Q Taylor

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host and it is a wonderful, fantastic Motivation Monday. Excited to have you joining us today. Our guest is Q Taylor and Q is the owner partner at Cinema as well as 8th and Roast and he comes on today to talk to us about what it's been like through the pandemic for him, what leadership looks like and we just talked about all kinds of scenarios and how he's doing. We talked a little bit about just kind of the situation that's going on right now in our world. This was kind of an interesting interview because we did this last week so it was a little tough to kind of get through it all but we do and I think that it ends up in a great way and I was just so happy that he decided to come on the show because he is just amazing. As most of our guests are that you know and we're excited to bring him to you. We've got Stephen Smithing coming up later this week. Was gonna come on last week, decided to postpone it to later this week. This Friday we are gonna have the roundup and Thursday afternoon live we will have the roundup at 330 on our Facebook page. Our guest host this week is gonna be Matt So Matt will be joining Delia, Joe Ramsey and myself for a exciting show. I can't wait to hear about his staycation series which just wrapped up with Marcus Samuelson and didn't get a chance to try it but there was a lot of footage on a lot of great stuff Delia did so I can't wait to hear all about it. Real quick tell you about Springer Mountain Farms Chicken. You know the most one of the

02:02cool things about them is they're just they're just doing all the right stuff all the time but they feed their chickens a healthy diet. So I found this piece on them not only is the chicken you're eating raised here but their food is too. 100% of the corn and soybean used to make our chicken feed is grown in the USA. Our feed is formulated by staff veterinarians and nutritionalists for optimal health as well as the health and well-being of the chickens and made in our on-site feed mill. The first mill in the world in the world to earn the safe feed safe food certification from the American Feed Industry Association. To further ensure the quality of their feed each load of feed ingredients as well as each load of finished seed is tested in our Insight USDA certified lab. Consumer awareness of GMOs has seen overwhelming growth and resulted in increased demand for cleaner more transparent food sources like non-GMO foods. That's why we have worked out to develop the Springer Mountain Farms plus line of products all the same great attributes of original pure Spring Mountain Farms products plus line feed is made of a hundred percent American grown non-GMO project verified ingredients. Plus products are now shipping to select retailers in the US and Puerto Rico. Learn more at non gmo project dot org. So some cool stuff there you can find all that at Spring Mountain Farms dot com. Please go check them out and support the restaurants that are using Springer Mountain Farms pick them up at Publix. So this is our show today we're excited if you like our shows please click subscribe we would love for you to give us a five-star rating if you can and thank you to everybody who went on the Nashville scene webpage and voted for us we will wait to see the results and see if for some reason we can pull out a pull out a positioning but I just appreciate all of you listeners out there and everybody who's digging in I've got a little bit of feedback recently and I just always love it when you guys let me know what you're feeling so please do click a like on this page on our socials give us a follow and

04:05thanks a lot we appreciate you all please enjoy this interview with Q Taylor. Okay welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio I am here with Q Taylor who is the one of the owners is partner with Cinema Restaurant Ethanroast coffee shop welcome in Q. Hey I'm glad to be here man thank you for having me today. It's an absolute honor and I don't know where to begin today you know normally I start off a show and I'm like hey how you doing you know how's your mental health what's happening right now but I mean we've got a category four hurricane that hit last night we got weather coming towards us we are in the middle of a pandemic mm-hmm and the atrocities that are happening in Wisconsin with just kind of everything and I I don't know where to start a show I don't know how to start off and be like hey man what's going on because mm-hmm I'm just kind of down just kind of down today I don't know I don't I don't want to start the show off that way but here we go. Yeah it's it's it's it's another bullet point of 2020 that you can talk about that started to me I feel like everything got weird when Kobe Bryant actually passed away I felt like ever since Kobe passed away then you had the tornadoes here in Nashville and I don't even know if a lot of people remember this well people there were people affected but there was like one weird Sunday night in Nashville where there was like a lightning windstorm and a lot of trees got knocked down and some power out the retro the wretch yeah exactly the retro yeah yeah I remember that yeah so it was just and you know that's just Nashville and you know Kobe Bryant and then all the police brutality and then COVID it's just it's been an unreal year for sure so you know how are you

06:11managing all that how you doing man it's interesting I'm doing good I'm doing okay you know there's a lot of categories within people a lot and within people's lives I always try to look at it that way you have what's going on in the world what's going on in your jobs what's going on and then what's going on in your own household and then your immediate family and friends so there's been so many things that you have to manage mentally to keep your mental health you know in the right place and you know it's tough and you know having people around you is very essential to people that care about you people that support you it's the most crucial time to have those kind of people in your life in my opinion so it is how do you how do you prioritize that how do you because you own I mean you're your partner in some pretty big you just didn't as a big restaurant I eat the most coffee shops I mean how many coffee shops do you have we have two locations we have a location off of a 65 South Wedgwood exit right off of 8th Avenue close to downtown and then we opened our second location on the west side off of Charlotte Avenue right across the street from Sylvan station next door to Five Points Pizza and that's been crazy I can imagine I mean you've got three locations you're running businesses probably have friends are you are you married you have kids not married no kids yeah I don't know how that didn't happen but hopefully point so you don't have that but so I mean that's it that could be a blessing and a curse right now I mean you know there's a couple different sides that how your perspective is but like how are you yourself finding balance right now you just have to you have to force yourself to you have to say hey when I wake necessity necessity when I wake up today I'm going to make sure I take an hour to myself and you pretty much have the game plan or I'm going to go to the

08:13gym today I'm gonna make sure nobody is calling me nobody is email I'm not going to check my emails I'm blocking out my calendar and I'm gonna go for a run today you know and you on the flip side you have to do that with your key people that are involved in your business too I'm gonna dedicate an hour to my general manager at cinema I'm gonna catch up with her I'm gonna see how things are going I'm going to see how her mental health is going how's the staff and like just dedicating time to yourself and time to your people and getting some sleep too that's a big part of it so I mean one of the topics of conversation I've been talking about on the show is leadership and how vital the role of leadership is during a pandemic right because this is I feel like this is where leaders either really step up and show their true colors and lead or they don't and it is a different type of leadership that's involved right now going into something that nobody's ever experienced before there's no book that you can pick up and go how to lead during a pandemic that's not something there's no book that's right there I'm sure somebody's writing it right now yeah but what have you noticed throughout this kind of through all of this what's the attributes to leadership that you found have been successful for you Brandon more than ever and I've been in this restaurant business and hospitality I've worked in you know hotels and casinos and you know I've worked for independent restaurant owners when I lived in California you know I've been doing this for over 25 years and more than ever half of the leadership responsibilities is making sure people feel okay you know and allowing people to bring a little bit of their personal lives into work and and basically massaging that aspect of that because that's very essential for us to

10:15continue to grow continue to move forward and the third thing is that's how we're going to survive is my team knows that we actually care about them personally and it's not about if you feeling unsafe don't come to work if you feeling unsure about the COVID situation do not come to work we support that if you're feeling that way if you're having personal issues at home because of the situations that the world is in maybe we need to talk about that or just saying hey I'm here for you if you need me and more than ever like it used to be like hey don't bring your personal check your personal stuff before you clock in like that was a world and a time where if you come to work talking about personal shit and bringing your personal baggage to work or your personal feelings to work that's not a good thing and now that's a part and you know yeah and it's actually been a positive thing for us because it's just makes it just makes us more of a family honestly you know and it's been great so that's awesome because I think that this has changed that's exactly the answer to my question how have you changed how you've had to manage and I think that the people recognizing how important people are to your business and not just workers or managers and there's a P&L and if this like cogs in a machine like if XY it's like it's not a playbook on a football field these are actual people that have actual lives that are like that make up who you are and showing empathy and showing that you actually care about them and doing something about that I think is a is an amazing insight into how leadership has

12:15evolved right now and Brandon what's that's actually done for us in the past five or six months is what is what is the effects of that is a trickle-down effect obviously I'm not going to be able to talk to you know the seven dishwashers the six bussers the the 15 servers the five or six bartenders like I can't I don't have time to talk to each individual person individually you know consistently every single day but what what's grown in this process is it's trickled down meaning my general manager my managers are doing the same things that I have done my business partners have done with them with my management team and their their leadership style and us caring about them has led them to be that pillow for the people that they are managing as well so it's been great that's that's fantastic it's good to hear you know I was downtown yesterday I was over in East Nashville at at least barbecue we had Will Newman on the show on Monday and I went down there to shoot a one star review I have these chefs and restaurant owners reading one star reviews kind of a la Jimmy Kimmel reading mean tweets kind of a thing but I have it so he was was nice and obliged to do it for me yeah but when I got there yesterday he was sitting at a table with an employee and he had a stack of pizzas behind him I hope he didn't he's not gonna get upset from me saying this story but there's a stack of pizzas behind him and I said what do you what do you he finished the conversation with the person I said what are you doing he said I'm doing pizzas with Will and I said what is that he goes I you know I don't remember the frequency of which he does it but he said I come in and I bring a bunch of pizza and then I sit at this table and anybody who works here I invite them to come talk to me and tell me what's going on whatever it is if it's personal life if it's stuff that we can do better in the restaurant if they just want to get to know me from dishwasher to general manager if you want to come talk to me grab a slice of pizza sit down and talk to me and tell

14:16me what tell me about you I want to learn about you he does this at all of his locations I don't know if it's monthly or bimonthly but I just thought like man what a really unique way to come in and an honest man like look I care about you I want to know about you I'm not necessarily always available by a cell phone but I'm gonna come in this time and just talk to me I thought that's kind of what you were saying just like that leadership side of get to know your people and I was I just thought that was so brilliant yeah and what I've learned from from all of this also none of this has led to negative results everything that we've done from a personal investment of our people has only led to positive results and that is you know when they care you know it's like it's led into a commitment from our regulars to to continue to support us because now our staff is showing that love to our customers and I guess and now they are like we got to go back to cinema let's order takeout from cinema let's go get a coffee at 8th and Rose that's you know and so all of those things are you know it's cycling in a positive way so I mean that's that's hospitality that's what we do you know and I mean I think that when we're expecting people to share hospitality that love of that spirit of service that we care about you the guest and if it doesn't start from the top if we're setting an example as leaders that we care about one thing and it's numbers and you need to do this and you need to do that and we expect those people in turn to turn and go hey we're so happy that you're here like why would we expect them to do that when we don't treat them that way and it's almost like what you're saying is we do that from the top when we actually treat our employees that way they then turn around and treat the guests that way and it works and it's like check it out it's pretty cool yeah and makes you reflect to them that time that you made shitty mistakes too I'll be you know it's like

16:17man that person I didn't I don't I didn't treat that person that well you know it's like I could've done a better job because I've done I've been that guy you know in my life I've had scenarios where I was like I could have handled that situation a lot better and you know not repeating the same mistakes I've I think that that's so vital in self-reflection though because I that's what I lay in bed and think about I lay in bed and I in the moment it's hard to really recognize those things but when I lay in bed at night and I go when I said this how did how could that have been I shouldn't have done that I shouldn't but then I it's almost like looking in the mirror and I want to learn from each time that I do that and I think it's good you've got I think that you don't learn unless you have those situations yeah you know you can learn from reading the book but until you touch the hot stove and you go damn that's really hot like that's how you really learn not to do it again right on right on so have you had to change leading your restaurants I mean this has been an interesting time did you guys completely close or did you continue doing takeout throughout March and April man Brent I'll tell you we cinema is a little trick is way trickier than the coffee shops actually yeah so my two business partners is Ed and Sam Reed and we the first thing we decided when we tried to figure all of this out was let's just try everything that we possibly can we made the decision and it wasn't like no cue let's not try that or Sam that's a terrible idea it what are you thinking we just basically had a board and we all like had all these ideas and we categorized it by location so cinema 8th and Rose 8th Avenue 8th and Rose Charlotte and we just broke it down and we have tried everything so we shut cinema down for probably a month to fit to reconfigure the business basically I don't know if you've ever been to

18:20cinema before but brunch was a huge financial component and a huge success is I mean it's a huge it's a huge percentage of our revenue year-over-year sure and and what that entails if you ever been to cinema before is our space is about 6,000 square feet so what we do for brunch is we have all of these insane action stations throughout the restaurant so you might go upstairs on the balcony and you got this crazy waffle station and each bar has a Bloody Mary bar and it's like 50 hot sauces on the bar and all these you know things you can garnish your Bloody Mary with the whole deal yeah and you had like this huge soon-in-the-grant in the lobby when you walk in there's this big tower of like fried chicken and biscuits and and you Brandon if you're the customer you you pay a fee which is an all-inclusive thing and it was a home run so you pay $28 and you can eat as much as you want and drink as much as you want so what that entails though is you touching all of this stuff you're going all these stations you're doing all these things and as a result you can't do that anymore during COVID so we have pivot and switch our entire brunch service up it's like how can people feel get the same value as a customer get the same experience without them going to all these action stations throughout the restaurant and cross contaminate and risking cross contamination so we basically had to pivot and bring everything to the table so that in confidence more staff we just had to do a bunch of different scenarios so now you know brunch is still hitting the home run but now we're just bringing everything to your table so is it all a cart now we have all the cart items in addition to all the stations that we have so if you look at our menu it's like okay if it's four people at your table Brandon we're gonna bring fried

20:22chicken to your table enough for four people and if you want to refill if you want to reorder you just continue to get that at a set price oh nice okay yeah so it's not as interactive because I think what what happened in the past was customers were interacting with each other a lot more when there was action stations throughout the restaurant of course yeah you're getting that great experience and you feel satisfied with the price point because you're still getting the amazing brunch items that we offer as well so so when you do that meeting do you have I mean you get you get your two partners yourself you're in a room I don't know if you have chef or gentleman I don't know who's in that room right how do you how do you look at that as a safety factor I mean so do we even was there a point you see closed for a month to figure that out and then when it was safe I guess when did you reopen so I would say a month after the COVID hit I can't remember off the top of my head may something or other yeah it was around May and we implemented a takeout program we put a bunch of safety precautions and systems in place a good example would be for brunch for example we have a designated cleaner and this team member who normally would be like a bus or a food runner or server or bartender we rotate the shifts that person for brunch and dinner is only sole job is to sanitize and clean throughout the restaurant they don't touch any of the food items they don't interact with any other you know the staff or the guests they're just constantly sanitizing somebody walks in the front door they go back and sanitize the door again he goes to the restroom somebody you know all of the COVID practices we put in place for that and so we just made a checklist of things that we wanted to do obviously you know we have disposable menus and then we have the QR code on the tables you know there's just a bunch of stuff that we've

22:25done and then obviously you know you can get stuff curbside pickup as well so we're gonna take a short break to hear a couple words from trust 20 reopening your restaurant comes with great responsibility are you doing everything you can to keep your staff and guests safe with trust 20 certification you and your guests can feel confident you're doing everything you can to keep everyone safe trust 20 is home to the new standard of restaurant safety and consumer comfort by becoming a trust 20 certified restaurant diners will know the practices you follow to create a safe and healthy environment have confidence you're going above and beyond minimal requirements have comfort knowing your practices have been independently verified to learn more visit trust 20.co that's trust the number 20.co trust 20 restaurants have access to a suite of resources that include expert-led training in four key areas individual consultants communication material and signage for national restaurant radio listeners now through the end of August you get free certification when you visit trust 20.co and tell them you heard about them on Nashville restaurant radio trust 20 partnering with you to keep everyone safe wow it's just been a crazy time have you do you have a lot of friends that are in the business what it what are how do you feel like everybody else is doing are you guys doing okay to him are you back to where you're we the coffee shops are finally back to some sort of normalcy like we are getting to a point where we're you know success was we're finally breaking even again and we're not well that's the new success right now yeah and you want to survive and you just and try to advance you know and so you know coffee shops are finally get back the normal cinema you know brunch we're you know things are at a capacity so you can't do you know any parties of over 25 people this has to be six people or

24:26less sitting at a table in cinema really our revenue stream was really built on large gatherings private events rehearsal dinners bachelorette parties like there are a lot of ways that we you know 50 60 70 percent of our revenue was driven on that and then obviously dinner you have to restrict your covers as well and we don't have a patio at cinema so it's not like we can see people outside so everything is indoor inside this grand movie theater and that we've converted into a restaurant so it's a little different for us can you but you get a big area out front of cinema like there's like a big concrete like entry way right it is did you put like ten tables out there and just kind of do like a yeah we tried and honestly like it's just didn't feel right customers wasn't digging it it's just a different vibe and like it's not private enough out there in that area it's just like a parking lot a lot of it's in the parking lot almost so yeah I mean I just you know I didn't know I'm just if trust me we've tried everything so what are you doing if sixty percent of your business is based upon large events how are you pivoting in large events I mean because we're getting into we mean we're rapidly approaching the holiday season yeah I mean it's probably a really big time for you for revenue yeah and we are getting phone calls again we are getting inquiries on doing events and parties and stuff like that and hope that you know things continue to go and hopefully people don't cancel and you know obviously it's not crazy like it used to be like non-stop but you know we looked at our P&L and cut costs as much as possible in a lot of ways and you know we don't have all of our staff back you know obviously we just brought back a bunch of key people and you know right now we're just you know doing the best we can and every week try to figure out how much money we we can let's lose the least amount of money as possible so you

26:30yeah it's a dog paddle man you're just trying to stay above water yeah so one of the things that people do when they own restaurants is they have to partner with lots of vendors yeah lots of people partner with you if they don't then you know I mean that's that's on them but who do you have any vendors that have just done in a hell of a job and helping with you have come to the table with solutions people that have helped you with financing people that have helped you lowering prices or hey we've got a contract here we're not gonna hold you to that because you're doing this like is there anybody out there that we should praise for how great they've done yeah that's been very that's there's been some form of we'll do what we can across the board amongst all vendors in my opinion no one has came to us and it's like hey you're over 90 days behind on an invoice like can we get our money you know and we do a good job of like communicating I think if you communicate with people and reach out to them like hey this is the state they're in let's look at our invoices what can we do and you know the you know people like Athens and all of our beverage vendors have been fantastic and you know US foods and you know a cleaning crew and like you know there's a lot of people that's been you know very they've worked with us is what I would say you know that's good you know and US foods does a I used to work for US foods mm-hmm and from everybody I've talked to they've done a wonderful job just in really pivoting and really doing everything they possibly can to help their to help their customers it's been something I've heard yeah right when COVID happened Creation Gardens is a huge vendor of ours for cinema and for 8th and roast and basically when a lot of the stuff happened in the beginning they gave us a bunch of stuff to give to our staff so for an entire month we were

28:33like a grocery store for our team members oh wow little things like that it was great and so like every Monday and Thursday any team member at cinema 8th and roast can come by the restaurant and just pick up like a grocery cart full of stuff like fruits and vegetables and you know pastry out you know a bunch of cool things canned goods and stuff like that it was great so and Creation Gardens just brought that to you yeah and we partnered with them and there was a few other restaurants that was on board with that it wasn't just us but that was like a little they didn't even want the credit for they just kind of it was kind of this thing we did and it was great that's that's the answer to my question who are the people out there I mean because we got a lot of people that work in restaurants to listen to this stuff you know listen to this show and I just that was a question I've kind of heard a bunch of things throughout town about people that are going above and beyond and I just am curious like yeah from a non advertising perspective just who are the people out there that are really walking walking the talk yeah it's a it's a beautiful thing Brandon because with people like creation obviously came to the decision or like all of these restaurants are not ordering produce like they were because just shutting down and they're trying to pivot everything's out and we're sitting on all this product let's give it to our people let's give it to our clients and you know what else are we going to do with it right so it was a great it's a great thing and you know shout out to Creation Gardens if anyone that works there is listening out you know we've you know a lot of gratitude on my end and our cinema team and 8th and Rose team so we had Monty Crawford come on the show he actually did the show in the middle of the pandemic and kind of talked about just how how they've had to pivot as a company and man that was an interesting episode just listening to what they did after the tornado and then what they had to do I mean with Cisco going down with the tornado was a huge issue yeah I mean because there's they literally had no way to get people food for a week after they were closed they had to pivot but like all these other

30:36companies had to kind of scramble to get them taken care of so if you're a purchaser for one of these companies and you're buying food and all of a sudden you're having to cover for a Cisco that's out for five days and so you bring in all this product and then everything closes yeah you go we just brought in half million dollars in food that's gonna go bad right and every restaurant's closed yeah you know it's interesting yeah definitely all right so so it sounds like you're doing it sounds like you're as best you could be doing you're doing okay yeah you know what can you do you can't sit there and you know to you gotta you gotta keep going no you gotta keep going what am I supposed to do you know you gotta keep working you gotta keep trying and gotta keep you know gotta keep supporting people and you know and doing the best you can and keep working because you don't know that it's over you don't you know so so what is your motivation I mean is your motivation just intrinsically it's just something is just the kind of a person that you are or is your motivation your people that work for you or is your motivation something deeper what sucks you out of the sheets every single day well it's knowing that like man you know we came a long way like cinema open in 2014 June 2014 it's 2020 so that's six years of success for independent restaurant and I say that because we're still open you know yeah you know it's it's it's hard to like say all right let's just wrap it up that's just give up we're done it's just we've worked too hard for that so every day I wake up and I sit down it's like man we've worked too hard for this you know we were so successful with the branding of 8th and Rose the coffee business on 8th Avenue we've grown our wholesale

32:39business and we were so sick we did so well financially that we were able to open up a second location and in talks of a third location in the airport that we are negotiating why would you want to give that up why would you say I we're defeated we're you know we've lost this battle like you got a you got it when you got to keep your mind in the plot in the mindset of we got to win this battle you know we have to win this battle so if I go into work every day if I communicate to my team that oh I'm tired oh I'm defeated oh this sucks oh I hate Kofi you know they're gonna be the same way man so you know they're just gonna see my smile every day and they're gonna say how you doing what can I do for you how can we continue to drive business and that's again here you're bringing home my point on leadership that right now during this time it's so vital that leaders lead and you just described it if you walk in the building everybody's looking at you whatever you do is their excuse for or not excuse it's a that you're allowing them to feel whatever you feel but if you walk in and you maintain a positive attitude in a in a voice of hope and we're gonna do this damn it we've come too far to do this they're all gonna go you're right we're in but if you come in with the woe is me or kind of attitude they're all gonna go oh gosh the guy the leader he's doing that so let's all do that I mean you set the pace you set the tone for everybody and I think that that's so vital and it's not just I think if you're listening to this out there you don't have to be the owner of the restaurant or your business to do that right anybody out there like everybody feeds off of everybody else whether you should or shouldn't it's a it's it's how life works so if you're a server and you come in with a woe is me attitude the other people around you are

34:40gonna feel that too but if you come in as a server with a guys we got this today we can do this let's make people happy we're in the service industry let's take care of people today the best we possibly can that's contagious yeah that's an ownership yeah that's that's definitely leadership and it's identifying people's thoughts by communicating with them and then you sit then you're like hey what is our story as a business what is our story did we do everything we possibly can to make people feel safe when they walk in the door from a covert perspective from a cleanliness perspective now what is our story again how do we make people feel when they actually walk in the door so we got to make sure moving forward every single day when we fucking walk in these that our story is the right story and if we can go home every day and say hey we gave it a hundred percent because you have to say it out loud you know you know when you when you finish your day if you gave it a hundred percent that day you know you know that you know that answer without saying it verbally every day when you go to bed at night you know if you gave it a hundred percent then you know the test you know that but you know the test I always used was how would people remember my performance today now this is kind of morbid this is kind of a bad way to do it but this is how I would ask people if somebody comes in to work late or they don't have it I would go if you left work today and you got hit by a bus what will people say about you at your funeral yeah what would they say would they say oh well they came to work late a lot they complained they didn't skip that without doing their side work they always complained about tables that ordered water they did this or would they be man that guy was excited he was on fire for life he made a difference how do you want to be remembered and then go do that yeah yeah and I think that it parallels it parallels the world right now I think that black people are tired

36:44of being remembered and looked at as people that are marginalized and limited and restricted and treated like shit like we trying to change our story and we're trying to change our identity from a perspective that people do not need to look at us and treat us the way that we've been treated and right now more than ever this platform that people are on and you know trying to maximize that change and give it all we got it's exciting to me I'm excited to see what's to come and hopefully and I truly believe in you know what the future holds with this situation that we're going through and I'm glad to be a part of it and you know doing the things that we're doing you know it's given us opportunity to you know to dive deeper into it and see how we can contribute it in a positive way to in our community as well so what a year I feel that a hundred percent I feel I feel there's a lot of a lot of changes that are happening as far as people understanding at a deeper level what's going on me myself I mean I'm when this whole the George Floyd protests Black Lives Matter I mean I think my perception of it in the past just as a white male American wasn't I don't know I don't think I looked as introspectively as I did during this particular time and I realized a lot of stuff about myself and I started doing some research and I wrote a blog post on here and I would say you know one of the questions I want to ask is you know what what can I do but that's not and that's not an accurate question is as a white man like

38:45I need to go do that research myself I don't need to go and ask other people what I can do I need to just figure it out and for me it was while I didn't every day there's nothing I did that was like oh hey you're of a different color I'm I feel like I'm better or I'm gonna treat you a different way what I didn't do was if I heard somebody doing that I didn't stop them right so mm-hmm that's what I feel like for me the biggest thing is that I've learned is Ibram X Kendi wrote how to be an anti-racist and I realized that I haven't been an anti-racist I have been as somebody who if I heard another person say something I'm like just shake my head but I didn't go hey that's not okay yeah stop that mm-hmm yeah and that's what I was I figured that's what I was trying to say I said for the first time in my life I feel like we are really trying to change our story like that's we're changing the narrative of the situation in a deeper way in a in a different way and identifying that and making sure that everyone is on board with that is to go so we can move forward and not have to deal with this shit again like it has to stop it has to I didn't realize I don't typically cuss on this I didn't realize how fucked up it really was yeah you know I mean I I live in my little cocoon and I didn't real I'm like damn this is this is real and it's everywhere and we've all every one of us has to stand up for this and people not and people finally realize how consistent this kind of activity is and it's like wow this is really consistent this ain't a one-off once every eight years or this is high level consistency it really is it's and it's a it's a travesty it is terrible and I can't imagine I always

40:51tell my people I say you just got to change the story the story should not be the same anymore and until people who are oppressing the people who are doing this you know the people that until we have no victims the story has to change so how can we do that how can we game plan on that how can we work together and you know focus in the communities that you're in to make sure it's not happening in your community and then hopefully it trickles down to a wider audience so yeah and you know it's tough too because you want to just tell people you want to like just scream it from the rooftops and I have been an advocate of looking in the mirror not saying what you should do or what you should do or what you should do that every single person right now needs to look in the mirror and say what can I do what can I do to stop racism not what you should do or what they should do what can I do yeah and I think so many people focus on other people that's a that's a job what if you the idea the idea that you have to think about how can you make other people not be racist that is the dumbest shit to have to spend your time doing and I'm sorry to say that but like that's like how can I tell this guy hey you cannot be a racist racism is bad like it's crazy to even have to say that out loud it's insane you know that that's something that needs to even be vocalized it somebody could even begin to argue that like this isn't an argument this is not this is not an argument and the fact that it even is at any point just shows that we have a lot of work to do yeah yeah 100% well I don't know where to go from that I think

42:54that's I don't I mean I don't I don't yeah I'm so I'm so sad I'm sad honestly Brandon you got to look at it differently you got to be optimistic you know I am I am I am optimistic I think things are gonna change but it doesn't I don't think that that changes the fact that it's it's messed up and it makes me sad that there are people out there that fight this yeah you know it makes me sad because there are people out there that for they've lived this way for so long and optimistic that there's a potential that this could stop hopefully yeah but it does make me sad yeah so it's crazy yeah it is it's it's brings tears to it brought tears to my eyes yesterday the thought of someone getting shot in the back seven times it's hard for me to even say it to be honest it's it's it's in front of his family yeah from his children and I don't I don't know who Jacob Blake was I don't know his character I don't know anything I'm not educated on his past or any kind of situation that he's been involved in previously I have no idea but I do know that like he should not have gotten shot in the back seven times in front of his family there's no justification for that nope zero I'm 100% agree with you and it's it's infuriating and now he's pregnant and that's just another aspect of it there's just like you know yeah again makes me sad but I have been an eternal optimist

44:55if you've listened to the show yeah I have said I've said two things two of my big analogies and I'll bring this around is I have said we are all caterpillars following we're all caterpillars and going into quarantine is like our chrysalis right so we are going in this chrysalis and at the end right now whenever whenever we finish this thing out are you going to emerge a beautiful butterfly or are you going to be a moth are you gonna come out educated and I've learned so much I understand so many things about me I've lost ten pounds I'm working out I'm reading books I'm doing everything I possibly can I'm getting better in life or you're gonna gain 20 pounds and you know just I don't care whatever come out like and or you know these wildfires you look at a wildfire in California right you're from California I'm actually from Memphis but I live in California for seven years okay so you've seen a wildfire too right I've seen a lot of shit yeah so you you drive by in California it's crazy you drive by a whole hillside and just be black yeah from a fire gone through but it's beautiful it grows back up beautifully you know so we recover really well and I just feel like we're gonna come out of this thing so well we're gonna come out of this thing so much better than we were before oh I'm ridiculously optimistic but it doesn't mean I'm not allowed to be sad today you have to agree a hundred percent home run on that but you have to believe you have to have faith that there's no way in and on this God's green earth that cops are going to kill people like this forever it's just what happened no it's just no way that can continue to happen what part of

46:58California were you in I live in LA West Hollywood Beverly Hills I used to work in a French hotel called the Sophie to and that's kind of where my career kind of took off in a in a nice direction got a nice I got lucky and got a really good job with a restaurant group based out of that hotel so it was great good times yeah we didn't get to talk about all like your past and where you've come up and we just started jumped right into what we're doing right now I'm originally from Orange County myself okay and so I was just in LA two weeks ago matter of fact I was one of those people that got on an airplane and flew to California yeah it wasn't bad at all you know if you're careful and you you know just don't touch stuff and lick doorknobs I think you know you're wearing a mask and whatever it was cool we took to it we took our kids with us so my grandparents still live in Riverside okay so we have to go visit them he turned 90 last week oh congrats man that's a blessing that's awesome so we wanted to go just see him before the kids started school and it was nice so man thank you so much for just coming on and telling me about your story right now and what you're doing and how you're doing it and I hope this wasn't too boring to you I do I love it this is this is I've told people that my mental health is fantastic I quit drinking before this whole thing started so I've been completely sober throughout the entire pandemic and I get to talk to people in the restaurant business about how they're doing like every day I get to have all these amazing conversations so I'm I'm loving life I'm a pretty lucky dude right now so yeah I'm okay well I'm glad to be on this show man I'm very humbled and appreciate your love and support man and allow me to get on your platform and it means a lot so it means a lot you would do it so I offer

49:00every single guest the final word no no script nothing whatever you want to say for as long as you want to say it open mic city of Nashville actually listen there's actually like 17 countries that listen to this episode this podcast now so that's great whatever you want to say man the floor is yours I would just like to say I always say continue to support more than ever just try to find the small businesses that you're fans of and just can try your best to support them as much as possible not just obviously you know this is a great platform to talk about you know cinema restaurant and bar and 8th and roast but you know in other neighborhoods and other just supporting small businesses and you know every dollar helps you know so there's something to keep in mind when you when you decide to go out to get something to eat or if you go out to get a cup of coffee and you know if you usually go into the big boys think about the small the small mom and pop spots so it's very essential and very critical during these times and cinemas open six nights a week Tuesday through Saturday actually five nights a week and then we do brunch on Saturday and Sunday every weekend from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and then we have two coffee shops 8th and roast one is on 8th Avenue right down the street from cinema and our second location on Charlotte Avenue and that's seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and our coffee business then our restaurant business are also available for online ordering as well so and follow us on Instagram at cinema Nashville and 8th and roast and appreciate this time man. It's our absolute pleasure come back anytime whenever you got something you want to say love to have you back on the show man man that'd be great I would love to. Alright so there we go Q Taylor on Nashville Restaurant Radio thank you guys for bearing with me on that one it's

51:03always a little tough being you know who you are and having kind of those conversations are never like an easy thing but I want to I don't want to steer away from I want to jump in and start having tough conversations and I feel like every time that I do I just learn a little something and appreciate Q coming on having that conversation with me he's just amazing and we will have more from Q there's so much more I want to dig into he's had a crazy history and just a super good guy so thank you guys for listening today and I hope that you and yours are being safe love you guys bye