Mikey Corona and Brian Riggenbach

00:00Hey guys, wanna get today's show started off the right way, talking about our brand new title sponsor, Gordon Food Service. This has been the best relationship. I've worked with everybody at Gordon Food Service for the past several years at both of our restaurants and have nothing but amazing things to say. The main thing I think that I gather from Gordon Food Service is that they live their cornerstone values. And that's something that is big, big, big to me. To say they're a perfect company is not true, but I love the fact that they will raise their hand if they make a mistake and they will make it right. And that's really the best we can ask. There's no excuses, there's nothing else, let's get it done. And now what they're doing is is they're offering same day deliveries. They have a Gordon Fresh van that is going out from their stores. If you didn't know that they have GFS stores located throughout the city, and you can just walk in.

01:01If you have an account with Gordon Food Service, or if you don't have an account with Gordon Food Service, there's the clincher. Anybody can walk in to the Gordon Food Service stores, but you can get a delivery from the Gordon Food Service store if you have a restaurant. And again, whether you are somebody who is an actual customer on a regular basis, or if you're somebody who's brand new, they will take care of you. Here's what you gotta do. You gotta give my buddy Paul Hunter a call. And Paul's number is 615-945-6753. I've worked with Paul for many years. This guy is amazing, he is here to help you. Give him a call, 615-945-6753. Learn more about your daily deliveries you can get from the Gordon Food Service van, and what you can do to start an account with them today. Hey, I also wanna tell you about one of my favorite things that happens with me getting to be a podcaster is that people come to the studio, chefs, restaurateurs, they come sit down in the studio, and they see behind me, I have all these sponsors, and there's stuff, and you get to take home cool stuff, and everybody that comes in says, oh my God, Super Source, I love that guy, Jason Ellis is the man.

02:18And you know what, he is. This is quite the most amazing person out there. He does what he says he's gonna do. He over delivers, and he does not have you sign a contract. He's the guy you need for your dish machine and chemicals, and his number is 770-337-1143. You should call him today. 770-337-1143. 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, presented by Gordon Food Service.

03:28My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your host. Man, I'm excited to be back in studio. I feel like I haven't been in here in weeks, probably because the last episode we put out was 10 days ago. Did not put out a Friday episode, did not put out a Monday episode, but damn it, it is Tuesday, and we are gonna be live. So today we are talking with Brian Rigenbach, and he is the executive chef at The Mockingbird. We are also talking to his husband, Mikey Corona. He is the general manager at The Mockingbird. They are partners with Manit Shahan, and they are amazing, amazing people. You last heard them on our show. We did an episode of Talk and Shift, and they joined Jess Benefield, and we just had so much fun. And that's been a busy, busy, busy past couple of weeks. For me, a lot of restaurant stuff going on. It's been hot as hell.

04:29It's been hard to do anything, to get anybody to come out. And two really amazing interviews we did today. This interview with Mikey and Brian, we did today. I'm putting it out today. We're just gonna make it happen. My next interview showed up in the middle of the interview, not in the middle of the very end. So we are promoting the interview with Jeff Hoppe Mayer, which is gonna come out on Monday. Giving you a little bit of time to wait for that to come out on Monday. He is the CEO at the Brindiamo Group, and he is a bourbon broker. Wow, the conversation we had. Holy cow, you guys do not wanna miss the episode on Monday. But we are putting out this episode today, Tuesday, and it is Pride Month. Happy Pride Month to everybody out there who is celebrating. We've got a lot going on. So today is Tuesday, and if you wanna look at the Pride calendar, I will give you a little bit of the heads up.

05:30So this week, Thursday, June 23rd, there's gonna be a latte art throwdown to celebrate Pride at Frothy Monkey in East Nashville. Six o'clock p.m. is, sign up, 6.30 is the first pour. It is free to attend, $10 to buy in. Drinks, foods, live DJ. That is happening Thursday, June 23rd from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sounds like a ton of fun with our friends over at the Frothy Monkey. Then if you are into baseball, Nashville Sounds is having Pride Night 2022, brought to you by the Nashville LGBTQ Chamber. And that is Thursday, July, June 23rd from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Nashville Sound Stadium. Come to watch the Nashville Sounds take on the Gwinnett Stripers. It looks like it says Gwinnett Stripers. I'm not kidding, Gwinnett Stripers. At First Horizon Park, 7.05 p.m. gates open. $5 of every ticket goes to Launchpad Nashville. If you don't know what Launchpad Nashville is, you need to listen to this episode because we talk about Launchpad Nashville and how you can join in to help.

06:37So in partnership with Music City Creative, you may pre-order Sounds Pride Night shirts for the additional $17 plus tax through June 16th. So that has already passed, nevermind. June 23rd, there is a Pride pre-party at Bearded Iris in Sylvan Supply, not the one in Germantown. So Thursday, June 23rd from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., Bearded Iris, Sylvan Supply. DJ Dame Luz, exclusive fanny pack and shirt release by Ellie Caudill, Bearded Iris proceeds to benefit the Oasis Center. And then, let's see, Friday, June 24th, we have Athena, music by Joe Gothro, I'm reading this, with DJ Aeron. Friday, June 24th at 9 p.m. through Saturday, the 25th at three o'clock a.m., Studio 615. This is, the June 25th, Saturday, June 25th and 26th is the Nashville Pride Festival.

07:40So there's a parade Saturday from 9.30 to 12.30 at the Bicentennial Capital Mall Park. And let's see, the Pride Festival is also Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. There's gonna be all kinds of really cool stuff down there, stuff for the whole family. So you can go down there. There is a sweet tea dance party, official closing party at the Basement East, Saturday, June 26th from 7 to 11 p.m. And then there's the official Nashville Pride after party at the Virgin Hotel from 8 p.m. to midnight. That is on Sunday, June 26th from 8 p.m. to 11. There's your Pride Week Festival update. You can go check it out at nashvillepride.org. The whole list is there. I think you can sign up to go to any of those things that you want, but we are gonna be talking today to Mikey and Brian. It's a fun conversation. It's a quick conversation. Normally, I like to go a little bit longer, but we're running short on time. So let's jump in right now with Mikey and Brian from The Mockingbird.

08:45Super excited today to welcome back, wasn't that back to the show? Kind of back to the show. We have Brian and Mikey from The Mockingbird. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, gentlemen. Welcome, thanks for having us. Hey, thanks, pleasure to be here. It really, you know what? I haven't done an interview in a while. It's been like two weeks since I've done an interview. So this is really fun. And I've craved it and I've needed it. I've been so busy doing other things. It's so nice to have you guys back in the studio. The last time that you guys were on the show, we did a show called Talk and Shift. Yes. It was on Sunday night from nine to 11. There were cocktails involved. I think that Jess. Yes. From 210 Jack and her husband, Trey, were on the show with us. Yes, correct. And we just goofed around for like two hours. That was great. Yeah, it was because it was kind of in the middle of the pandemic still. And it was via Zoom. So we weren't able to really do this at that time.

09:48Look at people in the eye. Yeah. What's that like? So, and we love Jess and Trey, 210. We were just there last week. Deliciousness. So it was a treat all around. The best. Well, I feel like we people come in the studio and we start talking. And then you get out like this fun, like catching up kind of stuff. And I like to do that on air. So thank you guys. I just, we were talking and said, let's turn this mic on. Yeah, that's the whole reason we're here. Because we can't have all this great conversation before we start. Then I'm like, no, no, no, let's record this. That's so much more fun. There's content. Yes. What were we talking about? My brain. My brain is so off today. What were we talking about? Temporary staffing. Temporary staffing. We were talking about temporary staffing. I had GigPro as a sponsor and you guys are sitting in studio. You can see all the sponsors behind me. Yes. And we were talking about GigPro. And I said, I think it's a really interesting way if you can't get people to come in to just put an ad out there on GigPro and gets me to come in for a couple of days and kind of go, hey, do you like this?

10:52Do you work out? And then it might work. Do you guys have, are you guys having any issues staffing right now? We are actually in a pretty good position as far as the back of the house is concerned. It's tight. You know, if one person sneezes or wants to go on vacation, then it's like, all right. It's a house of cards. Yeah, so it's tight. I have a really good crew. I have a new guy starting tomorrow, which is, and it's all, all the success I've had since we've reopened has been word of mouth. I was dumping three, $4,000 a month on ads and just getting nothing. Really? Zero. Where were you spending that money? Indeed. Craigslist. Craigslist. Just all the standard things. Colored agents, name it. I'll throw a dart at the wall till it hits me six, but it was all, none of that worked out. It was all through word of mouth from former employees or current employees and it's great.

11:56So I have a solid team now. Yeah, knock on wood, please. I'd like to, I mean, I'm looking too high. Did I pack my lucky penny? There's a never ending looking for good people. If you're a stud and you can come in and you can make it happen. We're gonna find a place for you. We're gonna figure it out. Yep. Front of the house, I think we're pretty good as well. We have a solid team. I haven't had to hire anybody new in maybe a year or so. Which is kind of incredible. Well, I think it's due to the limited, we're still at abbreviated hours and days. We haven't fully gone back to seven days a week, brunch, lunch, dinner, late night. We're still only five days a week. We close at 9 p.m. on the weekdays, 10 p.m. on weekends and it's really helped. As far as retention. As far as retention because it's not, you're not overworking your staff and you don't really have like a second string.

13:00It's just everybody's working kind of five days a week. Some people get two days off and it's a relatively set schedule. So I mean, if I'm somebody who's working as a server bartender. They're all set schedules. And you're busy. Yep. How's business been? It's been fantastic. It's insane. We're busier now than we've ever been. Yeah. It's crazy. It is and it's good. It's a good problem to have. Yeah. And everybody's like, everybody's relatively nice. They weren't as like bonkers whenever we first opened after the pandemic. People forgot to act in public a bit. I think we were talking about that in the talking shift last time. We're like, what the flock is going on here? You can say the word too. People. No, but you had these. People had like COVID brain and everyone was locked in their house and then everyone was just a complete asshole when they came outside. Not everyone. Not everyone, but the percentage of challenging guests increased dramatically. Oh, I have some pictures I got to show you of like tickets that were printing up of like, oh, they were like a mile long. It was like cheeseburger, no cheese, no buns, no onions, no meat.

14:04No burger. Some lettuce. Some fish. I was like, wow. Everybody's just had this pent up like, oh, I can't wait to go on and get some freaking modifications going. So like tickets were just so long. I would send them to our business partners as well. I was like, what the fuck is happening? I just can't wait to get out there to go fuck with this chef. You're like, I need to get a power. He has carefully curated these dishes that I can go and just butcher. Modify them. I feel like some of them would be really good as like wallpaper in the bathroom. I want to do like the one-star Yelp reviews. Well, so you did that for us. Delia Joe came in and she filmed that for us when we were doing the roundup. I think I have you on my TikTok page doing that. We should do another one before you guys leave. It'd be a lot of fun. There were some crazy people out there. Some of it's just like, there's construction outside the window, one star. All right, cool. Well, I had Will Newman from Edley's. I found one for him to read. I love Edley's.

15:04And he got a, it was a two-star review, but he got a two-star review because the people outside of the 12 South, there's lots of jaywalking happening outside of the building. It was like, there's jaywalking? I got a two-star because people are jaywalking on 12 South. I should probably call the National Guard because. I was explaining to somebody earlier today. It's not shocking, sadly. It's fucked up. It's so crazy. I'm so anti. I was talking to Jim Myers this morning. I don't know if you guys know Jim. Yeah, I've heard of Jim Myers. But he used to be a restaurant critic. And he, there was a proven formula that he had when he would go in and do restaurant, and he would visit him multiple times. And he goes, people would get angry at me if I gave them a bad review, but the really good restaurateurs would take that as constructive criticism, and they would get better. He said, but when restaurants realize that me and the press are advocates for the consumer, that we're trying to put the best information out for the consumers to come in, he goes, when restaurants realize that, then it kind of works out.

16:08But people today are advocates for themself. Correct. And they don't know how to properly review a restaurant. They don't, oh, the food was good. The food was good is not a good review. Yeah. What does that mean? Exactly. There's so much more involved there. And I told him, I said, one of my goals from doing this podcast is, I don't necessarily wanna talk about your favorite dish. I wanna talk about you and who you are. And I wanna learn about the people behind the restaurants. And hopefully people who listen to this can identify that these are people's dreams. Correct. These are people who put their heart, their blood, sweat, and tears into making this happen to serve people. And by you going in and just trashing them, I want to humanize people that are behind the line, that are working this. So if you're listening to this and you learn, wow, Shane Nasby is a really good guy. I love Shane. I love him. Next time you go to his restaurant and you give him a one-star review because you couldn't place an order before they opened.

17:10Yep. Like. That's a punch in his gut. It's a punch in his heart. This is this guy and his family's dream. He's working really hard. And you gave him a one-star review because you couldn't place an order 45 minutes before they opened. Yep. Do you give Target a one-star review because you went there at 730 and they opened at eight? Probably. Yeah, they probably do actually. What the hell? There's a general sense of entitlement that's really challenging. Because we do pour everything into it. Everything. And work insane hours and all morning, all night. Holidays. I mean. Every holiday and every weekend. And we miss all the family and birthdays. I just missed our niece's graduation because I was at the restaurant. Mikey got to go. But someone had to stay behind. Hold on the fort. And that's going to be tough too with you guys being in a relationship. Front of the house, back of the house. Like you both. How often do you guys get to spend time together? The days that we're closed. Mondays and Tuesdays. Whenever we do a podcast. Yeah. So it's pretty wild.

18:12So yeah, speaking of that, I wonder how Jim feels like now that he's on the other side of it as a restaurateur. I just had him on the show a couple weeks ago. Okay, I'm going to have to like. I asked him, I said, do you owe some people apologies? Seeing what it's like. Now that you're in the building and if you don't know, Jim Myers used to be a writer for the Tennessee Inn. And now he looks like Richard Gere. Yeah, he kind of does look like Richard Gere. Yeah, I remember when he came in, I was like, whoa, hello Jim. He's now at the. I just didn't play soda shot. Yep. He does all their marketing and did, but he's, he has such a passion for the industry in Nashville, in Nashville itself and what Nashville was. And I want him to do a podcast on this network. Oh, he does. Delves into old Nashville and does the interviews with all the people that were the old Nashville. And I want to put it out there so that we can have podcasts that talk about the old, like tell the stories of the old chilly parlors. And I want to learn Jody Faison's story.

19:14And like, will you come tell that? Like. You got to have like Chris Chamberlain as his cohost to like really. I would love it. Do it. I'd love both of them to come do something. That'd be awesome. I used to love running into them at like Charleston Food and Wine and some of the other like food festivals around. Well, and they used to work across the street from a restaurant before they tore them the Tennessee Inn. So. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Charlton Porter. Yeah. That's a new, that new Nightscapes. Is that what it's called? Yes. It's called Nightscapes. Interesting. Have you been in there yet? I haven't. What do you know? These are your new neighbors. I know. I walked into the kitchen. Just go over there and give them like a cup of milk or something. One of our vendors dropped something off for us that was for them. So I just, I like, well, I'll just walk across the street, introduce myself, hi, dah, dah, dah, dah. And I mean, I don't know. They seem very nice. They seem nice. Yeah. I know they invited us to their soft opening, but it was on like a Friday and a Saturday. It was like, yeah, I can't escape. I was the same thing. And I was going to try, I signed up RSVP, like I'm going to come.

20:15And then I was like Friday night and my wife was out of town. I could have even gone, but I had like a million things to do to clean the house and all this stuff. And I was like, I don't want to go like by myself. Yeah. And I don't know. Yeah. I go places with my wife. Like I've been married 17 years, you know? Like I don't, it's Friday night. I'd be at work. I don't, I don't know. I don't know. It's just weird. I just couldn't. Yeah. Say I'm a personal psyche. Like I don't, I couldn't get out. No, I get it. We couldn't get out because we were like freaking like kind of shoulder deep in cheeseburger orders and pumping out punch bags, you know, just it was a bonkers night to try to escape. That happens. It does. It's, you know, Friday night in Nashville, I drove downtown a couple weeks ago. I have a new sponsor called Maintain IQ. Okay. It's fantastic what they do. I'll tell you about it later. They're so awesome. But I brought the guy, the Will, Will Jackson, who's the founder and CEO. I drove him downtown. He's never been in Nashville.

21:15On a Friday. Flew in to do, it was a Thursday night. Okay, yeah. But still we drove down like First Avenue and made a left down Broadway and just drove him down Broadway all the way down to like back to the interstate. It's crazy. And he was like, what's it like on the weekends? And I'm like, no, this is 1030 in the morning on a Tuesday. There's 20 live bands playing and people drinking. Yeah. Getting after it. Oh yeah. Nashville's a whole thing. It's a whole vibe. It's a thing. Yeah. It's pretty insane. And now I don't even recognize your little corner down there. It used to be this 12th Avenue corner down there. It was like, Shohan Mockingbird Tonsu. And that was it. Yeah. 12th and Porter was there a long time ago. Now you've got the Penn's mechanical and there's just. There's a Whole Foods. There's like four high rises under construction, like right next door to us. In August it'll be five years that we've been open. I think there has been four months of that five years that we've had no construction on our street.

22:17Other than that, they are blocking stuff up. They're drilling. They're demolishing. The road's been closed every day. They're doing it only in the morning. So it's only closed to three in the afternoon, theoretically. You guys just lose power sporadically all the time. We're okay with. No. That hasn't happened in. Grundy's been closed for four months. Yeah. It's just like giant like cavern in the ground. And like as we were talking about earlier where people are like, oh, you know, food was great. Service was amazing. One star parking was difficult. And it's like, I know our employees can't even find anywhere to park. Uber like a normal person. You just get dropped off at the front door. Or do that. What goes out to eat and doesn't Uber anyway? A lot of people. Yep, a lot. Well, I think for downtown, like anywhere you go that's anywhere. It's gonna be challenging. Close downtown, like I'm just gonna, oh, especially if you're drinking anything. Yeah. I mean, just get the app and Uber there and get dropped off at the front door three minutes before you leave. It's, well, there are still people that are like, oh, can you call us a taxi?

23:21And I'm like, um, can I, I need to first find a time warp machine. Like, no, can you find me a phone book? Yeah. I was like, you might try that phone booth on the corner. I don't get it. Don't either also. And it is always, cause you want to be like, you know, we're in the hospitality industry. You want to be hospitable. But it's also like, um, I don't, I think it might just be quicker if you get an Uber and just trying to explain it to that certain demographic or somebody that doesn't use it as like, oh, I'm going to go ahead and call it for you. And that's just going to be my treat because this is. Yeah. I mean, at some point, it's funny cause when I used to drive Uber, it was hilarious cause you would get an Uber more so than Lyft. Lyft was people who knew what they were doing, so to speak. Really? Yeah. Lyft's only in like the major areas, like major markets. What was back when I would drive, right? So Lyft was in like your major markets, but Uber was everywhere. Everybody knew the term.

24:22Uber was almost a verb. We're going to Uber there. We're going to, it's Ubering was a verb. So these people, these old women or women that would come in from the Midwest, I don't mean to be women or men. I'm just saying it was mostly women would come in and they'd be like, it's our first time Ubering. Yeah. And you're like. Suckle up ladies. So yeah, so like I would, they're going, and we're going to Acme. And I'm like, and it's Friday night at 10 o'clock. Are you fucking crazy? Like I can't just, you can't just drive there. I can drop you off six blocks or it's a 45. So I would like drive down to eighth Avenue, make a round eighth Avenue, turn down right with a Nash Southern spoon saloon. I drive through parking lots and I would sneak behind the arena and I go back this way and they're like, what the hell is, and they're in the back seat. He's going off the grid guys. Like, oh my God, if we're going to get kidnapped. Anytime you go to New York, you get in a cab. You're like, this dude is crazy. And they're like, how do you know what you're doing? I'm like, yep. This is, this is just, this is just, this is Friday. You got to do this. This is how I get you point A to point B.

25:22And they would always be like clutching and holding on white knuckling it. Like, oh my God, we're getting kidnapped. They've never been in a car where they drove like that. And I'm like, well, I can't, I can't just. Well, that was before they blocked off Broadway. Cause now I think it's blocked off completely. So people that are leaving our restaurant and I'm like, Hey, so where are you kids going next? And they're like, oh, we're going to Broadway. Everybody, you know, call your Ubers. I'm like, I wouldn't call an Uber, not from here. Like, yeah, just make a left right there at Broadway. It'll take you like 10 minute walk. If you're in an Uber, it's going to take you 30 minutes. You're going to just going to be bumper to bumper. So I mean, like whatever it's your money, do what you want. And they're like, oh, well, these, like these shoes aren't really made for walk. Cause like girl, y'all should have done some research before you came here and thought about going on Broadway in some heels. I took my wife, my mom was an international flight attendant and she had an apartment in Newark, 25 years. So anytime we wanted to go to the city, pretty easy, like fly standby to Newark. And then I got a place to stay and just take a train into the city, right? Yeah. So the first time I'm married and I bring my wife and I go, we're going to go do New Year's in New York.

26:26She's like, okay. So I got a plane ticket, we went to Newark. We're getting ready to leave and she's wearing heels. And I go, oh, no, no, no, no, honey. We're going into New York. Like you need more tennis shoes. She's like, I'm not wearing tennis shoes. Not with this dress. And I'm like, we're going to be in New York city. Like all we're going to do is walk. And she's like, I'll be fine. Again, hour after we get there, she's like, we got to find new shoes. The next two and a half hours leading up to was us just walking around trying to find shoes for her that weren't like $900. Yeah, no, totally. Because every store in Manhattan is like, oh, those, she's like, I don't like those. I'm like, well, those are only 150. We should, if we want to eat dinner tonight, we should, it was a long time ago. This was probably 15 years ago. But it's just so funny. Like we're going to New York, like, oh, I'm just going to wear heels. Oh, we're just like, I don't know if that's the best idea. That's so much. Yeah. That's even for us guys too. I'm like, I don't want to wear like any dress shoes in anywhere down Broadway. I don't think I've ever, ever done that.

27:28No. It doesn't make no sense. I now wear, like you see, I'm like super comfortable today, but I wear, I bought those. I have those new Cole Hans. Okay. That are like tennis shoes that are like, they're like fabric. They look like dress shoes. Then I put like different color laces on based upon the shirt I'm wearing, because I'm weird. But they're like wearing tennis shoes all night long. I was wearing those in the kitchen for a while. They'd be comfortable yet edgy. People like, I like your laces, your shoes. I'm like, thank you. Well, because I think that Cole Han and, is it Nike emerged? Sketchers? I don't know. So the soles are like a They're fantastic. This is a very old man conversation we're having. But I stand on my feet for like 12 hours a day. So we're going to lose the 20, 30 year old demographic from this convo. I don't think I, my demographic is like 30 to 55. Okay. So they're down with this. They're like, holy shit, comfortable shoes. I mean, yeah, they look terrible. They gotta look terrible, right? You know what? You should do an online poll with this to see if they're croc or not, because I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm a hard not.

28:31What? Thank you. I'm crocs. Because he's a decent human being. I love crocs. Brian says he I want my wife to be attracted to me. Brian says he puts like bacon grease on my crocs so that the dogs will intentionally chew them up. And I'm like, I can either confirm or deny. How dare you. They are so comfortable. You know, the dude, they're comfortable from what I understand. They look aesthetically pleasing. They look comfortable. They look like little smurf feet. So does it, so does like a, a gown you wear at the hospital. I'm not doing it. Hey, you could, you could bring this back. I, Kurt Cobain tried it on stage. He would wear like this smock. That was the nineties. You know, speaking of hospitals, I think I read an article about you just as I was doing the 30 seconds of research before actually interviewing you guys. That you've been hit by a car. How many times? Three. All, all here in Nashville. All here in Nashville. You've been hit by a car three.

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30:35This type of flexibility helps chefs with the ability to offer and test new menu items with ease. They have hundreds of trucks on the road every day to reach their vast market. Their focus is tight urban areas where groups of restaurants and chefs are located. Additionally, they have trucks from coast to coast bringing products to farms and artisans across the globe. You can order through your phone app or online. They truly are what chefs want. Check them out at whatchefswant.com. One of God's great gifts to this world was fresh baked bread. That's why Sharpier's Bakery delivers six days a week to your restaurant as they've been doing for 36 years. Aaron Mosso's family has been running Sharpier's Bakery locally owned and operated right here in Nashville, Tennessee like I said, for 36 years. Go check him out at sharpiers.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S.com for Sharpier's Bakery on Instagram and Facebook.

31:35Give Aaron Mosso a call at 615-319-6453 to set up an appointment to talk about what fresh bread you'd like delivered to your restaurant today. We are talking about net checks today. And you know, last week we told you that net checks is your single source for all things people. We made a list, recruiting, onboarding, performance management, human resources, scheduling, payroll, taxes. The one thing that we wanna focus on today is your biggest pain point, hiring and retention. What do you use? Indeed, Facebook, Craigslist, well net checks, we'll post to all of those sites for you automatically. So there's no need for you to post on all these different sites and keep up with it. One source. Like I said, net checks is your single source for all things people. They are always on the employee experience.

32:37All here in Nashville, you've been hit by a car. How does that happen? Carefully. Is this an insurance scheme that you're working on? Mikey's never, I've never seen Mikey when I got hit by a car. Maybe you've been pushed. Maybe I've been pushed. Maybe I've hired somebody that's also been like kind of floating around. Twice from behind, a car hit me from behind. And then once there was like construction. You're just standing there. No. I was like riding my bike and someone hit me. One of them he rode a bike, one of them he was on a scooter and one he was walking. Just a pedestrian and like looked both ways but it was like a sharp corner and there was construction barriers and the guy was, I mean it was just an accident. You know, it wasn't like malicious but I could flip on the windshield and crack this windshield and flew off on my back. That was very dramatic. Oh yeah, it was. I was at the restaurant and like one of the servers came in. She's like, yeah, I think I saw Brian on those, like lying on the street and there was an ambulance or something. I was like, what the fuck?

33:38Are you for real? I think Brian's got hit by a car. Yeah, but it was so calm the way they said it. So I was like, okay, wait, I don't know. Either you need to calm up or I'm needing to now like calm down. Cause this is. Right before Thanksgiving and I was like in the back of the ambulance and they're like, yeah, you're gonna go to the hospitals. And I was like, no, I don't think you understand. Like I'm going to prep for Thanksgiving. It's a very busy night. Yeah, no, it's like, I have a lot to do. And they're like, well, sir. Your spleen is severed. They're like, well, it's okay. That is what is so, I think I always like categorize that as like old school mentality of us in the restaurant biz. It's like the show must go on. There's not really like backups to each of our roles that are there. And so that's how I file it. Cause I remember that after you did get hit on your bike you still came to work and there was like blood coming through like your chef pants. Like my whole side of my face was like all like. I didn't really notice it cause we got. Rashed.

34:38Yeah, we got like caught up in service. And then I was, I went, you know, I was like, where was the French toast for table 42? And he turned around and I was like, whoa, what happened to you? I walked in the cooks were like, what the fuck is going on? I was like, everything's fine. I just need to worship. Everything's fine guys. Just a flesh wound. It's funny cause Carol Sullivan from today Nashville. She thinks it's the best thing. Yeah. Since sliced bread. When we were on like two weeks ago, she like hadn't seen us as a Dolby via zoom for the past year and a half. And so it was our first time back in the studio. And she was kind of like inspecting. She's like, are you okay? You haven't been hit by any other cars. Like you got here safely. This is fantastic. But it's like, that's, that's your rep. Now you're like a crash test dummy. Well, I do walk everywhere. I don't have a, I don't own a car. Oh, where do you guys live? North Nashville Buchanan arts district. Oh, it's kind of fitting that the acronym is bad.

35:39B-A-D cause it's like, it's a little wild. Oh, like there's gotta be some like cooler name for like the boo cart. We live in Bucart. Oh, German town adjacent. Yes. German town adjacent. Yeah. Okay. Bucart. Bucart. Well, there's like on the buck. I think Hilo, you know, like Wedgwood, Houston, WeHo and like Wedgwood, Houston. Just, yeah. You're trying. So bro, I get so bro sat there like this. Yeah. I can in arts, it'll be there. You'll find it. So we're like to the left of Rosa parks, right? So maybe we can be like Leroy. Or we could be to the right of Rosa parks. If you're coming up. Rosa parks, Leroy. Yeah. Whatever we first. Encourage us. Yeah. We're creating them. We're creating neighborhoods right now. As it is on somewhat like the collateral for the, for the restaurant, the mockingbird, I put North Gulch. And there's some locals that are like, there's no such fucking thing as North Gulch. I'm like. All right. We'll call it Norgu.

36:39Yeah. Whatever you want to do. Norgu. Norgu. We're in Norgu. Yeah. It doesn't, I don't know. Nogal. Okay. That could work. Or Nogal. No, Nogu. Nogu. Nobu. North of Broadway. Norbo. Nobo. No bro. No bro. No bro. But there's a shit ton of bros down there. I'll tell you. There's a lot of bros. And this year specifically, we've been seeing a lot of uptick in bachelor parties coming in the restaurant. Very interesting. It is. And I guess it's, you know, where. Before it was just, you know, obviously the bachelorettes. Well, this is my favorite question people would give me in the Ubers. They would say, there's a ton of bachelorette parties. And they go, there's a lot of bachelor parties. Go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't let me set you straight here. There are a lot of bachelorette parties and they wear matching clothes and the one girl has a sash. They're very noticeable. Yes.

37:40In schools of fish. Do you see the shark? No. When there's lots of women, guess what that brings? Lots of dudes. They do bachelor parties here. They just, you just don't know that that's what they're. Because they're not wearing matching shirts and sashes. Believe me, when the word gets out that the most single women in groups are in Nashville, it brings a lot of dudes. Words out. Like it's, they're there. They just don't flaunt it as much. Because they're like, hey, let's be under the radar. Oh no, they're starting to now. Or attacking. Oh, they're starting to now. Like I'll have tables that start to intermingle with each other. And like, you know, there'll be like one really aggressive guy in a group of 10. It's like, I'm going to go over there and I'm going to buy them a shot. And then we'll sit down with them. And it becomes a little tricky because we've got to train our team. Like, hey, look for signs that, you know, people don't want other people encroaching on them. Yeah. And then we got to touch over here, needs to calm down. Yeah.

38:41Like, we're all here to have fun. Well then you guys got to play bouncer. Yeah. Oh, it's brutal. It's so brutal. So most of the time, whenever you go to a table, you're like, hey, so they get it. They're like, oh, okay, okay, I'm getting up. So they'll understand that. Back off. Yeah, they're just trying to enjoy themselves. And it gets a lot of control. You know, it's funny, because when the Patterson house first opened, that was a rule there. Like when you got set, I don't know if that's still a thing, I don't know, but it was like, we're going to seat you at the bar. These are your seats. Don't get up and go mingle with other people. That a boy does that. We're not allowed, if there's two women down there, this is not your free invitation to go over there and talk to them. Yeah. Like you come here, you sit down at the bar, you order drinks, this is a craft cocktail. Like this isn't a meat market. It's a nice experience. Yeah. It's a good experience where if I am a single woman and I want to go have a drink with another woman, I don't have to worry about that guy. Yeah, exactly. Who's, you know, who's there.

39:42That's great. They're moving. Are they, oh. They're moving into the. Patterson house? Oh, really? In Catburn, I believe. They're moving into the Voorhees building. Oh, across the street from Arnold's. I did not know that. Wow. Over there, Mays de la Vida is going to be there too. It's going to be great. It's going to be really, it's going to be a really good spot. I didn't know they were moving. Yeah. Breaking news. Is that like in the scene or something? Did I miss that? Business journal. Business journal, okay. Yeah. Oh, is that our timer? Nope. That was my reminder. Have another interview. Oh, shite. And then yours, I'm going to put your interview out today. Oh, wow. It's going to be out fast, like today. So I didn't do. Today is Tuesday, the 21st. I didn't do an episode on Monday. I typically put out a Monday and a Friday. No, I'm interviewing a guy named Jeff Hopmayer. If you don't know who he is, that's probably because you that there's no, he is a bourbon broker. Oh, he's, he owns a company.

40:43He's the managing part of it. He's the, he's the guy that owns it. Of the Brindiamo group. Okay. What he does is he sources like really good bourbon. And then you think he, I think he has like 5,000 barrels that like he owns. Okay. And he ages at 12, 15 years, and then sells it to bourbon companies that want to put out a 15 year bourbon. He sells them bourbon. Okay. So he finds all this bourbon, then he stores it and then resells it to people so they can do small batch stuff. Oh, that's awesome. It's really, I'm really interested to hear. I've known him for 20 years. He actually donated all the champagne from my wedding in 2005. Oh, oh, that's how long I've known this guy. He was, he originally was the guy. He was a chef and he created all of the food. When Starbucks started doing food, he created the food for Starbucks and then sold all the recipes and everything to Starbucks and just made a ton of money and then wanted to get in the spirits world. He bought a winery.

41:43Guy's been, I mean, his fascinating guy. That's fantastic. I'm excited. He'll get to meet him here in just a minute when he arrives. That's a dream for sure. Yeah, I'm pretty excited to get into his story. So if you're listening to this, you gotta check that out coming out on Monday, next Monday. Perfect. Yeah, done. Jeff Altmeyer. I'm glad that we'll be on, like you'll be able to get it out today when it's still June, it's still Pride Month because then you get to have your two gay chefs here to celebrate Pride, which is next weekend, this weekend, actually. So it is this weekend. Yes. Tell me about it. What do we've got going on? We're gonna be at the VIP tent on Sunday from three to five, hawking out some really gay food. So. I don't know if it's like really gay food. Like what does that, what does really gay food mean? It's. Unicorn tartare with sprinkles and glitter. It's a specialty. That's unicorn tartare. Unicorn. That's amazing. It's hard to source right now. The supply chain, you guys are gonna get unicorn.

42:45It's hard. That's impressive. I don't wanna brag, but I have a guy, so. You have a guy. Yeah. Yeah, so this should be a lot of fun. There's, I think last time, this will be the first one that we've been able to go back to since the pandemic. And last time we were there was like 2019. And it was, who was there? TLC? Yeah. Don't go chasing waterfalls. Yeah. You don't remember? Please stick to the rivers and lakes that you're used to. Yeah. I have no rhythm, so I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna. How do you not, that was so much fun. I have pictures of it. They have like all this. No, no, no, no, I know. It's just been, I can barely remember yesterday, so. No, I'll never forget that. I never thought I'd meet them before in my life, so that was pretty exciting. And you got to meet them? Yeah, yeah, we got to meet them. Cause like in the VIP area, you get to meet all like the performers that go through. Nice, I think that Chef Star is speaking at the Pride Festival. Really?

43:46She's going on stage and doing the whole thing. Oh, that's great. Yeah. She was on the show and she said, they call me back and they said, no, Chef, somebody from the Pride heard him on the show and they were like, we want you to come speak. And so she's like going on stage and doing a whole thing. I was so excited for her. I love her. She's a treat. Her energy is just spectacular. That event we did last week at the restaurant, which was called the Feast of the Fabulous Five. And apparently there's only five gay restaurateurs in Nashville, which I find it hard to believe. I feel like there's more, but we found out. Whoever you are, please email me so that we can like plan another gay dinner together. Yeah. But yeah, we all got together and joined forces and each chef did a different course. And so we had Chef Star from ANSI and then Chef Arnold Mint from International Market, which is somebody I'm trying to get on the show. He's gonna come in. He's gonna be on in July. Oh, I didn't get him during June. Okay. He'll be on in July. He is, he's pretty fantastic. He's in LA right now filming, so. Yes. Oh, he's everywhere right now.

44:48Chef Margaux from Margaux. She's the OG. OG. Yes. Like of OGs. She's the queen. Yes, very much so. And then Chef David Andrews of the Andrews Bakery, who, God dang it, his pastries are just like. So good. Dreams are made out of. I would like to say that I am very proud. I've had all of those people on the show. Have you? Except Arnold. He's coming next. I've had all of those people on the show already. Oh, good. Those are all amazing people. It was, yeah, it was so great. And I was like, the way I reached out to them via email was like, hey queens, like we're gonna do this dinner. It'd be great if, you know, you can jump on board. I think if we had all of us gay chefs under one roof doing this dinner, it might be enough to like reawaken the spirit of James Beard, his actual self, since, you know, put together this power dinner. Thankfully they all agreed to be part of it. So. And it went well and you guys had fun?

45:48It was fantastic. Oh, it was a blast. It really was. I would donate $2,700 to Nashville Launchpad from that dinner. That's fantastic. What is Nashville Launchpad? It's a organization that offers housing, as well as counseling to LGBTQIA youth that are housing insecure. Which is. Fantastic. Yeah, it is great. I think it's 18 through 25 year olds. If you're having issues with housing, they will take care of you. And they're completely volunteer based. And so it was something really important that we wanted to give back to. Cause it's like one thing to cook like, or bake rainbow donuts or whatever. And it's like, okay, great. Yeah, let's celebrate pride in that aspect, but let's also do it with a purpose. And so that was kind of the meaning behind that. And to be able to give back to like an organization that's really doing some kick-ass stuff for our community was really important. What's the name of them again? What'd you just say? Nashville Launchpad.

46:48Nashville Launchpad. I assume you can find them at nashvillelaunchpad.com some kind. So if you're out there and you want to, if you're feeling like, hey, I haven't done anything for pride month. And I'm listening to this and I'm like, hey, I'm not able to make it to the pride festival. So Nashville Launchpad, you could go right now and make a donation to help. Yeah, they're a fantastic organization. We're really excited that we got to. Do you have any FOMO out there missing out on all these feasts of the five, the fantastic five or? The fantastic five. It was so much fun. I want to do it again. Now that like everything is kind of like open back up and people are, and there's a little bit of a surge of COVID happening. So some people are getting a little leery, but a lot of people are ready to like, to gather again. And so we're bringing back our charity supper series. And so each month in summer, we want to do a pop-up supper to give back to an organization that means something to us.

47:49And so this month it was Nashville Launchpad. Next month, we're doing a pop-up supper that is Golden Girls themed. Oh, hell yeah. And it's going to benefit the American Diabetes Association. There's members of my family, including my mom that have diabetes. And so this is something really near and dear to our heart to raise awareness and help fund for cure and whatnot. So this is our little part in doing so. Love that. Yeah. This one's going to have to come up with a cheesecake that's diabetic friendly. So he's got some work cut out for him. Good luck. Yeah, thanks. Why's it got to be cheesecake? The Golden Girls. Hello. You know what? I remember the Golden Girls. I know Betty White and then, but Blanche was always my favorite. Every time I go back and I was a kid, gosh, I don't, I haven't watched the Golden Girls in 20 years. It's timeless. You gotta watch it. But when you go back and watch it, it's just hilarious. Rose and Blanche, and they just, they bicker back and forth and it's just awesome.

48:53It's amazing. It is. It's pretty hilarious. Especially for back in the day, because it was in the 80s. They did some cutting edge things and took on some really, you know, big topics. Big topics. It was like pretty socially aware. It's huge. Yeah. It's fun. Wish we could get more, I don't know, I feel like today, even today we could be a lot more socially aware, but I digress. Yeah. We're spreading positivity here today. Yes. Oh, you have to be careful with that too. It's like, oh, I don't want positivity. It's so connected to Rona. Oh. So it's a. What? I didn't even see that, but. Joy. Well, Joy. Joy. Can we say Joy? Yeah, there we go. Yeah, we can say Joy. You can say Joy. Happiness. I think I'm just so like keen to all these words dealing with like what happened the past two years, because my last name was Corona. And so it's like, anytime I try to autocorrect, if I'm spelling my name on something, it's like autocorrected to Corona virus. I'm like, no, I'm not Mikey Corona virus. So we both have unfortunate names.

49:53What's your name? What's your name? Brandon. Oh. Oh man, every time I do a table visit and I'm talking to somebody and I'm like, how was your steak? Was it cooked the way you like it? Is everything good? They go, everything's great. And you kind of have this connection and you're like, we all have been really nice. My name's Brandon. I'm the director. And they go, Brandon? Like, let's go, Brandon. I'm like, no, not like that at all. Like not like that at all. I'm sorry. We're gonna take a quick, quick break. Hang in there with us. Quick break to hear word from our sponsors. I wanna tell you guys, I had Erin Mosso in studio. She brought some new t-shirts and some cool swag for us from Sharpies and she saw Robin's insurance. And she goes, oh, is that Van Robbins? And I said, sure is. She goes, I love that guy. I get that again, like Jason Ellis, people come in the studio and they see Robin's insurance and they go, oh, I love them. I use them. They're great. I've known Van forever. Matthew Clements, he's the guy. So I'm here to tell you guys, if it's Benjamin and Max Goldberg, if it's Steven Smithing from the Greenos Grill, if it's Erin Mosso, people are walking in and they see these people.

51:00Erin went to high school with Van Robbins. So these are local people who you should be supporting and can help you succeed. Matthew Clements is the guy. He's the restaurant specialist over at Robin's Insurance. His number is 863-409-9372. If you wanna do a consultation with somebody that can help you ensure that you are insured properly, Matthew Clements is your guy. 863-409-9372. You know, I know another area in which we all want to do the right thing and that is in sustainability and reducing your carbon footprint. And one thing that you can do working in a restaurant is you can take your food waste and put it in a separate bin, put it in a separate trash can. You go to Dishland, you put the, this is why I call it Dishland. You put your food waste into a special Slim Jim that has a green compostable bag. That gets put into a special trash can which goes next to your dumpster that they'll come pick up to twice a week. That then gets taken to their farm where they compost it, turn it into soil, they're selling it to Whole Foods, local landscapers and local farmers.

52:07And you can help reduce the largest supplier of greenhouse gases to your landfills, which is food waste. You need to call Jeffrey Ezell at the compost company. His number is 615-866-8152. We start them at Green Hills Grill this week. We're so excited. My staff's already excited. We're my managers in the meeting. We talked about today. It was like, oh, this is awesome. I cannot wait to do this. I hate that we have so much food waste. So this is your chance. Give Jeffrey and his brother Clay a call right now. 615-866-8152. Come on in, Jeff. Let's, you're like, no, not like that. Can we not just like, we don't want to tap in that. We're not doing that at all. Yeah, I blame that today. Well, so I teased that Jeff Hotmare was coming in and to, so Jeff is here now. This is Jeff. Hello, Jeff. So, oh, you got some bourbon. Oh. Five o'clock somewhere. Yeah. Wait, since you don't drink. You guys need to drink. It's your day off, right? It is, but we're on some crazy crash course diet before we go to Mexico next week.

53:09Oh, me too. I'm going to Florida next month. And I'm like, this is juice from clean juice. I'm like, fucking. Get it together. Oh, I know, it's brutal. And it's so hard to try to keep to a diet whenever you're in a restaurant setting as well. It's like, oh, I want all those French fries. Well, I think we got to scratch the surface today. Yeah, it was fantastic. Just catching up with you guys. I know. Happy Pride Month. Thank you. Thank you so much. Honored to have you both here. Honored to call you guys friends. And you guys got to come back and let's do another one here real soon. Anytime, anytime. Yes, on the street. I want to bring back. So in this studio, I've got this little thing here. I'm going to set the computer up so we can all see. I've got a monitor. We can put it up there. Okay. With all of this, I can take live phone calls now. Nice. So this, I can do live. So we can do talk and shift again. But in the same room and take phone calls and have people come up on the screen and we can do a whole thing now. That's got to happen. So let's do that again real soon.

54:10That'd be a lot of fun. I'm trying to, I might have somebody who might take it over for me to kind of own the process of how talking shift works. But no, you guys got to come back. That was like the most fun I've had. That would be fantastic. So we can do like long time listener, first time caller. Yes. I've always wanted to say that in the correct context. So that would be it. That would be it. Let's do it. Guys, the last thing I do, Gordon Food Service is our title sponsor and they sponsor the final thought. So the final thought is, you get as long as you want to say whatever you want to my audience. You can talk about anything you want, but you get to take us out. The mic is yours, go. Frank, you go first. On what? Whatever you want to say. You could say, literally whatever you want. I don't know. I don't know. Now that I'm on the spot, I'm all like frozen.

55:12You can say, if you're a driver out there, watch out for me and don't run me over. Yes, national drivers. Turn signals are good. Turn signals are amazing. I saw Bumbers security that said, Jesus would use his turn signal. That was awesome. Kindly do not run into a biker and then tell them to get off the road. Don't do that. All right, Mikey. I think just as a reminder to be nice to everyone out there, regardless of what industry you're in or who you come across, just be nice to other humans. It goes a long way. And just spread, I don't want to say positivity, spread joy, spread joy. One thing I like to do is I like to go to like Google reviews and leave positive reviews for restaurants that I've been at because a lot of times people won't leave anything unless it's something negative to say. So show some love to your other kind of fellow independent restaurants and go on there and leave them a nice review.

56:12And the people behind the screen reading that it really does make their day. So do that. Everybody out there who's listening, go right now to Yelp, TripAdvisor, Google Everywhere and find two restaurants that you've loved and leave it. If it's a five star view, great. That helps you have a star rating. Leave a five star view. And then whatever the greatest aspect of that meal was, but go do it right now. Stop listening. Don't even listen to the outro for this podcast. Go right now to Yelp, TripAdvisor, wherever it is, or all platforms and leave a five star review for somebody out there. Be the reason the mockingbird, right? For sure. For us, for any independent restaurant in town, it's the people that reading it and they're read during pre shifts to the team. And so if you mentioned a staff member that comes out and it really does make their day. If there's some critical review that you have to leave or feedback, do it. Yes, call the restaurant, send an email. You're very receptive to those sorts of things. Correct. You like to, we'll get better. You tell us where we failed and we'll get better.

57:14Correct, but if you yell it like in a public review, that it's not gonna really help anybody in that situation. So just send us an email and let us know and we'll address the issue. So yeah, I guess that's my, that's my leaving thought of the day. Well, Mikey Corona, Brian Righamach, thank you so much for joining us here. Thank you for having us. Always a pleasure and we'll talk to you soon. Absolutely. Adios. Adios. Big thank you to Brian and Mikey for making it out in this hot, hot Tuesday to come talk to us about their restaurant, The Mockingbird, about getting hit by cars and about the Pride Festival and their special dinners that they're doing and the fact that they're just awesome. It was much of an interview. It was more of just people sitting in a room talking and sometimes that is so, so fun. After they left, I interviewed Jeff Hotmayer and that was mind blowing, by the way. This guy, if you like bourbon, if you like spirits, this is a behind the scenes, behind the scenes guy and he's a major player and this is a lot of fun.

58:20We have so much fun talking about all the nuances behind specialty and gourmet bourbon and just bourbon in general, but he's a bourbon broker. So if you don't know what that means, you should stick around because Monday we are gonna be unpacking it. So much fun. Thank you for joining us today. We hope that you guys are being safe out there. Stay nice and cool out there. Love you guys. Bye.