Sam, Grace, and Joey from Buds and Brews

00:00We are super excited to introduce Maintain IQ for restaurants. Maintain IQ is a modern digital checklist system that simplifies your operations. They are designed specifically for restaurants. You can standardize, track, and manage food safety procedures, temp logs, daily checklists, preventative maintenance, and ongoing repairs. He's saying that you can, managers will save up to 10 hours per week. You can repair, you can reduce repairs and maintenance spend by $5,000 a year. Staff will know what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. Everything is digitally recorded. Minimize liability, ensuring safety, cleaning, and compliance standards are upheld. This is the best thing since sliced bread, guys. And we're gonna talk about that in just a sec with Sharp Yeas. But we are talking about a checklist to do every single thing in your restaurant that's all kept nice and neat in a little app. You need to call Will Joxon. His number is 888-534-0261 and set up a 30 minute demo.

01:04If you do that, I'll give you a free Nashville Restaurant Radio hat, or I'll give you a free Nashville Restaurant Radio t-shirt. Just send me a message on Instagram. Check out Maintain IQ. Did you know the number one cause of methane or greenhouse gases in landfills is your food waste? Restaurants waste so much food. All the food people don't eat, all of the scraps that come from all of your prep, it all gets put in a dumpster and then gets buried in a landfill. And as it decomposes, creates methane gas. Well, thank God, Jeffrey Ezell and his brother Clay have come up with the compost company. You can now compost your food waste. They take it to their farm, they create organic soil out of it. They then sell that to Whole Foods as well as local farmers and landscapers. So it's literally coming full circle in your community. If you're a restaurant owner or manager, you need to be calling Jeffrey Ezell at 615-866-8152 and they will set you up with the green bags and the green trash cans that they will come empty twice a week. If you work in a restaurant and you would love to have this option, instead of putting food into a trash can, you can start composting.

02:09Tell your manager to call Jeffrey Ezell that's 615-866-8152 or follow him at The Compost Company on Instagram. 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 powered by Gordon Food Service. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We've got a great one today. We are talking with Sam, Grace and Joey and they are from the brand new Buds and Brews. They opened today. You should go check them out. So in this episode, we are gonna talk with Grace, who is the general manager, Sam McGee, who is the chef and then Joey Fuson, who is an attorney here in town and he is an investor and Joey is also our landlord for this studio.

03:21So I'm in Joey's building. He's a friend of mine. We've known each other. We've all known each other. This is like a locally owned kind of getting back together. I've known Sam since I was like 12 years old and we're both 43. So that's kind of cool. We've been in this business together for a really long time and I couldn't be more proud of this guy and what he's doing. And you know what? They're just super sharp people in Buds and Brews. Germantown is open now and man, what an interesting concept this is. What an interesting road ahead these guys have introducing the very first cannabis restaurant and bar in Tennessee. I mean, just the ability to manage all of that. It's so much, and that's what we get into in this conversation today. We're gonna talk about what it's like. We're gonna talk about all the different strands. We're gonna talk about legalization. We've got an attorney in the room talking about this stuff. I talk about the highest I've ever got.

04:24It's an interesting part of the story. I talk about my own cannabis use and what I think it should be legal and what I think. And I think that microdosing and all this stuff is super important. This is a really important interview I think because we don't just talk about, hey man, let's get high. We talk about like all the different strands and what a cannabinoid is and what is CBD? What is CBN? What is CBG? What is Delta-8, Delta-9? These are all words you've heard. We talk about what they are today in the show. We talk about the sauces that they're making. We talk about dabs. I mean, we talk about it all. I don't know if you don't know much about weed or if you don't know much about cannabis, the flower of cannabis or buds or any of that stuff. Today's a great episode and we're gonna talk about how they're doing it in a responsible way over at Buds and Brews. So much, I've been seeing it all over social media. They're just plastering it, that is. Opening now, we had them live in studio. This is the hour long conversation about all the details you're not gonna get anywhere else but here.

05:27So I've got a few announcements to make before we get going. Number one, Maribor, one of my restaurants, we are hosting Shane Nasby and Cletus original smash burgers at Maribor Sunday night. This is gonna be from five to eight. It's gonna be a pop-up and it is gonna be super chill, super laid back, super fun. You're gonna come into Maribor. You're gonna sit down. You're gonna be able to enjoy the atmosphere in this beautiful home. If you've never been to Maribor, it's at 5201 Maryland Way. I would love to see you. I'm gonna be there all night long, walking around, working, talking to people. I would love to meet you if you wanna come by. Stop in and be like, hey Brandon, I wanna just, I just, just say hi. I would love to meet you if you're a listener, if you're not, but we would love to have you come by Maribor. I'd love to pack that place out and sell him out of burgers in a couple hours. So it's a first come first serve type basis. Get there at five o'clock and get a table. It's gonna be a lot of fun. So that's number one. Number two, we're bringing back Brandon's book club with our buddies over at Robin's Insurance.

06:32These guys are amazing. Van Robbins and Matthew Clement. They are your guys. And Matthew actually turned me onto a book called The Comfort Crisis by a guy named Michael Easter. And this book is incredible. It's called The Comfort Crisis and it just, it talks about getting out of your comfort zone. We live in a 72 degree world and this book has changed my life. Matthew posted about it and he said, this book has changed my life. And I was like, well hell, a book changed your life. I'm gonna give it a shot. So I've read it twice now because I'm a loser and that's what I do. So I wanna read it a third time with all of you and I wanna know how we can translate this over to the hospitality industry. And now we've got a sponsor. So Robin's Insurance, guess what they're gonna do? They're buying the books. The first 15 people to message me and say, dude, I wanna read that book. You get a free book. You get a free book. You just message me and say, hey, I'd like to read this book. Or if you wanna buy the book on audio, just send me the receipt and I will Venmo you the amount of money.

07:33Really that easy. This is gonna be sponsored by Robin's Insurance. They are gonna be, the end of this month, we're gonna do a live podcast where we're gonna bring people on. I want you to be on the StreamYard, which is our version of Zoom. You'll be on the podcast. We'll be talking about the book. If you ever wanted to be part of Nashville Restaurant Radio, this is your chance. And hopefully if you're out there and you wanna do something, this book is motivational. It's amazing. It just talks about doing stuff that gets you out of your daily and helps you grow. And if you're not growing, then come on guys, we've gotta be getting better every single day. I believe that. If you want that, this is the book for you. Brought to you by Robin's Insurance, Brandon's Book Club, it is back. Go follow Brandon's Book Club on Instagram. I've got a group on Facebook that is called Brandon's Book Club. We're gonna be talking about all the things. Yeah, next big thing we've got going on is our Bracket Challenge. It's gonna start on Monday. So you're gonna go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com on Monday.

08:35And from there, there's gonna be a link where you can vote for your favorite Mexican restaurant. We're gonna have 64 restaurants, four different North, East, South and West of Nashville. And at the very end, we will have the showdown, the final four between North, East, South and West Nashville, the best Mexican restaurant chosen by you. We've got 64 good ones, locally owned and operated, from small little ones to big ones, from Al Abrege, who's really kind of a food truck, he's just on the scene to Rose Pepper, to small, you know, Tacos de Mariscos Lopez, number four. We're talking all of them. If you have your favorite one, that is your turn to vote. It is free to vote. You just go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. And the winner, the winner is gonna be announced on September the 15th. We are gonna throw a party at the best Mexican restaurant in Tennessee, in middle Tennessee. I'm gonna be recording live from the venue. We're gonna have mariachi bands. It is going to be an absolute blast. We're doing this for Mexican Independence Day.

09:36And it is all brought to you by NetChex. My girl, Lauren Domaine and Anna Smith, they are just the most amazing people. They've helped me put all of this together. They're super engaged in this. I am so in debt to the people over at NetChex. I tell you what, Lauren is like the most detail oriented, most on it person I've met in a really long time. And guys, they do payroll and they do hiring. You have got to give them a call. They are just absolutely amazing. Their number actually is 615-319-9200. That is a number you need to write down because that is Lauren Domaine's number. If you have any issues, any questions about payroll, hiring, they do really everything. They're really amazing. Go check them out at netchex.com. That's N-E-T-C-H-E-X.com. Or just call Lauren. If you want somebody who's a badass, who's gonna come help you in so many ways, Lauren is that person. I love working with her. 615-319-9200.

10:38Holy cow, lots of announcements today. I'm so excited to get into this episode right now. Without further ado, Buds and Brews. No, it's true. When Joey comes down here, we're just like talking or something. He's like, let's get on mic. And we'll just sit on mic and have a conversation. It's so great though, because there's so many things in life that you do that there's distractions everywhere, but there's very few moments you get to sit in a quiet room that's noise canceled with headphones and a microphone talking directly in your ears. The ability to focus on somebody and say, wow, I'm listening to you. It's amazing. If my wife could talk to me this way, our relationship would be fricking amazing. So every house needs a studio now. Do you have a conversation? Let's go to the studio. The other crazy part is you can't talk over each other when you're doing podcast, you know what I mean? But in conversation, you always talk over other people. There's ebb and flow, but you have to really pause, wait, do it.

11:42Yeah, for sure. Okay, so here's the only thing, guys, and we're just gonna jump right into this episode live. We've already started talking. I've already started recording. So yes, there you go. He's like, look at this. Don't say anything bad. So the only thing I need you guys to do is just when you stand here, get comfortable and put that mic right into your, like you gotta talk. Right in there. Yeah, there you go. You see that? You gotta like talk right on it and you're gonna be great. In a world. It's a good introduction here for Grace and Sam from Buds and Brews. What's up, buddy? So Sam, you're the executive chef. I'm the chef over there, yes, sir. Grace, what are you doing over there? General manager. General, you're the GM, okay. We also are graced today with Joey, Joey Fuson, a freeman in Fuson, who is my landlord here. Yeah. That's a weird kind of thing to say, like my landlord here. And this podcast today that we're doing is essentially the reason why I have this studio.

12:44Well, one of them, I guess. But I mean, to go back to the genesis of you learning about Nash Buster Radio and reaching out to me was a friend of mine telling you about my podcast because you were telling him about Buds and Brews. And then you said, I wanna call him. And then we were kind of talking about doing this podcast and throughout all that, you were like, hey, I got a room. Do you wanna make a studio in my building? And now here we are. Yeah, I think if I recall correctly, I was reaching out to you to try to talk to you about Buds and Brews and get your insight and see if we could possibly go on the podcast. And now we're doing that podcast today. That's right. That's funny how these little things happen. Five months. So the even crazier part of this story is that Sam McGee, I've known you since I was like nine. Yeah. I mean, I'm 43. You're 43 probably. 43, yeah. It was you right there. We were in the same school. This is a big grassland like Franklin Reunion in this room right now. I mean, the whole, the restaurant. I mean, with throwing a couple of the investors in the same names, grassland guys.

13:48Grace, where did you grow up? I grew up outside Chicago, actually. So I moved to Nashville a little over four years ago. Okay. That's fantastic. And did you say, are you guys in a relationship? Yeah. Okay. No. At least we both said yes. That would have been awkward. Yeah. Well, we don't want to label things like, no, that's exactly what we are. We, it is a relationship. So you were on the, actually the third episode that we ever recorded. So the way this podcast started on March the 12th, I started talking on microphone about this new Corona thing. My first episode is, who wants another Corona virus or something? And then that night I got on Facebook and I just, I've said, hey guys, this is some crazy shit that's going down. Who wants to talk about it? And all these people were like, I do, I do, I do. And so I literally had a cell phone up next to a microphone and Sam McGee was one of the people that I spoke to. That episode has like 65 listens. We're killing it.

14:50Nobody listened to that at all because it was the third episode and it was called Catching Up with Old Friends. And it was me and like four different people. I got a friend in New York and I had a friend who worked at the airport and then you were running a... We were running the coffee shop. The coffee shop. We had to switch it up in a week and go from being a coffee shop to family meals to go, just like that on the fly. It was what we were talking about. On the farmers market too, which was kind of crazy because it was connected through a farm here in Nashville and so we actually did local kind of grocery pickup that was farm to table and it was just one of those drag through things. You place your order online and it's funny how, that's how everyone does it now anyway, but yeah. It's so weird because that episode has 65 listens and it was probably one of the realest episodes I've ever done. It was four people two days into this thing and we were talking about what the fuck are we gonna do? And it was amazing because it was like people's attitudes of man, we're in the service and it was like this one episode where the service and the people in this industry just kind of came up and said, we're gonna do whatever we can.

15:56We're gonna do whatever we can to serve our community and this is what we're gonna do. Every day we're gonna be safe and it was just like, wow, what a special episode, 65 listens. So if you're listening to this, go back to the beginning of National Restaurant Radio and listen to the episode catching up with old friends and you can get Sam's story from like March 14th, 2020. The whole world flipped on us and we're just coming off the tornadoes too. It was like a week and a half after the tornadoes. We had a soccer game, tornadoes and Corona all in like a week it felt like. And I was like, damn, what is going on? It was a crazy world. What has life been like since that day? Catch us up. Well, it's been a pretty wild. I had, I don't know, a little over a year and a half ago a buddy reached out through Facebook that I've known for about 20 years, Mikey Solomon and he reached out and he said, hey, I got this idea. So I met him down here at Arnold's and he pitched this idea for this restaurant. And I've known Mikey and I've known he's always been, he's very, he just goes, he just goes.

17:00And after talking to him for 30 minutes, I was like, oh yeah, I'll tell the coffee shop I'll be leaving pretty soon. So he's passionate, enthusiastic guy. Oh, he is, he is. I mean, you've never met a bigger fan of advocate of cannabis than Mikey Solomon. Yeah, and Mike and I have known each other since college and we, as his attorney and as the attorney for the Holistic Connection, which is the big hemp dispensary in town, we would sit around and kind of just dream up of exactly the things we could do with cannabis here in Tennessee based on the laws. And we originally kind of thought, okay, we put a restaurant right next to a dispensary. And then we started realizing, we don't have to do that. No, no, and the laws in Tennessee allow for as long as the products are hemp derived. And the Delta 9 THC is under 0.3%. So that just refers to the Delta 9 part of it. And you can consume it. There's a lot of different delivery systems. You can consume it, you can have it in food, you can have it in sauces, you can have it in drinks, you can have it in gummies and edibles and all those things that are allowed.

18:04Now, obviously the hemp flower is not gonna get you impaired in any way. It's gonna have too low of a level of THC in it. And so what you see nowadays, you see a lot of different varieties of flower that have different cannabinoids in it. But currently right now, what we're doing is original. It's new. It's something where we're taking the cannabis plant and giving it to the customers in a lot of different ways legally and responsibly. And salmon and salmon grates are a big part of that because we've been working hard to make sure the products that they're getting and the way they're getting them are delivered in a proper dose controlled way. So Sam, you're a chef. You went to culinary school, you've been doing this forever and you hear what he just said and then you hear your love for food and your love for cannabis and you went, so I get to marry these things in an industry that I absolutely love and we're gonna do this with a bunch of my friends? Yeah. Hell yeah, let's do this, right?

19:04I started listening off some of the people involved. I was like, I mean, this is just, it was wild. It sounds like something that was cooked up in a bedroom by a bunch of 13-year-old boys and then it became a reality. You know what I mean? The reality is it probably was. It might have happened to 16, 17, 18-year-old boys that when they're in their 40s, it actually happened, right? And when you marry good food, which Sam's doing good service, which Grace is creating, and then you had 90s rap. I mean, what can go wrong? I was. I went in the other night and Biggie was playing. That's what it is. Is that a thing? Is that 90s rap in there all the time? I mean, Grace could talk to them about it. I mean, we play a little bit of everything. You know what I mean? There's gonna be daytime vibe, nighttime vibe. We'll be open till 12.30. So towards the end of the night, with especially the vapor taps in house, it'll probably cultivate more of a party culture. But yeah, the 90s hip hop has been a big hit. Yeah, it's a huge, I believe every time I hear 90s, I'm like, oh man, it just brings me back. It brings me back to a happy, happy place. And I'm a big fan of Wadsburg Panic, and I've been kind of going to their concerts since college.

20:09So Fish and Grateful Dead and Wadsburg Panic and Bob Marley and some of that stuff during the day is also pretty nostalgic for me too. So I'll throw in some Dave Matthews. And some Dave Matthews. No, we love him. Yeah, of course. So it's just the whole vibe. So Grace and Sam, you guys, you've been here for four years. Have you guys been together for four years? Let's talk about how you guys met. How did this Grace and Sam thing happen? Take it. Y'all hear his perspective. Yeah, that's right. So I was running the coffee shop and I was helping out a friend. I was just supposed to be there for a few months to get it off the ground. And it came at a perfect time in my life where I could kind of just, you know how the restaurant business, just go, go, go. And then I discovered waking up early and going to work early wasn't really a bad gig. And you can be done by four o'clock in the afternoon, and Grace was hired before I got there. And after Corona kind of started pivoting things in my eyes and we didn't really work together that much in the beginning.

21:10So you didn't work together. She had different role there? Well, we used to be open seven to seven. And so I often came in at like two or something and Sam would leave around 2.30. So we had a lot of cross paths. There were ships passing in there. And then when COVID hit, they pared down the staff and the hours and they kept kind of essential people. And so then it was just us and another friend like every day. And it was weird because no one was really coming in and we were just basically trying to make it work, but like spending a lot of time just in a coffee shop, trying to make it work. What everybody else in the world is doing at that time, like we're trying to figure out how to run a business in a pandemic, right? But you guys had to do that together. Yeah, and coming out of that too, we had to completely rebuild. And I think we both took a lot of personal ownership over the place that we were working at and really wanting to build it back up to, because we had had a lot of momentum beforehand. So we knew that there was a lot of potential there. And I think that in that and working together so closely and so often, I mean, really what happened was during the pandemic, Sam, when we weren't always working together, he would call me and I would think that it was about something work related.

22:16And then he'd be like, no, I was just saying hi. It was about a month ago. Were you like crushing hard? I felt like a kid again, I'll tell you that. Here we go. We started throwing music events and this was about like six months before we really started dating and he let it slip to one of our coworkers. But he didn't tell me that for a long time. And to her credit, she didn't tell me either. She kept a secret. So there you go. Thanks, Liv. Wow. So when did you guys first finally like realize that you wanted to be a thing and did you guys have like a date or were you guys just like, okay? We were bartending an event together out at the farm. And we got done early, it was like sunset. You couldn't put it in a better man. I was at an Ashton City at this farm. He was like, I'm gonna shoot my shot tonight. I did. This is it. I did. Got some bottle of leftover wine, some leftovers, went out to a picnic table. It was yeah. Right there. And that was it. That was it. She kept me on edge for a week to let me know her response. But you know, she was good. Did you give her a piece of paper that was like, I like you, do you like me? Basically, yeah. Basically.

23:17Yeah, basically. But we've just been a good team. And so when Mikey called me, and I went over to his retail office and all that, and I was, he was building so fast. And he was just, you could see it. And I knew what she could do. And so I said, Mikey, you should, she talked to my girlfriend, Grace. And I'm sure at the time, he probably thought he was just doing me a favor. Like, yeah, all right, fine. I'll hire you and hire your girlfriend. But when you meet us and you hang out with us for 10 minutes, it's clear who the brighter of the two is, and who's got more potential. And she came in and worked her way up and was kind of running his whole side over there for a while, and now she's focused on the restaurant. So it's just. You know what's funny? I don't want to interrupt you. When I met you the other night, because I went by, I wanted to go by, and I wanted to see the place. I wanted to just check it out. I wanted to know what it was about before we really talked. And we were looking at, you have different sauces and all of the different dispensing methods you have. But when you walked over and I started talking to you, I was like, oh, she knows what the fuck is up.

24:18Like, I was immediately like really impressed with not only just like, you're just meeting me for the first time, but your professionalism and what you're talking about. It wasn't like, yeah, man, you're going to get like you. It's so, that's what I love about legal cannabis and why I think we should legalize it is because it doesn't have to be this back alley shady thing. Like when you legalize it, now we can kind of control it. And like, I like just a small, small amount to help me sleep kind of a thing. But I can't like smoke a bowl because I would just get like if I, but if you could micro dose something somehow, if it was legal, it'd be amazing. And everybody could do that. But you knew every single detail about every single thing. And I was like, she's on it. Like she is on it. Really, I mean, I working with the Holistic Connection for the last year and helping in a different capacity from retail to even some of the dosing and formulation, you really get to know it pretty quickly. And I've seen hundreds and hundreds of customers come in and out and their different reactions and ultimately like at, I mean, talking about vibe, I mean, yeah, we're playing 90s hip hop, but really part of the reason that we're doing non infused food, we also have a full bar is because we want people who are skeptical to be able to come in, sit down and people watch if they want.

25:34If they wanna come in and just have a normal meal and they're nervous about it and they wanna see how other people are doing it, they have that opportunity to come in and have whatever kind of experience they want. And in that way, it's very disarming where you can just experiment at your own pace. And that's really what we try to encourage people to do too because we don't want people to have that like, oh man, you're gonna come in and get so high. We don't really even say that just because we do want people to come in and feel safe and have fun because if you can get a good structured environment, it sounds kind of funny to say a structured environment is a good one to have fun in, but it is because you're comfortable. And that's what people want at the end of the day is just to be comfortable, so. And it goes back to what you were saying, Brandon, about the idea of having this legalized. And so the idea of legalization brings regulation. So when you have a product that is not legal, you don't have structure, you don't have control, you don't have testing, you don't have regulations that monitor the industry. And what we've tried to do in essence with the holistic connection and now with Buds and Brews is we are regulating ourselves.

26:39We're doing exactly what you should do, which is properly test the items, make sure the dosages are proper so people can know what they're getting. In Buds and Brews, servers aren't dosing. We're not having anybody in the restaurant that's taking THC from the hemp plant or CBD or any of those cannabinoids and infusing them there on site. They're already pre-done, pre-sealed, pre-tested. They're being regulated properly as if we were already under some structure. We're creating the structure. And back in March, we tried to present this same type of structure to the legislator and we got really far to the point where we had a bill on the floor and it just never got voted on. So we go back in essence to no rules. So we are creating the rules. We're doing everything. It's 21 and over, okay? All the products are sealed and tested offsite. And everything you get in the store, it's coming with a seal, right? So you're breaking the seal in essence when you're making mocktails. The desserts we have are in sealed packages that have already been tested that are taken out of the packages when they cook them.

27:43So you've got everything there pre-done, which is important because as Grace said, you want people to have an experience that they expect and that they want. And they can have a great experience. We've seen that in the last week since the soft opening and the start of people have really enjoyed it. Yeah, and to Joey's point too, something that I think is really important is when you say sealed and packaged, it sounds more artificial, but really we have grow facilities too right here in Tennessee. And like those brownies that we have are probably made within the last week or two. I mean, and you get to meet the people who cultivate this, extract it, and it's testing along all those avenues too. It's not just the final product. We test the flour, we test the extract, and then you really get that farm to table kind of seed to shelf, as we like to call it, experience. So yeah, it's all very regulated along the way, but it's also so fresh and local. Yeah. Seeds to shelf. I love that. Think about it. This is starting from a seed. The seeds are actually originally tested to make sure they qualify and that they qualify for the hemp program here in Tennessee.

28:45And it's all the way up to it being put in a sauce that you're dipping your chicken fingers in. I mean, it's the full spectrum. It's all being controlled by our partners and Ballistic Connection, Craft Cannabis, and Buds and Brews. You know, I sit here and I think about if I was a consumer and I didn't know anything about cannabis, and I do. I've probably smoked my weight in weed my lifetime. I mean, I'm a big fan. Yeah, I'm a big dude too. But if I wasn't somebody who knew anything about it, it would be intimidating because I would, it's almost, it's like, it's a lot. Well, think about wine, right? Wine is legal, but people are still intimidated by walking in and looking at a big wine list. And if I knew nothing about weed, because it hasn't, like the incredible level of responsibility that you guys have, not only to do this responsibly, but to educate appropriately. When people come in to not be intimidated. Look, this is for everybody. You can bring people in, like you said, and people watch, or if you just want to experiment and you want to do it in a controlled environment where people can help you, it sounds like that's exactly your intention.

29:46That hey, look, we're gonna come in and we're totally cool if you know nothing about it. We'd love to educate you because I think that's the thing that's missing in legalization of cannabis is just educating people that this is not a bad thing. Like it's totally okay. And if you do this responsibly, it's completely safe. Absolutely. I mean, that's a huge part of our server talk track. And that's why we try and get a lot of the information so that people sort of know what they're in for. So a lot of the things that we try to express are pace yourself, start slow. Like we're not encouraging people just to come in and get super crazy or anything like that. These were designed for micro dosing. So you can enjoy a mocktail and a sauce. And you can try all the different things and find out what works for you. And typically after the first or second time, you're gonna know kind of what you want when you come back in. But we, I mean, have also trained our servers on what to do when it's too much for somebody because we don't wanna send people out on the street after having a little too much of them. But it's gonna happen just like it would at any bar. So it's just all been like a really important part of our training and learning process too.

30:48Can I tell you guys a story? Yes, please. The highest I've ever been in my life. I'm gonna tell you the story right now. My sister and I, my sister lived in Germany. You know my sister, Stephanie. Yeah, of course. And we went to, she's gonna kill me for telling the story. Shouldn't say this with her. But we were in Holland. We drove from Germany. We drove to, we were like, we're going to Amsterdam. We went to Lissholm, to the Koikinoff, big tulip farm. And we were driving to Amsterdam and she was like, I don't wanna deal with this city tonight. So we pulled out a Rand McNally map and I went, there's a city if we just drive past on the beach. And so the city was called Bloemendaal-on-Zee and Zandvoort, guys not making this up. And we found a coffee shop and I bought like two grams of white widow. I mean, this was the gnarliest looking stuff I've ever seen. You walk outside and there's like a table with like a grinder and then like, you know, you just, so we're sitting there and this dude like sits down with us and he starts talking to us. And he's like, he helped me through the buying process. This guy that was at the bar. I took three, three, one, two, three hits.

31:52And I'm standing there and my sister was like, well, we should probably go find something to eat. And I go, yeah. And I looked at her and then I couldn't speak. I could, I was just like, and she goes, are you okay? And I'm like, uh-uh, uh-uh. And before you know it, the weed tender, I call them, do you guys have a name for your bar? Are they weed tenders? Are they gonna be? Bud tenders? Bud tenders, yeah. This dude comes around, puts a wet towel over my neck, gives me a Red Bull and a snicker bar and they're sitting there and I'm like, and my sister's like feeding me this snicker bar. And I'm like, I can't, and she puts it in my mouth and it just falls out. I can't even move. My arms are just stuck on the floor. And another dude comes out and he's like, hey mate, how you doing, okay? And I think he's Australian, that whole accent. Next thing you know, I stand up, I feel color come back in my face. I turned my head and I went, whoa. And everybody went, oh, there he is. Welcome back, welcome back, okay. But apparently that happens all the time.

32:53But they knew in an instant, oh, we have an American who probably just flew here. He's jet lagged, he's dehydrated. Get him sugar in his system, like go. And it was like, they had this. One, two, three, I felt so safe, so secure that I wasn't gonna wake up with my entrails in a bathtub on ice or something. I didn't know, I mean, I'm in a random city in Amsterdam, outside of Amsterdam. So that's the highest I've ever been. But the gist of the story is they knew exactly what to do in that moment. What is your protocol? Do you guys have a protocol? There was a question in there with my story. I love that. And that's, it's funny too. I actually lived in Amsterdam for six months and we have like some of our partners who have traveled there and done, you know, research. We're lab coats, I promise. Yeah, right. So do you know the city, Bloemendaal on Zee? I do know Zandvoort. Yeah, yeah, I have actually been there. But it's adorable and very small. There's so many quakes. Very cute town.

33:54So really a lot of that research there. It's funny to me because people always equate Amsterdam with being this huge party city and the red light district and all that. But really the canvas there, it's like groceries. I mean, people just go in and pick up like their weekly eighth or joints or whatever they want. And then they go next door to the bakery. I mean, it's very casual. Like going to a wine shop. Yeah, it's super normalized there. And that's what we're also trying to do is destigmatize. And I think, so we had, I've seen this a couple of times over the last year or so with some people feeling like it's too much. And our general protocol is we offer them a CBD seltzer. We, you know, there was a man who was overheated. We held the cans to his neck, similar to the wet towel, that kind of thing. We are like, we can coordinate rides for people if that's something. But what's interesting is that as we're actually having CBD seltzers, if you have like cannabis every day, so just general full spectrum CBD, it actually is, it works like a vitamin. And it's really one of the most like beneficial ways you can consume cannabis and it'll give you the most holistic body kind of benefits.

34:59And then when you add that in with THC, there's something called the entourage effect where it can actually enhance your THC. So if you're a regular full spectrum user, you're going to find that THC will affect you more because you're used to having cannabis and your endocannabinoid system is used to receiving that. But if you're not a frequent flyer, as I like to call it, when you have CBD after THC, it actually helps bring you down. So if your body's not normally receiving that CBD, when you have that and you feel too elevated, it can really assist with like calming your anxiety or paranoia, start to revive you a little bit, especially when it's in like, so we carry these, we carry seltzers at just a CBD seltzer. And it's also, I mean, it's refreshing when it's hot, when you're feeling a little panicked, like it definitely calms you down. So that's one of the main things. It's also a lot of times a mental thing really too, just like having someone there feeling like you're being comforted and talking to you, it's much easier to snap out of where if you're too drunk, you just have to wait, you can only use time to fix that.

36:01Coffee, food, water, I mean, you gotta. Yeah, wait it out. And sometimes that's what you're gonna have to do, but at least with this, you'll just take a nap and then feel better. Yeah, and then you look at what we've got going on on Broadway, you look at what happens down there with people and I represent a lot of people charged with offenses that happen when they get raging drunk down on Broadway where they're shoving, there's no observation of the customers by the bartenders down on Broadway. It's just how many beers can you sell in a night? And we don't wanna have that experience. I mean, when I was in Amsterdam, they knew the Americans were coming because they'd asked for the bong and they would try to just consume as much as they could in an hour sitting and like Grace said, the idea with Buds and Brews is to have a place where that's not really, that's not the vibe there. It's we're making it more of a normal something that people can enjoy as an experience. And it's not how high can I go get as quick as I can? Yeah, I mean, you're always gonna have people who are skeptical or just really wanna push themselves but when they find that limit, typically the next time they come in, hopefully they won't do it again.

37:07I mean, we have a lot of, Sam, one of his funny like first stories with the company was eating the whole cookie and the cookies are 32 milligrams of Delta 9. Oh wow. Yeah, and Mikey said, hey man, don't eat that whole thing and he's like, oh, I can do this. And that is definitely an attitude for people who have been consuming like their whole life. But once, you know, It didn't go well. Had to pull over. I had to pull over to Grassland actually. I made it from Antioch to Grassland. I was like, I've made a terrible decision. Which is why the dose control is so important. I mean, you need to not only for the first time but for the second time when you come back and say, look, the last time I had a, you know, a seltzer that had five milligrams and I, you know, it was perfect for me or I needed a little more. Or I really liked the way that the vapor hits instead of the edible because everyone's different. So like sometimes, you know, some people find that they feel more tired for edibles or like the vapor tap goes to your head a little bit quicker and some people like that, some people don't. So having these different kinds of options and being able to pair them even on your first experience while still in a relatively controlled manner, you know, you get, you give yourself the ability to pace yourself and just find what's comfortable because at the end of the day, everyone's different and you're gonna have a different experience the same way you can take a shot two days in a row and have a different reaction to it.

38:24You know, it's, there's a lot of factors that come into it. So giving people a safe way to find that experimentation for themselves is the best education, honestly, because it's experiential. You know, and I think that there's a misconception too because I use cannabis, but I'm a sober guy, right? So I don't drink and I don't like to get high. I don't, none of that stuff anymore. I just like being the me that's me all the time, right? But I also have ADD pretty bad. And I also have this thing where I can't focus. I'm just a million different ways. But I know that five milligrams of a sativa will keep me focused for a long time. And I do, I do the, I do 25 milligrams of CBD in an oil form every morning, just a full spectrum. But if I do a five milligram gummy to like start my day, I get so much shit done and I can focus and I can talk to people and I have good conversations and I'm able to stay in it. When I don't, I'm all over the place. Cannabis isn't just about getting high.

39:25I mean, there's so many other benefits to it. And this is, again, I know when I take a five milligram gummy, I'm not going to get high. I'm not gonna feel high at all. But I know that that sativa strand, and I just think back to when I was 22 and you buy a quarter from somebody and it was just brick, you know, and you'd have to break it up and you'd smoke. You had no idea if that was indica, sativa. It was just swag. You just got high and like the ability to say, I wanna be up or I wanna be able to focus or I wanna be able to CBG, I wanna be, or CBN. I wanna sleep or I want this. Like there's so many different benefits to cannabis that it's not just about getting high. So if you're on a date and you wanna focus on what the person is saying, this might be a really good way to get introspective and get deep with somebody. It could be a really fun thing to do. It's a lot more than just getting high, right? Absolutely. I mean, I discovered it because like you, and you could probably attest to this, in middle school, I mean, I was a poster child. I mean, they tried to flunk me and I had, they tried to hold me back and I had good grades because they didn't know how to control me.

40:30I was running around like crazy and without going into too much detail, but they put me on Ritalin and it turned me into a zombie. Me too. And my parents hated and I came to them after a week. I said, I'm not doing this. I'm not, and that's a lot for a seventh grader to have to have that talk. I was like, I don't like this. And then about eighth or ninth grade, my dad and I drove out to Arkansas for family reunion and he broke out a joint and said, son, I think it's about time we try this. And that's how I got into it. And then my dad's philosophy on this, I'd rather him get it from me than somebody he doesn't know. But it was- Again, if I can control- Yeah, so it wasn't like I was running around just getting high every morning, but like when it was time to study, I'm not good at that. I can't, you put me in here and try to make me, I lose my mind and it just, it just calms me down and it just, I can cook, I can eat, I can sleep. Just everything seems to go better. Yeah, I mean, we hear stories all the time. My brother was the same way where he, you know, didn't want to be on Adderall as well.

41:34And he, I remember he used to just go sit in the car or like go to the side of the house. And it was always this kind of sketchy type thing, but honestly, my parents were cannabis users and my mom still is. She has an artificial ankle and she can't, I mean, it's pain management largely, you know? I mean, my cousin has terrible stomach issues and he can only eat if he has cannabis. I mean, Jamie, who's one of our corporate employees basically cured her cancer with it. I mean, she was terminal and it was the only alternative. And it was one of those times where a doctor hush-hush kind of said, have you thought about this? And she really got on a regimen of not just smoking, but of taking capsules every morning, of taking tinctures. And it was a regimen really. And it's, I mean, she, I think just celebrated five years. So it's remarkable some of the stories you hear, whether it's people with Parkinson's, people with anxiety, sleep disorders, tons of stuff. It's just, there's so many benefits. And now those people who don't understand this that are sitting at home listening to this, they might not be listening to this, but somebody who is listening to this can tell them about it.

42:37They can come here to Buds and Brews and they can kind of do a little experimenting. Hey, look, I'd like to, cause you have all the different ways to, all the different vessels. What do you call them? The different ways to do it? Delivery systems. Delivery systems, that's the word I was looking for, different delivery systems. Well, if you look too back, just to what Grace was saying, I mean, the reason, this is an amazing plant. I mean, it's an amazing plant that does so many things all the way down from the rope they used to have in ships to people getting ADHD benefits and sleep benefits and pain benefits and all that. I mean, it's an amazing plant. But for what happened in the 20s, when they, in essence, they banned this plant to where in the last hundred years, it's been stigmatized, you can't test for it. It's not legal. In fact, until 2015 in Tennessee, you couldn't test and do all the things in the cannabis plant to find out how amazing it was. You couldn't do it, it's illegal. It was illegal for any testing facility to take cannabis and test until they came up with the pilot program in 2015.

43:39So once they started getting into this plant. It's insane. It's insane, and the cannabis plant, just for anybody who doesn't know, the cannabis sativa L is the plant. And hemp and marijuana are just made up names. Hemp is the name for cannabis that doesn't have much THC in it. And marijuana is the name of the cannabis plant that has a lot of THC in it. And so forever and ever, we couldn't do anything with it other than get in trouble with it, right? There was nothing. And then 2015, well, really going back to the original marijuana stuff back in California and Colorado. But in 2015 in Tennessee, they passed the pilot program which gave us the ability to test it and look at all the cannabinoids. And that's where you're coming up with all these amazing CBN, THCV, all these different. It's insane how many there are. And honestly, at this point too, you look at some of these synthetic, like Delta-8, Delta-10 that aren't necessarily naturally occurring in like high potency, but it's wild how you look for people creating alternatives. How else do you describe demand?

44:41You know what I mean? They're literally making it up because they're so regulated and so unable to get it in other methods that it's like sugar getting stevia or something like that. People just find ways to get what they want. And I think in that way too, you see a lot of perspectives on Delta-8, for example, and negative stigma around that too. And we really try to focus on all of the natural elements or at least making sure that the Delta-8 that we're serving is as regulated as we can make it because we don't wanna associate anything with bad copycats or stuff that you might find at gas stations or things like that. We just wanna make sure that we're building consumer trust at the end of the day because that's how we're gonna end up with legalization. I think that's a good segue. What I'd like to do, you did a, I think we have an announcement to make. Kind of, right? Because this episode, today is Friday and the restaurant is officially open. Yeah. You haven't told anybody this, have you? Nope. Let's open the doors.

45:41The doors are open. So if you're listening to this, you can go right now to Buds, and the chances are you can probably get in because nobody knows it's open yet. They're doing a very soft kind of, hey, look, we're gonna open the doors. We're not telling a ton of people, but I'm telling a ton of people right now. There we go. That you guys are open and you should go check it out now. You should go right now before there's a long line. You gotta wait an hour and a half to sit down. But what I'd like to do, last night, Joey, you came in and you did an evening last night at the restaurant. Kind of a trial night. We all do this, friends and family nights. I wanna walk through what the experience is like. If I'm a guest and you can kind of do it from your eyeballs, like what you experienced last night and did it come to fruition? I like to walk through what it is because you use words like dab and sauce and mocktail and I don't know what those things are, right? So I'm like, I immediately am intimidated because I don't know what a sauce is. Is a sauce like something I'm gonna smoke? I don't know what that means.

46:41So literally it is a sauce. I do know what it means now. I didn't know what it means, but I wanna walk through the overall experience I'm gonna have if I've never been there and I want people to feel comfortable walking and know some of the lingo. Is that cool? We are going to take a quick moment to hear a word from our sponsors. We absolutely love partnering with Sharpies Bakery. Erin Mosso has been selling bread, fresh baked bread to locally-owned and operated restaurants six days a week for 36 years. Yes, her father started the company 36 years ago and Erin took it over five years ago and it is doing amazing things. I have so many guests that come in the studio that are like, I love Sharpies. They save me so much time and the bread is so good. So we've got round buns, specialty round buns, dinner rolls, hoagies, baguettes. They do cheesecake, they do flourless chocolate, torts, they do specialty loaf breads and regular loaf breads and bullies.

47:44Bullies, B-O-U-L-E-S, sourdough, long tuscan, wheat, multigrain, they got everything. You should go check them out at sharpies.com. That is Sharpies, C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S.com or you should give them a call at 615-356-0872. Supporting local is so damn important and Erin Mosso and all of our friends over at Sharpies Bakery do that daily. Give her a call right now. You know, What Chefs Want, some people still call it Creation Gardens, but What Chefs Want has been, was our first advertiser on the show. Monty Crawford saw what we were doing, he goes, I wanna be part of it dude, I love it. And I just, I love that, they're so perfect cause they work with locally owned and operated restaurants better than anyone. And let me tell you how they do it. No minimums, no fees, no fuel surcharges, no surcharges any time. They deliver seven days a week. They have 24 seven customer support.

48:45You can call, text, chat, email anytime from anywhere or you can reach them at 502-587-9012. They have a diverse line of products. Their chefs have access to thousands of items across many different categories that allow them to receive fresh product daily. What Chefs Want is the perfect addition to any broad line company as they've got all of your fresh produce delivered daily plus custom meats, anything that you need that your broadliner can't get. Give them a call, 800-600-8510 or visit them at whatchefswant.com. I think one of the most overlooked things that you can do on a P&L, which is your profit and loss statement is dish machine and chemicals. It's just one of those things you don't focus on until it's too late. Let Jason Ellis from SuperSource come in and do an audit of what you're currently doing and why you're doing it. His number is 771-337-1143. We believe here at Nash Restaurant Radio that every single thing that you do should be done intentionally in a restaurant.

49:48And allowing some company to come in and just fix your dish machine without you knowing what's really happening is exactly what we're talking about. The thing Jason does the best is he can help educate you on exactly what's going on with all of your dish machines and chemicals. He can do staff trainings to understand why you're using what you're using, again, to be intentional. They don't make you sign any type of contract. They are week to week and can get you a brand new dish machine with three free months of dish machine rental. You need to check them out. Go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com, click the Sponsors tab, and then you will see SuperSource. Click that tab for a special or give Jason Ellis a call at 770-337-1143. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so parking. Well, we're right on the corner of Third and Monroe, right in Germantown. So it's a corner location where we've got, we're right across from St. Stephen's, if you know where St. Stephen's is. Exactly, right on the corner. St. Stephen. St. Stephen. Stephen, yeah, St. Stephen.

50:48And we're right there on the corner. And Grace is kind of, as I said, our general manager. So she's been a big part of identifying the talking tracks and the experience when you walk in. But when you originally go in, it's a 21-over facility. So you can't, we're not allowed to have anybody in there under 21. So you're gonna be carded when you get there. And that's just a part of being responsible. Because you smoke inside? See, you could consume the cannabis products in there without being 21 and over, unless you're vaping. The vaping and the hemp flower smoking is a 21 and over thing. So we've decided, because we think it's responsible, to have only 21 and over, which goes back to self-regulating. Is there actual, can I roll a joint of hemp flower and smoke that in the building? Or is it only vaping inside? Right now, it's only vaping. Our holistic connection stores, you can get pre-rolls and things like, you can get flowering quantities, stuff like that. But the pre-rolls are definitely the easiest. And we'll probably incorporate those in the future and have those available for patio smoking.

51:50But just to start, we really wanted to kind of walk before we could run and not totally freak people out too much. So we're easing into it a little bit and making sure that we're really nailing it before we incorporate something that might rock the boat a little more. Parking, where am I gonna park? Well, there's parking right below. There's a paid parking lot right at the bottom. If you know where Sonoma is, I think it's another restaurant right there. Yeah, like across Jack Brown's. Yeah, right over there, kind of catty-corner to Jack Brown. So there's a parking right at the bottom of the street. There's street parking right above Monroe as well, right there in Germantown. So there's plenty of parking. And then on the other side, I guess on fourth, there's also a paid lot right there. I think the correct answer is just take a fucking Uber. Yeah, it really is. Don't drive, you asshole. No, it really is, especially because- Uber. Especially from the lawyer. Yeah, you don't drive. Well, you don't know how you're gonna leave. If people are coming in and experiencing this for the first time and they're nervous about it, they're gonna feel safer taking a Lyft or an Uber home. I mean, and it's- I'd recommend it. It's more convenient, yeah. For safety-wise, you don't know how it's gonna affect you. And if you don't drive, you're not gonna be tempted to drive.

52:52Oh, I think I'm fine, just Uber, just Uber. Just go there, go check it out in Uber, Lyft, whatever it is, whatever, however you do it. Okay, so when you Lyft, you get dropped off, you're gonna be carted when you walk in the door. Thank you for, to bring your ID, legitimate ID, don't come in if you're not under 21 years old. Correct. You guys say that too, right? 21 years old, you walk in the door, am I gonna be seated immediately? Is there a hostess? Do I seat myself? Yeah, so- Walk me through the experience. Sure, so you should be greeted by our host. It's also, we have some, a retail section up there. So you can walk in and you'll still get carted, but you can walk in and buy a brownie or a cookie and head out if you want. So if it's lunch break and you just wanna grab an edible, you can definitely do that. Oh, nice. But if you're coming for the full dining experience, you'll be greeted. They'll introduce you to our three first experiences, which are the mocktails shots and jello shots. Yes, we even have jello shots that have THC in them. Nice. I know, it's funny. And then, so we have a whole beverage line. We have like a smoky margarita that doesn't have tequila, but it does have THC.

53:53So they'll introduce you to our beverages, our vapor taps, which are really cool. ZENCOs, if you go online and watch the videos, they're amazing machines. They look like little flying saucers and you basically put a stemless wine glass on it and it auto fills from a cartridge and then you just kind of sip away and you're vaping. So it's a very, it's also a nice presentable way where we're not incorporating big rigs and things that seem intimidating to people who don't regularly vape as well. And then the third experience is the sauces and we have all the sauces right up there for display just so people can really get the full visual of everything we offer because we infuse 25 of the most popular condiments from ketchup and mustard down to coconut oil and sesame oil. So we've got cooking packs, we've got picnic packs, a little something to go with everything. So let's bring Sam back into this conversation. Sam's over here just hanging out. The sauce man. He's like, you guys have been talking for an hour. He's been enjoying this. They're the ringers, that's why I have that. But we're gonna bring you back in because these are your sauces. They are. So we're talking blue cheese, ranch, honey mustard.

54:54Honey mustard. I mean, obviously they can olive oil and coconut oil. I just, we just put it in there. So I, Mike just told me to make sauces and didn't really give me any parameters. So I just took my 20 something years of restaurant business and everything I've known and just started making sauces. Before we even had a menu, we were making sauces. And so then we created the menu around the sauces is how we did it. Like the barbecue recipe and steak sauce are yours. Yeah, I mean, I made a white sauce, you know, and made ranch, you know, we have mayonnaise, ketchup. Some of those you don't have to, some of those are ones you don't really have to mess with. But what we had to do is after I created them is I had to hand them off to a guy and let him reverse engineer them to make them shelf stable. Because in the restaurant business, as you know, we make it, it's gone in a week, and then we make it again. Yeah. I don't make stuff with the intention of it sitting around on a shelf for a while, you know. So that was a whole new thing that I had. And I've been learning about it and studying about it and getting thinking about getting my certification of acidity so I can start doing a little more of it.

55:54Wow. Yeah, it's through UT, the UT offers a program just so I can start learning some of it. It was a fun process to watch all along the way though. Shout out to Charlie at Further Forums. Yeah, Charlie. Charlie was the one that made me, I was trying to show him like how we had to do this and he's like, well, find someone and do it. And we found someone that can do it. Charlie and those guys just crushed it, so. That's amazing. So, okay, we're gonna get right back into this because the creation of the menu and what type of food you're serving in, what a dream for a chef to try and figure out food to pair this way. Yeah. Do you have to think like, okay, so they're gonna be hungry when they get there, but they're gonna be really hungry in like two hours. So, do you have like, this is your appetizers, this is your entree, and then we're just gonna bring a bowl of Cheetos in like an hour and a half, but it's $50 a bowl. It's funny you said that because our last menu, our last menu, we finished up, we just did add a bowl of cereal, literally a stoner bowl of cereal, for lack of a better term, and then.

56:5935 bowls? We went with Lucky Charms, but then you can take our Rice Krispie treat and you can buy it and send it back and we'll cut it up for you and put it in your cereal for you and send it out. Same with our cookie and the brownie, we do the exact same thing. But yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was really a lot easier than I thought it was gonna be, putting the food with it, because some sauces just lended and Sports Bar just rang out to us. I mean, there's no other place that gives more sauces than Sports Bar's. It's upscale pub food. Yeah. So that's what we're doing here. We haven't really touched on the food, so upscale pub food. What do you think is gonna be the best seller? Joey, you were there yesterday. What'd you eat? Well, I love the fish tacos, P-H-I-S-H tacos. The fish tacos. I like the breakfast tacos. Yeah, the wake and bake tacos. The wake and bake 420. That's gonna be a killer. So good, and there's a gravy. I don't know whose gravy that was. It's crazy good. So it's black pepper gravy, and it's phenomenal. The buddy of mine, Sheehan, put it out.

58:00I brought him over with me, and it's so good. So, love the tacos. What does the gravy go on? Top of the breakfast taco. Yeah, the wake and bake taco, so the tots, cheese, goodness. And then we put it on a, we have a fried chicken platter. Yeah, I think the chicken's gonna be good, too. Are you open for breakfast? Not yet. We've talked about brunch. I told them we'll talk about that when we get back in the country. Yeah, we open at 11 a.m. right now. Okay. But I think the same sweet tea brine on the chicken tenders is gonna go really well, too. I saw the chicken brining in the sweet tea, and then you add it to the, what was that? Buttermilk. The buttermilk. Yeah, so I do a day in the sweet tea, and then we go to the buttermilk hot sauce after that. The burgers are good. The Nashville hot chicken's good. I think people were kind of surprised by how elevated really that food was, because I think it would be easy enough to just present decent food and let the concept sell itself. But paired with, I mean, at the end of the day, we're a restaurant, you know? So you have to just have good food and good service, ultimately, to be a successful restaurant, no matter what you incorporate into it, so.

59:02Yeah, Mike, just the other day, after one of the tastings said, I didn't realize you could cook this well, and I was like, you're the guy that hired the guy that's only cooked fine dining and upscale to run your sports bar. What'd you think, I was just gonna buy everything done? So we, you know, we've had some fun with it. We're doing some things that some sports bars won't do just because they probably don't have the staff that's ever done it, you know? But I hired a couple of friends of mine that have come from the upscale, fine dining, culinary schools, just to, because after a while, if you've cooked for a long time, it just kind of gets, it just kind of wears on you. And so, especially the stress of doing fine dining, like the stuff I did in D.C. is, it was a whole nother world that I don't ever want to go to again. I did my, I look at it like doing my four years. I paid my penance, you know? I shucked those oysters, I did all the stuff that sucks. And now I'm like, I wanna cook, but I wanna have fun with it, let's just have some fun. But I did tell them, I was like, if this goes well, we'll get about 10 of these off the ground. Maybe I'll do a little 30 person cedar. There you go. That's the deal, I'm trying to work it out.

01:00:03We'll take it. This is like something for fun that doesn't have all the pressure. Yeah, it's just not the pressure. I just wanna have fun with it. And that's what this menu is. And my cooks have really kind of rallied around that. I keep trying to stress the importance of what we're doing. I'm like, guys, we're, this is, for lack of a better term, this is like being at the first Buffalo Wild Wings, except we have cannabis also. You know, like, you just gotta think about that because people are already, I'm just, the feedback we're getting at so far has just been wild. Yeah, I mean, we express that from top to bottom too, from like service to everybody involved really. Like at the end of the day, if you like working in the restaurant industry, this should be the most fun job you've ever had because you're doing something so novel and unique and something that previously you were told was bad. And now you're telling, you're educating people on it and you're able to serve it. It's crazy to think that, you know, we have this opportunity, but with that, of course, comes the responsibility to make sure that we're doing it right. Yeah, that's right. 100%. Okay, so let's get back to our journey of dining at the place. So we come in, you get greeted.

01:01:04There's the three different things. You have sauces, you've got this. And I will say that the, tell me what it's called. The little thing that looks like a wine glass. The Zenco. The Zenco. This thing is so freaking cool. You set it on the table, you tap it like three times, and it looks like a, like a stemless wine glass. And then in the bottom of it, all of a sudden, it starts filling up with vape, like this smoke. And you just pull it up to your mouth like you're drinking it, but you just inhale what's inside of it. Instead of, it looks like you're drinking like a glass of smoke. Yeah. But it's really cool. Like it's the, and it's the coolest, like it's elegant. And it's even cooler when you find out that cartridge that you're, that it's producing that, we make 15 minutes down the street. And I know that for the better part of a year, waiting for the restaurant to open, I just became the chef for his other things. And in some days, you didn't have stuff to cook. So I found myself trimming in the rooms, you know, defoliating and making carts, making these things that I never thought when I started this culinary journey that I would ever find myself doing.

01:02:07Then you find that it's something different and it's, okay, well this, and it makes sense. Once you see the whole process, like. It's just so vertically integrated that we're, I mean, we have the ability to educate ourselves like internally on every step of the way. And that definitely has, you know, fed into the reason I'm able to explain, like with the Zencos, we have three different kinds of cannabinoids. We offer a THCO, HHCO, and Delta-8. And then from there, we've got all these different strains and different terpene profiles and flavor profiles. And those are all, like some of those, you're talking about words that people might not hear often. I mean, those are some of them, you know, and they're not gonna know how to do it. So after you're, you know, greeted and sat is when your server really ends up taking kind of control of your journey and guiding you on your experience with, if you're gonna start with a vapor tap, you know, here are your choices, here are your selections. And well, what's the difference is, you know, and is the question really. And so we've really tried to train them as best we can to be able to kind of put it simply where you're not overloading people with information, but you're giving them enough so they understand what they're doing.

01:03:10And if they wanna research more, now they have a starting point. Perfect. Yeah, and they're getting all this information at the table as they sit down. And so the servers come into the table, expressing to them, explaining to them the different options with the vape tap. Obviously they've got a menu, they've got a drink menu, they've got the mocktails where you can have actually shots that exist, so you can actually have a shooter, or you can have that shooter put in a seltzer that has seltzer water muddled fruit and actually have a drink, which are amazing. Yeah. The smoky margarita and stuff. This bar program was definitely one of my favorite to be a part of and to put together. So our signature mocktails are the smoky margarita, the old fashioned split sangria and lazy Arnold Palmer. Yeah, I know. It's much fun naming these, isn't it? Naming them was fun. Yeah, I did name that one, that was awesome. So those come pre-batched from, made from Kraft cannabis. So those are easy enough for our bartenders to serve because it's also a totally new experience for them.

01:04:11But then we've got, you know, these little, like Joey said, little shooters, Jell-O shots. We have cannabis coolers, which are basically like Capri Suns, but we have a bunch of different flavors, different options. But so one side of the menu is all THC beverages. So you're looking at this side and you know that anything on here is gonna contain anywhere from five to 10 milligrams. And then when you flip it over, you've got your traditional draft list, our own signature cocktails that do have alcohol and then whatever else you might be looking for, you know, bottles, cans, wine. But what we've also done, and we went back and forth on this a lot, is we won't serve alcohol directly with our THC infused beverages. So what we've told all of our servers is, hey, if somebody does this, say, I want the Smoky Margarita, but can you put a shot of tequila on it? We'll say no, I mean, you can get alcohol and THC together for sure, but we just wanna put that extra decision-making step in the consumer's hand because they do act as catalysts for each other. So if you're not used to being cross-faded, that's another avenue of experimentation where just as any ABC trained server has to keep an eye for consumption, that's something that we are now looking for as well.

01:05:19Yeah, yeah, so. More sensitive to it. Sure. The challenges of doing that are, it seems like a lot, but I know that those are things that you're ready for, you're counting for it, and you're all learning together. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Wow. And it's being talked about with everybody. This is a subject that we talk about, that the servers and the people, the staff, I mean, this is something that we're identifying, which again, it starts with the dose control, it starts with the education, and then carries out with the execution of the Rekstrap. Okay, so I order food. We have the little machine there. I still don't know what the hell it's called. Zenko, you're good. The Zenko. Vapor tap. We call them vapor taps. You got the vapor tap on the table. I've got chicken wings, and I've got my blue cheese infused sauce. Dinner's amazing. Do you do desserts? Well, that's when, if you really want to go for it, and you can get one of our cookies, our Rice Krispie Treat, the brownie.

01:06:19I have a couple that aren't infused, but we have a chocolate and caramel sauce that you can buy that are infused. But we'll pimp them out for you, and send them back out, and let you have a good time with them. How long are people staying? I mean, honestly, so with these soft open parties, obviously, it's gonna be a little bit longer, because they're more like private events. But we really think that if you sit down, and your normal meal is about an hour or so, we do have a patio space. We have the bar that's open seating. We have a front waiting area where people can hang out. So we try to create some spaces where, at the end of the day, it's a restaurant, and you do have to turn tables. But also, there are comfortable places for people to go hang out, and still enjoy their time, and still continue to use their vapor tap, or get another drink, or mocktail, whatever they want. So we're honestly figuring it out as we go, because in some of the legal states, you actually have time limits where you're consuming. You have to consume something like every 30 minutes, or you're only allowed to be there for an hour. We haven't implemented anything like that, and we'll probably just cross that bridge if we find that we need to come to it.

01:07:21But right now, we just want people to stay and hang out. We want them there. So we're just trying to make that as comfortable as possible. And also, we'll point out, we have some pretty fun things on the menu. We've got a, is it right, my Pop-Tart? Mm-hmm, yeah, Pop-Tart. We're trying to get square pizza. Oh yeah, we got it, we got it. I brought the cafeteria school pizzas back. There we go, we have cheese boats, and just boom. Lucky Charms, yeah, that's cereal. So we've got a menu where, you know, not everybody that wants to enjoy cannabis is very wealthy, and this is an expensive product that we're dealing with. So we do have some options where, you know, someone may be able to come in and get a sauce, and one of these fun little things for less than 11, 12, 15 bucks. Shot of ranch. Yeah, shot of ranch. This is Tennessee, it probably would, it'll probably happen at some point. Well, I'll tell you, the THC shooters are really good. They're really good, they're five milligrams, right? Yeah. Yeah, and they're great. And they're great, it's a good way to dose. I mean, it's a good way. Five milligrams is my magic number. That's right, so, you know. Yeah, all the sauces and everything, I mean, there are a few select items.

01:08:24The brownie and cookie are 32 milligrams, they are on the dessert menu, and we do recommend that you share. We say four people, that's gonna be comfortable. Or take it home. Take it home. Eat it at home while laying in bed watching a movie. That's right. But everything else is a comfortable dose, so that you can dip into a couple sauces, and you can have, you know, a mocktail or two, and just still be comfortable, you know? It's microdosing is really the buzzword. That's right. I love it. Anyone else? I think that my favorite part is, because all of this seems really well-polished. Your logo looks really good. The interior of the place. I mean, it looks like it came, Shane Nasby, who had Honeyfire Barbecue, I walked in the first day and I go, so how many of these do you have? And he was like, this is the one. I go, this looks like a chain. He did so good at what he did, and it's almost like when you walk in, like if you walk in like a Mellow Mushroom, they have like a whole vibe there, but they've got millions of them. You walk in there and you go, what company from out of town came in and put this here? And to know that it's not only that it's like local, it's like hyper-local, like people that have been friends since their kids.

01:09:30So let's go over all the people that own it and all this stuff. Joey, you're one of the people, they're silencers that don't want to be talked about? No, no. This is how you guys all know each other. I think that the story of local is important. Yeah, it's definitely local. So Mike Solomon and I got together with Matt Mondelli, and Matt's a local guy. His uncle's Judge Mondelli. His family's been around in Nashville for, I don't know, 100 years. Vance and Mark Mondelli. Yeah, Mondelli crew. I had them all under one roof the other day. And I will let you know, no one left in handcuffs. They've changed, they've changed. So Matt. That's incredible. Matt and me and Mike Solomon, who's the owner of Holistic Connection and Kraft Cannabis is the big cannabis arm of this whole thing that the vertically integrated part of this is through Mike. So she keeps mentioning the Holistic Connection. That's where that comes from. And then Sam was mentioning Mike, and that's the same guy. Same guy. Yeah, the same thing. Okay, perfect. That's why I wanted to bring all this home for the listeners. And then Dalton Crowe. And Dalton and his dad, Doug, who recently passed away. Doug has had bars and restaurants in town for a long time.

01:10:33I mean, it's at Crowe's Nest and Joe's Pub and Noble's and Austin's down in Destin. So they've been involved in a lot of bars and restaurants. So between me and Matt and Dalton and Mike, we kind of put together a crew that in essence is we're all local, we're all local guys. We all grew up here and we all have a different component. We all have a different strength when it comes to it. We have, you know. What'd you bring to the table? Yeah, Matt and Dalton also, you know, they've run restaurants and they've run bars and they know how to do that. And Dalton's got a lot of connections in that industry. And then obviously from the legal and compliance and regulatory component. And then Mike is the cannabis arm. And he's, as Sam pointed out, he is pushing a lot of this across the state. You know, they've got 17 coming dispensaries. You know, they've got 11 open right now. And so he's been a big part of the growth of the hemp industry in the state of Tennessee. And so we're kind of taking it to the next level. And then by bringing Grace and Sam on, we've got a pretty awesome team. And I just happened to have known everybody involved.

01:11:34Like it's just a small group. For a long, long time. And also loved cannabis and good cooking. It was like, by the way, who you know still? Yeah, and so me and Matt and Sam, we all grew up within, I mean, probably three or four miles from each other. That's crazy. We all went to the same schools. I mean, this is, this is- Grassland Generals. I think they're still the generals, aren't they? My kids go to Grassland Elementary and they're the Eagles at Grassland Elementary. Middle school, I think there's, no, I don't think they're the general. I think they- Are they the admirals? I think they're the admirals now. Franklin's the admirals, right? Franklin's the admirals. So I was a Franklin, I went to Franklin High School for two years, I was a rebel. And then I went to FRA and graduated from there, who was also a rebel. And neither one of them are rebels anymore. So they've both changed. We've got that. And I went Rebel Cougar. I did the whole Rebel Cougar. Did you go Centennial? Yeah, the first two years. So I went to, I was the first graduate in 97. I was second, yeah. But you were, but you held yourself back a year, didn't you? Yeah, well, that was that whole ADD thing in sixth grade, yeah. Okay, sixth grade. Cause like, we were in the same class and then- Plus I only weighed about- Sam held himself back.

01:12:34He was like, why did Sam? Yeah. What are you doing? 97. Okay, so you're behind me. I was 96. Yeah, I was, my brother was 95. So he would graduate from Franklin, but I was 90, when Centennial opened, I was the first graduating class. It was the first senior class. And my wife also graduated from Franklin in 95 with your brother. No kidding. See? She was K through 12. She was Franklin Special School District back in the day. Wow. Yeah. I drove by Franklin High School that day and I go, this is not the same school I went to. I did not see the cubicles up there. This is not the Franklin High School I went to. Franklin was a whole different place in 1994. There was a lot of trailers. There was a lot of trailers when I remember sitting in a lot of classes. Columbia State had like a satellite building right next door. You drive by now, it looks like, what are these columns? This place is beautiful. It's really nice. Franklin's doing his thing. Franklin's very special. Yes, it is. Oh yeah. All right, well guys, I have like a million things I want to talk to you about.

01:13:37Growing up in Nashville, your favorite things to do, all of this stuff. I want to hear more about y'all's love story. And there's just so much more to this. But today, I think we got to let people know that you're open. This is happening. We'll let everybody know via the massive marketing campaign, I'm sure. But now we got the exclusive. We're letting people know you can go to Buds and Brews today. Go check it out. This is their second, I think they opened yesterday on Thursday. Thursday, yeah. So they opened yesterday on Thursday. So today is like the second day you're ever open. Go check them out. And this was so much fun to get, to get to catch up with you guys. All in one room. I met someone who was like, hey, you want to come in and join this thing? So Joey's upstairs a lot of times. It's nice for him to come down into the basement. Yeah. And have a conversation. It's awesome. And this is actually, I think, of all the podcasts you've done in this building, I think this is the first one I've been a part of. It is. Yeah, that's right. And I've done a lot. I've done a lot of interviews in here. I know. It's so much fun. The address is one, two. 1244. 44, yeah. 1244 Third Avenue North. So 1244 Third Avenue North.

01:14:41You bet. Go check it out. Go follow them. Yeah, Buds and Brews USA on Instagram and Facebook. I mean, where our website's getting developed right now, I guess you could say. We had a splash page, but now we've got so much great photography coming out. You'll be able to check out some of those awesome food items too. The vibe, the space, which also shout out to Lacey for helping us totally check that place out. She did a great job. But yeah, no, it's all coming together so well. You know how restaurants go right towards open. It's pedal to the metal, baby. And one of the best things that you can do out there if you're listening to this and you go check it out, if it's awesome, go leave them a five-star review wherever you're gonna be. Yelp, whatever it is. Go leave them a five-star review. If it's not a five-star experience, find Grace and say, hey, this wasn't a five-star. I think that's a great way to say this wasn't a five-star experience. I think her response is gonna be, tell me why and let me make it right. You're gonna wanna fix it, but this is a brand new restaurant, y'all. It's a brand new everything. So a little bit of patience as a consumer walking in knowing that, hey, look, they've thought about, they've had to sit in rooms for a year thinking about every possible thing that could possibly happen.

01:15:45And they've got a plan for it, but shit happens. And this is the way this world works. And you as a consumer, I think you have the right and you have the responsibility to tell somebody when it isn't up to your expectations. And Grace definitely wants to know. Yeah, we can't make it great unless we know. And if you're going, leave them a five-star. This is that time where people start looking, they start seeing something new. Go leave a five-star if you let them know that this was awesome and let people know that they should go check it out, that it is a high quality place. Guys, the last thing we do on this show is we do the Gordon Food Service Final Thought. So what we do here is we ask you to take us out. You guys get to say the final thing for the show. Whatever you wanna say, as long as you wanna say it, you're talking to the city of Nashville and 32 other countries, and 32 other countries this episode of this podcast is played in, so. Is it really? Yeah. No, I'm nervous. I've had a lot of different, a lot of people in India, a lot of India. I am huge in India. Well, that's, we'll be there in about five weeks.

01:16:47You want us to take some hats? Yeah, take some hats. You'll probably take a Sharpie because you're gonna have to sign autographs. We're heading out to the India, India and the Maldives, yeah. All right. Bad ass. Final thought, if you leave it to me, I'm quoting one Jackie Moon and just say everybody love everybody. We'll do everybody. Everybody kind of throw your own little thing in there. We'll start with you, Grace. First time caller, long time listener. That's all I wanna say. All right. No, I. First time long time. Right. No, just thanks for giving us a shot. We're proud to be here and I think we're gonna make Nashville and our little hometown of Franklin proud when they come and check it out. Yeah, this is, this has been something we've been working on and developing and conceptualizing for the last couple years and so I'm excited to see it open. I think the place is amazing. I appreciate everything you getting us on here and I hope everybody comes out and enjoys it and come down to 1244 Third Avenue North. Check out Buds and Brews. We'll be happy to see you. Yeah, can't wait to have you. Ask for Sam and Grace. We'll come say hi. Yeah. Thank you guys so much for coming in today. It's been an absolute pleasure catching up.

01:17:48It's good seeing you guys the other night and I can't wait to go check out Buds and Brews. See you soon. Thank you. Thanks, man. All right, there you have it. Buds and Brews. Loved having those guys in studio. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you for, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm just full of gratitude. Always, guys, I love this and I'd love to see you on Sunday night at Cletus Burger and Merrill Bull Restaurant, 5201 Maryland Way, right in the heart of Brentwood. It's in a 7,500 square foot mansion. It's pretty cool. Unique place to go if you've never been there. We have a really cool lounge that's where you'll be sitting for the Cletus Burger pop-up. You can sit at the bar. You can sit in our dining room. So we are opening the whole thing. We're just gonna have a blast. Go to nashfrustrantradio.com on Monday and I would love to have you vote in our Mexican Restaurant Bracket Challenge. Also, you wanna join Brandon's Book Club.

01:18:50You don't have to join. All you gotta do is just message me and say, hey, I want a book and I will order you a book. If you wanna buy the digital version of the book and you wanna listen to it, just send me a receipt. Message me, make sure we haven't used up our 15. But if you wanna get repaid, then do it. If you just wanna buy the book, it's a damn good book. You should just buy it and then join the Zoom. You guys will need to, I'll need to get your name so I can get you on the Zoom call. It's actually from StreamYard and then we can make a podcast together and hopefully other people can learn from what you have to say. So let's have a lot of fun, guys. Please be safe out there. Have a wonderful weekend. Go enjoy buds and brews. Love you guys, bye.