both ends. I mean, it was the inspiration of like kind of being in Portland, Oregon for a little bit and watching their food scene grow from basically, like they don't use, they weren't using Cisco vegetables and stuff, you know.

17:03I had come from Dallas and Dallas is very meat and potatoes and very just the scene wasn't really there. And then you go to a place like Portland in the Northwest and they're supporting small farms and it was really fantastic to see. So that kind of set me on that path. Moved back home, started the farm, got involved with Andy and Mike and really started trying to expand my knowledge of not just restaurant, but like food systems. So you kind of started your own organic farm. Did you ever want to expand that to be, you know, like maybe the, because if you're delivering to restaurants already, I mean, there's some entrepreneurial chops you've got. You've gone in, you've done the sales side of it. You've done the hustle side of farming, putting, was it just too much for you to do to really continue that route or do you just like being in the kitchen? It's a little bit of everything. I really just enjoy being in the kitchen. I wanted to learn more. I kept, you know, kept up with the food scene constantly. And, you know, I really wanted to expand my knowledge in the kitchen, you know, just even like watching chefs in Nashville from afar, you know, like watching what Phil was doing at Ralph and Daughters when he started watching what Josh Haberger and Eric Anderson were doing at Cappard Seat and then Trevor taking over and watching him from afar.

18:24It was just inspiring to see that we were only three hours away and there were these things that were happening in this city. So I wanted to keep pushing. And, you know, I love the farming aspects and I really thought at one point that was going to be something that I wanted to do for a long term. And it could help me start my dream of, you know, a really small kind of farm to table restaurant. But, you know, at the time, I just don't think Memphis was there. I don't think that the market was necessarily ready. I think that now it's doing so well that it could probably support something like that. But, you know, my dad still runs the farm. One thing that we do there, we really don't have a whole lot of vegetables and stuff, but it's kind of an interesting story. We bought 36 seeds of this heirloom corn called Hickory King. And this was like probably pushing 11, 12 years ago.

19:27And we planted 36 seeds. And the whole thought process behind this corn, because it was so rare, it was the original southern moonshiner's corn and hominy corn. And we wanted to like, we wanted to get into the market of maybe like making, my dream was to bring back some old traditions. And hominy was that old tradition. So I taught myself how to nixtamalize and make hominy. Well, along the way, my dad bought a mill and he just started milling it. And he was like, these are grits. So we started cooking them and we started making them finer, making them into polenta. And then we started having cornmeal and corn flour. And pretty much that was kind of the little niche that we found. We're like, oh, well, this is an amazing product. It's a white corn. It's open pollinated. It's really rare, has extremely high starch content, which when you cook it, it's kind of like how risotto reacts when you just stir it.

20:30It gets creamier and creamier. And that's kind of how this did. So we started milling and then my love with grains kind of happened there where I kind of didn't realize I liked that stuff. And then when I started growing it, we were growing emmer. We grew all different types of winter and like hard red wheats and some soft white wheats and stuff. And it really expanded my knowledge on how protein contents work and the science behind bread and the science behind the farming and how difficult all that stuff is. So it's been a really, really interesting path, honestly. And my dad still runs all that stuff in Arkansas. And he packs his little car up and delivers to restaurants all over the city in Memphis and delivers a couple hundred pounds of grits a week to people. Wow. So you and your dad seem like you're pretty close. Yeah, we're close. Do you have brothers and sisters? I have one sister. She has three kids and they just moved to Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

21:34Nice. That's a great place to go visit. Yeah, we're excited about that. You got a place in Santa Rosa. Yeah, they were in Boise, Idaho for 14 years and they just moved to Santa Rosa. They got tired of being cold. What about you? You got kids, you got a wife, family. What's going on with you? Yeah, I have a little girl. Her name is Madison. She's almost two years old. Her birthday's on July 4th. Nice. I have a significant other. She is pretty awesome. She keeps me in line. Her name's Leah. Is she right there? Can she hear us? Yeah, I don't know. What are you wanting to do? Bring her in the screen. Come on, Leah. Let's say hi to Leah. She is not having it. She needs her keys. Come on, Leah. Just come say hi. We're going to talk her in here. There she is. Hi. She's like, and I'm out.

22:36Yeah, and we have a dog named Ruby. Nice. I love it. So you spend a lot of time with your dad. I'm building up this story. I'm gathering here. Something that is a common theme to me is you seem to have a strong curiosity. I love this feature about you so far. It's almost like, hey, I'm not afraid to work really hard. Every time I do something, it opens up a door that makes me want to learn more. Every time you're around creative people or you have this idea like, oh, I want to learn about farming, Hey, Dad, and you kind of get involved and you just do it and then you learn more and then you go into these restaurants and you're meeting people and you start working for Andy and Michael and you're like, Wow, you just continually want to be learning from other people. You're staging. And it seems like you're just not afraid to work really, really hard. And you have an insatiable curiosity. What brought you to Nashville?

23:39Yeah, I mean, we've I've always worked and I'm not afraid to work really hard. I mean, that much is true. I guess I am curious. I've never thought of it like that. I just I have this mentality. I've always had it. If you're not learning, then in your stagnant, you know, what are you doing? You know, what's the point? For me, as just as a person in general, I can't stay still and I can't. I basically can't like. If I'm lazy or idle hands or an idle mind or anything, it drives me insane and I get depressed and I get in bad moods and, you know, that's that type of thing. And I just love to be able to have that. I have this creative bug in my head all the time. And I'm thinking about food all the time and what we can do better and how to make things better and how the menu needs to look and what the restaurant needs to look like in the future.

24:39And just all these things, I don't know. And it drives me just to get up and do it every day. But at the same time, you know, my my daughter, my family are extremely supportive. And that's what kind of pushes me as well. So, you know, as I love to do it, I mean, I really do. I truly have a passion for it. There's nothing more in this world that I would I don't want to do anything else. If I had to sit in a cubicle, you know, I don't have a college degree or anything. I just worked school hard knocks and kitchens over the years. And if I had to have some sort of corporate job, I don't know what I would do. I don't think I can make it. I really don't. I don't think you're alone. I think a lot of people are like that. But, you know, it's interesting because we've gone through this global pandemic and I think a lot of people. I mean, there's there's a lot of people who are scared, who have been scared, who didn't know how they were going to make it through this thing. But I guess what I was leading up to is that going into a global pandemic, a guy like you, you're kind of uniquely set up for this. I mean, I'm sure that there's it was there a moment when you were at Posteria, right?

25:41When when this thing started and you were laid off because everybody in the world was laid off. And at that point, somebody like you, I imagine you start going, OK, I got to figure this out. I can't sit at home. I didn't. I started a podcast and a company and all these other four things like I was. I did a hundred yard projects and finished like a million things. Imagine that's kind of you. You're like, OK, I got to make money, got to do this thing. What are we going to do? And that's kind of how St. Vito's was was born. Yeah, I mean, for sure. Absolutely. When everything was going down and everybody's head was spinning and we got furloughed and came back and get let go and stuff. You know, and I got no hard feelings towards any of those guys at Posteria. You know, Gerard and Zane and those dudes, they they have to do what they have to do. I had been wanting to do something and trying to like behind the scenes for a year, been trying to work on how do I start my own restaurant?

26:46You know, it's like, how do I start my own restaurant? And I don't go into a million dollars worth of debt. You know, that's the biggest thing is I want to be smart about how I do this. I have adopted the crawl, walk, run mentality where it's like, let's start small. Let's see where it goes. Let's walk a little faster and see where it goes. And then let's start jogging. And then hopefully we see this finish line and we sprint. But, you know, I knew that it was just going to be me. I knew that it was going to kind of be, you know, Leah, my my fiance, wife, whatever. We're not technically married, but we've been together for a really long time and have a child together. And we were supposed to get married in March of 2020 and everything just went to hell. So we just kind of called it off. And now we're just waiting around until we can have her dad walk her down the aisle and everyone gets vaccinated and stuff. You could just say your wife, it's OK. Yeah, it's just crazy. It's like, I don't even know where to start half the time.

27:50Yeah. So you started making these. So you decided that you would start making these pizzas. Now, how do you say Sfincione? Sfincione. I mean, it's really kind of regional, too. So you can say Sfincione, Sfincione, Sfincione, whatever. It doesn't really matter. It's a rectangular Sicilian style pizza. All right. Let's talk about Sicily. Sicily, you said your mother is from Sicily. My grandparents. Grandparents are from Sicily. Now, most people hear Sicily and they're like, where is it? Sicily is an island, right? Yeah. At the coast of bottom, at the end of the boot in Italy, right? Yeah, off the toe. OK, so off the toe. So they're known for what? Nero di Vola. Oh, yeah. And what's the other white one? The white wine. What's it called? Do you know?

28:50They're known for Nero di Vola wines and this Sfincione pizza, the rectangular pizza. What about this pizza is indicative of Sicily? Oh, well, the Sfincione itself itself is indicative of Sicily because it was created by the nuns at the San Vitus or the St. Vito covenant in the middle of Palermo. That's where I was inspired by the name. OK. My lion logo is because drawn by Chad Coplinger of Adventure Tattoo, who's an amazing artist. It's because the kingdom of Sicily's official animal was the lion. So also, I think it was kind of because, you know, the king of the jungle and honor and just all that stuff. And like I really wanted a brand that, you know, kind of represented like kind of how I felt about what I was doing is that I'm proud.

29:53And, you know, I want to do something different and I want to offer this product that's different for the city of Nashville and grow the food community and try to build a company that does things the right way. And, you know, Leeds, that's that's kind of kind of the reasons why we chose the lion. But I love that. No, that's also all really good reasons to choose the lion. All right. We're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. When talking about what chefs want, really, the question is, how do they do it? No fees, no fuel charges, no surcharges. Never. This allows you to order as much or as little as you need as often as you need. Seven day delivery. Access products every day. Trimming your waste, increasing your valuable shelf life and allowing you fresher product. 24 seven customer support. Call, text, chat, email anytime from anywhere.

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32:04Sightex is a third generation family owned and operated Lennon, Matts, and uniformed company. They really are the good guys in the Lennon business. They're transparent with their pricing, they have incredible quality, and their service is second to none. Check them out at Sightex dash Corp dot com or give Ross Chandler a call at 270-823-2468. Yeah, now we are back. I hope you enjoyed those advertisements. Please go, go support those people. They want to support the local restaurants out there and super duper important. So we're back with Chef Michael Hanna, who is the owner at St. Vito's Focaccia. We were talking about Sicily and what makes his Sfincione. Come on, help me. Let's keep saying it. Sfincione, Sfincione, whatever. Sfincione. You know, it's an SF combo that's really prevalent in their kind of dialect, you know, their jargon.

33:10Because every part of Italy speaks something a little bit different and they don't. So in the southern area, it's the SFZ, you know, Svizzen, Sv. Sfincione. Okay, so do people just butcher the shit out of that? Yeah, to an extent, but, you know, I don't think it's that big of a deal. You know, it's like, say it however you want to say it. You want to call it Sfincione or Sfincione or whatever, it's fine. It's pizza and it's delicious and that's the only thing that matters. So let's get back to that. It's pizza, it's delicious, the only thing that matters. You were at home, how long did you, you came back to work, you were let go. When did you decide to start St. Vito's Focaccia and how did you let people know about it? You know, it kind of happened organically. I really got into, so I basically had been baking this bread for a few years, really trying to get better at it, got an interest in trying to learn how to bake bread.

34:20I got to go to Italy, we stayed there for three weeks, we went, you know, through the entire country. And we actually, this is the craziest thing is when I went to Madrid, I had a piece of bread that blew my mind and this bar and I didn't know what it was. Man, what in the hell is this? It's crunchy, it's so light, the crumb is ridiculous. What is it? You know, turns out that it was like this version of Spanish ciabatta. So I searched and searched and searched for a recipe for Spanish ciabatta and you can find them and whatnot, but it's not, none of those recipes are right. It's kind of like Induja sausage, you know, the Calabrian and spreadable spicy pork sausage that you can go to allrecipes.com or whatever, you know, and find this recipe of shoulder and belly and all these things. But when you actually eat it in Calabria, it's not, that's what we, it's not sang.

35:21It's just not sang like, you know, Nona is not sharing her recipe with the world down there. So that's kind of the way this bread recipe works. It's an old world bread thing that they do in Spain. And it was really hard to try and find the recipe. And I finally kind of found one and started working on it and working through it. And it, I mean, I messed up so many times. I mean, it's years of just making it, honestly, making it for the restaurant, making it at my house, making it for friends and family, doing all that stuff. And then I don't know how it clicked with me one day. I realized that I really wanted to make it a pizza dough. And it just all kind of clicked one day when it was like, this needs to be a pan pizza. This needs to be a pan pizza. And I'm like, this needs to be a Sicilian pizza. Like this is going, I've always wanted to do a Sicilian restaurant.

36:22And like it just all of a sudden clicked. I was like, all right, this is how, this is what I'm going to do. So I bought a couple pans from Lloyd. Lloyd pans are the best. They're made in Spokane, Washington. They're all steel. They get nice and seasoned. I mean, they're incredible. I bought a couple of them, started just making pizza. Just started doing it at my house and really handing it out to friends, making it for friends and family and stuff. And I would basically deliver pizzas to Molly Ward, Gower Ellis, Tom Bayless, Trevor Moran, Colby Landis, restaurant people. Colby was sous chef at Raw, he was sous chef at Capper. Trevor, obviously, you know, everyone knows him. Tom was at Bastion and Capper and Dower's sous chef at Folk and Rolf. You know, they own Bot Box now at Lakeside Lounge, which is incredible.

37:23And Molly was GM at Rolf and Daughters. And I started giving pizzas away. And that's how it all got started. And I started taking critique and telling them what I was really wanting to do and explaining the style. You know, I wanted to create a pizza that tasted like pizza. You know, I didn't want a whole bunch of silliness going on with it in the very beginning. I wanted to keep it really, really simple, which was fresh-milled tomatoes, fresh oregano, maybe a little bit of dry oregano on there, and some highly seasoned breadcrumb. I wanted to be able to use this dough as kind of a canvas for my creative bug. But I wanted to be able to build the pizza in layers of flavor. So it's like the crispy bottom and then the airiness of the dough. And it's got a high percentage of oil, so it's kind of chewy and really soft. But I pressed the cheese into the dough. So it's basically like a stuffed crust pizza. And then once it's fully baked, we let it rest and we top it with tomato so it doesn't sink in and it doesn't hurt the integrity of the crumb, because the most beautiful part about getting a slice or cutting into the pizza when you get it at home is that it still sets up high.

38:40It looks extremely heavy, but because it's 100% hydrated dough, meaning that it's equal parts flour, water, and a really high content of oil, it's extremely light, like really, really, really light and airy. Yeah, and then the fresh oregano and then the breadcrumbs on top, and it's like those layers. It's like the breadcrumb kind of has a crunch, but it soaks into the tomato, and it kind of creates this new flavor or feel type of thing. The tomato is really fresh and light. It's not watery. I strain all the water out of the tomato. I season it up just a little bit. I don't want to be that place that puts, you know, but we add carrot and cooked onion and all these things. Traditionally, the spinchons that come out of Palermo are going to be anchovy heavy, made with caciocavallo cheese, and they're going to have a sauce that's made with cooked onions pureed into it.

39:41But I kind of had to, you know, I wanted to create something for the Nashville palate to an extent and also like something that like kids could eat. Like I wanted to sell pizzas so that everyone could come in and have a good time. It wasn't like this food snob or something that just wanted, you know, these specific flavors. So I created this, the classic Vito that is as simple as it gets. It's tomato, fontina, seasoned breadcrumb, fresh oregano, and pecorino cheese. That's it. That's it. I'm so hungry right now. Yeah. You just now described, like, I love pizza. I love a deep dish pizza. I think my favorite pizza just as like, just like a chain goes has got to be Jets. I mean, the Jets Detroit style deep dish, I think is pretty good. That's what I kind of based off my like, I did some pricing on my own. I kind of looked and I looked up Jets. I said, all right, if I'm going to sell these pizzas out of my house, who's my competitor? No one sells square pizzas like this.

40:41I mean, there's any square doing their thing, but they're so far away from me and Inglewood that customer base is totally different. So, right. So like who's doing it near me? Well, Jets is right down the road. Right. And we order Jets all the time. But I looked and kind of saw like, I wanted to create something a little bit different. No offense to Jets, but after you eat a whole Jets, you do not feel very good. And that was kind of my goal is like, I can create a product that is, you know, handmade. It's better. It's unique. It's cheaper. Yeah. My large, my pizza, my pizza will feed six grown men. And it costs 28 bucks plus tax and a Jets, same size pizza at Jets costs like 38. So that was what I wanted to do. Wow. So you're even better priced than a Jets. That's amazing. So you, I'm just, this is so cool because I love this story.

41:41I mentioned, if you, if you listen to the podcast, you know that I've talked about this opportunity that we had during the pandemic. We talked about you are going to go away into this quarantine. We have no idea how long this is going to be, but this is your opportunity as a human being to reinvent yourself, to take advantage of this time that we've all had to really do something special. And you did, you created a company during a pandemic. And now you've opened a brick and mortar restaurant in East Nashville. It's at the Van Dyke bed and breakfast. So is this a limited engagement that you're there? Yeah, it's, it's a residency. Okay. It ends June 20th. We'll be out of there on June 20th. Do you have a new place? Well, so for this summer, what we're going to be doing in, and this is it's nothing against Van Dyke. It was just that we had a three month engagement and if it worked out, we could renegotiate the lease and we could sign on for, for a full year.

42:48You know, I'm raising money and I'm looking for a brick and mortar. I didn't want to be stuck somewhere for a full year. I wanted to try and be a little bit mobile and get my product out a little bit to more people. So I thought that the best way to do that was to, you know, I gave them 60 days. So we'll be gone on June 20th, but we're going to try our hardest to set up at the Richland Farmers Market and East Nashville Farmers Market and have a little stall. But we're going to work on pop-ups around the city. We have lots of, a couple of restaurants that are really, really interested in hosting us, you know, multiple times a month. And then we're going to try and do some pop-ups. We're going to go to New York. I've got a good friend in New York that is killing it right now in Brooklyn, and we're going to do a little rush pop-up there. We're going to go to Chicago. We're going to go to Knoxville. We're probably going to go to Memphis. I mean, we're, we're just going to travel around, spend the summer, spend the summer trying to work on getting a brick and mortar of our own and just kind of get our product out there a little bit more.

43:52And like the style of pizza that we do, like I want to prove to everyone that our, our spinach own is like, like nothing you've ever had, right? It's, it's the most unique style of pizza being made in the city, but we can do other stuff. So that's kind of what I'm hoping to accomplish at the markets is be able to show people that, you know, there's a whole bunch of things that St. Vito is going to be able to produce. You know, we're, we're a focaccia. We're also a pizza company, you know, so we're going to be doing a lot of cool stuff this summer. I'm actually, I was really leery about, you know, jumping out of the brick and mortar of the space at Van Dyke in the residency and then having to do some traveling and do some stuff like that. But I'm actually really, really pumped about it right now. Like past few days is really, I went to Richland farmers market on Saturday and man, there were thousands of people there. That's awesome. And it was amazing to see. And it was just great to, to see everybody back out. And you know, the weather was amazing.

44:53Weather was amazing. Gives me a lot of confidence that, you know, we can, we can do just as well at these markets and we can offer people our product. You know, it carries really well. That's the best thing about this pizza is you can go in a box. You can drive an hour down the road. You can put it in your oven for 15 minutes and it's like back. It's just back. It's crispy. It's beautiful. It never gets too soggy. So wow. They are people, if you're listening to this and you haven't had St. Vito's pizzas, uh, the Sphensione. Yeah. Right. I'm working on it. I'm going to get better. The Sphensione, you need to go have it. They're at five points in East Nashville, inside the Van Dyke, uh, which is just right. It's right like right across the street from three Crow. If you know right there on the corner, it's just right across the street. And what are your hours? When are you open? We're open Wednesday through Saturday, 4 PM to 10 PM. Um, online ordering stops at a nine o'clock every night, but we're open for in dining until 10 o'clock.

46:00Sunday brunch, uh, 10 AM to 3 PM or whenever we run out of food really is how it works. And the Tennessean just named us the number two brunch in the city. I saw that Brad Schmidt went around and ate it like 50 places and, uh, you crushed it, man. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. I really love our brunch. It's not a huge menu. It's super simple, but we're trying to do some things a little bit different. Like we do a sourdough semolina pancake with pistachio, Marsala, wine butter. Um, I was making, uh, like rum, Baba Nepal, Tana's for a little bit, which is basically like this really crazy, super wet brioche dough that with this intense spoke from bulk and cold fermentation and these little bitties little cups, right. And we fill them up and then we bake them and they rise. And then we soak them in rum syrup and paint them with apricot.

47:02Um, like basically jam before they go, go out. Um, so like on the street in Naples, they sell them a little stands and they come in a little, little paper cup type thing and you just kind of get them and dump them and eat them. And they're really, really, really delicious. Um, and that's the kind of food I like to do. That's what I want to do. I want to find these little things made that no one really does. And I want to try and, and offer that to people. I want people to trust me or trust us, our company, whenever they come in to eat with us and they see something on the menu, they might not know or might not understand. Um, you know, just trust me, like the potato pizza is by far our biggest seller and everybody comes in. It's just like, Oh, I'm not really sure about the potato pizza, but everybody, everyone that's part of media or anyone that's ever come in and tasted it, they immediately just go crazy for like a Jack Silverman wrote an article on us in the scene. And he had this whole article right now. And then he ordered a potato pizza because he had never had it before.

48:04And he just called me immediately and was like, we have to interview. We have to do this again. I'm going to rewrite the whole story. And I just want to talk about this potato pizza because it's so amazing. I mean, and we've gotten that a few times. We kind of, you know, and that's kind of the like more creative chefy thing. You know, it's like we have the classic Vito, which is like, you know, a pizza that needs to taste like pizza. And then we have the potato pizza, which is like, it's traditional in a sense, but at the same time it's, we do it so differently. We, we do fontina cheese and just cooked potato torn into pieces, all into the dough, bake it, let it rest. And we top it with a potato cream. Tom Bayliss and Trevor actually taught me how to make this sauce. They used a version of it years ago at a cappard seat. I think it was one of Eric Anderson's things, but they used it in like a dessert. So I just turned it into a pizza sauce. I was like, well, I can put my own iteration on something like this. I can add, you know, preserved lemon and garlic and lots of black pepper.

49:05And we can make this really, really delicious pizza sauce that covers the potato. It's, it's really, it looks like icing on a cinnamon roll or Cinnabon or something. We just, you know, top it with a little bit of lemon zest, some seasoned bread crumbs, some pecorino. Well, I will be there Wednesday night. I don't know if I can wait all the way till Wednesday. I don't think I have a choice. Don't have a choice, but you could come in for the Mon Mon Seek pop-up on Tuesday, which is amazing. And that's, yeah. So this, this Tuesday, tomorrow. Tomorrow. I'm about to have to go prep. So this is, this episode is going to come out tonight. Cool. It is the 3rd of May. And so tomorrow, May 4th, if you're hearing this tomorrow night, you are doing a pop-up at, at your spot. Tell me about it. Yeah. So Bert Ing is a friend of mine. We worked together at, um, Rothman Auditors and Folk and he was there, uh, at both places for a good amount of time.

50:05Started as a dishwasher, worked his way all the way up. I mean, uh, he, he's a fantastic guy. Uh, he's a fantastic bread baker. He's at a dozen bakery right now. He's been there for a few years. Um, he's Cantonese. And he, you know, wants to continue his family's food traditions. There's not, uh, a lot of, uh, you know, the Chinese population is not very large in Nashville. And there's not a whole lot of Chinese food to choose from. And he just wants to keep these things that his, you know, his family, um, ate growing up for years and years, you know, his whole life. He wants to keep those traditions alive. He's extremely passionate about his food, um, and being able to offer it to the city. And I've worked with him hand in hand to try and get this thing off the ground so that we can, and I, and that's one thing I liked about Van Dyke is that I pitched it in, like, I really want to create a space for other people that were like me. And there's a lot of us out there. You know, I'm talking about LaVon Wallace started fat belly pretzels out of his house doing this stuff.

51:08Uh, Edgar at Albrege makes amazing food and he just really flourished during all this. And like, it's really inspiring to see all of these things happening. Um, and if I can just, I got lucky with the lease at Van Dyke and it's like, if I can have that Tuesday night off and offer it to people who want to start their restaurant and get their feet off the ground and really, try to make a little bit of money and, and provide this passion for everybody else. That's what I'm going to do. So I've been offering the space on Tuesdays and, uh, we're going to help Burt get this thing off the ground and it's, he's a fantastic cook. So it's going to be awesome. I'm really excited. That sounds amazing. I love that you do that. I love that you have, I saw that you did a pop up with Edgar and Albrege earlier on a few months ago, or maybe not even that long ago. But he's just doing some amazing food and he's got his, his, um, residency now, I think at, uh, Bastion on Sunday nights. He's killing it.

52:08A lot of amazing, amazing stories throughout the pandemic. I'm so excited that you were willing to come on today and kind of share your story. What's something that I didn't cover that you really want people to know? I think, um, it's the same, you know, I think that this time, everything that's happened and maybe it's not just the restaurant industry. That's all I know. So it's all I can kind of, you know, from my point of view, my perspective, take a step back and think about how the industry works, what we need to do as leaders in the community and leaders in the industry to make it just a better workplace. You know, um, I, my goal for San Fido is I want to build a restaurant group that is not like any other restaurant group.

53:08I love it. I want to offer equity to employees that stay long-term. I want to make sure that we're profit sharing. I want to make sure that everyone is happy. I want to, um, you know, have a culture of creativeness that people can, you know, come and work their way up and be the head chef one day of whatever, however many restaurants we end up having or whatnot. Like I don't want this stuffy, you know, just pretentious style of restaurant or food. I just want it to be really good and delicious and I want to make people happy. That's the whole point. Um, but like, I think if you're, you know, if people are listening out there and people kind of hear my story and follow what Chef LaVon has done and Edgar and even Julio at Maze de la Vida, like they worked their butts off. They have a vision. They put it on paper. They figure out how to make it work and they jump out there and they do it. And if you have that vision and you want to do something like this, you know, taking the courage to jump is, is really tough.

54:15And that was really hard for me because this industry kind of, you know, you treat people sometimes in the past when places you've been, you treat people kind of bad and it's kind of discouraging. It's like, Hey, I've said this before. It's like your line cook for years and years and years and every single thing that you do in the kitchen, according to your chef sucks. You know, it's like, Oh, this stinks. This stinks. Everyone stinks. And you kind of, that, that has an effect. That's a lasting effect on people. And it did for me for sure. So I was always like, well, I can never cook as good as these people. I can't do anything like as good as these people. And then I guess the silver lining COVID, like we talked about is like, it happened and it happened out of necessity. And finally I was like, you know what? I don't care anymore. I've worked at good places. I've had great mentors. I have great friends. I'm getting feedback on this stuff. It's good. And I like it and I'm proud of it. And if that's what you can do, if you can produce a product that you're passionate about, you like it, you're proud of it and you are willing to serve it to your mama, you know, put it out there and take the chance.

55:17The community is amazing. I had people lining up at my house, you know, 15 cars deep waiting on pizza coming out of my oven at my home, you know, that little girl running around dog barking, all kinds of stuff in the middle of Eaglewood and we're serving pizza at our house. Neighbors kind of thought we were selling drugs or something. But I mean, you know, it's like if the community is going to swell up and they're going to support someone like me doing it out of my home, they're going to support anything. So, you know, that's, that's the only thing I would like to like just put out there and give to people is like, do it, just do it. That sounded awfully like a final thought, but I'm, I'm going to, I want to expand on that a little bit. You talked about being a different restaurant. You wanted to run a restaurant with a, with a fantastic culture and one of the things that I'm seeing all over everywhere. I mean, if you're in any kind of hospitality site or if you're on the internet, you know, right now that it's hard to find workers, right? So people to come in, line cooks, servers.

56:28There's a, there's, there's a thousand restaurants, more than that of, of people out there who all need staff. There's a ton of debate right now. Why is that? And I tend to think that we need to think outside the box and we, as restaurant tours need to do things differently. We need to offer insurance to people. We need to offer benefits. We need paid time off. We need better wages, right across the board. And I think that there's a lot of people who do it really well, but then there's a lot of people who don't. Is that, I mean, that do you think that's what's going on right now? What do you, what is your take on this whole situation? You know, there's a tough one and there's, there's a lot of, there's so much we could, we could talk about this for two or three hours if we want to. I mean, it's, it's just so much. I think that the, you know, for myself, right? Like I had, I've had to over the past couple of months of being a vendor, I've had to sit back and I've had to think about what my future looks like and where the same veto go from here.

57:47They, I've read a couple of articles, they've estimated that I think it was a Forbes and Yelp article. Honestly, I think they did some statistics that 25% of the workforce is not coming back to the service industry. And it kind of caught me a little bit. I said, think about it. How many people do I know that were servers or GMs or Psalms or cooks or chefs, anything? How many people do I know that either started their own business through this to get away from having to work for someone else or just are like a real estate agent now. And I know a lot. It's probably pushing at least 15 people. So if I know that many people, then the next guy knows that many people and the next guy knows that many people. And that's the unfortunate truth about what's going on is we've lost our workforce. They're not coming back. The restaurant industry is hard. You work holidays, you work weekends, you work nights. And that's just the gist of what it is. And you're going to be on your feet all day. And it, you know, sometimes it sucks just like every job, but the real passionate people are the ones that will stay in it.

58:53And I think those real passionate people have an understanding of what it takes to get things done or what life is like as someone with the goals of owning their own restaurant or food service industry business. They can take what they've learned and they can see and kind of try to predict the future of it to see where this industry is going. Someone like me, like I, it's me and Joseph Crenshaw. Joseph Crenshaw is the only employee I have. He's a fantastic human being. He was a food runner at Ralph and Daughters. We worked together there and he came over to help me temporarily and basically fell in love with the idea of what we're doing and said, I want to be a part of the team. So it's me and him. And for us as a team, like I have to think about how do we take, how do I take care of him? How do I take care of myself? How do I take care of our future employees? What can we do that's going to be different? And I think the answer is, is that for me, the answer is, I'm not going to compete. I'm not going to get a four or five thousand square foot restaurant space, paying an enormous amount of rent and have to have this big, huge well-oiled machine in order to make money.

01:00:01What I have is a product that's totally different, that's unique, and it's creative and we can keep it that way. Consistency is the only thing that we have to fight because dough and variables and things like that are kind of crazy. But if we can get a brick and mortar where we're stationed, right, a brick and mortar in a concrete spot, that that's going to come easy because if I can do it in Van Dyke and 180 square foot kitchen and I can do it in my house, I think I can do it in, you know, a two thousand square foot little building with a nice kitchen, right? So I think the answer for me is that we're not, we're going to be almost like a quick service style restaurant. And I think that's the unfortunate truth. Have I always wanted to own a quick service style restaurant? No, I've never been that guy. I worked at places where we're putting together awesome food, you know, watching all the plates go out at Ralph and Daughters and the stuff go out at Folk. It's like it's amazing to watch that food and see a whole restaurant full of people having a great time. But I don't know if we're going to be able to have the staffing to make that happen for the next few years.

01:01:06I think it's going to be a really slow climb back into that scene. And I don't want to put myself in a position where, you know, San Vito is great and everything, but it's a job, you know, it's just a job. And if it fails, I'll start something else. If it's successful, it's awesome. But, you know, I did this and I'm doing this for myself and for my family and for the people around me. And I'm not going to put myself in a position to fail or, you know, work 800 hours a week or something. Like, I want to make sure that I'm being a father and being a significant other on top of being a restaurant industry leader and a chef and putting out great food. So smaller is better for me. And that's the route I believe that a lot of people are about to head. I think you're going to see a trend of people opening up little restaurants, not bigger ones, unless you are a corporate and have a ton of money, right? They can do anything. And they will ruin the world.

01:02:08Yes. Man, thank you so much for coming on today. I just, I love sharing stories like yours. I think this is like exactly what the podcast is for. If people out there are listening and they're like, St. Vito's, I've never even heard of that. Now they know, now they know about you, what you're doing, where you're doing it and how they can get the best, most unique pizza in the entire city. One tons of accolades have been written up in the scene. You've been written up all over the place. And now you can go to East Nashville right there at Five Points in the Van Dyke Wednesday through Sunday? Yeah. Wednesday through Sunday, 4 p.m. to 10. Well, Sunday is 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and that's brunch, but we serve all our pizzas at brunch Wednesday through Saturday, 4 p.m., 10 p.m. dine in and take out. We don't do delivery. I don't mess with the delivery services.

01:03:08Good. Well, they're way too expensive anyway, and nobody makes 30% margin. So yes, thank you. I don't know anybody that makes 30% margin. I don't either. I love that you don't do that and go pick up a pizza, go down there and enjoy what this man is doing. I cannot wait to check in with you and hear what you're doing next. I'm very excited for you. I always have every guest. I feel like we just did this, but I'll throw it out there anyway. I always have the guest take us out. So whatever you want to say to finish us out, kind of your Jerry's final thoughts, the floor is yours. You know what? You know what? I want to give a big shout out to Tony and Caroline Gowson. They're just great human beings and great people. I want to give another big shout out to Crystal Bogan and her husband. Those guys at the Grilled Cheesery, just incredible.

01:04:11Those people who took a chance on me, it just means the world. I hope that one day I can give back the advice and the conversations we've all had and the chance to help someone else get started. I just want to send a shout out to those guys, Crystal and Joseph and Tony and Caroline. Thank you so much for everything you've done for us. I love it. Tony and Caroline are some of my favorite people. They've been, most people through the pandemic, they've been everywhere. They've been helping everybody. They're amazing human beings. You could have said it better. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me. You are off the hot seat, my friend. And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the interview with Michael Hanna from St. Vito's, Costa Rica. Isn't this fun? Sometimes I just do this and I go, man, what a cool dude to get to talk to on a Monday.

01:05:12What a fun story. What a passionate guy who's going to do the right thing and make it happen. Please go support him. I would love this guy to be a massive Nashville success story. He's doing something really, really cool. So thank you for listening and go find us on YouTube. You can watch this video. Go find us wherever you're listening to this. Hit the subscribe button. Leave a five-star review. All those things mean a ton to me. Go to Instagram and follow us. Go to Facebook and join our groups. Go read the book for Brandon's Book Club. We got a lot going on here, folks. We just hope that you are staying safe. Love you guys. Bye.