Brandon Styll and co-host Caroline Galzin catch up on a wide range of Nashville restaurant industry topics in this freewheeling Roundup episode. They celebrate the five Nashville James Beard nominations (Slim and Husky's, Maiz de la Vida's Julio Hernandez, Yolan's Nicole...
Brandon Styll and co-host Caroline Galzin catch up on a wide range of Nashville restaurant industry topics in this freewheeling Roundup episode. They celebrate the five Nashville James Beard nominations (Slim and Husky's, Maiz de la Vida's Julio Hernandez, Yolan's Nicole Marchetti, Bastion's Josh Habiger, and Locust's Trevor Moran), debate Dave Portnoy's One Bite pizza reviews after he hit Nashville pizzerias including Nicky's Coal Fired, and dig into reality TV including Hell's Kitchen where local chef Alex Belew is a finalist.
The conversation turns serious with a discussion of the ServSafe certification controversy, exploring the conflict of interest in the National Restaurant Association lobbying against minimum wage increases while charging tipped workers for required food safety training. They also touch on the Supreme Court's upcoming case on religious exemptions in the workplace and how it might affect restaurant culture.
Lighter moments include Caroline judging Frothy Monkey's seasonal barista competition, Brandon's adventure buying pink dress shirts at Express for a celebration of life party at City House, and a preview of an upcoming Valentine's Day double date at Stay Golden Rover for a Giving Kitchen benefit dinner with chef Gracie from Eastside Bowl.
"To have been given so much in life, to have such great fortune, to then use your platform to denigrate somebody who is probably struggling a lot more than you are, that to me says a lot about a person who has so much and uses it in such a bad way."
Caroline Galzin, 13:17
"When you make $2.13 an hour, I come in for my shift, it's a really slow shift, and I only make $36, the cost of a ServSafe course, in tips. And that's before taxes are taken out."
Caroline Galzin, 37:15
"If you ever need bar mats, a fruit tray, wine keys, bottle openers, anything, do not buy it. Ask the liquor companies for it."
Caroline Galzin, 41:16
"We have something called emotional tranquility, freedom from emotional stress from outside factors. When you're at the restaurant we want this to be a sanctuary for you."
Brandon Styll, 50:42
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02:15Well, okay. Welcome to another episode of The Roundup. I am Brandon Styll. We are here with Caroline Galzin. How you doing, Caroline? I'm great, Brandon. How's it going? I'm better. Okay. I have been like, I feel like deathly sick, but not deathly sick. This COVID thing is a crazy thing. Do you have, have you had COVID recently? No, but I've had COVID before. Got it. And now anytime that you get sick, it's like, is it COVID? Yeah, we had a, we had an employee walk off the line in the middle of service last night to go to the office and take a COVID test. I mean, it's like the first thing to do. He doesn't have COVID, but you know, it's like, ooh, I'm not feeling so hot. It's like, leave right now. Go take a COVID test. It's a thing. Like, so we, we had our annual retreat last week, week before this past week, week before last. And it was in a cabin out in the woods in Sparta. You know, we kind of had the whole leadership team together and it was great. And I stayed in a cabin with the GMs of the restaurants and, and we get back on Thursday and then Saturday afternoon, I get a call from one of our, our GM. He says, Hey, can you come in tonight? I have COVID. And I was like, really? Um, cause I've been feeling terrible. And I had like my sore, my sore throat. I had all this stuff going on. And so I took a COVID test immediately and it was negative. So I was like, sweet. Well, then I woke up Sunday morning and I was just like down. I was like, Oh my gosh, like I am sick. And I took another COVID test and it was negative. And so I'm like, Oh, am I okay? Like, I don't know, but I feel horrible. And then I called it, I have like this telehealth thing. So I called the doctor. She goes, well, you need to quarantine for four days. Even if, even though you took a negative test. Yeah. She goes, those don't really mean anything. And I'm like, what do you mean? They don't mean anything. They're terrible. I'm like, well, why do I buy them? Like, why are we taking them? And like, what is the deal? So I'm at home and I'm like now
04:17quarantining in like a different room for my whole family. I take another COVID test Sunday night, negative Monday morning, negative Monday night, negative. And I'm like doing calls and meetings from this sick couch that I'm on, you know, and I'm just feeling worse and worse and worse. So finally Wednesday, I got the doctor and I'm like, do I have the flu? Like, what do I have? And she's like, nothing. You have allergies. And literally I was out in the woods and we were on the back deck. We did a whole day of meetings, like on the back deck of this like cabin we were staying in. And it made complete sense. I was like, Oh, this is like my seasonal allergies just kicking in a month and a half early because I was out there in this musty. We had it. We had a chimney fire in this place. Oh, they were there like that night and they're like the whole house filled with smoke. It was a whole thing. Did you forget to open the flu? No, no, we had a fire in the fire, but they just hadn't cleaned it. I guess. Oh, I see. And like the chimney like caught on fire. Oh, that's terrifying. It was really scary. But like, you know, these just things were just the house didn't catch on fire. And also was great. It was like a whole masonry deal. It wasn't bad. But I was like out and I was so scared.
05:25I couldn't do anything. We I couldn't meet with you to do anything like it was just like, don't come close. We have to get to cancel so many things. Being sick is a pain in the ass. It is, you know, this whole time, I have somehow managed to be the unicorn who has never, ever had a positive COVID test. Wow. I mean, I was very cautious during the first 2020 and 2021. But honestly, the last year I have really been taking no precautions at all. And I still, I've only had it once. Don't have it. You're like the ultra super avoider. I am somehow. Let me, you know, knock on wood. I guess I'm really asking for it maybe to land on me this week. Yeah, I'm like, you're gonna get it this week. You're gonna wait till Valentine's Day. Well, darn, can't work Valentine's service. Well, I want to give a big shout out to my wife who took care of the house and the kids while I was out on this retreat. And then I get back from the retreat and then I'm in a quarantine situation for four days. And now I'm out of town all week this week.
06:32Where are you going? I'm going to South Lake Tahoe. Oh. Heavenly. Wow. Ski resort. That's amazing. We're doing a another, it's a work trip. Wink, wink. I mean, it's a work trip. But we're, we go and it's a, we have a lot of stuff, agenda to accomplish. But there will be snowboarding involved. Wow, that sounds really fun. Yeah, I'm really excited. Good for you. I leave Monday and I'll be back on Saturday. All right, we'll have fun skiing. Be careful. Yeah, that's the thing, right? Yeah. So we'll, we'll do it. But we're here today to record a new episode of the Roundup. Well, Brandon, I have some. Lots of topics to talk about today. I have some really exciting news for our Monday morning here, which is Nashville is very well represented in the James Beer nominations. Hell, yeah, they are. That came out this past week. We have five different Nashvilleans nominator or shouldn't say Nashvilleans, but but restaurants, people, whatever nominated.
07:33The first Slim and Huskies has been nominated for outstanding restaurant tour. It's amazing. So exciting. Congratulations, guys. My is de la Vida. Julio Hernandez has been nominated in the emerging chef category, which I have to say personally on that one. Julio is like my guy. I love him to death. He's like one of the best people in the world. And he let us announce on this show that he was opening his brick and mortar. And I've known him for 10 plus years. He's amazing. I just love that guy. Amazing. Um, Nicole Marchetti has been nominated in the outstanding pastry chef or baker category. She is the pastry chef at Yolan, which I mean, I hope she wins artwork, absolute, absolute artwork, what she's doing over there. Spectacular. Never seen anything like it. And then we also have Josh from Bastion. This is he's been nominated. Maybe this is his fifth time, I want to say. And I don't in this in the best chef Southeast category. So really? Yeah, he's been nominated quite a few times. So fingers crossed, Josh. I hope this is your year. Another dude who's very well deserved. One of my favorite interviews I've ever done here. And then Trevor over at Locust. The hits keep coming for him. Who is that? Trevor Moran at Locust. I've never heard of that one. I'm just kidding. If you can see Caroline's face right now, she's like, What are you talking about? I was legitimately about to say, Brandon, we have to edit that out. No, he's amazing. I love what they're doing. That guy is just out of control. Locust is probably one of the best restaurants I've ever been to in my life. It is just absolutely spectacular and so special and unique. So well, let me say if you want to learn more about Josh Hobbiger over at at Bastion, I was gonna pull up when he was on the show, she'd go listen
09:38to it. But it was a long time ago and I can't find it right now. Well, you know what? Go back and look at our old episodes. You can find an episode with Josh Hobbiger and you can find two episodes with Julio Hernandez from Maiz de la Vida. The corn of life. The corn of life. So something else interesting that's been going on in town this week is that Dave Portnoy from Bar Stool Sports. Stool president. Bar Stool. El Presidente. Has been in town and has been going around to various pizzerias in Nashville to do his one bite challenge. So anybody who's not familiar with this, he has an Instagram account where he goes to pizzerias, orders takeout, takes supposedly one bite but usually takes five or six bites of a pizza and then he rates it on a completely made up and arbitrary scale rating system and posts it to his four million followers.
10:44And so he's been in town. He has been to Midnight Oil in the nations. He's been to Diceys. He's been to Manny's and he came to Nicky's Coal Fired. You know, I think that we should listen to that. The review that he gave of us, it's really long. It's it's quite long and rambling. Okay, we won't listen to it. He said good things? He did say good things. Yes, thankfully. But what do you think of this guy, Brandon? So many feelings. I don't, I don't know. I don't know what I feel about him. I'm not a big fan. I mean, as far as like just his smug kind of, I kind of respect the fact he doesn't give a fuck. Like he's just kind of this guy that's just like, is what it is. But at the same point, he's a piece of shit. Couldn't agree more. Yeah, I mean, he's a good person. Like, I don't think he's a good person. I don't, I don't know. I think some of the stuff he does is funny or interesting. But like, that's, I mean, I think it's easy to not give a fuck when you're an entitled, rich, white asshole from a rich family. There's that. There's that. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't know enough about, I don't, I'm like, I'm not like a fan. Like, I don't, I just looked up his Instagram. I don't follow him. Like I should probably hit follow and see like what he's putting out there to see what the pizza reviews are. Cause I like to see yours and that kind of stuff. But like, I don't, I don't think he's doing good things for our culture and our community.
12:28I, yes, I agree with you there. And I think maybe that's part of my problem. You know, we knew that he came in, he didn't post the review until like a week after he came in. And I just, here's, here's why it bugs me. Even though he gave us a good review, I was going back through some of his more recent reviews and most of the places he reviews are small independent businesses and to, and he drags a lot of these places. He's really critical. There was one he posted recently of a food truck and somewhere in the keys. And he said, this looks like shit. Drive by as fast as you can. Don't stop. And I'm just like, if you don't like it, that's okay. But to have been given so much in life, to have such great fortune, to have probably all of the things that you ever dreamed of having and more, you know, the lifestyle, the money, the homes, the, the private jets, the access, just all of the great fortune that you've been handed in life to then use your platform to denigrate somebody who is probably struggling a lot more than you are. You know, that, that to me says a lot about a person who, who has so much and uses it in such a bad way. If you want to do pizza reviews to highlight places that you love, that's one thing, totally different thing. There, there's a guy on TikTok.
14:14I can't think of his name. He, I think he's on the West coast and he has a ton of followers on TikTok. And that's actually what he does. He goes to these mom and pop places. People will send him a message and say, Hey, I worked at this place. It's really great. We're really struggling, but our food's really good. Will you please come in and try and give us a review? And that's what he does. He, he uses his platform to elevate. And that's what Guy Fieri does. I agree. He finds the small places in America that are amazing. And he goes in and he gives them a massive shot in the arm. Exactly. Whatever you think about the guy, he's basically building up small businesses. 100% he is. It's, it's almost like reality TV, right? I mean, all of this stuff kind of comes together. And I've been watching, um, health kitchen and I watched a few, I know you love John Taffer and bar rescue because he's so out of control, but he finds places that are not doing well. They're terrible. And then he kind of exploits them for his own television show, but then I'm just saying, then he wants to help them. He comes in, but like, he's not finding great places and showing how great that he's finding people that are struggling really hard, no matter what. And then he puts them on a TV show and then says, I'll help you, but does he really, I mean, there's a side that's like, you come in for a week and you yell at somebody, tell them how shitty they are and how bad of a job they're doing. And then you give the place a quick little facelift and then you kind of, then you're out. Like there's so many, it's like alcoholism. To be fair though, places that apply to be on health kitchen or bar rescue, or even, you know, maybe in some cases get head hunted. They are inviting that into their business. That is their choice. I did not invite Dave Portnoy to my business. As a matter of fact, Tony and I had had this conversation before about Tony said, hey, you know, they're opening a bar stool in Nashville. He's going to come here. I'm like, no, he's not. No, he's not. Tony's like, he is going to come here at some point. How are we going to handle it?
16:15Did Tony make the pizza? That's a whole different story. No, he didn't, but we were very happy with how it turned out. We thought our pizza looked great. Our pizza always looks great. Well, that's a huge testament to you that even like, if you didn't even know he was there, and you just ordered a random pizza and you didn't even know it and he loved it, then it's not like, oh, I got to make it really good. Fortunately, we had a great review from him and we are grateful for that exposure. But at the same time, I can't help but feel the guilt for the other business that also did not invite him to come in and post and criticize that didn't get a good review. I just think it's shitty. And yes, is Hell's Kitchen and Bar Rescue and all these shows exploitive and all of these things? Yes, they can be that. But again, there's a difference of that was invited. True. Right. And I don't think anybody at this point, at least, has invited one of these shows to come to their business. Tony and I love these shows, actually.
17:20And his criticism of Hell's Kitchen or Kitchen Nightmares is, you know that Gordon's going to go through your walkthrough, clean your walkthrough or your walk-in. Sorry. He's going to go through your walk-in, clean it, clean it up. You apply for the show, clean your walk-in. You know that's the first thing he's going to do. The one that my favorite one, we did it. You did a podcast early in the pandemic. You and Tony did. We recorded one together. Oh, yeah. We wanted to do our favorite episodes of restaurant reality shows because we do love restaurant reality shows. And I'm not talking about the Mind of a Chef or any of these Stanley Tucci Goes to Italy. Silly ones. Very the low brow. When he goes into that place, is it Cat and whatever the place is. I think it's like Tucson, Arizona, where they're just absolutely. Amy's Baking Company. Oh my God. I think that's the best television show of all time. Wild. If you've never seen it on Kitchen Nightmares, Amy's Baking Company is the best hour of television you're going to watch. It's phenomenal. Another good one is much less known, but Hotel Hell in the same vein as Kitchen Nightmares. There's an episode where the lady who owns a hotel is a share impersonator and just tons across the board. Can't recommend it enough. I'm going to have to watch that. I don't think I've seen that. Oh my gosh. And I was just sick for a week. Well, you know, you missed out. Have you watched White Lotus? Oh, of course. Do you think that was like the greatest show of all time? I wouldn't say it's the greatest show of all time, but I really enjoyed it a lot. You? Do you think it's the greatest show of all time? I watched season one again when I was sick, just because I wanted to, and it was great because I got to, there's so much
19:20foreshadowing that I missed watching it the first time. You lay in bed and you watch it with your wife and it's like, I nod off every time I have to go back and catch up and watching it, like all six episodes back to back, like binging it was really, it was like watching a six hour movie and it was great. I love, I haven't watched season two again, but just the concept difference, because I'm in the service industry and you watch like the character of Armand. Fantastic. It was one of the greatest characters. That guy was just the most amazing. I don't want to, I'm not going to give any spoilers here, so you don't have to turn off or anything. I'm not going to tell you what happens, but the hotel manager in season one was an absolute, just the most amazing character I think ever. Really great. Well, so speaking of TV shows, I know that we have a little hometown hero on the current season of Hell's Kitchen. Yes, we do. Are you watching it? Yes. Tell me everything. I am up to date. So if you're not up to date on Hell's Kitchen, battle of the ages. Hell's Kitchen, battle of the ages. Oh, is that what it is? Like old school, new school? It was chefs in their 20s versus chefs in their 40s. So Alex Blue. So it's all people in their 40s left? It's all people in their 20s left. Is it really? Yeah. Well, there's Alex is the oldest one left, I believe. Everybody else is younger. The girl who just got eliminated was Cheyenne and she was 21. She was in the final five. All black jackets. Yeah, I think that he is the, Alex is the last member of the 40s. Wow. I think he's going to win. Okay. I do not have knowledge of this. I'm not caught up on it, but I watched the first couple of episodes and my impression right away was Alex is definitely going to win. I think he has the leadership ability. I mean, the idea is- You can just tell he really knows what he's doing because a lot of people on that show are not necessarily home chefs, but there's a lot of people that you can just tell have really never worked in a professional kitchen. They're like, oh, I have a catering company. I run
21:22in my she shed or whatever. You know, there's some business owners there too. And sure. And you know, so you're a business owner doesn't mean you can't cook, but if you're not doing it every day, because you're running a business. So they're getting these business owners who are in there. And one of the girls, I think one woman said, I don't cook professionally. I'm not used to doing this. I own a business. I'm not used to cooking on the line. It's like, well, this is a chef show. And Alex technically is, is wonderful. He is ability to put food together and lead people. It's been really good to see the winner gets to be the new chef at the Atlantic city hell's kitchen. And I just don't see Alex doing that. Not for any reason. I just don't think he wants to be the chef. If you're asking me, cause I know Alex, I like Alex. He's a good dude, like an all the way around. Like he's a talented guy, but I don't think he wants to go be the chef at hell's kitchen. I think he, well, I think he wants to be a celebrity chef. I think he wants to be more of a food network. Yeah. I think he wants to be somebody who shows up cooks. He's a great, he has such a personality for it. And I think you take a guy like that with that personality and you put them in a kitchen at hell's kitchen in Atlantic city. And it's like, I don't think he wants to be running a kitchen, doing food costs and running the grind of it.
22:41I don't know Alex, but I have been to Caesar's in Atlantic city and I can't imagine anyone would want to be a chef there. Cause it is a capital D dump. Not now there are some nice casinos on the strip in Atlantic city, but Caesar's is unacceptably dumpy for how much money I know they make as an organization. Yeah. And he's got a beautiful wife and he's got two boys also. It's funny cause he and I have a lot of parallels in our life and I just don't see him wanting to move his family to Atlantic city to do that. Even if he wins, I'm seeing like, Oh good. I get to go be the chef at this hotel. Now that I don't really, maybe he has to do like some like prison stand of like two years there and then he can go be, I don't know how it works. Imagine he'd win or he'll like tank it to become second place. Well, win or lose, Alex, we're wishing you lots of good luck and we've got to have you on the show as soon as the finale airs. I've already met, I've already talked about it. He's in LA the week that it airs and he will, he has not given me one IOTA.
23:51They sign major NDAs. He was like, dude, I'm not even coming close to doing anything to tell you anything. And I'm like, that's fine. I don't need, I don't, I don't know anybody in his camp and I haven't, I have no, everything is just speculation, but I can't see him losing. Well, fingers crossed. I feel so bad for him though. Let me tell you why I feel bad for him because he has absolutely excelled on every episode and he loses every episode. So like if you win, if your team wins, then you get to go on this excursion throughout the day and a limo and you go eat this amazing food and you do some fun activity while the other people have to prep the food for that night's service. And every week, like his dish is like, Alex, this is perfect. You've done an amazing job. And then it's like the rest of your team sucked. And like the, but the, the other team, the red team or whatever, he was on the blue team, the red team squeaked by the win. So he lost every week because his, and all of his teammates are gone. He's made it through, but now it's like the final four and it's all just one team, but he hasn't, he's like been the best competitor the entire time and he hasn't got to go do all the fun things. It's a real underdog story. I just, I just hate it for him because it sucks having to shell purple hold peas for six hours. That, that's unfortunate.
25:10That's like the punishment or go through the trash and sort dead fish guts. And it's like, hang out with that blue haired guy all day, all day. It seems nice enough. Sure. So anyway, yeah. Reality TV, you watching the bachelor? Of course. Okay. It started now bachelor season, 5 million. Yeah. My wife is over it. It's, I think, I think it's, it's over. I think she's like, the show has jumped the shark. I thought that during the pandemic, when they were doing the whole at one location, that it was what it was. Well, this has nothing to do with food or restaurant radio. Although I will say I have a group of friends that I watched the bachelor with, you know, as many Mondays as we can. And we have this card game. That's kind of like a betting game where everybody draws a card. And if the thing that's on your card happens while you're watching the show, everybody has to give you a dollar. And one of the cards is someone actually eats the food at dinner. Not going to happen. No one's ever gotten a dollar for that one. Yeah.
26:17No way. Nobody gets it. You know, we're holding out hope. Not going to happen. Anyway, it's, it's episode one. Well, if it gets good, we'll talk about it. Cause I love talking about that kind of stuff. And if somebody eats the food, we'll, we'll relate it to the show. Yeah. Exciting stuff. So Brandon, I'm going to switch gears a little bit. And I wanted to get your thoughts on a headline that was making the rounds recently. So are you familiar with the serve safe certification program? Of course. Okay. For our listeners who may not know what serve safe is, tell us, can you tell us just like a quick? Yeah. I mean, in a kitchen, in a restaurant, there's a lot of different things that you have to understand. Cross-contamination, 4140, how you store things, how fast you have to chill things. There's, there's a bunch of just different safety standards that are pretty much prerequisites. In a lot of states, you have to be serve safe certified. Yes. We have our managers be serve safe certified. Everybody in the restaurant has to be service certified. But a lot of like Cisco's and US foods, those Gordon food service, those companies will offer that they can offer it to people. But typically there's a price for it.
27:24And then you come in and you get a little certification. And then it's a really good program in the sense that if you're new to the business or you don't know what cross-contamination is or how it works, it's a really educational thing. I think it's a standard. Once you've done it one time, you get the, you don't need to be like recertified. Or if you've been to culinary school, usually in culinary school, you do a service certification. So essentially, you know, you can do it as like, it's, it's an online class. You sit in front of your computer for three or four hours. I can't remember something like that. And it's, you know, you go through kind of all these online modules and you learn about food safety and health and contamination. And you have to pay. It's, there's a fee associated for taking this class and getting the certification. And as Brandon said, Tennessee is not a state that requires everyone to have it, but certain members of management have to have it. But some, this is a nationwide course. And in some states it is required for every employee to get ServSafe. So ServSafe is created by the National Restaurant Association, which is the federal lobbying group that works on behalf of restaurant owners and operators. And when you pay to get your ServSafe certification, this money goes to the National Restaurant Association. Well, so the headline and kind of controversy surrounding this recently is that the National Restaurant Association, working theoretically on behalf of restaurant owners, restaurant corporations is a group that actively lobbies federal and state governments against raising the minimum wage for workers and against raising the tipped minimum wage for workers. However, many of these workers that they are lobbying against raising their wages are the very people who have to pay the restaurant association to get their ServSafe certification.
29:17Herein lies the rub. I mean, it's a massive conflict of interest. And I think a lot of workers maybe didn't even realize this until recently. I guess technically I realized all of the parts to this, but I had never connected those dots and thought about it in that kind of cyclical term. Let's break this down a little bit. Can we take this in bite-sized pieces? Let's do it. Why do they lobby against raising minimum wage? Why does the restaurant association lobby against its workers? Because the restaurant association works on behalf of ownership. And when we say the restaurant association works on behalf of ownership, while they would probably tell you they work on everyone's behalf, they don't work on behalf of ownership like myself. They work on behalf of ownership of Applebee's, Applebee's, Charlie's, Culver's. These types of massive corporations that can pay them a lot of money exactly are the companies that pay them to lobby on their behalf to say, we are going to lobby your state and the federal government so that you don't have to provide healthcare as a mandatory. So you don't you know, adjust your tipped wage so you don't have to, you know, raise the minimum wage from, what is it now, $7.25 to $15 an hour, that sort of thing. So.
30:43Okay. So they are, okay. So I see that I don't. Okay. So that's why they're doing it. That's why they're doing it. And then they've created, so Serve Safe is something that they own. Yes. I don't know the answer. I'm just, I'm learning these things as you're telling me. It is owned and administered and run by the National Restaurant Association. And there's, so then the government is then saying everybody has to be served. Is there another option? Well, I wouldn't say the federal government is saying that, but local states and municipalities are saying that. Is there another option? Is there a, is it have to be that particular Serve Safe certified, or is there like a Serve Almost Safe certified that you can do? Is there a government function that offers that at all free of charge? So somebody please write in and let me know if I'm misunderstanding this, but I believe that Serve Safe is the official required course. So while there may be other programs available, I believe as it pertains to the law and what certain health departments require, it must be specifically the Serve Safe course. You almost think that restaurants would pay for people to do that. There's a company- A lot of restaurants do pay for it. We pay for our managers who do it, but I think that the issue is that in some states perhaps where everyone on the team is required to do it, it is a contingency of your employment to say, hey, you have to pay the, I don't know, what is it, $35? I'm actually going to look it up really, really quick.
32:24Yeah, I don't know the answer. It's almost, there's a lot of different things you have to do. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to do. I think it'd be great if there was a government program that helped do that. It wasn't something that the National Restaurant Association owned. So I agree. I think it is a conflict of interest that they own it and they're lobbying against it. And they're saying, so yeah, I mean, I'm with you on that. I, you know, I'm sorry, I can't find this information very quickly about how much it costs. My internet is not running. You know, it's okay. We're going to take it. Why don't we do that? We'll take a quick break to hear a couple of words from our sponsors. When you hear that sound, it's probably too late. You need a guy. I want to be your guy. I'm Kevin with Course in Fire and Security, and I'm a Restaurant Territory Account Manager. You know who's doing your inspections at your restaurant. Please reach out to me at 615-974-2932. I'll be glad to come out and take a quick look and look at all your fire safety inspection needs. If you're building your restaurant, we can help with that too. As far as kitchen suppression, fire extinguishers, emergency lights, we do it all. One stop, one shop. Call Kevin at 615-974-2932. Let me be your guy, Nashville. Hey, this is Jason Ellis with Nashville SuperSource. We're so proud to be a sponsor for Nashville Restaurant Radio. We would love the opportunity to discuss your chemical and dish machine program with you. If you have any needs or any questions about your current program, opening a new restaurant, or just need a double set of eyes on that, we'd love the opportunity to help you with that. My number is 770-337-1143. We don't do any contracts, no minimums, weekly service to make sure that all your equipment is functioning properly. Make sure you have everything that you need. Again, my name is Jason Ellis, 770-337-1143. You know, when I say that we're powered by Gordon Food Service, what does that mean? It means that they partner with Nashville Restaurant Radio.
34:27They help give me ideas. They bring in so much help. You know, I call them all the time with ideas. They're just so engaged in everything that we do and this is a podcast. Imagine if they were working with you and your business. That is exactly what they do. They partner with you. If you work with a broadliner right now, you're buying your food from somebody and you haven't seen your rep in a long time, or they don't come and continuously bring you ideas, you need to be working with one company and one company that really can help you succeed. That's what Gordon Food Service does. I know this from experience. I worked with Gordon Food Service for 10 years and these guys are the real deal. You need to call Paul Hunter if your current experience is not like that. His number is 615-945-6753. Just ask him. Say, hey man, can we just have a conversation about it? It's not going to be a hard sell, but they want to figure out how they can partner with you better. So really call Paul Hunter over at Gordon Food Service and I want to say a big thank you to Gordon Food Service for everything they do for this podcast. And again, I don't take money from local restaurants. I want to support the local industry and they are down to do that and that is why they're supporting us because they want to support you. So thank you Gordon Food Service for powering everything that we do here at Nashville Restaurant Radio. And welcome back from our little break there. You like Gordon Food Service. You use Gordon Food Service, don't you?
35:54Oh, we love Gordon Food Service and I do not just say that because they're a sponsor. I have been a longtime lover of Gordon Food Service even since back my days in Chicago. Every restaurant that I worked at that used Gordon, they were always just the best. Everybody that comes in that sees the Gordon thing behind us is like, dude, I love those guys, man. And you know, they don't go over the top and beat their chest, but the thing that I love the most about them, and I'll tell you this real quick. I know we get into the service stuff is that they do what they say. They follow up and they're like, I really feel like they are a partner in what I do versus a lot of companies that say they're going to do a lot of stuff and then don't do it. I agree. I think that Gordon, for being such a big company, I feel that they treat us with the same respect that I feel from our smaller vendors, whereas experiences that I've had with other broad line companies, I haven't felt that same kind of, you know, respect or care for us as a customer. And that's big. That's a big deal. It's huge. So we were talking about Surf Safe. Yeah. You're looking up the total. How much does Surf Safe cost? So it's $36, which listen, this might not seem like a ton of money, but think of from the perspective of someone who's maybe a server at Applebee's that, you know, is making $2.13 an hour. And when you make $2.13 an hour, let's say that I'm a server at Applebee's.
37:15I'm guaranteed $2.13 an hour. I come in for my shift. It's a really slow shift. And I only make $36 the cost of a Surf Safe course in tips. And that's before taxes are taken out. Now, if you are a tipped employee and your $2.13 an hour plus the tips that you make do not equal $7.25 an hour, the employer is required to pay you the difference. Yes. But essentially, they are only required to pay you the difference. If you don't make $7.25 an hour. So you can go in and work and only make $7.25 an hour. And you might say, well, there's tons of jobs, you know, everywhere is hiring right now. That might be so in Nashville. But what if you live, you know, out in a country place, you know, well, Sheboygan is a pretty big town. Have you ever been to Sheboygan? No. I think Sheboygan's got more. It's just like saying Sheboygan. But you know, here's what I think about, you know, I drive back and forth from Nashville to Chicago a lot. And you think about these little towns that you drive through when you stop at a loves or arrest stop, and you see maybe one one or two things, maybe they don't even have an Applebee's, there's like a McDonald's and that's it. So you know, what if you live in a town where that's the only option and you don't have other places to work, you don't have other opportunities and I know I'm with you. I federal minimum wage of $15 an hour would would be really helpful.
38:41So back to Gordon food service. Yeah, there's a company called back of house. Okay, back of house. I don't know how far progress there and I don't know if I'm supposed to be talking about it. Okay, they have they have I think they have a podcast backhouse podcast. What they do is they have a website like back of house.com back of house.com. And they curate technology sites. So you can go and look at restaurant technology and reviews them and you can look at them and see what the cost knowledge stuff is a really kind of a cool is like an Angie's list but for restaurant tech. But they have a program where they're putting together a surf safe equal like it's a it's a similar sort of a deal as surf safe. And they offer restaurants to sign up for back of the house and the whole thing but then they offer it to every employee at like a super discounted rate. So restaurants can like subscribe to this and it counts for that certification. I don't know what where they are stages and planning they were talking about sponsorship of the hey we would like to get the word out about this. I need to do some research on that because that could be something you know and I think this is something that is sponsored by GFS. Well it might be interesting to talk to them and maybe they can offer us a little more insight into what exactly the health department requirement is.
39:52Is it as I believe only surf safe or are there alternative programs where people who don't feel right about paying into this lobbying group which I you know I'm not saying you know that I'm landing on you know the side of the restaurant association or not. I do think that there are some good things that they do. I you know but I think that in this case this is wrong. I do think that this is wrong. I will say that if you are out there and you need to be surf safe certified do you need to find somebody to surf set you need to surf safe certify your team if they're not contact your contact your broadliner contact your broadline whoever you're purchasing your if you're buying from five of them shame on you if you have one major broadliner that you're partnering with then check with them and they'll a lot of times they can arrange a class and do like eight people they have something come to your building and do like eight ten twenty people at a time and they cover the cost on that any company that you're spending money with on a regular basis should should want to offer that should give you some things we just recently we have a new beverage manager and she's been bartending for a long time and she's really awesome been with our team for a long time but this is her first time in this management role and she said to me recently hey we really need some new bar mats can you can I go on amazon and please order some new bar mats and I said absolutely not reach out to the distributors and tell them we need bar mats just like oh really I can do that yes I said if you ever need bar mats a fruit tray wine keys bottle openers anything I said do not buy it ask the liquor companies for it but this is a it's a great opportunity to talk about relationships and as we're going off topic on the other thing but like a lot of this stuff kind of plays together if you're an owner how you leverage some of the stuff you need your menus printed you need menu engineering you need uh like so many people feel like big broad line companies and these other companies don't care about them you can just ask them for stuff and you can do that when they're
41:57partners this is what's with the partnership of course if you you buy everything from somebody one person and you commit to them they will go beyond measures to help you and you just have to ask them and sometimes they'll bring that stuff to you they should bring it to you but most of the time if you're buying from five different companies then you can go to one they're like no buy ask one of the other five people you're buying from but if you have one broad line company that you've partnered with and I would recommend everybody partner with a broad line company they'll do so many things for you and it never hurts to ask I always come from the position of it never hurts to ask the worst case scenario they don't have something that you need or they can't help you with something but what if they can can save you a lot of trouble Dave Ramsey says every time you go out somewhere ask for the employee discount that is so obnoxious like if you go to like Macy's and you're buying clothes like hey can I get that 15% off and like what like the 15% off just you can do it give me 15 he was you'd be surprised how many times that person goes yeah no problem I got a coupon right here interesting and they'll just do it like all the time but you if you don't ask for it you're never going to get it well now I wouldn't recommend doing that if you go to Nicky's don't walk in because you're actually if there's a guy at the counter that can give you an employee and you know what I'm taking money out of your pocket no but honestly my team is so nice that they would probably be like oh yeah did you used to work here well that's the thing and then a lot of people take advantage of that but like if you're like at a national chain or something Dave Ramsey always says ask him for a discount just ask for a discount hey can I have a discount like why I don't know and this people get so like off guard that you ask them for discounts most of the time there's like sure I just pushed this button we're doing a special right now if you didn't know about it you didn't know about it but yeah I'll give you 20% I went to express the other day I had a express for men I was just I'm just joking so we had a party the other day right in this unreasonable hospitality which is the Brandon's book club book and we're going to be doing our book club meeting on February the 8th I believe yes Wednesday February 8th conflict of interest
43:58there I just realized on my calendar anyhow um one of the things is they just go above and we had a we had a party the other day that called in a celebration of life and they said we have 39 people we need to come in it's like tomorrow you know we're like oh those things you can't plan them and so they said it's really this person was a you know lived in Brentwood forever and they said one of the things in her will was that she wanted everybody at the funeral to wear pink every funeral needs to wear pink and she goes so we're gonna have like 39 people we're all gonna be wearing pink if you're wondering what's going on it is a celebration of life but we're all wear pink because this inner inner will and so I was sitting there and I was like what servers are working that party and I go they should have pink shirts on I love that shouldn't they be wearing pink shirts too so I went to the two servers at work in the party and I was like do you have a pink dress shirt and they're like no and I said okay so I went to JCPenney and I went to Macy's and I went to Belk and Dillard's and Target and I could not find a woman's pink dress shirt and a men's pink dress shirt that wasn't like 110 dollars sure I didn't want to spend so randomly walking by express and I see I'm like I don't nothing fits me in there so I can't go there but I walked in and the clearance rack I found a nice pink men's dress shirt that was like $39.99 but it was on 50% off so I was like oh that's right in my wheelhouse and I found a woman's dress shirt that was $58 and told the woman I was like that's just more really than I want to spend on this shirt for somebody to wear for two hours she's like I'll hook you up hold on and we walked over there and she goes I got a coupon back here it was $23.99 after she did that nice it's a $58 shirt and I was like thank you she's like what are you doing with this and I kind of told her some of the story and she's like oh my god I would have just given it to you and I was like well you I don't want that but a $39.99 50 it was a hundred dollars in clothes that I got for like $48 love that and that's a really thoughtful gesture that's really nice they I'm sure that the people loved it they were very touched the guests loved
46:03it and then the servers were like dude thanks for the shirt these are with the versus it being like some crappies they got express clothes nice but they were like hey I'll wear this outside of work I was like cool well I have I have kind of one more topic that's in the news that I was I was thinking maybe I was going to save it for a different show but you brought up Dave Ramsey so let's go I haven't listened to Dave Ramsey in years I went to the financial peace university with my wife and I first got married in like 2007 okay so well I have never listened to Dave Ramsey quite frankly I only know Dave Ramsey through his myriad of controversies that I read about in the news and this in the last couple of weeks maybe week before last the Supreme Court announced that they were going to take up a case that pertains to religious exemptions in the workplace and was just kind of curious you know what what your thoughts were on this some of the criticism about it is that you know it opens up workplaces to discriminate against LGBTQ plus people when you say religious exemptions what do you mean so it pertains to I think that here's a great example of it is the Hobby Lobby birth control issue are you familiar with this so this is a few years already like annoyed by it though so this is a few years old and Hobby Lobby under the Obamacare is required they're a large enough company that they're required to provide health care for their employees but they refuse to pay for any sort of contraceptives for they would not cover contraceptive health care because they said that it was against their religion to cover contraceptive health care okay so this is also could pertain to one of the other
48:07examples that I read in this article was about if you you know we all know the kind of Colorado bakery that refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple and if you are an employee of a bakery that is making a wedding cake for a gay couple you can say I refuse to make this cake because that's against my religion I think that's hateful I think that's wrong and I will categorically say stop purchasing anything from any company that does that another example would be that some religions consider women to be subordinate to men in their religion and so how does that apply to the workplace and I think it needs to all stay out of the workplace every ounce of that needs to stay out of the workplace and so what would you say then and you know I just bring this up for kind of you know the sake of conversation what would you say to an employee who says I can't work on Sundays because I'm very involved in my church and I take Sundays off because I want to honor that that's Sunday's a very busy day for us we do brunch it's a very busy day and on the front end while we're interviewing people one of the prerequisites is that you have to have full availability I hire full-time people I want full-time employees working there I mean I do have part-time employees but really I want full-time employees and on the front end it is understood you will work on a Sunday if they say I can't work on Sundays then you don't have the availability that we need right so on the front end that is a prerequisite that you have to be available on Sundays that's it I mean if you say I'm sorry I don't work on Sundays then I'm sorry this isn't the job for you there's a lot of other jobs you can go find another job but that's something that we need to have full availability from everybody that works there doesn't mean you have to work on Sundays that that's gonna be the day that you work no but you know what a lot mother's day is on Sunday and father's day is on Sunday and there's a lot of Sundays that are really big days Easter Sunday that we need you to be there and it's not a fair thing for everybody
50:10else to do that and we're a team we're a team and everybody pitches in and we all do what we have to do and on the front end if you understand that and you look me in the eye and you go I understand that and I get that then that's a prerequisite for employment go to church on Wednesday yeah I mean do find another time I mean that's just not something that it's not that I disrespect the fact that you like to go to church or you want to go to church I love that I have nothing against anybody going to church I I don't go to church on Sundays I would like to mesh with your business it doesn't match with my business schedule no and our culture you know our culture is one that is completely different than what you just described Hobby Lobby we're not telling every single person that walks in that door is welcome we have something called emotional tranquility and emotional tranquility is freedom from emotional stress from outside factors like when you're here when you're at the restaurant we want this to be a sanctuary for you I don't want you to come in and feel because of anything that's going on with you that you're not okay and even if and you're saying well what if you're religious on the front end when you're here it's about taking care of the guest everything's about taking care of the guest and if you work your 40 hours a week we offer all the stuff you need to do but I I don't think there's any place for me to tell you that we're not going to offer you birth control or we're not going to offer you any kind of contraceptive or we're going to limit anything or I just don't I'm not that's not that's not that's not workplace to me I I would be very interested I've always been very fascinated by by legal issues and just kind of how laws are written and how laws work I wonder if we can maybe find an attorney to come in and do an episode with us and talk about some of these like workplace legal issues I think that would be a cool show because you know of course I completely agree with you I am against any type of discrimination in the workplace I don't like any of this I will say again kind of you know for argument's sake is there another side to this that we aren't considering perhaps you know in earlier episodes we were talking about Candace Owens had tried to
52:16host an event at my restaurant and that I would not be agreeable to hosting that is that a discrimination issue where someone could say hey you discriminated against my organization because of my political beliefs and would that fall under the same type of legal precedent you know or maybe let's say I had an employee who was posting things on their social media account that felt you know contrary to the culture of my restaurant which for us we consider ourselves to be a safe place for people of all genders and ethnicities and backgrounds and maybe we had an employee who was posting some things that you know we didn't feel like fit with that culture but they could then say we were discriminating against them because they were too conservative or you know and these things fortunately haven't happened but I'm just curious kind of where the legalities of all that lies because it can't you know as a law applies to one side of things it would assume it would also apply to the other side if that makes sense it makes complete sense and I you know I say these things without 100% of the legalities behind them but I am really confident that we have a culture that is set up around taking care of the guest and on the front end if every single person we have an employee handbook that outlines every single aspect of this you be you we want you to be authentically you in every single way right and I don't want you posting things about our work I mean I don't I think that what you do outside of work is what you do outside of work but when you're there we have a uniform we have codes of conduct we have things we ask you to do everyone's the same we ask you to not bring it to work I don't need you to we'll want work to be a safe haven I want you to come to work and start evangelizing at work that's not the place for it I don't want you to come to work and tell me about all the people you slept with last night that this is not the place for it like this is a place where people if whatever
54:20you have going on outside you can come here and leave it behind you for the hours while you're not here you know it's it's not we've all been we've all been in that situation where you know you get you're you're friendly you're making chitchat with the team and an employee will say something like oh I'm so hung over today it's like why would you tell me that I had an employee I had somebody recently who came to work and we unfortunately had to let this person go but they were just really not doing a great job and the manager said what's going on they said I'm sorry I'm just so high right now she said why would you say why would you say that to me like we have a drug and alcohol policy and you're under the influence of a controlled substance you literally just said to your manager I'm so high right now and then was upset that they got fired I'm just like you can't come on man but that's that's a decision we we you know this whole qbq thing that we live by this we're we're asked questions of ourselves what we can do we put out personal accountability guys personal accountability don't come to work hungover if you come to work hungover and you can't do your job function you let your team down or if you come to work hungover don't let me know we've all been to work hungover come on it's a restaurant industry but you know what slap some makeup on the face drink a gatorade red bull and some advil make it happen eat a burger and you know suck it up make it work well anyway Brandon on that note I I do want to look into seeing if you're an employment attorney or if you are a legal professional with some knowledge of this we'd love to have you on the show so please reach out to us I think that would make for a really interesting conversation they're already like contacting my employees to find out did they tell you that you have to work on Sundays and they don't care about your religion I'm like that never said that I never said that I don't care about your religion any of that stuff pre-exit is that you have full availability to work at the restaurant that's it that's the only thing I'm saying whatever you want to do on your Sundays is up to you but you have to have full availability
56:23to work for us we are going to change gears when we get back right after these words from our sponsors well after talking about all this HR related stuff I think it's only apropos that we talk about net checks net checks is your single source for all things payroll performance management HR scheduler I mean these are there's so many things that they are able to offer you that it's hard to get it into a 60-second advertisement I mean it's just not even possible but today the scheduler is such so big we talk about working seven days a week or not working is just what days you're full availability well if you're still doing your schedule on an excel spreadsheet you've got to stop this will actually help you figure out exactly how many hours people are working really works on workload which is a massive massive thing you've got to be working on right now has a user-friendly schedule builder employee access and request it's mobile optimized has a fully integrated system and that all pairs with their human resources you know they have employee lifecycle management HR support center intuitive self-service in reporting and analytics because that's what we need we need to take that scheduling take everything and put it into a dashboard so that I can see who's working when they're working how they're working and who's working too much I mean you know sometimes we got to we got to manage burnout that's so important and netchecks does it all you need to go to netchecks.com that is n-e-t-c-h-e-x.com or you can call lauren domain and let me tell you lauren is the restaurant specialist over there and she knows your business that's the key if you work with somebody right now that doesn't understand your business you need to work with somebody that gets the restaurant industry here number is 615-319-9200. You know we're talking about Gordon Food Service earlier and I have to talk about what chefs want these guys have been doing it since 2005 working with locally owned and operated restaurants to help them succeed
58:27literally that's how they got the name for their company they are what chefs want because they do what chefs want they're not telling you how to run your business they want to find solutions so how do they do it they offer no minimums you want to order one each avocado done they'll do it they deliver daily one of the things chefs said they wanted was sunday deliveries why don't people deliver on sundays sundays is not that hard to deliver on it's just another day nobody will do it they will they understand what you want they have a diverse product line and their logistics are second to none they're in your area they're going to make the delivery for you that's what they're here to do because you know what that's what you want what chefs want is more than just a name of a company it's their culture it's their mantra it's who they are and I couldn't be more excited to talk about them and to partner with them they're such great people I want to give them a call 800-600-8510 and set up an account if you don't have one set up already if you don't know about what chefs want they have an amazing line of beef seafood specialty products gourmet produce I mean gosh they've got it all delivering seven days a week with no minimums that is what chefs want this coffee is really good we made some coffee in our break and I will tell you that I had a really fun thing to do I'm changing gears okay I did something really fun the other day tell me the guys Ryan and Ryan over at frothy monkey reached out to me and they said we are doing our seasonal barista competition we would like for you to come be a judge nice I know it's not like the craziest thing but I was like sure I'm honored they have got the coolest culture over there at the frothy monkey oh yeah for sure corporate office they have this huge training center and with their whole roasting area and then it was me and three other people who were judges and they brought out like nine different drinks like new cup drinks for their spring and summer menu they were like I was blown away because I didn't
01:00:27know like I live in my bubble right and my bubble is a pretty big bubble but like I'm not a barista I've never pretended to be a barista I am a black coffee or I make I try and recreate Fido's local latte every morning at my house with the best cinnamon and local honey and like you know steamed milk I mean that sounds pretty involved for a home coffee super easy it just got like an espresso roast and we make it's the easiest thing you ever do but it's like cinnamon and honey right that they were making like espresso drinks like cappuccinos and lattes with like purple yams and beets and so many different things and I was like this and there was a girl there oh god I can't think of her name right now she was amazing I didn't know where she was from this woman was like the most knowledgeable coffee person I'd ever met like she was like a coffee sommelier awesome and and I was just like the whole time I was like I think it tastes good and she was like I'm getting notes of cardamom and this and this if you had a little more all spice plus if you did this I'm like I thought it was delicious was there a winner yeah we allowed they named three winners okay um there's one was a cortado that Luna made shout out to Luna that was fantastic and then there was two others there was like a Shirley Temple kind of a mocktail kind of a thing there was an iced drink that was made with a homemade like a house made grenadine with like orange blossom and some other things but it was soda water instead of sprite but it was like really just like the most refreshing beautiful little drink for their summer spring menu and there's a nothing there's another cold drink that was made with like this lemon foam and it was like this like a lemon foam that was like really thick and then it was was it a coffee drink it was it had espresso and like ginger and like all this sounds really good crazy I got pictures of I love a I love a lemon peel in my espresso I mean go to at Brandon underscore NRR and I'm gonna post pictures on my stories today
01:02:33and you'll be able to go see some of the different drinks that they made and I'll try and put you can see on them who the actual barista was and next to my little scorecard it's one of those beautiful that's great beautiful drinks so go pay a visit to Farathi soon and try some of these delicious new coffee drinks yes I just was blown away I just you know it's like I got a bike for Christmas this year yeah okay I got my kids Santa brought my children bikes I had no idea I just thought you go to Walmart you buy a bike and you're done sure I wanted to support a local company so I went to trace bikes right with my house oh no this is a whole world once you dig into like a different side of something you don't know the subcultures holy cow and the barista coffee culture was like that to me the other day I'm like I know the bar stuff and I know the restaurant stuff but like this culture and it was neat like it was and they're they just like dive in over there and it was really cool to see their entire team they're celebrating each other rooting for each other and I think they get like a bonus if they get their drink on the menu and they get name recognition but like it was just a really vibey like cool thing and I was like I dig this guys like way to go and they gave us a coffee to go which was nice too so I've got bonus as we drink this coffee I'm like oh man it reminds me of this wonderful coffee I did the day at frothy and I love frothy's coffee great coffee not a sponsor just amazing guys and just nice people want to give a shout out Ryan Pruitt's been on the show and Jamie Pruitt who runs their bakery has been on the show nice amazing people love those guys yes great neighbors they're right there right next door to you aren't they they are the best neighbors just the best people but also having a coffee shop next door that's open seven days a week is everything I was on expo last night and I actually at the beginning of service handed my food runner my credit card and I said I'm so sorry to ask you to do this but could you please go next door and get me a cappuccino because I have a feeling this is going to be a long night and I I need a little pick me up and it was and it was a long night it was a great night
01:04:36but it's a good thing but it was it was a busy one hey we can wrap this thing up right thank you guys for listening to this thing but I do have one more topic conversation which is a teaser going into we're going to do a fun joint episode with the guys over explore Nashville so fun that's going to be like a roundup for Valentine's Day what is your before we get into like a big Valentine's Day episode where we talk about all the things that are happening in Nashville and if you have something that's special going on in Nashville go to the Nashville restaurant radio Instagram page and DM us like tag us in all of your really cool Valentine's Day things that you're doing any kind of special Valentine's anything you're doing and I will put that up on our stories just to kind of help promote what you're doing because and we'll talk about it in our roundup we'll talk about in the roundup but are you a believer in Valentine's Day me yeah um you know I'm kind of not um I'm a little not a Valentine's Day hater but I think that I've just worked in restaurants for such a long time that it's just such a hallmark holiday to me and it's not something that I've ever really celebrated necessarily I'm like oh it's kind of dumb sorry to say that that's just kind of been my personal feelings with that said this is everybody get ready to throw up but I have a very very sweet and cute husband who is very into holidays and he you know always does something cute for a holiday so that makes me more into Valentine's Day well I'm gonna give big shouts to Tony get you big guy all right wonderful happy little thing going on they're waiting to use those maybe he's just you know what he's probably just scared of me this is my wife waiting for the Valentine's gift oh Brandon come on no I you know what's funny because I've always been like a um Valentine's Day stupid it is a yeah if you are a romantic in restaurants a lot of holidays get sidelined because you just
01:06:42always associate it as this is like a work mode thing not a thing that I celebrate I don't even think of it that way I just think of it like as a romantic like every day should be Valentine's Day you should have roses like you should I should be doing that all the time but you know what this year you should well I've been so busy that like I kind of feel like I need a I think I'm at that point to where like a reminder is nice yeah like a little day that's like hey go be romantic dude like get off your ass like like stop focusing on this this grind this work all the time I'm always tired and sick like I think I need that this year to kind of say hey dude like get up and go do something fun for Valentine's Day do something special and romantic like well Brandon I can't wait until we do our Valentine's Roundup episode and I'm going to find out exactly what it is that you have planned for Valentine's I think we're gonna go do it together I invited you guys oh that's right we're gonna do a Valentine's dinner yes with you and Tony yeah we're gonna go to the optimist yes it's uh is it the optimist it's the other oh sorry star rover star rover and Gracie from um Gracie from east side by me is doing a special pop-up that night so excited February the 16th and it's going to be a curated like five course meal that we're doing and it's a it's a benefit for the giving kitchen so we've got a fun little v-day double date and if you are looking for some really spread the love by supporting the giving kitchen go check out this dinner yeah go check it out star rover I don't know if tickets are still available I don't know it might be sold out it might be sold out but on the off chance that it's not you should check it out it's a good cause and you get to come if you see us there come say hi yeah you'd be like hey let's go interrupt their Valentine's now I'm excited because we haven't all got to hang out really before so I mean I'm really excited about that it'll be a ton of love a double date yeah I haven't I think I've done a
01:08:45double date and like we're so basic long time you guys could you get to we'll do a roundup of that dinner it'll be fun like that brain is not romantic at all so honey I love you we're going to do something special for Valentine's Day when I get home from work but then the next couple nights we're going to do but I think it's I think I'm at the point now where I'm like no I think I'm gonna do something special for Valentine's Day I want to do something special because she deserves it absolutely she does well I can't wait to hear what it is maybe that'll maybe just talking about this will like inspire you inspire me to do things on days that aren't Valentine's Day you should the struggle is real okay I love you honey all right guys thank you for listening today um you never even get that hour back that hour's gone sorry what a way to go out and I had a lot of fun Carolyn thanks for doing absolutely always all right guys hope you're safe out there love you guys bye