Tabor Luckey and Cory Coleman

00:00Trust 20 is the new standard of restaurant safety and diner comfort. Trust 20 restaurants are part of a national network of restaurants that meet a high standard of cleanliness and safety, giving diners confidence in the measures you're taking to keep them safe. Trust 20 restaurants receive expert guidance, operational resources, and benefit from diner-focused promotion on behalf of the Trust 20 network of participants. So how do you get certified? It's easy. Go to trust20.co and request a certification appointment. A Trust 20 specialist will reach out and arrange a visit. The specialist conducts a 60-minute review and consultation according to Trust 20 tactics. If adjustments are needed, the Trust 20 specialist will provide guidance to assist. Now that you're certified, have peace of mind knowing that you're doing everything you can to keep your restaurant safe and start enjoying the benefits of Trust 20 certification. Remember, visit trust20.co and request your certification appointment today.

01:09Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello, Music City, and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your host. We have got a special show for you today. We welcome in Tabor Lucky and Corey Coleman. Tabor is the owner of the Corner Pubs as well as Esquina Cantina, and Corey is his director of operations. We're so excited to get to talk to them, catch up with them, see how things are going over there with them, and want to get started off today by talking a little bit about Faux & Beaux. That's F-O-H and B-O-H dot com. They are the new way to hire and be hired in Nashville, Tennessee. So if you own a restaurant, if you want to work in a restaurant, this website is for you. It is locally owned, locally operated, and woman owned.

02:11It is not anywhere else. While it's a very professional looking website, it looks like it can be a national website. It is only for Nashville restaurant workers. Go right now, F-O-H and B-O-H dot com. It is free to sign up, free to check it out, and it is very, very cost effective. It works like a dating site. So if you own a restaurant and you want to hire people right now, don't do the post and pray method on Facebook. Don't go on these other sites and create a job and have to wait for people to come back. We have thousands of people right now on their website waiting for you to request an interview with them. You need servers, you need bartenders, you need line cooks, you need managers, you need general managers. They are all there right now on F-O-H and B-O-H dot com. They are called Faux & Beaux. You also heard a commercial there to start off about Trust 20. Trust 20 is the new way to get certified for all things healthy inside of a restaurant. You owe it to your guests and your staff to ensure that these 20 tactics are covered.

03:15Just like Deakin's New South and Puckett's Grocery, the A. Marshall Hospitality Concepts, you will get a cool sticker that says you are Trust 20 certified as well as they will promote you throughout the city, like on this show. So we are happy to have Trust 20 as a sponsor. And with that, we have Taber and Corey waiting in the wings. There they are. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you. We are so excited to have you. And if you are listening to this, just a reminder, you can also watch this. You can see all of our smiling faces on our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Nashville Restaurant Radio. All right. That's a lot. It's a lot to get started here. So, guys, this has been an absolutely insane past six months. I know it has been for me. How are things going for you? It's good. As good as can be.

04:15This was something that the purchase went through on the third of January of this year. So we got hit by the tornado right out right off the bat. And then obviously this thing called COVID popped up. So it has definitely been it's been an experience. It's been an experience for sure. So let's back up a little bit, Tabor. You said the purchase went through in January. Let's let people know who you are if you don't know who Tabor Lucky is. And, Corey, we're going to jump into you right here next. But give us kind of that 90-second story. I want to I could spend a day a whole show on going back on your story, but kind of give our listeners just a how you got here. Yeah. I feel like infinity. Yeah, I've been in Nashville for about 17 years now. Actually, Jay Alexander's brought me here. I worked for them as a chef and opened up some stores for them.

05:16Where did you move from? Born and raised in Montana. OK. But I've been all over. I was in Rhode Island. I went to Johnson and Wells University is where I got my degree at. I spent some time overseas as well and then got hired with Jay Alexander's right out of college. And went from Chicago to Detroit to here via Jay Alexander's. So I was we had to Nashville and put roots down. I did. Yes. Yeah. So I was with Jay's for a long time. I actually worked at the Art Institute of an instructor for a couple of years as well. And then I had the opportunity to I really wanted just to get back on the line and start cooking, you know, working at Jay's. I had I learned a lot. But after I got my systems down, I turned into more of a janitor and a babysitter and kind of lost my lost my way. As you know, why I got into this industry start with, which was, you know, being on the line and listening to tickets print and trying to work your way out of the weeds.

06:19The fun stuff. Fun stuff. Yes. So I started a restaurant in it was Whitfield's at the time. Oh, yeah. And Bellamy and I just started as a grill cook while I was teaching out at the Art Institute. That lasted for maybe six months before the owner approached me and asked if I'd ever be interested in buying out the other owner, which I did. And then I originally took over Bria Bistro as well. So we have Bria and Whitfield's. Then we opened up Harding House at the Bellamy Plantation. And then that's kind of when we got into catering with Infinity. So that was with Nathaniel Beaver. Correct. Was the owner there. Nathaniel Beaver was the owner. And then you had those three. And then you you kind of when did you start and was Infinity his company or was Infinity something that you guys created? We created it together. We're 50-50 business partners. And like I said, when we got into the Bellamy Plantation, we started doing weddings and started getting into catering at the plantation and just kind of progressed into a full event company.

07:30And our first event space was the Bridge Building downtown. And then we went into the Bell Tower on the corner of 4th and Korean took over 12th and Porter. And the quarter, which was on 2nd Avenue above French's Boots. Well, whatever happened with 12th and Porter? Because the last I remember talking to you before you reopened it, like walking in the door there. And it was like the enthusiasm coming out of you just as to what you guys were doing there. Did that just like what happened with the 12th and Porter? You know, it just never between all the construction from around there. Yeah, it just it really we couldn't get we couldn't get it off the ground. We had a lot of great musicians there. We had a lot of great concerts there. But the cost to put that on just was wasn't it didn't make financial sense. Yeah. So we had to modify the hours and went from no lunch to dinner only.

08:32And then we turned it into an event space. And I believe currently it is a construction office. Oh, well, there's a lot of construction happening over there. That would make sense. There is. Yeah, it was just closed every day and no one could get there. Just it turned into more of a hassle than anything. And financially, it just wasn't making sense. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes timing like that. Just I mean, now with all those buildings being built and show on and Mockingbird and Tonsu and pins mechanical. And I feel like that area is it's, you know, it's expanding right now. It is. It'll turn into the other side of the gulf here pretty soon. Absolutely. OK, so you did that. You know, the bridge building, you did all of these events. And when did you guys so did you when did you exit that whole partnership? Yeah, last June, last June, last June, we separated ways. And then I got presented with an opportunity from Jeff Rippey to take over all the corner pubs.

09:34So I'm going to ask you the difficult question. Was it an amicable split? Was it like, I mean, were you guys just like wanting to do different things or were you wanting out? Are you guys still friends? What's the what's the deal there? Yeah, it just it happened. We both wanted to do different things. And we, you know, we we grew a huge business really quickly together. Yeah, a great business relationship. And it was just time to time to do other things. He wanted to go one direction. I wanted to go a different direction. So that's what we did. OK, well, that makes sense. That happens sometimes, right? It does. OK, so I'm going to I'm going to pause right there before we get into your next steps. And I'm going to I'm going to go over to Corey. Yeah, Corey, what's what's kind of your same sort of deal there that he just explained. But for you. Sure. So born and raised in Virginia, Waynesboro is the Shenandoah Valley, the Blue Ridge Mountains. They call it God's country up there. And is that what Blake Shelton's singing about?

10:35Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The Blue Ridge Mountains. But so I went to James Madison University up in Harrisonburg in Virginia, was a vocal performance major actually for three years and decided that's not really what I want to do with the rest of my life, although it was something I was good at. So I get down on some karaoke. Yeah, you're probably the guy to take to karaoke, aren't you? Every once in a while, you know, I dabble. But I decided to switch career paths, worked in a couple of restaurants up in Virginia and really loved it and just loved like Tabor said, being in the weeds and getting out of the weeds with a crew of pirates. So moved down to Nashville, went to the Art Institute, RIP Art Institute, Tennessee, no longer a thing and met a lot of great people. You know, I mean, it really was a school where you get out what you put into it. You know, you build connections and relationships there.

11:36And then so I started at Whitfield's actually as well, working the line, working the grill there. And from there, you know, worked at Bria, worked at Harding House and started working my way, you know, up the line and eventually, you know, became the corporate executive sous chef of Infinity with Tabor and Nathaniel. And just from there, progressed into, you know, a real job of every day was a different task. I mean, you know, with three restaurants and multiple event spaces, it was just, it just became an exciting place to work and an exciting time to work, especially with the growth that that company had in such a short amount of time. Yeah. And I went to Bria not long ago for dinner. I live less than a mile from there. So your corner pub right there is very excited.

12:39I have not been back since you've kind of finished everything. And I just told my wife yesterday, I said, we've got to go check that out and see what he's done. But it's amazing how Bria is like so different now. It is. We sold Bria, shoot, four years ago. Yeah. I mean, it's been, I mean, obviously I don't eat there a lot. I mean, so last time I was there, I think you guys had it and it was fantastic. And then I went back there recently and I was like, this is completely different. Like what happened? And then I went, oh, they sold this new ownership. And you went, oh, OK, I see exactly what's going on here. Nothing against Bria. I don't like talking bad about restaurants, but it's just amazing how your mindset and leadership in a place goes to somebody different, who I think is out of town now is what I understand. Correct. How different that can be. And I want that place to be amazing because I need that place to be amazing. It's right next to my house. I loved it. It was one of my favorite places. It's a beautiful restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. So you guys both have a jail. Alexander's that experience.

13:40So that was my very first restaurant I worked in 1997 jail. Alexander's on Whitebridge Road first restaurant. It's the first like I worked at lots of like restaurants, like Taco Bell and pizza, which are technically restaurants, but jail. Alexander's in 1997 was my first waiting tables job, like white, white start shirt. Yeah. Hand tied bow tie. You had to wear white shoes and I had to like get like that white paint stuff and like clean all the scuff marks off every morning. It was incredible. But what I learned from Jay's was an incredible discipline for what you do inside the building. Did you were you like that before Jay's? Because I know that's the way you are now. I walk in your kitchen. I see all your dry storage. Every can is label facing the exact same way. It's exactly like that. You walk in the back and the attention to detail is on point. Is that just the way that you are or is that something you learned coming up?

14:42I've always I started in the industry when I was 13 and I've been lucky to work under some really good chefs. But, you know, coming into Jay's, it was, you know, when I was going to school, I was didn't did a lot of competitions and was really in with the chef group. So when I took a corporate job, I got a lot of flack from from the instructors. But I knew that's what I needed as a person. And to grow my careers, I needed that discipline and I wanted to learn the systems. Actually, when I first applied for Jay Alexander's, I applied for front of house because I had worked in back of house for 15 years and I wanted to get that the front of house experience. I went to Chicago for my training. And I think the third weekend, the executive chef sat me down and said, You're not you don't want to do front of house. You need to come back into this into the back of the house. You'll be a lot more successful and had a long talk with me. And that's what happened. I ended up switching and started in the kitchen.

15:46You know, he was one of the very first people that his name was Montana. He's still he's still the executive chef in Chicago. The Northbrook location. And he I'll never forget he walked in. It was one of my last three or four weeks of training. And he you walked into his kitchen and it looked like you walked into, you know, a sterile hospital. And it was it was everything was Krogerized. So when you walked in that dry storage, there wasn't something pulled forward and faced. It was like you just killed his kid. And that's you know, he held me accountable. And I'll never forget when he walked in and there was a thing of cornstarch that was backwards and set back a little bit. And he came and grabbed me by the shoulder and made it like it was the biggest thing on earth that I didn't hold someone accountable to front that shelf. And that lesson sticks with me. I'll never forget it because I had to go get the whole kitchen staff together and say, Hey, who did this? As small as it seems, this is what is going to make us better than everybody else.

16:52So holding people accountable at that time, it's it's stuck with me. And I always always try to instill it in everybody else. So fast forward or backwards, however, we want to look at this. You had you contact Jeff said Jeff Rippey contacted you or you contact you guys were in contact. You had the opportunity to purchase the corner pubs and esquina cantina. How did that tell me tell us that story? Yeah, it was it was it started right before I got out of infinity. And you know, it was I was actually contacted from a broker and the broker and I talked and and one thing kind of led to another. And I ended up sitting down with Rippey and him and I really hit it off. One of the best people I've ever met. And he was cheering for me to get it. He we had other people that were looking at it as well. Some bigger groups.

17:53This is just me. I am the investor in this. I don't have those deep pockets. So it was a it was scary. But I knew I could surround myself with some good people like Corey. And several others that we have in the company. So it was a long process. It started in June. It took about six months for all the paperwork, lawyers, financing, all that kind of stuff to go through. And then we ended up with all the corner pubs as well as a fifteen thousand square foot warehouse with a commissary kitchen that you are is Tennessee Ag inspected. We're getting ready to get USDA inspected probably within the next month. And yeah, it was it was a process. It took like I said, it took six months to to get everything signed and to take over. What was the conversation with like?

18:53So what was it like? What's the conversation with your wife? Honey, I want to buy all the corner pubs. So she like, yeah, let's go. She like, whoa, these are bars. This isn't what you do. Like, how did that go? She was excited and nervous at the same time. I mean, it's a at the time, you know, I knew what the financials of the restaurants were. And I knew what I could do to improve those. And just the opportunity being able to sit down and tell her, hey, you know, this is this is where we're at now. And this is how we can make it better. She she she got on board with it. She was excited and still is. So that's that's the key, right? She still is. So what were what were some of the main things you identified? You said that you could make it better. What were some of the things that you identified on the front end that you needed to do to make it better? One, just getting the right people in the right places.

19:54I knew some people from Infinity were going to be coming with me, including Corey, which, you know, I trust him as a brother. So having the people that I trust in there and corner pubs were really run independently. You know, Franklin store was different than downtown, was different than Brentwood, was different than Bellevue, was different than Mount Juliet at the time when it was a corner pub. Everything was pretty much run independently. So what I knew I wanted to do is one, utilize our commissary a lot more, which reduces our inventory in the restaurants, reduces our labor costs dramatically in the restaurants, increases our productivity, increases our consistency and quality because it's all controlled from here right behind this wall. Well, that's a good segue. I mean, tell us about how the commissary works. I mean, I want to get but that's a big part of how you're going to upgrade what you're doing. How does that's that's so revolutionary to me. I mean, there's many people with multiple concepts that don't have a 10,000 square foot warehouse that they use as a commissary.

20:57Yeah. So let's talk about that. Yeah. So it's a full commercial kitchen. We have vacuum sealers. Everything is cooked on site, just like it would be at a restaurant. And then what we do is we bag it and seal it or cryovac it, depending on what the product is. We cut all our fresh salmon here. We cut all our own meat here. We do everything from our cornbread mix to the chili to every single salad dressing, all of our side items. Then what we do is the stores will order from us, just like they would call any other distributor, put in an order. We have refrigerated delivery trucks and delivery drivers deliver two days a week. So our chefs here will cook and prepare everything and then pick the orders, pull the orders just like you would from a regular warehouse. And then it gets distributed to the restaurants. You know, my notion of a commissary was always the food wasn't going to be good.

21:58You know, it was more of a bulk cooking and it couldn't be any more different than that. The way we reheat everything is we use steamers. So we're not reconstituting anything. We're not diluting the flavors, the seasoning. Everything is made exactly like it would be in the restaurant, sealed in a bag. And then we reheat it in a steamer. So there's no additional water added to it. So the flavors that we put in to the food here at the commissary is exactly what the guests are getting at the restaurants. But you don't have to have an army of individual prep cooks and the inconsistency of who cut the salmon today. Because when you're looking at controllable costs, you know, whether or not John, who's the guy cutting the salmon today, cuts a six to eight ounce portion, you're like, hey, if it's a seven ounce portion every single time, that's a lot better than half of them being eight ounces. I mean, the consistency you can do out of a commissary to me seems like it would be absolutely worth it right there.

23:02Yeah, no, 100 percent. Even, you know, going back into that cost thing, we slice our own meats here. So we slice all the turkey, the ham, the roast beef, everything for the Rubens. Then we portion those in whatever portion bags we want. And then those are sealed in, you know, bags of 10. So even going that far, when they get delivered to the store, it's already pre-portioned. It's already cut. We don't have to worry about someone grabbing a handful and thinking that six ounces when it's nine ounces. Everything's pre-portioned. Everything's ready to go. Wow. See, that's innovative. That's innovative and brilliant. And are you going to open that up to, let's say, you know, hypothetically, let's say Sam Sports Bar wants to purchase their roast beef because, hey, look, can you deliver us pre-portioned five ounce roast beef in a bulk? Could you do something like that? Absolutely. And that's what the Tennessee Ag lets us deliver non-meat products as long as it's less than 2%.

24:05That's where we're going for a USDA inspection. It will open up a whole other door for us. And we have a lot of contracts that are pending because of that. OK. We do have other restaurants that we supply food for already, as well as co-packed products that get shipped all over. Oh, wow. So that's probably a huge revenue stream for you guys. That's great. And I can see where you're talking about. We're going to make it bigger and better. Yeah. Back to kind of what we talked about with Jay Alexander's and that culture. And Cory, jump on in here any second, man. I'm sorry. I'm just I got all these questions. How do you instill that culture into a restaurant that doesn't have that culture? How difficult is it changing a culture? I don't know how much changing you had to do, but I'd been to corner pubs before. And they're a little and I was excited when I heard that you bought them because I was like, damn, he's going to he's going to increase the level of service.

25:08He's going to increase the level of consistency, the level of cleanliness. He's going to redo these things. I think corner pubs, the perception that people have of corner pub is about to change like it's about to get a lot better. How do you and this might be a perfect question for you, Cory. How do you do that? How do you make it so that every can is facing the same way? And it's first in first out and it's pulled forward in a line without because you today you can't grab somebody by the shoulder and pull them over and go, look what you've done. You can't do that. And that's kind of a relic. How do you do that today? What have you had to do and what is your culture now? Sure. So, you know, it comes down to, you know, what Tabor touched on earlier and leadership and putting the right people in the right places. You know, it's it's we're we're both and I can speak for him on this. Yes, we're both leaders by example, 100 percent. We're never going to we're never going to tell you to face the corn starch this way and not tell you why to do that, because it makes us better.

26:13And we'll always give explanations on why things are to change because over the last six months we have changed or nine months we have changed many things. And just, you know, sort of we took a step back, looked at the corner pubs as they were and as the culture was individually between each one. And just bringing those together to give it that more corporate feel and to give it, you know, whether whether you go to Franklin or downtown or Brentwood Corner Pub, you know, you're going to get the same quality food, same quality service, same quality drinks. And the cleanliness of, you know, from the bathrooms to the to the bar seats are going to be something you can expect every time you come in. So so really just, you know, making sure that that we went in there and and gave a positive message of change. You know, that was that was really important for us as well. This is this isn't going to be us coming in as dictatorship. We're coming into the by example and to show you that, you know, we're going to make it better for you.

27:16You're going to make more money. And, you know, that that instills them to have a sense of ownership within each restaurant, whether they're a server, a dishwasher, a bartender or a gentleman. Nice. Do you have a actually written down like core values that you guys live by? We started doing all that kind of stuff. And then we kind of had to get more reactive once all this stuff started happening. But we that's you know, that's the direction that we're going. Our goal is to open up about 50 corner pubs. Wow. Yeah. So next one, Cool Springs. Sweet. When is that do you have? Where is it going to be? What's the old Franklin Abbey or Dan McGinnis on Carothers? Oh, yeah. OK, wow. We purchased that and it is 100 percent gutted right now. We're just waiting on some permits to come through so we can continue.

28:16But we're we're excited. It's going to be a good one. So let's go back to your timeline. January, you closed the deal. Correct. And you're excited, probably popping champagne. 2020. Here we go. This is going to be the best year of our lives. Holy shit. We just bought a whole restaurant concept. Wow. Here we go. March 3rd. Tornado. Tornado hits. Let's talk about what your life has been like since that day. I woke up that my commissary kitchen and the warehouse or corporate office is right next to John C. Toon Airport. When I woke up that morning, that's all I heard was John C. Toon Airport. I got in my truck. Cisco. In Cisco. Yeah, we're right in Cisco as well. So I got in my truck and drove as close as I could. I couldn't. I had to park on Briley and I parked on Briley and started walking.

29:20Like I said, we've only had this for about a month and a half, two months. And as far as I knew, everything was gone at the commissary. So I walked I think about two miles. About two and a half miles back here. And we just had lost power. The building was still standing. The tornado missed us by about 500 yards. The buildings on the other side of us, gone. Completely destroyed. We lost power. Luckily, one of my tenants in the building is a generator company. So I actually had the whole building wired to be able to run off a generator. So I had power within five to six hours after the tornado hit. Wow. So it didn't hurt us as bad as everybody else. And we were lucky. So actually what Cory and I did was went to Costco and bought all the bread, water, and chips and everything we possibly could. We came back to the commissary and made sandwiches and put together lunches and drove over to East Nashville and started handing out to all the first responders and spent a couple hours just walking around in the streets handing out sandwiches and water and chips.

30:36Just because we knew we were lucky enough not to get hit and trying to help them out. Costco had a limit on water as you could buy too. I remember going there and I was like, I want to buy like 15 things. They're like, you can buy two, sir. I'm like, no, but I'm taking them down to Germantown to give them out to you. Like, yeah, I don't care. You can buy two. Exactly what we said, too. I was like, come on, man. Like, let me buy like 10. And he was like, nope. And Costco and then we went to Publix and we went to Kroger. See, I went to McDonald's there over on Whitebridge and I walked in and I was like, hi, I need 50 cheeseburgers. And she was like, what? Hey, 50 cheeseburgers. I'm just going to go take them and hand them out. She was like, let me get my manager. I'm like, I'm going to go to Costco. I'll be back in like 20 minutes. Is that cool? Yeah, similar deal, man. Just like that's amazing how everybody in our city like that was just like the first response.

31:38How do we get out there and help? Yeah, absolutely. Everybody rallied. I mean, really hard. And for us to go down there and see, you know, some of the more unfortunate business owners and homeowners and everyone else, it was high opening, you know, just to see how truly lucky we were. And, you know, it was just I think everyone was just like, this is what you do when a tragedy strikes like this. You come together, you know, you band up, you pick each other up and you get back to work. And, you know, I was in Germantown yesterday and a week ago we had Fleming Wilt, who's the president of Christie Cookie Company, and they had damage in their Germantown location. Their office, like their storefront still is not open in Germantown. And he was saying that there's just all of these apartment buildings that are condemned, that the whole Germantown area, all those restaurants are just really in a lot of pain right now. And if you're out there listening, East Nashville and Germantown, both would love to have you come and dine there.

32:43You know, everybody, it's safe, put a mask on, get out, support your locally owned and operated restaurants in East Nashville, as well as Germantown, still need your support more now than ever. Yep. Yep. So throw out that little PSA. So you're out there. Handing out waters, you made sandwiches, your commissary was okay. Any of your restaurants take any damage? No, no damage anywhere on the restaurant. So we were lucky on that. We did close down a couple days just because of the commissary being down, not up to full speed. But other than that, we were fortunate enough to come out pretty decent after that. We just kind of picked up again and started on our mission of redoing and readjusting the corner pubs into something that we wanted it to be.

33:44Two weeks later? Two weeks later, we got this thing called COVID coming up. And then we kind of just went into, I don't want to say panic mode, but we went into a mode of what do we need to do? I call it hustle mode. Man, scramble. There was no better word than hustle. Yeah, I mean, that's the word. Yeah. And, you know, we sat down, Cory and I sat down and like, you know, what are we going to do? And so we started everything we could to get every platform, delivery platform, you know, in every restaurant, which they hate, all the, you know, the restaurants hate that because there's 14 different iPads dinging at one time. I can imagine. But we held on as long as we could. And then, you know, I had to do the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. I had to lay off 165 people, which hurt more than anything. I was able to keep 15 of us on.

34:44So all the GMs and all the soured employees, we kept on. We also offered all 165 employees that we had to lay off free meals for the entire time that they were gone. Wow. But yeah, that was hard. That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do because, you know, just buying this business, just starting to gain their trust, starting to, you know, learn the stories of all the different employees and then having to come to the realization that I can't keep running the restaurants, you know, the way that we are. So yeah, we had to do that. And like I said, we just kind of transitioned into 100% to go business. And just like everybody else, hustled as much as we could. We were lucky in, you know, our partnership with the Predators. They've helped us out a lot, given us different opportunities to feed hospitals, first responders. We've had the police department several times.

35:45Started a home delivery service. We started a home delivery service as well. That's a privet. To use the coined word of the whole pandemic. Anything from fresh cut steaks to milk to toilet paper. We had lots of toilet paper. Six packs of beer. Anything we could sell them. We started a home delivery service and delivered in our refrigerated trucks. Hustle. That's it right there, man. Yeah. Yeah. Then we were fortunate enough that we were one of the first companies to get the PPP loan. So we hired everybody back. Whether they wanted to work or not, they were getting paid. And we were the one, like I said, we were one of the first that got it. And the original terms were we had to spend all of it within eight weeks. And so that's what we did. With two weeks left, they extended it out for another 24 weeks.

36:46But we had to, which hurt us in the long run. Because we were told we had to spend 75% for salaries. We had to hire everybody back. Because if we didn't spend it and spend it the way they told us to, it turns into a loan. And then we have to repay it. So we did everything we were supposed to do. And it ended up hurting us more than it helped us in the long run. And I think that there, and Trump yesterday said there's another one, but he's putting it on hold until after the election. And today he came back and said, no, we're going to do, we'll do a PPP loan, another one, another round of it. So hopefully that comes through. But yeah, I think a lot of people were in your shoes. There's a few people that were like, I'm just going to take the 1% loan and I'll just be fine with it. And then all of a sudden went, fantastic. Thank you for extending it. That's a great deal. We'll just use it.

37:47But that's frustrating. It's frustrating to do what the government tells you to do. You got to be happy to hire everybody back. I'm sure people are excited to be back. But at the same point, that doesn't help for the long term. We need another round quickly. Are the restaurants all back open and running right now? Yes, everything's open. Downtown is the one that's really struggling. Downtown is really, it's my highest overhead, highest everything. And right now it's the lowest sales. All those high rises and office buildings down there, there's tens of thousands of people that are just working from home now. So if you walk into the corner pub downtown at lunchtime, it's nothing but construction workers. All you see is neon orange and neon green in there. And thank goodness that they are coming in. But our lunch business was really getting built up before all this happened. And it's non-existent now.

38:48And then without sports for so long, being a sports bar, it doesn't help not having sports. So downtown is going to be a while before it gets back to the way it needs to be. We have to have those office buildings full and those people coming in for lunch to help carry that over. And get the concerts back and the sports back. We're working closely with some different companies to sort of do the pregame with the Titans and get some more traction down there. We're just excited when they can start bringing fans back into the stadiums and the Bridgestone arenas and get some concerts going again to really get downtown back to where it was. So I mentioned in my opening, one of our sponsors is Trust20. And they're a company that comes in and identifies 20 different tactics for you to focus on. So if you're an independent restaurateur and you're trying to identify what do we need to do, they come in and they identify social distancing.

39:51There's 20 things to keep your guests and your employees safe. What's the thing that you guys have to do right now? What are you doing actively to keep everyone safe? So we're doing daily screenings. You know, obviously we're making sure that, you know, social distancing, masks, masks, masks. I mean, I just constantly say masks. You see somebody with a mask right here and you just want to grab them, but you don't. You have them, but you don't. You ask them politely to put their masks over their nose because that's a huge part of it. And, you know, really just making sure that our sanitation is number one and that every host, every employee knows that everything gets sanitized no matter what. I mean, from where the guest pulls their chair out to every handle on anything they could possibly touch from the bathrooms to, you know, the golden tea machine in Brentwood. Yeah.

40:51Everything gets sanitized pretty much hourly. You know, and we were a little overkill with that at first, sanitizing everything every 30 minutes. And there's nothing wrong with that. But we also had to make sure that, you know, we let the employees know that you can't be too safe right now. And to know that, you know, it's more than anything we want our guests to know that it's a safe place to come in no matter when they come in and no matter which restaurant they're at. I love it. So one of the things I wanted out of this interview was to let my listeners know that whatever your perception of the Corner Pub was that this is the owner of the Corner Pub, the Director of Operations Corner Pub. They're local people. They are just like anybody else out there. The Corner Pub is not a national brand yet, but it is a local Nashville company. And they are just as very much a locally owned and operated restaurant as any of these other chef driven places that you need to be out supporting them as well.

41:56And they are family friendly. Take your kids. Take your wife. Take the family out. Go have dinner. Corner Pub has changed. The food is consistent. The quality is there. And I just I wanted people to understand that. One one last thing. There is you have your corner. How many corner pubs do you have? Five. Soon to be five. Soon to be five corner pubs with the addition of Cool Springs. And there's another there was two during the pandemic. And it is closed. And then there's a corner pub in Green Hills. Now this corner pub is called the original Corner Pub. And it is not affiliated with you. Correct? Correct. It is not. He used to be affiliated with the partnership group that used to own the Corner Pubs. The owner of the one in Green Hills has not been affiliated with Corner Pub in over 12 years, I believe.

43:01The one in the nation's got shut down immediately after his tweeting kind of went awry. But yeah, we are in no way, shape or form connected to him. He has nothing to do with Corner Pub. I can't be any more any more straightforward than he has nothing to do with us. So I was walking with my brother. We went for a walk. We were over on Morton Mill on the Greenway and we were walking and I started getting text messages from people that said, Hey, do you know who the guy who owns do you know the guy that owns the Corner Pub? And I was like, you know, I'm just getting these text messages because all of a sudden this was happening. And I went, oh, wow, my brother started getting text messages. It was like wildfires and incredible. And, you know, my brother, he owns a marketing company here in town.

44:01And it was just this, oh, wow, I wonder what my brain was, what through my brain immediately was. I wonder what Tabor's doing right now. I wonder if he's just freaking out like this isn't me. This isn't me for everybody out there who doesn't know the backstory. When you started seeing, was it Carrington Fox? Who was it that posted the initial somebody? I forget who was posted the initial kind of a thing from the scene, I believe. We had our marketing director. He called me immediately and said, we have a huge problem. And, you know, he sort of alluded to that. And, you know, I ended up getting it never had a Twitter account, had to end up signing up for Twitter in order to figure out what exactly was going on. And what all this hoopla was about. And, you know, the predators were great as well. They they chimed in and let us let their 500,000 followers know that there is no affiliation between that corner pub and our brand.

45:04Yeah, I mean, it went it went pretty quick. I think there was, you know, a couple thousand tweets and people getting getting us mixed up with them as well, obviously, because of the name. And not understanding why why the names were the same. We did we did offer a statement. I did have the news Channel 2 came in and we released a statement. And like Corey said, the predators called us immediately after this happened because of our affiliation with them. And they like I said, he's the executive said, hey, make sure you give us your your statement on it and we will release it, which they did immediately. So, you know, having their support, we we squashed it as best we could as quick as we could and kind of minimize the damage. I still get people asking me about it. And, you know, it's it was it was just another another punch to the gut after another one after another one after another one.

46:06But, you know, you roll with the punches and, you know, that's his statements have nothing to do with our values and, you know, not anything that we want to pursue, you know, our perception to be. So we issued our statement and kind of left it at that. I remember getting this text and I immediately felt just this empathy, just this, oh, man, I just felt so bad for you because I know that that's not your value. I know that that's not you and just that name thing. And I was like, God, that that just I just felt for you, man. So I'm glad you guys are making out of it. Interesting times, I will say, you know, in the last in those first six months, I wrote more statements on behalf of the company and the brand than I ever thought I would as my. I mean, tornado COVID, the original corner, but it was it was one thing after another. But but we wanted to make sure our our vision and our our core values, as he said, were were clear to the public and to the communities that we work and that we serve.

47:13Well, so it's it's a what does not kill you makes you stronger. And going into 2021, you guys are going to be like muscle men, you know, just like we have we have calluses. We've been working out pretty hard, regular business. We are going to crush this. This is crazy. Get into to regular business and not, you know, be able to continue what we started when we first took over and get back into the regular course of what we want to do. Is there anything that I have not covered that you guys wanted to talk about today? You know, I think touching on the commissary was huge for us. It's exciting. It's what's coming next. It's what a lot of people are looking to. You know, I know you probably see it a lot with your own company, but, you know, people are just looking on how can we be more efficient? How can we bring more to the bottom line? And and that's, you know, with the quality and consistency that we're bringing to our restaurants, you know, in the USDA certification coming very quickly, we can bring that to a lot of great places in Nashville and beyond.

48:25You know, I mean, we we're looking to, you know, we already do serve places down as far as Louisiana right now. So we're just we're just looking to keep expanding. And it's it's coming in hot right now. I love it. I love it. I'm so excited for you guys and your future. I know you're just absolutely going to kill it. And I thank you so much for taking the time to to come on Nashville Restaurant Radio. One of the things I do with every single guest that comes on the show is I like to give them the final word. So whatever I know, no topic, whatever you want to say to the Nashville culinary community, the Nashville community, whoever is listening to this 10 years from now and right now, no time limit, no, no topic, just open mic. And then we'll then we'll we'll say we'll have we'll bid you ado. Yeah, I think, you know, it's obviously 2020 has been a year and and Nashville has taken a bunch of hits.

49:29But I think, you know, if anything, you know, going back all the way to the flood and seeing how everybody in Nashville comes together in this in this industry, especially is important for us to stay together, work together and do what we can to help each other. Obviously, we all at the end of the day have to support our families and have money. But at the same time, you know, doing what we can to help our our competitors and help the people that are across the street from us, you know, serving the same food we are. I think that's the biggest and most important thing to get us back to where we need to be and get the tourists back into Nashville and doing it safely. I might not agree with all the guidelines or what the mayor is doing, but I'll abide by them and make sure that we as as as a company and people that service the public are keeping everybody safe at the same time. And if we can do that and, you know, get this thing squashed out, I think we'll be able to get back to normal a lot quicker and keep moving forward.

50:36I'm excited for what we're doing. I have a great team around us. And, you know, we're we're set to grow and grow pretty quickly, both corner pub and esquina Cantina, you know, we're going to get ready to do a full brand relaunch with it. And that's going to come with us. So where we take corner pubs, esquina is going to come with us. I'm just excited about the future. I'm excited about Nashville and everything that's happening. I kind of leave it like that. It's I'm ready to to progress and watch the city streets get filled back up with all the wood girls and see what we can do. Amen, brother. What about you, Corey, we are Nashville strong. I can't I can't follow that, but I will say we are Nashville strong. Yes, sir. Well, gentlemen, again, thank you so much for taking the time today and wish you nothing but the best of luck. We'll do this again in a short time. I'd love to hear to kind of catch up with you again to kind of know how things are going once you get a little more back to normal.

51:44Absolutely. Thank you. You guys. All right. Corey and Tabor. So excited to have you guys on the show today. Really appreciate you taking the time to do that. I always enjoy talking to those guys every time I'm just in the restaurant or whatever, just hanging out, talking to them like totally like they're like minded people. So this is our last show for the week. We are doing the roundup live tomorrow at three thirty on Facebook as well as YouTube. And that shall be released as a podcast on Friday so you can listen to it as you drive into work in our new found traffic. We will have a big week next week. We have a man named Justin built built in who is the bass player for three doors down. He's also a country singer and we're going to we're going to talk about the simulation between music and restaurants and how how they work together because I feel like there's a big part about how musicians work, especially in a band and how you kind of go through these big moments together and just kind of how that level of teamwork is.

52:55It's not really a restaurant thing, but we're going to make it a restaurant thing. Damn it. It's going to happen. And then Charlie Nelson will be on next Wednesday. He is the owner of Nelson's Greenbrier Distillery. So if you like Belmead Bourbon or the Nelson's Greenbrier, he's going to be on telling the story, talking all about it. We're going to have a good old time. But we certainly appreciate you guys listening today and we hope that you are being safe. Love you guys. Bye.