Brandon Styll catches up with Monty Crawford, COO of the Southern Division for Creation Gardens / What Chefs Want, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. They reminisce about Creation Gardens' scrappy early days in Nashville back in 2005, when Monty hired Brandon and...
Brandon Styll catches up with Monty Crawford, COO of the Southern Division for Creation Gardens / What Chefs Want, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. They reminisce about Creation Gardens' scrappy early days in Nashville back in 2005, when Monty hired Brandon and the company was running deliveries out of a parking lot off Long Hollow Pike. Monty explains how the company built itself by doing what the broadliners wouldn't: late cutoff times, no minimums, no fuel charges, and seven-day-a-week service to urban routes.
The conversation then turns to the back-to-back blows of the Nashville tornado and the COVID-19 shutdown. After the tornado knocked Cisco offline, What Chefs Want tripled in volume overnight, only to lose 80 percent of its business a week later when restaurants were forced to close. Monty shares the painful realities of putting customers on COD, laying off 500 employees (including his own daughter), and lobbying politicians for industry relief.
The episode closes on a hopeful note as Monty describes donating 67,000 pounds of produce, eggs, and dairy to industry workers through drop spots organized with chefs like Kyle at Cinema, Margot, Frothy Monkey, Biscuit Love, and Edgehill Cafe.
"We would love to tell people that we are what chefs want. We're not that cocky. What we've tried to do is to do what chefs want."
Monty Crawford, 05:43
"I've lost 80 percent of our business. There's no playbook for any of us out here in the business world, especially our industry."
Monty Crawford, 44:08
"If you're in this industry, you either have the spirit of service or you don't. To be in this industry, that's a given. You want to give. You want to help people."
Monty Crawford, 52:26
"We were able to deliver about 67,000 pounds of produce. That included eggs and dairy and juice, but most of it was produce."
Monty Crawford, 48:31
00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Well, hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. We've been talking about things to do while you've been socially distancing or isolation, whatever you want to call it, and one of the things we've been talking about was contacting old friends. As I was speaking to Hal from Loughlin Table last week, he mentioned that Creation Gardens had donated a bunch of food to a bunch of people, and it got my brain thinking. I wonder how a company like Creation Gardens is dealing with all of this, and it was also a great opportunity to catch up with an old friend. So I called Monty Crawford, and I hope you enjoy what we talked about. Monty Crawford, it is so great to have you on Nashville Restaurant Radio. Thanks for being here. Brandon, appreciate it. Glad to be here. Glad to participate. Monty, what is your exact title at Creation Gardens? Brandon, I am currently the COO of our Southern Divisions, which covers St. Louis. I know it's really not south, but we worked it into the south, certainly here in Nashville, all of Middle Tennessee, southern Indiana, through central and southern Kentucky, western Kentucky, all the way to Birmingham, Chattanooga, Knoxville and Asheville.
01:41Wow. Okay. You have quite the territory. Well, we've grown a little bit since you and I were last together, so yeah, our territories are growing, or they were. All right. Well, hey, first of all, let's let the listeners in on a little bit of our history. So I met you in 2005 when Creation Gardens had just come to town, and we're not doing much business at all, and I was an AGM at Amerigo, and you came in to kind of cold call me, and we started a relationship. We did. Matter of fact, you followed me out the door and said, are you looking to expand or hire in this market? And your timing was perfect because I was. And sometimes things are fortuitous. They happen for a reason. And what I loved about that opportunity, Monty, was at the time, and I don't know how, I'm really curious to get into this with you, is exactly where the trajectory of Creation Gardens went pre-economic downturn and then post-economic downturn, leading into what we're dealing with today. But my attraction to want to come work for Creation Gardens was when I met with you, you said, we want to be completely different than everybody else, and we want to treat chefs as if they're the star because they're the star. And I said, you want to treat chefs like we treat our guests in the front of the house? And you said, exactly. Yeah, you know, Brandon, just to give the audience just a little bit of background, how we got started. We started in an ice plant that was built in the late 1800s in Louisville, Kentucky, and, you know, really didn't know where we were going. We were coming out of a period where the ice plant had caught fire.
03:39Molly and Ron Tornier, owner company, and at the time, they were just recent graduates of graduate school, had no intentions coming back to Louisville to work for their father-in-law, but his ice plant caught on fire, and he was in trouble. So he asked him to come back to Louisville and, you know, help him get out of the trouble. He found himself in financially, and Ron was able to turn that ice plant, that ice business around, but he recognized that he had a lot of refrigerated space and that was not being used. So he went to some local chefs downtown and said, hey, what can we do for you? Got all this refrigerated space that your current food providers aren't doing for you. And the first thing he said was, hey, we would love to be able to get specialty produce and gourmet items without having to order two weeks out from our current purveyor, and that would be a great benefit to us. And really, Brandon, that's how we got started, and that led to us, you know, buying a little small full-service produce company out that we moved into that building. And so when Ron looked around and said, well, we can't out-cisco-cisco. There's no way. They're the biggest, baddest guy in town, and so we can't get in there and try to out-price them. We can't out-do them, but what can we do? So he went back to those same chefs and said, how can we be different? And they started saying, well, you know, we don't like our cutoff times. At the time, I think the industry was probably averaging around 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and you remember that because that's how we kind of started getting business down here. And, you know, so that was one of the things with me that went, well, okay, there's no reason why we can't really give a later cutoff time. And some of these operators were small operators, had, you know, mom and pop, just like we are, like we were then, and we still are today. You know, we don't really need a whole case of limits. Okay, well, how many? Well, really, we don't go through with 10 a week. Okay, well, we'll say 10 a week. So we just really started doing things that I guess were difficult for the broadliners and the bigger companies. And, you know, we've kind of operated ever since that way,
05:43Brandon, as you well know, we would love to tell people that we are what chefs want. We're not that cocky. And what we've tried to do is to do what chefs want. And that's really how we've run our company for 22 years now. So essentially, because that there's a side of that that sounds like you've said that before, because you have, because some of that is who you are that can come across as this is our elevator pitch. But I mean, I can attest to the fact that that's exactly who you are. Like when I first came on, there was no different than that. That was my job description right there was take that what you just described and do that in Nashville. Yeah, I mean, and boy, those were exciting times. We were this little company coming into Nashville with really no expectations other than trying to fill one truck and try to be that company that could deliver specialty produce, gourmet items to the customer base down here seven days a week, you know, in no minimums, no fuel charges, no delivery fees, and with no expectations of other hey, let's see if we fill up one truck and see where it goes from there. And so I think we were running around three or four trucks when you came on board, still very, very young our existence down here and you bought into our mission statement, if you will, right out of the gate, you saw the difference you'd work in restaurants, you saw how we could be a benefit to our customer base and you know things we were very blessed. We landed some big accounts in this city that were important for our resume, if you remember. Oh, yeah. You know, the Hermitage hotels, the Hillwood Country Clubs, that when you were walking in, we've never heard of Creation Gardens. At the time, that was our, you know, our company name. It was for a long time. And now it's our Creation Gardens actually, our produce division. You know, you would walk in and say, hey, you know, who you are, here's what we do. Who you do, I've never heard of you, who you're doing business with. And boy, when you could say the Hermitage Hotel and Hillwood Country Club and the likes, I'm sure I'm leaving off some other
07:47ones, Jay Alexander's, it immediately opened some doors for us. Vanderbilt University was a big one back in the day. It was really one of our biggest acquisitions we got, right? Yeah, correct. But you know, those were the, those were the kind of the good old days, the Wild Wild West, as I like to call it, because I stayed in this business for another 10 plus years after leaving Creation Gardens, what chefs want. And we were, we would, I remember one of the times, just so that we can reminisce a little bit, 2005, walking in, I remember we were downtown, I think we were at the Red Pony, and we were talking to, I think, the chef there, Jason McConnell, and we said, we'll start you tomorrow. We don't need a credit application. We don't need any of that stuff. Just tell me your name. I'll send your email address in and we'll ship you an order tomorrow. And we did that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. Right. That was back in the day. And that's another name, you know, I probably shouldn't even started talking about some of the people that were so important to us early on. And Jason McConnell's always been a great partner, a great friend to our company. And you're right, we used to do that. I can remember riding around with Ron early, the owner of our company, and he's going, I'm not worried about credit apps. We just need to get business flowing through and we'll worry about that later. And so, yeah, that was down the wild, wild west.
09:10I remember, just if we're going to continue reminiscing, so what we used to do, and this is something, if you're listening out there, these, you think about a company like What Chefs Want, and you think, oh, they're a big company. They got all this stuff. We were this little tiny warehouse in Louisville, Kentucky, and we had a 16 foot, or it was a 24 foot truck that came down every day from Louisville. And then there was three little red box trucks that we parked behind a quick stop market and off Long Hollow Pike. And then every morning at five o'clock in the morning, we'd meet the truck from Louisville in the Shell station, which has since been bulldozed down and redone off Long Hollow Pike. And we would pull the trucks up in back end to back end. We had a pallet transfer jack and we would just load everything in a parking lot before we went out to deliver. And I'll never forget the first year, it was Mother's Day, as well as Vanderbilt graduation, Belmont graduation. It was the biggest weekend we'd ever had. We'd just signed on like 30 restaurants. We were just hustling the biggest day we'd ever had.
10:25And I remember telling my wife the night before, like, tomorrow's going to be a great day. It's a Saturday. It's the Saturday before Mother's Day. It's the Saturday of Vanderbilt graduation. We're going to be slammed. It's going to be awesome because that's what we love. We like it when it's super busy. But little did I know that at five o'seven, I get a phone call from Brian, the driver, and he kind of talked like this. And I remember getting the phone call and he said, Brandon. I said, what's up, Brian? He goes, man, my tire's flat on the truck. And I said, I'm sorry. He goes, tires on the truck, they're flat. And I said, um, okay. He goes, actually, I'm looking right now. All the tires on all the trucks are flat. And I think that's one of those oh crap moments. It was an oh crap moment. That's when you, we found out what you were made of that morning. Not that we maybe didn't know before then, but you jumped in with both feet and got the tires changed and off we went. So we, yeah, we got tires changed. We had a mobile company come out, change the tires. I had a Chevy Silverado truck. We took the truck from Louisville and I'll never forget being right there, right in front of Sunset Grill and the parking lot of Jackson's because we worked with Jackson's, Sunset Grill, Fido, The Trace, and Cabana. I mean, if you're, we're talking back in the day now, if you're an old school Nashville person, you know what I'm talking about. Right in the middle of that parking lot, filling up four or five different deliveries in the back of my truck, throwing a two-wheeler in there, throwing somebody in the truck with me while we headed over downtown and he delivered right there. Then I would come back and meet the truck wherever he was and filled my truck back up. And we just started making deliveries. I'm in Franklin. I'm all over the place. That was a, and then you had people forget to order too and we didn't have a warehouse. So that was always a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, it's kind of been who we've been from day one, Brandon. We just made it happen. Yeah. You know, that was the
12:26culture that we created within our company. You didn't throw your hands up there and call Ron and I and say, hey guys, we're not going to be able to deliver today. That wasn't an option. That wasn't an option. And so we, you know, that's just really what's allowed our company to continue to grow from a little pop operation. We're still owned by that same husband and wife. We don't have financial investors. We don't have wall street money. It's still a husband and wife. And, but so when you're all the, all of our listeners, they're out here in the food business and, and you know, my background, I own and operated two restaurants for 12 years. When, when, when your family owned and you're small and you're trying to get big or whatever, you don't have any options, but to get the job done. And that's, you know, changing pace on you a little bit, Brandon, that's what's been so amazing at our, our industry and, and our, our community in particular, watching our folks that give their blood, sweat and tears of trying to create opportunities for other people in our industry. So, you know, certainly not only the owners, but then the people that work for them. And, you know, we, we, you know, the tornado seems like a lifetime ago now. It comes in here and destroys so many operations and people's just disrupted so many lives and certainly took some lives. And what's this industry do? They jump in both feet, all hands forward and make things happen because that's what we do. We don't have an option. That's, that's who this industry is. And so it's, you know, it's been humbling to watch that. And then, you know, a week later, we, we, we get another just a shot in the head across this country. And, and here we are again, and people, you know, joining forces and, you know, talking to owner and operators that are out there that might be listening, just, you know, what they're doing. And, you know, it's, it truly is a day to day thing, trying to figure out how we're going to make payroll, how, you know, how we're going to pay our bills, how, how can we help our families? So, you know, that's Creation Gardens is a really
14:33just a, an extension of how our own operators are in restaurants and the corporate and certainly the corporates as well. They were at one time were small independents who turned in a corporate. If you're in this food business, you do what it takes to get the job done. And that's what you did that day. And you continue to have that spirit service today. Well, so, so thank you, Monty. I mean, that means a lot to me coming from you. Obviously, you're a mentor of mine and I just appreciate all the time that we've got to spend together. And so I want to get back. I don't want to take some of the momentum you just now talked about because I want to get into what, what Chefs One is doing today. Like what, how all of this is affecting you because part of the story I want to tell here is I want everybody out there in this, this community to listen and see what a company of your size, how you pivot because it, it's, I think it's not too dissimilar to everybody else. But right now the evolution of Creation Gardens into what chefs want, and I don't, we don't have to spend as much time as I wasn't there, but the economic downturn happened 2008. I moved on to go work at Fresh Point. What chefs want Creation Gardens turned into something different. You pivoted at the time and added like staples, restaurant staples, to-go boxes. How did that springboard who you guys are now? Well, that's, you know, that's a great question, Brandon. And it really, you know, it started with the top, at the top. Well, Ron Janier's one of his assets, many assets, but one of them, he's a visionary. And he saw the challenges that stand-alone produce companies were going to have in the future. Logistics costs were going to continue to go up. And he realized that we could not, if we were going to grow our company, meet all the demands of delivery types, which, you know, every time someone opens up,
16:35they think we're sitting around, you know, and I say this with the humblest of hearts, we've got a great new concept coming in and we're going to open up and we're going to, you know, we're going to spend $20,000 a week with you and we're going to seat 500 people in a restaurant nightly and we need a seven o'clock delivery time. Yeah, everybody does. So everybody needs that. So what the natural instinct is, well, you got to add on trucks to try to start meeting some more delivery times. But the more trucks you add on, the more trucks you got to fill up because you couldn't run around with half empty trucks. And for us to keep up the pace of growth in our communities, the territories that we were in, we had to figure out how to not run around with half empty trucks. So you're right. We started picking up and again, we relied on our chefs. We truly do rely on our partners in our industry to tell us what can we do to be a better partner to you. And so we just, you know, all of a sudden we added on to gold products, just a few handful of staple items. And next thing you know, we're carrying 400 cheeses and oils and vinegars and it wasn't random. You know, again, we couldn't afford to try to outsell Cisco and cheese. We just wanted to bring on cheeses from small family batches around the world. And so just doing the little things. And then next thing you know, we bought a meat company that, you know, we feel like it's second to none. It was a family business. And that's what Ron likes in telling the story.
18:06We're a collection of small family businesses. When I look around and see we've probably acquired 15 small family companies throughout the years. Most of them are still with us. We make it a win-win or, you know, we like to talk about we merge, you know, and it just feels better than saying we bought somebody out. That an operation like the building we're in now, you remember when we were working with Ernest Williams, been in business for, you know, 50 or 60 years. Family owned, the three siblings working down here all in their mid to upper 50s when they came on board with us. And Mr. Williams was still living. And, you know, we didn't take their sign down. I mean, we finally put one of ours up, but we like the fact that we have small family business joining our business. And we kind of continue to do that with different product lines. We bought, you know, the long time seafood company in Louisville that for years we just delivered for them and we charged a delivery fee to help them. They would deliver some territories like Indianapolis that we weren't going to that maybe we could throw a few blocks on our truck. And so it finally made sense to get them on board. So that's how we've kind of evolved. And before, you know, this pandemic that we find ourselves in now, that's been our mold is bringing on more small family businesses to help them have a plan for the future because you're seeing some big companies throughout this country that are long standing, 70 and 80 year old companies that have been in produce business that just can't make it anymore with half empty trucks. So let's talk about half empty trucks because this is something that I'm curious about with you. And it's kind of a math problem. And for those of you who are not familiar with the supply chain and how it works, what he was referencing, you can't drive around with half empty trucks, a math problem, prime costs. What does it cost to make a delivery? And if you have a half empty truck and you're driving around, part of this,
20:08and I'm going to simplify this, Monty, and then I'm going to ask you kind of some questions as to how you guys do this. If you're buying food from a purveyor and they make a delivery to you, there's an average cost of what that costs, right? So let's just for math sake, let's say it's a hundred dollars. So every time you make a delivery, it costs the company a hundred dollars. So in this case, what chefs want? And I'm not, I don't know if that's their number. I'm just, this is purely hypothetical. It costs you a hundred dollars to make a delivery. And if you deliver 10 cases to them, it averages out to mean you need to make $10 per case per delivery, right? So nobody gets to make that, right? So one of the ways in which if you're a large company or anybody who's delivering product, the way in which you can negotiate if you're a restaurateur is to add packages. So I'm going to commit more volume. So if I get 10 packages on a delivery that costs the company I'm purchasing from a hundred dollars, they in turn need to charge me $10 per delivery. But if I buy a hundred packages from them, they in turn could charge me $2 per package and double their profits, right? Yep. So how does your model work? Do you guys still do deliver no minimums, all of that? I mean, how does that, does that math problem equate into what you do? Well, it never has Brandon. And obviously the models worked where we would still be in business. We made a conscious decision again, and it goes back to our original startup that we could not out Cisco, Cisco. We couldn't out Freshpoint, Freshpoint. Freshpoint's model is that they want a minimum and they don't care where you at. We don't have the time or manpower or the resources to run rural routes. So everybody gets out on the highway, they go and they see exit
22:10after exit and they see restaurant after restaurant or little hotels. Well, the broadliners carry them. And so that really then determines how the broadliners have to try to run their whole company. Because if they deliver to Columbia or beyond here, you know, Huntsville, Alabama for two days a week, they got to have minimums. Well, there's no way they can go to their other accounts seven days a week like we do. We run tight urban routes. We're going by stops daily, the same stops. And we just soon for our timing on our routes that you order from us daily. We don't want you throwing food away. We want you to have the freshest product available. Some people don't have the coolers to order for three days. So we just made up our minds to again, what can we do to find our niche to be different from our competition? And so you know, it's a pretty thing when you can go to park a truck and go to four stops in that one stop.
23:12If you're 10 or 15 miles away from our nearest stop, we probably got to talk about this. It makes sense for either one of us because we're going to charge you enough, put a minimum on you to stay within our framework of how we do business. So in our competition, you mentioned one of them that you used to work for. They used to tell people that all the time that we can't, that is not sustainable, that the model will not work quietly, just continue to grow across this country. And from that model, sticking to who we are, not, you know, sometimes corporate accounts want to drag us out of areas we're not used to. When you say, hey, unfortunately we can't cover the one, you know, in West Tennessee because it just does not meet our model. We'd rather give it to one of our competitions that they can take care of. We just don't allow ourselves to go outside of who we are, or at least we try not to. And you know, another thing, and tell me if I'm wrong, I'm not making, I certainly don't want to make any assumptions, but you're a private company, you're not a public company, so you don't have shareholders saying you need to do this, you need to do that. You have one guy, you have a CEO present, his wife, who own the company, and they make kind of the decisions. If they want to do something, they can be a little more nimble.
24:33Well, that's right. You know, I mean, listen, so many companies, a lot of our competitors, they've got stockholders to answer to. And so their business model has to make sense that it makes them the most profitable. There's some things, Brandon, we don't do that are possible. It's just like a restaurant that, you know, a lot of times you've always heard there's lost leaders on the menu. There's lost leaders of our service. We're a service company. We don't try to, as you well know, and it was always, for you and I, we're salespeople. You and I love to sell. Our model does not support that. You know, the amount of times you open up a new account, so, Brandon, are you going to be my rep? Well, no, no. Here's how we work. Here's the things we do. We allow you to order online. We got app. You know, this went off, you know, all these things were changing. You can call up till midnight to order for next day delivery and leave a voicemail. All the things we did different. We didn't grow our company with salespeople, so we were able to spend our money on service. And so we, you know, again, you're right. We have been building this company as we go. You can remember the days we would meet once a quarter and we would just brainstorm. What can we do different? You remember when we were creating our QSpart, you know, our whole marketing piece to try to go to the markets and how we could to be have a sales company with no salespeople. That's a mouthful.
26:02So I remember a story. We used to do these sales meetings and Ron and Jim had a kind of a farmhouse right next to their, they had like this lake house that they shared and we brought, there was a couple managing partners. We brought everybody together and we went fishing. We had a meeting on a park bench out by this little lake. And then we went over to the lake house and we had some cocktails and we had a good meeting that afternoon where we kind of, hey, what do you guys think about this? What should we do here? Let's do a brainstorming meeting. Ron's going to kill me for telling the story. We got back to the lake house and we had a couple more drinks. We went out on the boat. We jumped, we shotgunned a beer, jump off a rock. You know, we all just, we were all having a really good time. It was a lot of fun. We get back to the house, we cook some dinner, we cook some of the fish that we'd caught, have a couple more drinks and we're all feeling pretty loose. You know, five or six guys at a lake house for a weekend retreat. And we get to about nine o'clock at night and Ron says, hey, you guys have your notes from the meeting today? And I said, yeah. And he goes, go grab them. I want to meet again outside. And we go sit outside and he has us pull out our notes and he goes, what'd you really think about it when we went and talked about this? And we kind of had another meeting. I don't know what came out of it, but I said, what are you doing? He goes, well, I figure we have a meeting. I want to figure out what everybody really thinks now that you're all drunk. I was like, I love this guy. How amazing. Who thinks of doing something like that?
27:35Well, it's always been an orthodox and that's what you can do with, you know, when you're an independent, you know, and making decisions as you go, you're writing a playbook. Lord knows that's what we've been doing. And, you know, we don't always make the right decisions, Brandon. It's, you know, because this is a perfect example of those times. I mean, there's no playbook for any of us out here in the business world, especially our industry. Well, let's get into that. I don't want to catch off. Let's get into where you're at now. And so let's get, let's start, let's start with the tornado. You wake up that Tuesday morning. What's your day look like? Well, I live in Gallatin and all of a sudden the phone rings about, I don't know, 6 15, 6 20. It's one of our daughters. Are y'all up? Well, we're moving. Dad just got out of the shower. Have you looked at your phones? No. Well, she told us, you know, the storm would hit. Well, look at my phone. I've got 20 text messages. And so that's how I found out about it. And so immediately, you know, I get cleaned up and get on to the office and realize that we, you know, it's, it's not just a windstorm. We've got major problems. You know, it's a major impact on our community and it sounded like we'd lost lives. And so I immediately start reaching out to people just to make sure, you know, where I'm hearing the storm hit is anybody that we know or do business with or, you know, that are needing our immediate help. Did anybody lose a life? And it's, you know, the normal things that any of us would go through. And then driving in, I realized that, you know, I'd already been told our electricity is out and we have a gas-powered generator that operates our lighting systems in our offices, but it does not run our coolers. And so I, you know, I knew that, all right, now the clock's ticking. And as you well know, you know, we can control our temperature for about 24 hours and then you're going to get in trouble. So recognizing the size of the storm and the impact it had, I knew I better get busy and try to get an industrial generator in here to keep our doors open. And fortunately, I called back home from Western
29:40Kentucky and Madisonville and called a buddy that's in the business and they had me a generator down here by 12, 1230 and we were up and running. And so we ran that for eight, nine days. And then all of a sudden, you know, it was, Brandon, you know, like the rest of us, we heard it hit out there at the airport and then you hear that Cisco had been infected. Well, then your mind really goes, oh, this thing's real. And so, you know, we started getting phone calls, you know, Cisco's not going to be able to deliver. They think it'll be two or three days and can we go ahead and get this? And, you know, Cisco was still, I mean, as big a company as they are, they make seven billion a year. When you're, when you turned up on your ear, you really don't have a plan for that in place. You know, we, most companies like ourselves, we've got a crisis management plan in place. We had one for this coronavirus, but you practice it once a year and then when it comes to practice, you know, running the thing, you really don't know, oh, this sounded good on paper. We weren't final on a drill, but we weren't ready for this and Cisco wasn't ready. And those of us that were still in business weren't ready for what was fixing to take place with Cisco.
30:50And what happened to Cisco, I mean, you talk about tornado taking out part of your warehouse, there's no generator that can fix that. No, there's no way you can, you can't prepare for that. No, so the president of our company immediately sent them a letter. I hear you guys are down. First of all, you know, we're sorry. What can we do to help? If we can deliver your products with your invoices and help you get through these times, that's what we want to do. Wow. And Ron sent that letter out that morning. We sent it out to Choice Foods as well. The same thing. We knew they'd been hit. Hey guys, we'll go back to being fierce competitors when we get to the other side of this. But we want to be a part of anything we can do to help you. We've got trucks we can send over to you. We know you probably don't, but we will come get the product. What can we do to help you? And obviously that, you know, he had a good heart. He meant well with it. But, you know, news say they didn't take our offer up. And so they immediately start trying to get food in from other areas. And that was really difficult on them, as it would be for anybody.
31:56And so our business, all of a sudden, we went from, you know, having a good month. There was a lot going on at SEC term. It was a week away at that time. Nashville's always got something going on. And we literally tripled in numbers. Wow. Selling out of stuff, order in large quantity. I mean, it was crazy. And so, you know, we had to hire, bring in help from Louisville to just try to handle the volume was freaking phenomenal. And then also trying to reach out and help people. You know, that's the thing. You're sitting here and you're trying to take care of business, but you're bleeding because you're hearing all the stories and you're seeing all the things. And so we started trying to send out products that, you know, we're getting phone calls. Hey, we're cooking for first time responders. So we do all the things that we do as people and helping. And it was it was quite the ride. Didn't have any idea that the good Lord was preparing us all for another storm coming a week to 10 days later. And but it was a different kind of storm because it wasn't a storm when we had so much business we didn't know what to do with.
32:58That's such an amazing story, Monty. And it doesn't surprise me one bit that Ron would send that message over to Troy and Cisco. And I know Troy's a good friend. He's a super good guy. But that's just one of those things that it's nice to hear that he did that. And I would expect nothing less from him. You guys jumping in, you're absolutely slammed three times the business SEC tournament. And then Thursday, I want to say it's like March the 13th, maybe it was. I forget the exact day. You know, which was just two weeks ago. Seems like a long time ago now. Yeah, they shut everything down. MLB, NHL, NBA, they closed. No March Madness. That all happened on a Thursday. What does your life look like since then? Everything was so bam, bam, bam. And so it really started Wednesday night. Ron's and Molly's middle son plays for University of Georgia's basketball team. So we went to the ball game that night that Georgia had a really, you know, not a very good season. So they were playing into the early game Wednesday night. And before halftime, they announced that there's not going to be fans at the game tomorrow.
34:08So all of a sudden you go, wow, this, you know, and you could feel it, you know, if you think about it, the prior couple of weeks, you're starting to hear things. Really, if you look back, there was, you know, the president immediately, we hit one person flying from China sometime in January. And he said, no more people from China coming into the country. Everybody's like, whoa, you know, regardless of what political aisle you're on, everybody kind of raised everybody's attention. She started, you were, you were following it. Now from that day forward, you're starting to follow it. So leading up to that Wednesday, you know, you could feel things kind of bubbling up. What's, where's this thing going to go? And then it really started changing literally by the hour. Wednesday night, you know, we're not going, you know, only immediate family and friends or immediate families going to the ball tournament Thursday, Thursday morning. You know, we'd already made plans to meet down for lunch. We were being a, and for those of you who don't know, I'm family. I've been married to Ron's sister for 35 years. Soon to be 36. You don't kick me out between now and then with us all being locked up in the house. Then it really started changing, Brandon. We, you know, obviously they canceled the tournament. And so we're all just kind of sitting around like the rest of you, you know, rest of us, we're watching things develop over the next 24 or 48, 72 hours. By Sunday, it was getting real. Matter of fact, it was real.
35:29Oh yeah. We've got a call from one of our big suppliers dot who we kind of compete with the Cisco's by dot and dot says, Hey, we're concerned about your, your customer base being able to pay you. And although you've been a, a one supplier, uh, paying your bills on time for up 10 years now and done in Bradstreet, we pay our bills every 15 days. Unfortunately, we were concerned about you getting paid. We got to put you on COD. Now I can assure you, Tom, we woke up Monday morning, eight o'clock in our executive meeting, zoom meeting. The motions were high. We realized that this storm was coming and, and, and there was no way to stop it. And our world changed that morning as we all, all our worlds did in this industry and really the whole country, you're starting to see other industries be affected by it. Shutdowns that people didn't laid off, but my goodness, the poor restaurant industry and the event industry just got slammed right out of the gate.
36:30The next thing you know, one of our big meat suppliers, same concern and rightfully so, you know, we couldn't, we'd had a long time relationship with them, been doing business, great partnership, but they were concerned just like then all of a sudden we had to get concerned. So, you know, unfortunately we, we had to make the decision, okay, how are we going to, how are we going to keep this thing afloat? So Brian, we started laying people off that day. And when I say we, we started realizing we were going to have to and, and started getting our hands around who and how many and, you know, by Wednesday we'd laid off around 500 people of last week. And, and we had to put our customers on COD and that's a difficult conversation. You know, it's the only, that's one of the things that you and I as salespeople never want to have to have is, Hey, chef, I need some money. I might quit shipping to you. And when you have to have that conversation with your partners, they have always paid you well. They've done their part. If it was 30 days, it was 30 days and you go back to who we were from day one, my goodness. And it was just like all of us in this industry. You put people on 30 day terms, Lord, we all know some of them go to 45 and 60 and we all hang in there together and carry those, those balances. That's what we do. We feel comfortable and you know, sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes we, you know, people don't make it. And, and some of them hurt worse than the others, but we still feel like we did the same, you know, the right thing by trying to help people, you know, put them on a payment plan. Hey, just pay us $500 on the old and keep us current, you know, and, uh, on the, uh, on what you're buying now. So that was kind of our philosophy, uh, that we felt like that, Hey, we got to keep money going in. We did a terrible job, quite frankly, on the delivery of it. If I would have, uh, we were also mostly in the air that we, we, we told her people that worked for us, like all the customers said, Hey, listen, we're not asking you to pay monies that are passing that you owe us now the balance.
38:35We just need you to help us keep this thing going, this cashflow. And if you would be so kind to pay us the monies or the groceries you buy today, just pay for those and we'll see you on the other side on the balance as well. You and I, because when sales, we can have that conversation in a humble way and make people feel, you know, understand what we're coming from. I like to think so. I mean, it's not, it's never an easy conversation. It doesn't mean it's easy, but you and I have, when you're a salesman, you can, you have the ability to have people skills, know how to say things in the right way. And, and, and, you know, the proper way would be say, Hey, chef, I need your help. But we had a lot of people are accompanied that doesn't have that skill set. And they would just say, Hey, listen, this is so-and-so with the company. Uh, you know, I, I need, I want to let you know, we're gonna have to start going COD and well, before they could ever explain why to get to any other part of the conversation, because everybody's motion were high. They just heard the word COD looking back on it. We should have come out with a script and the proper way that people like you and I that are, that, you know, deal with people daily. Uh, you know, we, my mom, I mean, you know, being counters or being counters, they're pencil pushers and, and we, you and I both know they don't have the greatest personalities in the world. They, you know, you know, I know some amazing CPAs. Yes. And my mother was an accountant. So if anybody I'm offending out there with that statement, I can say God bless her soul. She's long gone.
40:10You know, she's passed away, but you know, when it came time for her to collect money for her company, she's worked for, she had that, you know, that voice tone. And, and so I don't want to say how people were doing that, but they just didn't know how to, to, to understand the impact that we were causing our customer base. And so it's been some, you know, it's been some tough days, but I think most of our, our owner operators and people that understand the predict, predicament, and if they listened, uh, they, they understood what we were doing. If you owe me $70,000 shift, I don't need that right now. We'll, we'll, we'll work out a payment plan for that on the side. We just got to make sure we've got cashflow to keep this thing going. And so it was difficult Brandon, probably some of the, you know, it's probably some of the, the more difficult times that we've ever had. Um, and then you compound that with your own emotions of laying off, you know, 500 people. Yeah, I've never been part of that. I've, I've always said even when I fired people, when I was mad throughout my career, I never felt good about it at the end of the day, because I knew that affected somebody's family. And I guess if you, if you start enjoying firing somebody, you're, you need to do something different anyway. So I think that goes for most people. Uh, but at the time, you know, in the most of the things, someone, you let someone go, you know, might felt good for a second, but later on the day you go, my goodness, he has gone tell his family or gone tell his landlord or nor does he already no longer has a job. So it's just never anything pleasant about that. But boy, it takes it to a whole nother level. When you got 500 people been doing their job, part of a growing, exciting company, nothing that they did to cause them other than to survive, to see the other side. We've got to let you go home for a while. And it's, it's been an emotional, tough time. One of the first people I hired or had let go was my own daughter. And, um, that was tough. But, you know, I don't want to pretend or even insult anyone that our journey has been tougher than anybody else's because this industry is bleeding and everyone out here has got the same story that's in, that, that's in our industry. Every single
42:12one of them. I want them to know that we're, we're with you. We, we don't have, we're, we're just trying to get to the other side. We want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And we're here to do everything we can to help those out there that need our help and are trying to keep their doors open. And first of all, to get to the other side. So I want to talk about that a little bit too. I mean, just, I think what you're saying here is it's, there's a burden that you have as a leader, as the CEO of the Southern Division of a company that spans over the length how much you guys have grown. And while you can all share in prosperity for a certain amount of time, there's a, you have, you having to let people go is painful. But in order for the company to continue to survive through this tough time, isn't it, it's a necessity, right? You know, unfortunately it is. You know, really our number one objective is to help the customers first and then our company, which is our employees. And I mean that sincerely because, and really they're together. I don't know that you can put one in front of the other. We know that there, if there are no customers, there are no, there is no company for us. So if we don't have our number one objective to see that all of our customers make it through, there is no creation guards what chefs want. And there is no employees to hire back. So it is a burden that every single person in this industry is experiencing and they're continuing to experience. If this thing does not get turned around quickly, there'll be more laid off. You know, everyone that's still here took a haircut. We all reduced our, our income. So seeing as though Cisco is closed and you had all this extra business, has it really been as bad as you thought it was going to be? Worse. Wow. I've lost 80% of our business. Yeah. And listen, you know, there's a lot of people that's, they're shut,
44:19their doors are shut down. You know, we're fortunate and I say, you know, fortunate meaning that we, we're blessed that we have a lot of good people, smart people working for us and we're, we're still finding our niche. We've got politicians bickering on both sides of the aisle to figure out, you know, what you're going to put in this bill. We have been in every politician's ear that we could be in for the last week to 10 days saying this industry is going to need help. We need some help when we come out of this other side. Our operators have got to have the money to get back open. They've got to be able to order their food. They've got to get their staff back on. And this country has got to support this industry to be able to help these people get open back on the other side. So, you know, that's what we've been, you know, really trying to concentrate on getting done is, is making sure that we're, we're doing our part on our end to help our partners and our partners are the mom and pops and the, you know, the universities and all the people that are out there to try to get back open. So when you've been given, so you guys have been pivoting. So one of the things you said was, and I don't think a lot of people recognize that you carry a perishable product. So when you have all this extra business and you ramp up, you have purchasers, people that buy product, they bring all this stuff in, then you lose 80% of your business. You got a bunch of extra stuff. You can either throw that away or you can do different things with it. I had a phone call with Hal over at Lachlan table the other day, and he had just got back from the frothy monkey where he had just picked up several cases of fresh produce that was donated by creation gardens. And I thought that I want to know more about that. So how did, how did that come about? You know, Brandon, when you're in the perishable business, you, you know, you, you don't always hit the numbers right. So we have product that sometimes we buy too much. And so we've always, we've been very good about, as all produce
46:20companies are, I think all food service companies are, you know, giving product away to the food banks of the communities. And, you know, we did that the first day. We gave some product away the very first day. And that Wednesday, Kyle from cinema, Chef Kyle, Kyle said, hey, my, ask a favor of you. If you've got eight or 10 boxes of zucchini or squash or some things that are going bad, I'd love to come get it and be able to fix it for my employees and, and also your employees and, and just, you know, help these guys that lost their jobs at that time. They'd already, you know, they'd immediately like the rest of us. I mean, Monday is like, everybody shuts your doors. Let's get our heads around it. And I said, absolutely, Kyle. Lord, that's, that's, that sounds wonderful. I've already laid off a bunch of my people down here. I know they'd appreciate it. So I went home that night and Brandon, just a quiet time, you know, trying to still take in where, how all of our worlds have been flipped upside down. And, you know, I thought, God, I've got to do more than I'm doing. I mean, I've got to do something. So I got that morning and called Kyle back and said, Kyle, I think we, you know, we, I think we're going to have a bunch of produce here that we need to get to people. And I want to do it instead of take it to the food bank, which we're glad to support, but Lord, we'd cover them up and I want to give it to our people in the industry. And so I called Margot and asked her to help me get some chefs lined up to, that we could have drop spots that we could take and drop this food off. And she had a young lady, I think her name was Diane, I think. I apologize for not giving her the credit that she deserves, she called, jumped in. And the next thing you know, we had 17 or so stops, I think around the city that we just, we treated them like they had placed an order. We didn't take everybody lettuce and one person, all the cucumbers, you know, we really kind of broke it down and we'd already started the organization Nashville recovery when the tornado hit. They kind of promoted it on that.
48:26Next thing you know, Brandon, we were able to, I don't know how many families we helped, we delivered about 67,000 pounds of produce. 67,000 pounds of produce? Now that included eggs and dairy and juice, but yeah, most of it was produce. So it was, I was not there. I was quarterbacking and making sure of things. You know, we asked people to come in on their time off because we're closed now. We're not seven days a week, we cut back to five days a week. So people come in and some people volunteer and some, you know, we're just still shell shocked. So we paid some people come in though to go donate this food and hearing the stories back from where we dropped it off, it had such an impact on me and I don't feel like I've done nothing other than what someone would do for me. And so where I feel like I'm trying to make an impact right now is I'm using every year of my life that I've known people throughout my life. And I've been fortunate enough to know people who know people.
49:36I always said I didn't have very much money in life, but I always knew people who had some money. So I'm utilizing some people now to talk directly to politicians to get in their ear and letting them know what our industry needs, what our people out here that are living from weak need, we need to start dispersing money. They, you know, this division we have in the country. Now the politicians, you would have hoped that this situation they had got up there and done what was the right thing to do and they're still jockeying for position instead of getting this money to the people. So we've done a really good job, an exceptional job of laying out plans for our industry. And I've been able to get that plan to some pretty big people in this country. So and until they take care of our people, that's my mission right now, Brandon, where I spend a lot of time other than my daily operation things that we're doing just to try to keep our doors open is staying in politicians ears. And there's been some good ones down here. I'll tell you what, Charlie Hatcher, the commissioner of agriculture has been incredible for this community and what all he's trying to do and helping us get our doors back open and have the resources to be able to do that. That's fantastic, Monnie. I think that utilizing your connections to get the most we can for everybody in this community, I've really recognized that the entire community as a whole. I think you mentioned Margaux and I sat down with Margaux last week when this was kind of first happening and she said this is devastating for people because the way that we give love is we create food, we're able to serve people, we create memories that people are able to have.
51:24And that's one of the ways that's kind of our love language, the people in the service industry. And when we're not able to do that, there's a void in our hearts. And I thought, wow, what an accurate way to put that. And so I think what you're seeing out of the hospitality industry is just everybody jumping in to help because that's what we know how to do. It's really unlike any other industry where we just, all you want to do is just help because that's how you give love. And I think it's pretty special. And you know what? I think we're going to be okay. I think that overall, I think that we're going to be okay. Well, that's who this country is, Brandon. I think all of us, regardless of what side of the political aisle you're on, we've felt this division in our country for the last few years. I want to hope that this will maybe, if it's God's will, to bring us back together as a country. And I go back to what I said to you earlier. If you're in this industry, either have the spirit of service or you don't.
52:31And to be in this industry, that's a given. You want to give. You want to help people. I mean, think about what we do every single day. So then when we come upon times like this, that doesn't change. You're serving people in the food service industry. So when you see all these strangers showing up at people's houses with chainsaws and shovels and bare hands to help them through getting their yards cleaned up or trying to help them with their personal belongings, that is a natural instinct for people in our industry because they have that spirit of giving. And so what our company did Friday, that was nothing. I don't expect or even want a pat on the back because I feel like every person we gave that food to, if it was reversed, they would do the same thing for you and I. Yeah. I think this is a great time to practice the golden rule, you know? Yeah. I mean, treat people like you want to be treated. So I am encouraged by seeing and I've watched, you know, I heard of all these people, the Margo's and the frothy monkeys and the calls over at, you know, at Biscuit Love and the names go on. I mean, the Edgar Urban I mean, all the different people that helped then hand out this food, that's where all the work was.
53:52They were bagging it and letting people come and get as much as they want. You know, our guys that delivered, that was the easy part, distributing all this food from each location and managing the crowds. That's where a lot of work came in. And of course, what happened? People volunteered their time because they'd already been laid off. They went down there and helped because that's what we do. So, you know, everybody's listening. You and I could talk for days. We're talkers. I was just going to say, I think that we're about at an hour now. Yeah. What's next? So if this whole thing didn't happen, what's on the horizon? Where do you see yourself next? Well, we're truly like the rest of us. We're day to day. We're creating opportunities. We've started being part of the supply chain for some of the grocery stores, just being, you know, helping them get their food to the individual stores. They've been overwhelmed. And we have two meetings a day, executive meetings stating, all right, here's how much money we had come in today. Here's what we can expect coming in tomorrow. Here's money. I mean, we're, you know, our company like we do our household. Here's how much money we got to spend for groceries tomorrow. And just trying to ramp back up. We're seeing a little light in the tunnel. Some of the takeout business that folks are doing are helping. We've got a lot of assisted living and some school, you know, systems that are still trying to feed their students who, you know, poverty level, that they're trying to give, still get the meals out daily. So we're helping those folks and we're just really trying to hang on till we get to the other side. It's the same model trying to, you know, explain to our customer basis. Just get yourself, just make sure you get to the other side. Do what you have to do. We're here to help. And let's get to the other side and we'll come back out as this country will be as strong as ever and we'll survive it. I saw you guys were partnering with Gifford's Bacon and you've got some boxes going out with chicken and pork chops and steaks as well with their bacon and some smoked bologna. That looked really good. Oh yeah, you know,
55:53everybody, I love this industry. You know, everybody thinks outside the box. We have to, we always have had to. And so I'm hearing some great little success stories from some of our operators hanging in there and they're going to continue to do so. They're going to try to figure out a way to keep the doors open, keep some type of monies coming in to their employees. And so that's our immediate goals is just to try to stay open till we get to the other side and be that voice to our politicians in this country and make sure we're being heard. I don't know if we're going to have any luck with that, Brandon. Heck, this industry never has had a lot of luck with that, but it's not going to be because we don't try. I can tell you one thing I'd love to share with you before we get off here. Sure. Do you remember when we used to have the, what we call our cab, our chef advisory board? Yes. We're going to call some of our local chefs in each one of our territories and have a zoom cab meeting to hear what we can do here. How can we help and start listening and trying to get some of our guys on the horn and share ideas and hear what their thoughts are and their challenges are to help them get back open and what we're willing to do and try to do and to be part of that solution. So, you know, I might be reaching out to you to maybe kind of give updates at times on what we're seeing and hearing.
57:22I love what you're doing. I think you can be a great voice to our industry all the time, but certainly during these uncertain times of really not knowing what's going to happen from day to day. So I'd love for you to be a part of that if you can, and we're going to be reaching out to some of our partners to help us get the word out and try to welcome some ideas of what we can do together to try to survive this thing and get ready when we come out. Absolutely. I'd love to be part of anything. The goal of this podcast is really to communicate to the community, everything that's going on, anything that can be a bridge to understanding and perspective. So whatever updates you have, whatever it might be, if I can put it out there, I would love to be a vessel for you. So thank you so much for joining Nashville Restaurant Radio today, and it's good catching up to you. You've been a good friend over many, many, many years, and I really appreciate you coming on today. Well, Brandon, it's funny. We parted ways years ago. It seems like yesterday, but we never lost touch. You're good people, and I think God has led you to your calling. You've always had the ability to own the room, and I think the industry and the community right now need you to kind of own this voice to let people's stories be heard during this time and ask for help, suggest things to us that can help us all. And I think once we get out of this, I'm excited about listening and tuning in to all the different people that I know you're going to be able to get on the show, and we hope to continue to be a part of it. And the last thing I'll say is everybody hang in there. We're going to get through this, hopefully stronger. You want us to say that we are, but you can only pray that we will. But I have trust in everybody's will and the habits they've always had, because you've got to
59:22be a hard worker in this industry. So I know that if we just hang in there, I feel confident that we will all make it. So, Brandon, thank you for allowing me to be on this with you today. So, Monty, is there an email address? If people have questions about what chefs want, anything that they want to know about Creation Gardens or what chefs want, how would they contact you guys? Well, the best thing to do is go to our website at whatchefswant.com, and it'll give you all the different ways that you can get in contact with our team. Excellent. Well, thanks again, Monty. Best of luck to you, and let me know if there's anything else I can do to help. But thanks again for taking time today. Brandon, take care of yourself, you and your family, and stay safe. All right, buddy, I will. Take care. So there you have it. Monty Crawford with What Chefs Want, stopping in for the one-hour interview. Thanks again, Monty, for doing that with me. And I just really love the fact that that company is able to stop, take some time out to really kind of explain their position on a lot of things. And I hope you're able to see that they're all though a very large company at this point, that they go through a lot of the same things that we do. They're having to make a lot of the similar decisions that you are, and I think there's an empathy there that they understand what you're doing, and it's really kind of a cool community for everybody to help each other. So again, this is Nashville Restaurant Radio, and I hope you guys are staying safe out there. We will talk to you soon. Love you guys. Bye.