Serving the Industry That Serves Us – Big Table with Kevin Finch & Becky Kinder

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03:03And welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. We are so excited today to bring you this episode with Big Table. We have Kevin and Becky from Big Table. Kevin is the executive director for the whole thing, the founder. And Becky is the city director, so she runs the Nashville operation. And they are doing obviously great things for restaurants. They had a Big Table dinner here the other day at the Thompson Hotel. I was lucky enough to attend. And then we had to talk the next morning. So I was fresh off of one of their events. And there's different nonprofits out there that are willing to help you. And Giving Kitchen, Core Gives, the same day I went to the Big Table dinner, I went to an event for Ben's friends and Big Table.

04:05And so they all do kind of different things, but they all can work together. So I've had the woman from Core Gives on. I've had the Giving Kitchen. Obviously, you guys know I'm very fond of them. And this is the first time I've had the guys from Big Table. So I wanted to know what differentiates them from everybody else? How are they helping? And if you are a leader in a restaurant, when can you direct people over to Big Table? So we answer all of those questions on the episode today. Ben's friends, yeah. So I had a luncheon with Mickey, who is the founder over at NoCo. I want to say a big thank you to John Murray and Wilson Brannock and Junior and everybody over there for hosting. Those guys served like a four course meal for everybody during this. Everybody getting together to learn more about Ben's friends and what it does. And just such a, the hospitality over there is out of control. You guys are just the best and love NoCo.

05:07A fine NARA member. And I just, if you're somebody out there who is struggling with drugs or alcohol, and potentially you are, Ben's friends is a group of people who are sober, who are getting together and they're restaurant workers. So it's not AA, it's not like that. It's a meeting that they do on Thursdays at Oku in Germantown. So go to Ben's friends.org if you're interested in that. Kind of building community around sobriety and helping people who need the help. Because there's a lot of people in this industry who definitely need the help. So if you're one of those people, please go to one of those meetings. They also do virtual Zoom meetings every single day. So if you don't want to be in person, you kind of want to be anonymous and kind of see what it's all about, you can go to a Ben's friends meeting online. And really, really good stuff. I'm a big, big fan of what they are doing.

06:10So thank you to everybody at NoCo for having us the other night. I do want to say NARA is up and running. We are moving and shaking and you guys are calling. And man, it's impressive. Thank you so much for all of the kind words, the excitement around this thing. We're going to be out in East Nashville Tuesday afternoon. And Wednesday morning, we will be out visiting restaurants. I have a couple slots available. If you would like us to stop by and tell you about NARA, the Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance, you can send me an email. Brandon at newlighthospitality.com. Or you can go to the brand new naranashville.com page. And you can learn all about NARA. But I'll tell you, if we come see you, what we are going to do is we have a questionnaire. It's like 35 questions. We sit and ask you questions about, you know, kind of your operations. What do you need? How's everything going? And we're not, it's a conversation where we go ask these questions.

07:13It opens doors for us to learn about your business. And if you say, man, everything I do here is on lockdown. We've negotiated every single deal down. This is amazing. Then we're going to be like, yeah, we'd love to have you as a member. If anything changes, we'd love for you to work with our people. And if through the conversation we identify that there's lots of areas of opportunity to help you, then we put a plan together and we sit down and it doesn't cost you anything. This is something that is free to you if you are a restaurant owner to have us come in and help you. So it's not like a crazy thing. So we would love to hear from you if you are a restaurant owner and you are a local restaurant owner. And you want us to come by and say, hi, there's no commitment whatsoever. There's nothing that we make you do. We don't make it. Well, we do make you sign something. The only thing is so that we can't tell anybody about what we talk about. It's 100 percent confidential what we talk about in these meetings. So that is the only thing that we have you sign.

08:16There's no commitment to anything. And yeah, so that that's what it is with NARA. So go check it out. NaraNashville.com and do me a favor. Go to our Instagram page at Nara Nashville. It's N-A-R-A Nashville. And give us a follow. One of the things is we are reposting our members post when our members post something. You can watch our stories and kind of get a glimpse of everything that's going on with our local members. So we're going to continue to do that. And if you want to see all of those in one place and kind of learn who our members are, we'd love to do that. We've got some big plans coming up in the next month. A little collaboration with some people. And I'm really excited about it. I'll tell you about that probably next week. But as far as this episode, we're going to get going with it right now. I hope that you guys have a wonderful week. I hope you enjoy this episode and you're listening to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Super excited to welcome you to another episode of Nashville Restaurant Radio.

09:23We are joined today with Kevin Finch. He is the executive director at Big Table. How you doing, Kevin? I'm great. We are also joined with the amazing Becky Kinder. Yep. You get full on. We're there with you, too. Becky is the city director for Nashville. I am so excited to have you guys in studio today. We're excited to be in studio today. Yeah, man. OK, big table. We had an amazing dinner last night. We did. That was so fun. Do you have a favorite course? I thought the you know what I did? I was going to say the short rib right now is to say that short was fantastic, but it wasn't sure it was fantastic. Of course, the walleye. I know. Oh, the walleye was sneaky with like the harissa. My god, it was like sneaky spice to it.

10:25Little kick. Yeah. But it wasn't like over like the kick happened. You're like, oh, is this going to get spicier? I was like, no, it's just the perfect level. Yeah. And it was so good. Like all the next to me asking actually to pass the plates down. Like if if you weren't finished with it, she was going to finish it off. Well, I didn't I didn't I wasn't able to bring a guest last night. I didn't have it was like six or five. And I was like, who do I? I had zero time to invite anybody to this thing. And at like six or five, I was like, I'm just not going to be the guy that calls and says, do you want to go to a dinner in 25 minutes, like get dressed, come out. It's a big dinner. Like I just so I was like, I'll just so I had this empty seat next to me. And I was like, you can bring. Yes. My guests a plate of food, too. And I will eat that. There's just stuck in the restroom at the moment, but they'll be back. Drop that walleye. Let's go. Let's do this thing. I really like that, that pasta. Those I don't even know how to. It was almost like it was like an Agnolotti. Yeah. It was the Swiss Chard course. That used to be on the menu at cinema. I was sitting across from Q, who used to own cinema, and he was taking pictures of every course, just like a proud mom.

11:32And he was like, it's so fun to eat this again, you know? And I was like, what do you mean, you've eaten this before? Where have you gotten this? Well, Shelby Briggs was she was in the Keys, in the Florida Keys, and he the family, him and another family own cinema, Nathan Roast. And it was like her their favorite chef. So they imported her from Florida to come in and do this. She's been on the show. She's amazing. Like, she's a super talented, sharp, good leader. Yes. She mentioned last night her husband was in the crew. Yeah, they got married just six months ago. And that was really fun to find that out for us. It was it was fun to have him be the middle man. That's that's my favorite position in a restaurant. I love being the expo. It like works right in my ADHD with all the different things. I can hyper focus, but it it's exhausting. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Your brain is just split right down the middle. Oh, my God. So you guys so big table. Literally last night is a big deal. How many people were at the table?

12:32The table seats, 48. So you had 48 people at one big, long table. And the idea here is bring the community together. I guess if you're a family, you eat at a table. And this is a one big table that your entire family comes to. And then you had people volunteer to come serve. And it's just a whole night of service and food and connection that brings people together for big table. There's so much more to it. But is that the genesis behind what last night was? It's it's a way to create community specifically for the restaurant hospitality community. So typically the folks who would be serving, cooking, working in a hotel to care for guests, those are the guests at the dinner. Yeah. Rather than and then folks from the community that normally would be guests, they get to serve. So it's this wonderful reversal. Flip flop. Yeah, that makes complete sense. I love it. Well, Kevin, let's start with you. Let's get those. Get some origin story in here.

13:35Can you share the story of how Big Table was founded and what inspired you to create it? Sure. So Big Table started in 2009, but in the early 2000s in the northwest, I was started moonlighting as a restaurant critic. So I'm writing for the daily paper. I'm writing for the weekly paper and I'm writing for and I ended up as the food editor for a kind of a lifestyle magazine like Nashville magazine. What's the most important thing being a food critic? What's the most like the vital thing you've got to do? Because we have everybody out there is listening as a food critic. We all have Yelp. Everybody does this. Ironically, what do you have to do? I and this, you mentioned this earlier in the lead up to the short. You've got to be curious. And then you need to be anonymous, which is very hard in our current. You need to be anonymous so that nobody knows when you come in, because it has to be a we didn't know this was a critic. Yeah. Otherwise, if if you're coming in as an influencer, typically, they're going to roll out the red carpet for you.

14:42They're going to spend extra time on everything that hits your hits your table. So you might say, oh, this is an amazing dish. Everyone else rolls in to try it. And it ain't amazing. So as a critic, you need to be anonymous going and being really curious and looking. How many times do you visit a restaurant before you actually post a credit review? It depended based on what publication, how much they paid for. That's a good answer. That's a really honest answer. But I I always wanted I tried to get there at least three times in different different if they're doing multiple meals, different meals, different. So I could try some stuff. The other thing I would do is I would actually use fake names to make reservations. Really? Yes. And I used either dead theologians or saints. I love it. Have a little fun with it. Yeah. Marty Luther, Johnny Calvin, Thomas Moore.

15:43So I'm going to start noticing more reservations. I'm going to start looking at open table. Was Voltaire coming in here today? What is this? Like, you know, I'm going to have these different. Exactly. All right. I like that. I don't think that's a good heads up there for people. Would you ever like use a celebrity's name and then come in and it was you? I didn't use celebrity names. We'll try that. Brad Brad Pitt is coming in. It's embarrassing, but it is Brad Pitt. It's Brad Pitt. Yeah, like everybody's excited. Like, I know we get confused all the time. Well, in in Nashville, you've got enough folks that would be recognized that they would go, oh, that actually might be so and so. We you know what? We get a lot of those. We get a lot of our restaurants. We get a lot of the names like, oh, oh, Reba's coming in today. You know, like whatever. And it's here she comes. It's the real people all the time. It's a thing. OK, so you were a restaurant. I took you off your story because I thought that was interesting. You moonlighted as a restaurant critic for different publications. Right. And so that's how you kind of learn the industry and you get to know some of the people.

16:47Getting to know chefs and part of that review process would be at the end of the review. Typically on the phone, I would spend some time or go in and visit with them if I knew I wasn't going to be back in that restaurant for a couple of years. And so I got to know owners. I got to know chefs over time. And then in just paying attention to the restaurant and watching for what you might not notice if you're not paying attention. There I would describe it as my spidey sense went off and I went, man, it seems like behind the smiles of the folks working in this industry, in particular, there is more need that's hidden than I've seen anywhere else. So you said you were moonlighting as a restaurant critic. What was the thing that you did full time? What I did full time was I was a pastor in a church. Oh, wow. And I think that I think that I still might have the distinction of being the only restaurant critic in the country ever who is also a pastor.

17:49That's not a normal combination. No. More someone like you who's had experience in the industry that just enjoys writing or enjoys that goes, oh, I could do this on the side. So. OK, so you're a pastor and you're moonlighting as a restaurant critic, right? So that's your spidey sense is there, because as a pastor, you're probably my perception of a pastor is somebody who's looking to help people as Jesus would. You know, I'm bring me your huddled masses. You know, somebody who's helping people, curing polio, whatever, you know. But like you recognize when people need help. And that's your spidey sense to go. Yeah. How can I help you? What can I do to help you come come to me? Well, I do think that coming out of that space, I was asking, I was looking at people slightly differently than you would just as as the ego, the the Ratatouille critic who just comes in and goes, I'm going to shred you if if I don't like your suit.

18:56Fantastic movie. Amazing. Anton Ego. Perfect. Great character. You're not that guy. No, no. When did you have the idea, hey, I could transition these things and do something that really helps people? Well, I noticed the need. You know, I noticed that you tell the story. I noticed I noticed the need. And some of that was largest industry in the country, highest concentration of need, most vulnerable people because the industry opens the doors to anyone willing to work. That puts into this one industry, unlike any other place, all the most vulnerable people. That's not just all vulnerable people, but a higher percentage of vulnerable people end up in restaurants and hotels than anywhere else in the community because they can get a job. You don't have to pass a background check if you're struggling with a past record coming out of prison.

19:58If you can't speak English, you can get a job in the back of the house. If you're homeless, literally, it's amazing the number of people that are struggling with housing who are still able to maintain a job in this industry. We paid the paid a gym membership for a guy. And when it first came through, I went, why are we doing this? And it's because that's where he showers so he can get to work. Wow. And that's the industry right there is that we're willing to take a chance on somebody like that, we want to help those people get a job. And, you know, there's a dishwasher, there's all kinds of different positions where we can bring somebody in and foster them and help them. So there's incredible amount of need here that's invisible because it's the hospitality industry. Anything anyone a guest would see, they're going to have a smile on their face. They're going to be attending to you. If you're a regular, they're going to say, hey, Brandon, do you want your regular? You're the Arnold Palmer guy, aren't you?

20:59It's interesting, some restaurants will even refer to people by their order rather than their name. I don't know if you've ever done this. Oh, yeah, 100 percent. Jack and Coke, what's up, man? Yep. So the thing. The focus is on the guest and folks who are very good in the industry become background intentionally. They're not trying to draw attention to themselves. So when Bigtable started, there literally was not a single organization registered with the IRS caring for the largest industry with the highest concentration of need in the nation. And there were a million and a half nonprofits registered. Wow. But not one because the industry has been so good at caring for others that no one was noticing that they needed care. So that was my spidey sense, that aha moment. The problem that I have and I call it my pastor problem. And I shared this at a summit conference last week was that once people in the industry found out I was a pastor, no one wanted to talk to me.

22:11They had such negative perceptions of Christians that and there was a sense that there was a this was a transaction. If they accepted help from me, they were then expected to have their butt in the seat on Sunday. So that was the my pastor problem. So literally what I ended up doing was quitting my job because that was the problem to caring for the people that I felt called to care for. So that's not the case. If I call Bigtable, I don't have to be at church. No, you know, no. For us, faith is going to be a possible resource. But the person that we're caring for gets to call that. If I want nothing to do with faith. How can I care for you? How can we care for you rather than, oh, by the way, I don't know what your issues are, but you need Jesus. I think that's there's this.

23:14Joke that pastor is doing a little children's message on Sunday morning, brings all the kids to the front and he says, all right, kids, what's brown and furry and likes nuts? One little girl, Sally, throws up her hand. Pick me, pick me, pick me. And then so the pastor says, Sally, she goes, Pastor, I know the answer is Jesus, but that sure sounds like a squirrel to me. And I think way too many people in the faith community feel like they know the answer for someone's life before they ever spent a moment with them. I will say that that is a thing that I think that you would categorize with a lot of Christians today. So our goal, if we're going to be other centered, if we're going to be centered on actually helping the person in crisis that we're caring for, is to get to know them.

24:19Our secret sauce is not rocket science, its relationship. If you think back in your life of what's changed your life. Almost inevitably, it will be people who showed up for you, who you trusted, who were safe enough for you to let them see who you really are. No one's going to do that if you feel that person has an agenda for you. Always. I mean, nobody's going to do that. But I think that's really impactful. Especially if you're like telling someone, hey, this resource that you're trying to push on me doesn't work for me. If they're not listening, then you don't trust them. And so that just ends that relationship. Right. It goes nowhere. What would you say if you were to tell me, and for those who may not know, the mission of BigTable, can you say it in one sentence? It used to be, I would say, we care for those in crisis in the restaurant and hospitality industry. That's our what. A la Simon Sinek, who says you should not start with your what, you should start with your why.

25:22Why? When I meet someone new and they say, what do you do? I don't answer what we do. I answer why we do it. And I'll say this. Did you know that the highest concentration of need in the nation is hidden behind the smiles of people working in restaurants and hotels? We care for them. So I'm answering the what on the back end of the why. I love that. I think there's a real movement. Running a restaurant is tough. Staff turnover, rising costs, and the endless tasks that bog you down and take you away from what you love. Let Adams Keegan lighten that load. They're a privately held Tennessee based restaurant and hospitality focused, outsourced HR, payroll and benefits firm. The team at Adams Keegan removes the administrative burdens of HR administration, payroll benefits management, garnishment, and hospitality. The team at Adams Keegan removes the administrative burdens of HR administration, payroll benefits management, garnishments, unemployment claims, compliance, 401K, and so much more.

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30:29And their headquarters is Nashville, Tennessee. So these guys are amazing. They're doing amazing product. Everybody I've tasted on has said, this is the best tequila I've ever had. There's zero burn. It is just delicious. You need to call your Ajax Turner Rep today. They have a brand new Amogrande, which is their entry level line so you can have the best tequila in the world as your well. Yes, this is a true thing. So pick it up. Find liquor stores everywhere. Look for Black Sheep Tequila or order it today through Ajax Turner. One of the things I see every day is we every day we're out just trying to help people. We're trying to create these experiences with people. But who's caring for those people? When I first started in 2005, I started a company called Creation Gardens. They're called What Chefs Want now. Great organization. I think they were one of the donating people last night for the event they donated. Yeah, one of the four. But for me, I was an AGM of a restaurant.

31:31And I'm highly customer centric. And one of the things that they said was, we want to be different. We want to be what chefs want. We want to treat the chefs in the kitchens the way that you treat your guests in the front of the house. So when I came on board there, it was a real easy transition for me. All the big broadband companies were telling the chefs what they had. You have to order by four o'clock. You have to do this. You have to do this. We're not going to split a case. We're not going to deliver on Sunday. And this is the product that you have. You can't have the one you want. Yeah. And they were telling them how it had to be done. And I was like, so you're telling me that I get to do this level of service that we do in the front of the house, but I'm just going to treat chefs in the back of the house this way? And it was nobody in the world was doing that. Right. And it was like chefs were like, why are you being nice to me? Like, why are you going above and beyond? I'm not going to do this for you. I'm like, that's just what I mean. I want you to feel this love. I want you to feel this love of, wow, somebody actually cares about my business.

32:31They care about me. It was unheard of. And it was ridiculous how much of a smashing success it was. Off the jump. Yeah. We, one of our taglines would be, we serve those who serve us. We serve those who serve us. Okay. Enough with you, Kevin. Right. Let's jump in with Becky. Okay. Were you a pastor in your former life? Now, wouldn't that be a real, real turn of events? No. No. What is your background? So I, I got to know Big Table. I've been with Big Table for about three years now, three and a half. And I found them like during 2020 while I was working at Husk. I was hosting at Husk and I had, I had been doing that for about six years on and off. Wow. And yeah, I, I loved working at Husk. I loved being a host. I loved being like the gatekeeper. I got to interact with so many different people and my family there.

33:31I mean, you just, you are, it feels like high school kind of in the best way where you're like, I have all of these new friends now. They are sticking up for me. If they've got, if I've got a customer that is being rude to me, this server that I haven't said two words to is my best friend now. And they are bulldogging for me. I got my back. Yeah. And yeah, so I just like instantly fell in love with how that felt and the fact that that was my job. And yeah, so I was working there on and off for about six years. And then the pandemic hit and it was just so quick that things shifted. And I mean, the restaurant shut down and we had all of this produce that was, you know, being delivered and so our managers were just like, Hey, if you guys need food now that the world is shut down, come by for the next few days. We'll do drive through of produce. You can pick up whatever you want.

34:33And the way that our managers took care of us through that was, I didn't even, I didn't think that I could ask for that because they were also hurting. And so the fact that they were so willing to care for our, like staff in that way, really shifted my mindset. I think of this is an essential part of humanity. This is an essential part of relationship to care for the people that you are staffing, to care for the people that are hurting just as much as you, even if you feel like you have nothing to give. And so yeah, I was, I was doing music a little bit during the pandemic. That was also hard industry and music. Yeah. No one in Nashville ever does that. No, it's very, very cool and different. Very unique. And yeah, so I was on Craigslist or not Craigslist.

35:34I'm so sorry. You guys are advertising on Craigslist over here. I like it. I was on indeed scrolling through jobs and found big table and the way that I was like reading through the mission and what they were wanting to do for people in the restaurant industry that I was currently working in. Just made me say like, thank God somebody is doing this because I need it because we need it. And yeah, so I started as a care coordinator. I've been doing that for about three years, working one on one with people. Anybody that gets referred to big table will, you know, we'll, we'll call them and say, Hey, and we'll get into this a little bit later. I'm sure we need to talk to referral model. It's really cool. But if someone is referred to big table, they will meet with a care coordinator over a cup of coffee. Hear what is going on with them. Hear who they are. I mean, we're coming in cold and so we're asking a bunch of questions of who are you?

36:35Where are you from? What's going on right now? But you also get to hear, okay, so you have been referred for obviously something that is hard to you right now. Are you down to talk about that a little bit? And it felt like a job that was like too good to be true because again, it's so necessary and needed, but it just felt organic to me. If, if I'm invested in people and invested in relationships and genuinely caring for people, that's just what big table does. And so yeah, in the last few months, the city director position became available and I realized this was a really, really cool way to keep caring for people in the restaurant and hospitality industry, but also care for my team who is going to be meeting with people one on one. Okay. Well, I think that thank you for everything that you're doing.

37:36Yes, no problem. I mean, it takes a certain type of person who cares about other people who loves to serve, you know, and to be a care coordinator, to sit down with those people and learn about them and offer help. When you're a care coordinator, you sit down with somebody and you actually want to get in the referral stuff too, because I'm just getting all over the place here. That's all right. But as you sit down and talk to them and they say, yeah, I'm about to be homeless and I'm an alcoholic or I'm this or I'm that, my wife's leaving me or my husband's leaving, whatever it is, what the most timing. So you're going to walk with them through that. Do you guys offer financial assistance to help that person or is it, I'll be here for coffee whenever you need it. It's a little bit of both. It's always dependent on what this person needs. And so I'm never going to jump into again, like assuming that I know what somebody needs without actually hearing who they are and what they think they need. But yeah, sometimes it's a little bit of financial assistance.

38:40It's introducing them to different people in Nashville that we know. Sometimes I refer to it as like building an army. There's just no safety net in hospitality. Sometimes there is if you're working for a great company that can offer you some benefits. But sometimes it's building the safety net through introducing them to people that they need a dentist, a doctor, a therapist, a mechanic. Yes, exactly. And other times it's helping with groceries for the week, helping with like the day to day in between. Maybe they are already working with an organization that's giving them a huge grant. And so we're saying, OK, so until you get that grant, do you have food in your fridge? Do you have gas in your car? Do you have a place to sleep tonight? You know, how do we keep you comfortable as a person so that you have the energy to keep going? It seems like the way I've described what we do is we do two things.

39:41One is that triage care, which may be helping in that immediate need, get over that hump. But then a lot of organizations would say, great, good luck, see ya. What we think changes people's lives long term, builds capacity into their life, is helping in that triage need, which we can do some, we can partner with other organizations to meet that need. But then say, how about two weeks from now? We grab coffee again. Maybe at that meeting it's, let's look at your budget. Let's come up with a plan for how you don't end up in this situation. There's some coaching involved. Oh, coaching and mentoring. Yeah, absolutely. Our goal is to not create dependency on BigTable, but to build capacity into their lives. So many folks in this industry, again, incredibly giving, generous people. There was a person at the dinner last night, actually the person attending the bar, who's become a friend of BigTable, who said, here's the piece that I've never been able to figure out on my own.

40:45Could you help with that? It's like, absolutely we can. So it's meeting that crisis need so that the underlying needs can kind of surface. But you've got to create enough safety, you've got to create enough trust by responding to something that's their need rather than us announcing a la the squirrel joke. We know what you need. Yeah. Let's talk about the referral program. Great. Let's talk about, so let's just say that I need help. Yep. Can I call you guys and say I need help? No. Okay. You could. You could. What we would do. Call a friend and have them call us? Exactly, yes. So we will. I'll tell you a great example and why this exists. Going back to when I was a pastor again, I served a downtown church kind of on the center of the stream for all of the folks that were moving through the city that needed help.

41:46So we would have multiple people roll into the church almost daily saying, I need help. They would always say, I need to speak to a pastor. They didn't know any of our names, but they knew they should talk to the pastor because the pastor could actually help them. That's high enough up the food chain. When I got that call from the receptionist, hey, there's someone here that wants to speak to a pastor, my heart would drop. Not because I didn't want to help them, but because I knew that I was going to spend the next half an hour to 45 minutes hearing a story that was partially true or not true at all for them to get help. They all needed help. Almost none of them needed the help they needed. Most of it was around mental illness and addiction issues, but they're not going to save you that. They're going to say, I just need a place to stay tonight. This is what I need. So I didn't get to help the folks in the way they needed, or I was saying no and feeling horrible.

42:46You were passing out band-aids. Totally. You're not finding solutions. And I knew that whether I helped them or not, I would move down the street to the next church or the next social service agency with the same story and not say, oh, by the way, Kevin helped me down there. I just need a little more. They would say, no, I'm all on my own with the money in their pocket because they were working the system. So in starting BigTables, seeing this need, I said, is there any, how do we care for people and de-prioritize the folks that are working the system that's most in need? And at the very first dinner that we did, like the one you experienced last night, as I'm walking out the door to go into that, I've got this great chef who's cooking this amazing meal. I still remember 15, 16 years later, the main course was a rabbit terrine with pistachio nuts in it. I've never had that before. I haven't had it since. It was amazing. Five stars.

43:46Five stars. But as I'm walking out the door, I'm thinking, we know how to do a meal. We know how to host an event. How do we get to the care? That's the mission that we're launching tonight with this dinner. And I saw a stack of 3x5 carts on my desk. And I looked at them, grabbed them, and threw them in my pocket. And that night, at the end of the meal, I just pulled out the 3x5 carts and handed them to everyone at the table and said, if you know someone that's hurting, would you write down your name and how I can get ahold of you and write down their name and what the need is? And that was us stumbling onto this referral system that I think would transform every nonprofit in the nation if they shifted from a hotline model where the person in need of help asks for help to a referral model where someone who knows them says, here's the need. It does two amazing things. It deprioritizes those folks who are just trying to work the system because the people who know them are not going to refer them.

44:50They're going to refer the person whose life just fell apart and is still in shock, wouldn't even know to ask for help. And they're still showing up to work. There's a single mom I know that's really struggling and she needs some help and she's alone. And they see it. You can see it. Maybe they are too proud or they don't want to say anything because I'm not going to ask for help. I'm going to do this, but somebody else can reach out and you can say, hey, you need help without saying you need help, but you can deal with them saying, how you doing? I want to help you. Can I refer you? Yeah. And so that so oftentimes the first time they'll they might hear about Bigtable from that friend who goes, hey, I know of something that might help right now. Or they may say, I want to be completely anonymous. We would reach out to that person and say, a friend of yours mentioned that you're going through a tough time. And like Beck said, then we're going to buy him a cup of coffee. We're going to sit down at a coffee shop. Just say, tell me about your life. It's an equal relationship from the get-go rather than the incredible power differential relationship when you're applying to ask for help from someone who has resources that you're trying to convince them to give to you.

45:59Like you're going to a bank to get a loan. Right. Yeah. And they're going to look at you and say, show me your pay stuff. You're going to say whatever you need to say to get the job. Exactly. Well, and I think also when you are the one that's in crisis, you don't have any extra energy to look around and see what your resources might be. And so the fact that somebody even cares about you enough to say, I want to help you too. I don't have a ton of time to look for resources, but I know that Bigtable does. And so that person that is referring them is also getting to help them. Well, and think about this, given that part of your audience, Brandon, is folks that are owners, managers, leadership in restaurants. Most of those folks are in this industry because they care, because they love serving others. They've got a team of folks with incredible amounts of need that they're aware of. If they help this person, many of them do, but that sets a precedent.

46:59If instead they refer that person to Bigtable, it can be a way that they can directly care, build relationship, without having to go, how do I, out of all of these people on my staff, all of whom I love, all of whom are struggling, have I set a precedent that I can't follow through with? Because now Sally's going to ask for what Sam asked for yesterday. Well, I think we've all been in a scenario where you have somebody with a substance abuse problem, and you see their life unraveling in front of you. Their symptoms, as a leader in a building, you start seeing, you're late, they look like they're hungover, or they come in and you can smell whiskey, or whatever it is. They're making mistakes. You see their life unraveling in front of you, and eventually you have to do two things. You have to sit down with them and have a tough conversation about where they're at with their life and can you help, or you have to fire them. You have to say, you no longer work here.

48:00Addiction and substance abuse, it's a disease. It's almost like somebody who gets sick and you're like, well, you have cancer, you can't work here. And it's a pretty bold statement there. But the idea of seeking to understand and putting your arms around somebody, I think every single person listening right now, if you said, look over your staff right now, who's the person who needs the help? Every single person would go, oh, that's Tammy. Oh, that's Johnny. That's Suzy. Somebody needs the help. And I think to know that there's a resource, you could say, hey, look, I want to refer you over. Versus me, with all the things I have going on, sitting down and trying to now be your care person. There was an organization that I could refer them to and say, hey, I don't know what's going on with you, but I'd like to refer you to somebody to get you some help. It's free, nothing. But they can sit down and talk to them and hopefully get them out of that. Show them the resources on how to do that. That's amazing. Two stories that might be very helpful here.

49:02One was when restaurants, when hotels get excited and partner with BigTable, then the idea is they start to notice people that they were trying not to notice before because they didn't have any resources. They weren't able to help. So why look or why notice that when I know we can't help? Oh, now we can help. Yeah, so I'm going to notice that. I'm going to respond. There was a restaurant on the West Coast. They had a guy who'd been working for them for 20 years. He had come from Central America, had led death squads in El Salvador. He hadn't been back to El Salvador in over two decades. So he hadn't met his grandchildren that were still living in El Salvador. And when this couple that owned this restaurant heard about BigTable, they called me up and said, hey, is there any chance we could just help Romaldo with a plane ticket to go see the grandchildren he's never met?

50:07All it took from BigTable was for us to say, yeah, we could do that. Let's figure out how to do that. They got so excited. They told everyone on the staff except Romaldo that that was happening. The restaurant itself raised half the money in like two days. All it took from BigTable is to say, we're going to make this happen. Everyone in the industry wants to help. Not everyone can say, yes, let's get this done. It's an industry of generosity. Second story, another long-term partner of BigTable, she had to fire an employee because he had broken policy. She loved him. He'd been someone she'd let sleep in her house when he was homeless. But to maintain consistency with the rest of the staff, she had to hire him. As she's firing him, she's saying, I'm also putting in a referral to BigTable. Here's the number to call.

51:07And he tells us later that he was sitting at home after he'd gotten fired. He had a loaded revolver in one hand, and he had the piece of paper with BigTable's number in the other. And he was saying, do I shoot myself or do I call? Obviously, you know the answer to the story. He called. Got into recovery. There were some substance abuse issues. There were some other pieces there. That's the kind of care that we get to provide. I love that. And so I work with Giving Kitchen. I'm on their Tennessee Engagement Council. Amazing organization. Amazing organization. But I'm kind of like you. I just, I see so much and I see these people that give so much and who's helping them. I just really want to be doing whatever I can to give back. I've been so blessed in so many ways by this industry. And I feel humbled by it. And it's like, how can I give back? And so Giving Kitchen reached out in 2020.

52:09I've learned about them. I love their story. But you guys are not competitors. Oh, we've played very well together. So you guys play with, so it sounds like there's a real component to the one-on-one care but then the financial assistance that Giving Kitchen can potentially provide. Like there's, how do you guys, how does that work? How do you guys work together? Behind the scenes, either if there's things that they can't do based on what their focus of care is, they'll refer them to Bigtable. If they're working with someone that they think Bigtable's relational care, mentoring, coaching model could also help, those can be referrals to Bigtable. If we've got a person that we're caring for that fits the criteria that Giving Kitchen has for giving, we'll make that referral back to them. So that what they can do and what we can do work together to provide more of the safety net that Becky was talking about.

53:11Yeah, a lot of times the conversations that I'm having with employees at Giving Kitchen remind me of like a manager that's referring somebody because it's the exact same heart behind it. It's that either this person does fit the Giving Kitchen criteria and they're going to help them but they want to provide more help or they say, gosh, I feel so awful. This person is struggling so much and I want to help them but they don't fit our criteria and we can't help them. And so we get to talk to them and tell them, okay, here are a couple things that we're going to do for this person right off the bat and you have actually done something to keep helping them by passing them on to us. So we love working with them. We have great relationships with them. Another example would be Core, children of restaurant workers based here in Nashville. Yes, Core Gives. Core Gives, we've worked with Southern Smoke based out of Houston. There's an organization on the West Coast, I've Got Your Back, which has specifically been around trying to help folks in the industry who are struggling mentally, emotionally that came out of a chef whose best friend committed suicide, another chef.

54:27Ben's Friends, another dear and dear to your heart. Yes. What we can do together is way more effective than what we can do alone. There's a fear sometimes in non-profit organizations that if we work with other people, if we connect to other people, somehow that's going to mean they're going to get the resources and we're not. It's a scarcity model rather than an abundance model where you say you grow that giving tree, there's more resources for everybody. That's one of the main reasons why I wanted to have you guys on. I'm excited. It was my third big table dinner. I've attended one, I volunteered for one. I wanted to be one of the people that I actually served. Last night was awesome. This is really informative because you can go to the dinner and you can learn about it. We've hosted an event at Green Hills Grill for you guys also. We would love to do that again as another thing.

55:29I love it. I think it's really important to let people know what you are because I think that with Core Gives, with Giving Kitchen, with Big Table, I think there's just kind of lumped into there's three different people that will help you. Each one does specific things for specific people and the combination of what Giving Kitchen as well as Big Table can do and the referral method, I think that's brilliant. Thank you guys for being here. One of my questions I want to know is from your vantage point, since you've been around so long, pre-pandemic, what the needs were versus post-pandemic. What do you feel like has changed in the industry with needs around help post-pandemic? Two things. So we've got five areas that we kind of think of in terms of the places that those typical referrals or crises come in.

56:29One would be housing stability. One would be mental and emotional health. One would be medical, dental, job readiness, and am I missing another one? Addiction. Big one to miss. Usually not where we start because in those addiction issue pieces, that's usually something that people say, I've got this under control. I'm struggling over here, but as you build a relationship, and trust gets built, then that deeper conversation can happen. Pre-pandemic, those numbers kind of fluctuated and changed. Post-pandemic, in every one of our cities in four different parts of the country, the number one referral is housing stability. We've got folks who are either about to get evicted or who are already homeless and still fighting to maintain a job. In every one of our cities, it's been between 51 and 53%. Wow. The numbers are identical.

57:30The percentage is identical in four very different cities with very different cost of living. San Diego, Spokane, Washington, Colorado Springs, Nashville. Are those the four cities that BigTable is in? Yes. So you're not nationwide if I live in Boise, Idaho. I can't just call BigTable. You are specific. It's like if there's a restaurant, there's a husk in South Carolina and there's a husk here. You can't go to a husk in Dallas. So BigTable, you've chose Nashville. You have an office here, a hub here. So you essentially chose one of the four cities in the country that has BigTable. This isn't just a national thing. We've found that we are most effective and have the most community welcome in what I would describe as rising cities. If you go to a New York, if you go to a Dallas, if you go to an LA and you're not from there, there's kind of a, ah, we can do it better. Rising cities are saying, what?

58:31But everything's changing every day. We don't know what the hell's happening. We're growing. Oh, you can help in this area? Oh, we want that. So there's an openness. And I think Nashville would be a good example of this. Even as the growth has happened, one of the things that people love about Nashville is the sense of community that still connects people. When you're in New York, you may not even know your neighbors, let alone the millions of people you walk by each day. That's not the case in rising cities. So that's been our sweet spot. But it's back to our relationship model. We can't do relationships in Boise from Nashville. You can have a phone call. You can maybe even do a video call. Not the same. You can't sit across a table from someone and see that their leg is shaking. See that their eye is twitching. Or see fear.

59:31Yeah, just that sense of being in the room. You can tell somebody's lying to you if they're being vulnerable. I tell people all the time when they do interviews, I say, Oh, we just zoom it in? I go, no. I'll wait for however long. I want you sitting across from me in the room. I want to look you in the eye. There's a feeling when you're in the room with somebody. There's a connection that makes the interview so much better. The way I've tried to describe it is I think you can communicate information and you continue a relationship with technological means. You can't build a healthy, a full relationship, not eyeball to eyeball. So for us, the way Big Table is going to grow is different from an organization like Giving Kitchen or like Core Gives, which can provide grant assistance anywhere in the country, which is amazing. What we're going to do is come alongside them in the cities where we can grow the relationship model that builds capacity into people's lives over time. It's so powerful when you put it together.

01:00:31Totally. I've been really enjoying this. I'm learning so much more about Big Table today. We're here to do. We're just saying something, yeah, since we've talked for a while. Yeah. I think I'm like everybody else. This is why I love doing this, because we get snippets. Right. It's a soundbite culture. You see Reels where we see, hey, we helped this person. To really break it down over an hour, how do you do it? What is your model? Where did it begin? What is the thing that you're doing every day and how do you differentiate? Being able to explain every piece of that really is fantastic. Thank you guys so much for your time today. I'm not letting you go yet. Just thanking you. Look, you know what? We're all super busy and there's perceptions and there's a brand. There's a brand of Big Table.

01:01:31When I think Big Table, I think of a really big table and you can help restaurant workers. How you do that, why you do that, what that looks like over a span of time. I guess the thought is we figure that out. We'll just send people there and then they'll figure, they'll just help them. It's like move them away. But to know the entire process and the meaning behind it is really impactful. One way of describing it was with four things. We do four things. We empower people to care for each other and that starts with the referral system. Anyone in a restaurant, you could be the dishwasher, have no resources. You could be referring your manager who's going through just a brutal divorce and say, Hey, I love my manager. They've taken care of me. They're hurting. Anyone can make that referral. So you're empowering the community that already exists around that person and you're building on that. And then we enter their lives. You could say gently or graciously with that over a cup of coffee, equal to equal.

01:02:33What's going on in your life? Completely different from that model where you're going in and trying to convince someone to give you support. Then we're going to eliminate. So this is that in that care process, our care coordinators are going to eliminate the barriers that would keep someone from getting help. Like we have networks, we have resources, we know to talk to this person. That person in crisis would never have, you know, they're probably not even thinking clearly enough to go, well, who should I think through? We can use that to eliminate barriers so that they can help themselves. And then we're going to build ongoing community around them, which you saw last night. Some of that is past sprinkled through the table last night. We're past our current or past care recipients. We're not calling them out and saying, look, we help these folks. Although it was amazing to me to have two of our servers self identify and say the reason I connected to Bigtable was because they cared for me.

01:03:33Right. I thought it was cool, too. That was awesome. Yeah, really neat. So looking forward, we know where we're at. We're really glad Becky's here because I'm really I'm sorry. I've been talking to Kevin like, no, of course. Well, honestly, it's so like you said, you lock in and you have these headphones and it's like I'm listening to a podcast. And I'm like, yeah, that is what we do. That's good. Just to sharpen our knives on this mission you guys have here. Five years, five years down the road, 2030. Yep. What's Bigtable doing? Where's Bigtable? Are you in four cities, five cities, 10 cities, 20 cities? What do you want to do? We are talking to some folks who help. Again, so many organizations, whether that's restaurants that try to expand too fast and then trip over their shoelaces, don't have the systems in place to care. And so a brilliant concept ends up not existing.

01:04:36We don't want to grow too fast. The need is in every one of our cities in the nation. How do we get there? And our model, I think, is needed in those cities because of that relational care piece. It's so critical. By 2030, I would like us to at least have doubled our footprint and be in eight cities, eight rising cities around the country. We've got three or four of them that are bubbling right now. But we need to be stable in our existing cities financially, not just in terms of an amazing care model. And then from an organization standpoint, we need to have the systems in place to support Becky and the other city directors and the operations directors in cities so that they're able to do the work at the local level. Rather than just chasing the shiny new thing like, oh, there's I want to be there. So Nashville and specifically, how many care recipients do you typically respond to or work with on an annual or monthly basis?

01:05:45Gosh, so because that because we work relationally with people, it's it's not like we are working on like a six month timeline or something. So if you were to be referred to Bigtable, it's not like we're going through this course of events and you graduate. Technically, I've been working with a few people for like four years. Maybe they're not in active crisis. But through that, you know, we call that like an ongoing care recipient. Sure. In terms of like active care recipients. Gosh, I don't even know the exact number. Maybe Kevin does. But we have been getting about five new referrals every week for. Yeah, just in. Yeah, just in Nashville. Now, is your goal 50 referrals a week? How many can you handle? I don't think that's the goal just because how do you do that relationship? Well, you know, well, that's what I'm saying.

01:06:46Like, do you have like a metric or I mean, I don't want to say KPI like this is a business. But I mean, like, do you where do you want to be? Where do you see Nashville in five years having 20 people working as care coordinators getting 50 people? I mean, look, I know that the goal is not to have 50 a week. You hope that there's not 50 people that need the help. But the real fact of the matter is there's probably hundreds that need the help right now. I mean, where do you see Nashville in five years? Well, when I was working as a care coordinator, I would work with about 20 active people and then I would have like a list of people, you know, maybe I've been working with for years. And so the hope is to for every court care coordinator that we have, have them be kind of at capacity at about 20, 21 people. So, gosh, years in I'm looking back at our numbers for 2024 and in Nashville, we had three hundred and thirty two active care recipients.

01:07:49Oh, hey, I'm looking back at our numbers for 2024. And in Nashville, we had three hundred thirty two active care recipients over the course of that year. Some of those are almost one a day. Very excited to be partnering with C&B Linen. If you know me, it's my number one topic of conversation is linen companies and how shady linen companies can be. I have just disgusted with how the business practices work in this industry, which is why I was so excited when I found C&B Linen. They're out of Waynesboro, Tennessee, and they don't charge any fees. So the linen price that you have, whatever that first linen price is, that's your price. And so you may say, well, every year they must raise the price on the seven year contract, right? No, because they don't do any contracts. There's no gas fees. There's no clean green service fees. There's no replacement cost.

01:08:50There's nothing. The only price you pay is the price that you pay for the actual product. I know it's too good to be true. No contracts. They do formats. They'll make custom formats for you. They do fresh linens, cleaning supplies. And guys, I just did a tour of their facility and it is immaculate. It is state of the art. I'm going to post pictures on my Instagram. You can go find them and you can see how absolutely gorgeous this is to the point that they even wash and sanitize every one of their used laundry carts. It's just absolutely amazing. If you're looking for a linen company, you can trust who wants to earn your business every single week. Go back and listen to our episode with Jason Cruz, the owner of CMB Linen. Hear it from his straight from his mouth. Exactly what they do. Or you give them a call at nine three one seven two two seventy six sixteen. Or you can DM me at Brandon Styll on Instagram for my exclusive pricing through the Nashville area restaurant alliance.

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01:10:54I know the risks you're up against and how to cover them properly. This isn't a one size fits all coverage. I'm going to help you find a policy that actually fits your operation, your staff and your budget. So you can focus on serving guests, not stressing about what ifs. It's an ever changing market. Anything could go wrong. If you want to work with someone who knows hospitality from the inside and out, reach out to me. Call my cell phone 863-409-9372 or go to robbinsins.com. Yeah. I mean, 332 is you're getting close to one a day. But what's really cool and which supports our are saying that we do relationships is the average number of contacts with each person is seven to eight. Seven to eight encounters with that person. So we're not just passing out good luck. And if that's the average, then imagine the folks.

01:11:55There are folks who we can just help with some immediate crisis. And it's like we're good to go. So for every one of those, that's one or two encounters, three encounters, there's folks that are 20, 30 that those are the ongoing relationships that Becky talks about. So what you would like more? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, yeah, I think the goal would be to hire more care coordinators so that we're capable of providing more care. So if I'm a listener, yeah, I'm listening this right now. This is our first time caller. This is our this is our call to action. What if listeners want to get involved? What is the best way to do that? Is it volunteering? Is it donations? Is it referrals? How can people if they're listening to this and they're like, man, I love this. I want to be involved with this. What do they need to do? OK, Becky, can I answer? And then you can chime in. I'm loving this podcast. Yeah, go for it. Yeah. So what we think is we've got some volunteer opportunities.

01:12:59Obviously, there were volunteers serving last night. Sure. We've got one night, though. That's an easy one. We've got a big event that will be a fundraiser coming up in November. Becky can totally connect you in on that. If you're in the industry, you want to donate something, a really cool live auction package. We need them. There's those specific things that you would get from any other organization. What's unique about Big Table. And this goes back to me in those years as a pastor going, how do we engage people in care directly rather than just saying, hey, give to us as an organization? So how do we connect people to mission? We've got something called an unexpected 20 envelope. You can find out about this on our website. No, that's cool. I know. I do know about this. The unexpected 20. That's the place to start. If you're excited about connecting to Big Table, get a couple unexpected 20 envelopes from us. We can send them to you. You're going to load that envelope with 20 bucks. And then any time that you're in a coffee shop, a bar, a restaurant, a hotel, what you're going to be doing is looking for the person that's invisible, the person that you would have never noticed before.

01:14:06It's not your server. It may not be the host. It's not someone you've interacted with necessarily. You see them. And before you leave, you're just going to walk up to them and say, thanks. Look inside. There's 20 bucks. It's not a transaction for a service given. It's a gift where you're saying, I see someone. I guarantee you, you do this. It will change everything. There's going to be all kinds of ways. We've got a whole sheet called how to care while eating and sleeping. It's hilarious. It's simple. It can be done anywhere in the country. We've got a couple in Arizona, hundreds of miles from our closest care team, that never go out without an unexpected 20. In fact, they were driving back from some errands, heading home just about lunchtime. Jan said to her husband, Don, let's stop for lunch. He said, oh, we can't. We don't have an unexpected 20. So that's the way you can get involved.

01:15:07In Nashville, because we've got a care team here, there's a ton of other ways to get involved. But that's the place to start because that will connect you to our mission to caring for this industry rather than just connect you to our organization, Bigtable. I think it will also connect you to our intention behind Bigtable because it shifts your gaze to also be looking for the person in need. That's not everybody's mindset when they're going out to eat. Certainly not. We want to be an organization at the center of a movement of people who care for the restaurant and hospitality industry that's been invisible for far too long. I love that. That's amazing. If I wanted to volunteer time or I wanted to volunteer that, how would I do? Who would I reach out to? Is there a website? Is there a phone number? There is a website. How would we do this? Everything is on the web.

01:16:07Now, if you go to Bigtable.org. Bigtable.org. How do you spell that? I'm just kidding. It's pretty simple. Bigtable.org. You could Google Bigtable and you'll probably get a picture of a Bigtable and then write under that. Yeah. Although there is a Bigtable. Go to ChatGVT and say, tell me about Bigtable. You sure could. And ChatGVT will go into a lot of things. Well, say, tell me about Bigtable Nashville is what you want to say. Yes. Because if you say, tell me about Bigtable, there's a Google product that's a tech product that you really don't want to know about. It's called Bigtable, too. Uh-oh. Now we're going to do that, aren't we? We're going to see what it tells me here. But I think if you add the city for that, that becomes a or Bigtable nonprofit, I think would also do it. What are we looking at? Looking at ChatGVT. Oh, pulled it up right away. Bigtable in Nashville, serving hostile to workers in crisis. Overview and mission at Bigtable launched in Nashville in 2021, extending care and support hospitality workers in crisis, many of whom earn under $24,000 on our city's largest employment sectors.

01:17:10How it works. Care begins with a referral. See? It will tell you all those things. ChatGVT. Yeah, we've been there on our payroll. You're doing great. OK, so I don't do this very often. I've never done this before. We love a sentence that starts like that. What I do every single time. OK. I can let you guys do different things here. Gordon Food Service sponsors the final thought. Hey, Gordon. You gave us $10,000 last year. Thank you. Thank you for that. Gordon Food Service. Big sponsor for Bigtable. Love that. They're a big sponsor of mine here. I love them. Not because they're a big sponsor. I actually am pretty fortunate to be able to kind of choose the sponsors. And I just love them. They do an amazing, amazing job all the way through. They're amazing. But they sponsor our final thought.

01:18:11And so what I like to have people do is take us out with a kind of a final thought. And today I was going to give you a topic for the final thought, which I've never done. OK. You can take it or leave it. I don't know. But my kind of thing is if you could tell every restaurant worker one thing, what would it be? And maybe one of you can answer that. One of you can give a different final thought. But you can say whatever you want. You guys get to take us out. I think, Becky, do you want the first final thought? Yeah. I mean, the first thing that came to mind was just that you are not alone. Every it's astonishing the amount of times that I will sit down with somebody and just I think the conversation is kind of going nowhere. We haven't talked about something, you know, that of it. We haven't talked about anything that feels like, wow, I've really helped this person. But at the end of the meeting, they're saying thank you so much for just sitting with me and listening to me. There's something so powerful and I think gets lost in where we are in the world right now and just being with people and not being alone.

01:19:19And in an industry where you're constantly asking other people, what can I do for you? Can I get you anything? And no one's asking you that question. You forget that other people care about you and that other people see you. And so, yeah, the thought is you are not alone. I see you love it. Kevin, our tagline, if you run into big table, it says we serve hope. It totally dovetails with it. Becky said is we want every person in the industry to know they're worth it. They're worth care. They're not only worth being someone who serves others, but they're worth being served themselves. And that's not the message that's communicated to most of them. So for us, the greatest privilege is to get to sit with someone and say, we see you. You're worth it. I'm going to tack on to this same thing you guys are saying, but I never get to do a final thought.

01:20:25Yeah, what's your final thought? If I was to say something to restaurant people, I would say you're good enough. I think so many people doubt themselves and there's so much right. I think we compare all the time. Well, they did this and they got that tip and this person and that person and they have those shoes and this person like it's like it's all relative. Like it doesn't matter if you've got a heartbeat and you're on the wrong. They're this right side of the ground. Like you're good enough. I think that you. Yeah, you're okay. You're worth it. You're worth it. You're good enough. And you're not alone. You know, people do care about you. And sometimes it's isolating, leaving. I think that in this industry, the middle of a rush is a crazy freaking time where all bets are off and it's intense and things are said. And then we don't circle back and say, hey, that wasn't personal. Yeah, I'm so sorry. Like that. And people take these things home with them and they go, my chef yelled at me today.

01:21:26He hates me. I'm not good enough. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. You're great. You're great. That's their that's their thing. Not you. Like it's OK. Like you are good enough and you're worthy of everything in the world. It's I know you guys feel the same way. And what an honor to be able to sit with somebody and remind them of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing what you guys do. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Boy, that crowd was so quiet for most of it. I mean, they are so well behaved. Wow. You've got to get one of those buttons. I totally need that button. Like on my phone. Yeah. Unfortunately, you need that one, too. Yeah. Well, that one. Yeah. Well, it'd be nice if we lived in a magical world where all this stuff just happened naturally and everything was just perfect. But we do need you guys. And see, and I have my because I'm not funny sometimes. I just sit in here and I talk to myself and I push these buttons.

01:22:28It's a squirrel. That's what I do. I just this is how I entertain that callback. No, I get it. That was it. That was an attempt to be like Nate Vargasi. He loves a callback. Yeah. He loves a full circle moment. Loves him. Yep. Guys, thank you for being here. Thank you for what you're doing. And if you want to get involved, guys, bigtable.org, check them out and volunteer your time. Go online, get some of these unexpected 20 envelopes. They're so fun. Give them out. Give them out. There's now a QR code on the back. When you give it, you scan it before you do it and drop in your zip code. It drops a pin on a hope map of where you gave it. And then the person giving it can find out about it, drop a pin. You can look up a map and kind of see where other people in the country are using them. Can I put a 50 in there? Oh, of course. You can have to be a 20. Okay. At least a 20. At least a 20.

01:23:28At least a 20. Put a dollar in there and be like, look, I'm... Yeah. It is unexpected. Helping on a budget, though. Just cross out the 20 and put a... Anyway. Thank you guys for coming. Now you have a busy day. I really appreciate you making the trip out here to the studio. And best of luck with everything. And please let me know how I can be of assistance. Thank you so much for having us. Thanks. All right, guys. Bye. Big thank you to Kevin and Becky for joining us in studio. Hopefully that was educational for you. It was for me. I understood how Giving Kitchen nationally can help people with financial assistance. And BigTable is only in four cities. So in Nashville, they have an office and they will come to you and they will spend time with you. I just thought that was great. I think they can help financially as well. But they're just really here to counsel and help. And I absolutely love that. I love... I thought that my kind of my biggest hang up was the God thing. And then all of a sudden I was like, well, I can see that. No, it makes sense.

01:24:28They're doing good things. I think when you hear about Christians, you think about people that want to help everybody. And they are here to help anybody and everybody to help them. I thought it was interesting the people that were seeking, you know, the back and forth and how they kind of qualify you for it. I thought that was an interesting piece. I'd never really thought about that before. And anyway, they were they were just fantastic. Hey, if you're looking for a place to go out to eat this week, I want to tell you, I think you should go check out the Park Cafe. The Park Cafe is kind of under it's under newish ownership. The guys from Germantown Cafe and the all new Carrington Row have taken it over and they've had about a year, maybe a little longer. And they're just crushing it. And it's one of those local legends that they kept around and are honoring the tradition of it. So if you're thinking about somewhere to go eat, go check out the Park Cafe. Go back to the Park Cafe. If you haven't been there in a long time, go eat there because they're doing awesome stuff and you should support them.

01:25:31These local legends, it's one of those things. If you see the Park Cafe, oh, Park Cafe. No, I love that place. And when's the last time I ate there? Go eat there. Go check it out. The other place I want to tell you that you should go eat that's such a unique dining experience is in the Gulch. And it's called St. Vito's Focaccia Ria. Michael Hanna started this thing in the pandemic out of his house. And then he was doing pop ups. I went to the pop up he had at Hathorn. And this is his brick and mortar. And he's doing the Spenzione pizzas. And this is a Focaccia pizza. And if you've never had, if you love pizza and you order from anybody that isn't local, if you go down there, check it out because it is some of the best damn food. The Spenzione's are good, but he has tons of other Italian offerings. It's in the Gulch. Google it. Find it. Go support Michael Hanna. That guy's crushing over there and he's a hell of a chef. And he's going to lose on our fans football team this year. That's what's going to happen. We have a Nashville restaurant radio fans football team and we are drafting this week and we're really excited.

01:26:32I'm sure we'll be talking about it on the show. But Michael Hanna is in that league. Go send him some business and tell him we sent you. And Michael, you're going to go down in fans football. Sorry, buddy. I love you. But it's not going to happen. All right. Hope you guys are being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.