Year end #roundup with Ben Whitlock

00:00Hey everyone, we are back with a brand new episode today. We've got Ben Whitlock from Mobile Picture in studio with Caroline and I to do a year end roundup. But first I wanna say thank you to some people who made this happen. We'll talk about the rest of you middle of the show, but first Robin's Insurance and Matthew Clements. You guys have been there for us and I know that this is not just on the podcast. We work with Matthew in our restaurants and he has been absolutely amazing getting a restaurant opened and all of the things could not ask for a better partner. Sharpier's Bakery. Again, opening a new restaurant. We've got this new amazing Beria Hoagie over at Chago's and the number one comment is this bread is so amazing. Where do you get it? Do you make it? Where do you buy it? And we get it delivered fresh daily from Sharpier's Bakery. Just amazing people over there. Wanna say thank you to What Chefs Want. This partnership has been since the very beginning and they are what it means to be local and to support locally owned and operated restaurants and chefs.

01:05They do an amazing job. So many more amazing things coming up in the new year with What Chefs Want. Please stay tuned because we are gonna be doing so many cool things. Can't let you know what they are now, but they will be way more present actively with cool information for you in the new year and I cannot wait to share it with you. We have a brand new partner in Fat Bottom Brewing and a really natural partnership occurred with them. We had Josh Buckley, their CEO on the show and they're a local brand. They support the community. They do such amazing things and me and the sober community, they have a brand new product, it is called Hop Fizz and it is a sparkling water brewed with fresh hops and it is delicious. No sugar, no calories, nothing. It is a sparkling water and it tastes kind of has a hoppy, a taste to it and it's in a 16 ounce can. You can get it right now. It is officially available. You can get it through debt distributing. Give them a, when you place your next order, go ahead and bring it in.

02:06They're doing awesome things. They also have a really cool holiday beer called Noel that we are serving at Maribor right now and everybody loves it. All the holiday parties, this stuff is delicious. Where do you get it? It's a locally brewed, it's a local company. Definitely love to support Fat Bottom Brewing. So thank you to those people and we are super excited today to bring you this all new episode. So much conversation here. I'm so proud to bring this out. Stay tuned in the new year because we've got so many amazing things. I hope that you have a wonderful holiday season with just all the blessings. We will see you again soon. Enjoy this episode right now. (*upbeat rock music*) Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. (*upbeat rock music*) Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio.

03:12My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service and I am joined with Caroline Gelsen. Hi Brandon. How the hell are you? I'm great. I feel like my voice is very scratchy today. I have a Ricola currently, so excuse my voice. I'm very hoarse from a wild St. Nicky's month. Yeah. Yeah. You guys have been crushing it. Do you use like just the regular Ricola flavor or do you get like the wild berry Ricola? I enjoy a classic Ricola. I'm a classic Ricola guy too, 100%. Hey, we are also joined with the Chief Executive Officer. He's very important. We have Mr. Ben Whitlock of Mobile Fixture joining us today. Hey guys, how are y'all doing today? Hi, Ben. Hello. I made a post on Instagram this morning and I was like, we're gonna record today. I'm so excited because we haven't recorded and we've been taking a break and we wanted- It's gonna suck.

04:14We were talking the other day. Briefly, we talked like around Thanksgiving and you were like, hey, I miss talking to you. And I was like, I miss talking to you. And we decided that we would not talk on the phone for an hour and catch up and that we would just do that live and just record it. Here we are. Here we are. And then Ben said, hey, I wanna be a part of that. And we went, hell yeah, Ben, anytime. So now you're here. Well, look at us now. Look, we're putting the team back together. Ben, you are truly one of my favorite people from Nashville. Here we go. I mean it, I've known you for such a long time. Maybe not right when we moved here, but maybe like a year into we meet you through Sarah Gavigan. We did, you've got a very good memory, yeah. And I've spent a lot of time over the years, I think driving you nuts. We've been in an NRA show together a couple of times, but even though I drive you nuts, I really enjoy you. Oh, I really enjoy being here. And I'm happy you're here. I'm so glad you guys are doing well. One of my favorite guests of all time.

05:15And I met you in 2020 through the podcast. You were like, hey, what you're doing is interesting. I have stuff I want to say, and then you came on. And here we are. And that's one of the things I love about you, Ben, is you are such a great person to talk shop with and to gossip with. But we have a lot of fun talking shop. It's fun. Well, all three of us have our ears to the ground and we try and pay attention to what's going on in the world, in our world. Well, let's talk about your world. Let's talk about me. Let's give a plug. You came here today. You had to alienate somebody to be here today, right? I did. So I've got to call out to Zach Truesdale, who is the local rep for Accu-Rex Hoods. I had a meeting with him scheduled for this morning. Completely forgot about it and was double booked. So I texted him last night at about nine o'clock after I got y'all's texts. Hey, reminder, we're meeting tomorrow. I said, oh boy. So I reached out to him and said, hey, if you don't mind, can we reschedule? He was like, yeah, no problem. I said, okay, well, I'm going to give you a shout out. So Accu-Rex Hoods is a indirect sponsor of today's program and allowing me to be here today.

06:22Gotta have a hood. That's right. Got to. It's very, very important. They're good hoods, I assume. They are good hoods. And more importantly, Zach is a really good kid. Well, I say kid, he's probably 30, but he's a kid to me. Zach used to work for me, which is really interesting. And we're not going to go down this rabbit hole, but Zach was a salesperson for me in 2019, 2020. And when the pandemic hit, we had to make some changes. And unfortunately, Zach was laid off. We had to lay off a few people that were new and just not experienced enough in what we were about to do. Zach was doing great. No, I did not want to say that he was not doing a good job. Zach, you're great. But anyway, Zach ended up on his feet, became a rep for Accu-Rex and it could not have turned out better for him or us. Seriously, because we've got a really good relationship now. That's awesome. Well, I'm sorry, Zach, but call Zach if you can out there. He's a good guy. Yeah. Remind everybody out there who doesn't know who Ben Wintlock from Mobile Fixtures.

07:24What the hell is Mobile Fixture? Yeah, so Mobile Fixture is a restaurant equipment distributor based in Mobile, Alabama, who you know very well. Roll Tide. Roll Tide. What? It just threw up in my mouth. I know, it's so bad. I would too if I was a UT fan. But we are based in Mobile. We've got branches all over the Southeast. I am one of four owners of the company now. We've owned the company, not that we're counting, but we've owned the company for one year, 11 months and 14 days. Not that we're counting. Congrats, Ben. Thank you. That's exciting. Yeah, it is exciting. How many hours? That is a really good question and all of them. Whatever it is, it's all of them. Whatever that adds up to. So if there's a new restaurant in town, there's a restaurant coming to town and they want to build out this badass kitchen and they have never done it before, or maybe they have, but they need to purchase the equipment. But you not only do the equipment, but you'll come in and you'll consult. You'll help them make it functional and hey, you need us. And you do this all the time. So you're in a lot of restaurants.

08:25We are in a lot of restaurants in the city. And we are in a lot of office meetings. We're in a lot of Teams calls, Zoom calls, you name it. We are involved in a lot of stuff in the community. And what's so fun is about our industry, and you guys can attest to this, no two restaurants are the same. I don't care if you're going to open up a second Nicky's, it will be completely different from the first one. And the third one will be different from the second and so on and so on. So it's never a, what does your typical day look like? I don't know. I mean, every day is completely different. Some days it's putting out fires. Some days it's designing restaurants. Some days it's installing in Vegas on the strip. I mean, every single day is different because the restaurant industry is that way. I think a lot of times people will go into a restaurant opening and think, hey, I'm going to save a lot of money by buying my equipment secondhand. I don't have to work with a company like Mobile Fixtures, but let me tell you the money that you save on the equipment you're going to pay for somewhere else.

09:25When you work with your company, I really don't just say this because you're here. I would never consider doing another project or opening anything without you guys. And you are somebody who's going to sit with my architect, with my contractor, with codes, you know, make suggestions about, hey, if you put this here, you put that there. Like you guys have been doing this long enough. You understand how you can help us save money. And sometimes even more important than that, a thousand headaches through. It really is, but the city, I love the city. I love middle Tennessee as a whole, but this city does not make it easy for us to do business. You know, to open a restaurant is very difficult in the city between codes, permits, liquor license, you know, beer board. That's a whole different episode, but dealing with the city and the logistics of it and parking on Broadway and parking in the Gulch and all that crap, it is not easy. And if you're buying equipment on the internet or buying it used and it's being shipped to you, an 18-wheeler is going to show up to Nicky's in the parking lot at 5.30 on Friday night.

10:33And they're going to say, hey, you need to get this range off the truck now. They don't care. So yeah, we are not going to compete with the used equipment. We compete with the internet to a point, but at some point there is a value to what we do. And hopefully it is to, you know, alleviate headaches. Absolutely. Well, that's what's at the consulting side of what you do, just the experience and coming in and the help that you bring is invaluable. Yeah, there's some institutional knowledge between, oh yeah, not just me, but all my coworkers, my staff, my project managers, even the installers, they know if they're delivering something to the Gulch, they know what time of day they need to go. And they know what day of the week is best to go. You do not go down there on Thursdays or Fridays, period. You just don't. But you're also local. I mean, so you know the ins and outs of this city. So when opening a restaurant in this city, having somebody like you, all this to be said, you are very knowledgeable on what happens, not just in one restaurant, but across the entire city.

11:34So you're a great person to have on the year end recap, where we discuss all the things. All the things. Thank you for being here. Well, thanks for having me. It means a lot that you took your time to come down here. So updates St. Nicky's, how's it going? St. Nicky's is going great. We are very fortunate to be having an excellent season. I have to give a shout out to our PR team, Brand House, who has just absolutely killed it for us this year and ensured that we can have such a great season. It's going really well. I mean, the hard part about St. Nicky's is being as busy as we can possibly be every night and knock on wood, we've done it enough now that we have it pretty dialed in. It's a pretty smooth and seamless service. And knowing that we can do this much every night, but we don't do this much every night, just during Christmas, like, man, we could be this busy seven days a week and pull it off and make it happen. But- That's because of a good kitchen design right there.

12:36See, I've built for volume. 1000%. That's exactly, it's only mobile fixtures is why we can do this. He came up with the name Enrico, huh? No, no, that was all you and Tony. That was Tony. That was all Tony. But I was involved in getting that damn oven in. Let me tell you something. That was a day. That was a day. And actually, you know, I will shout out to you mentioned earlier, your installer crew through two installations now with you guys, that crew is so professional and so cool headed. And a day that you think is gonna be such a stressful day is just like, you really don't even have to think about anything. Yeah, they're really good. And they like spending money in our customers' restaurants just like we do. Yeah, totally. 100%. So say in a case- Congratulations. Thank you, thank you. We're really happy. And then we have a couple of fun things coming in the new year. We are doing our plant-based January again. We have an all new plant-based menu and that's gonna be fun. And then we have another little project that we'll be announcing in the next couple of weeks here. Can't announce it yet, but stay tuned.

13:37We're very excited. Well, I can't wait to learn more about that. That's right. Fantastic. Well, it's funny because I had this, I was listening to a podcast the other day and I'm so excited for your success over there. That's amazing. Thank you. In this podcast, they said, why is it in the restaurant industry, we can't talk about success. You can't be like, man, I had the best year ever because then it's like, oh, you're charging too much. Or you're like, in this industry, if you're an owner or you're running a restaurant, the idea of a profit is a sin. And I was just like, why is that? What is the deal there? And I thought it was an interesting topic of conversation because while we're going through and you were saying, how you doing? I go, man, Mary Bull, Mary Bulls, I guess, whatever you want to say it, our holiday pop-up has been a smashing success as well. And we had one of the busiest weeks we've ever had last week and it was like, yes, but I'm so, I like, do I say that?

14:41Do I say that live on the show? We were busier than we've ever been. Oh yeah, because I put in a shit ton of work around it and I've planned for months and months and months and you've trained and executed team and you've booked all these events and you've met with people who are getting married and you've met with all the people for their holiday parties and you've curated all of these custom events for these people and then you execute at a high level and you make it happen and it's like, I'm working 14 hour days every day. I haven't, you asked me, said, you got any Christmas shopping? I don't have time to do Christmas shopping. I'm at work all the time. And then I was like, am I allowed to say that? Am I allowed to say that without somebody going, oh, well, look at you, you're just, and it's like, why is that? Ben, do you know what I'm talking about? I do and we talked a little bit before the show started about this and I've been having anxiety since then about talking about it, but there was a tactful way of saying it, Caroline said it earlier before we started, that there's a tactful way of saying that you're having a very good year and I think we've become so accustomed and I say we, but people in general are so accustomed to listening to Apple and Amazon and Walmart and record earnings and billion dollars here and $200 billion in cash there and I think people who are not directly involved with P&Ls or if their names are not on the loan documents, they look at the, they look at, I guess they look at things in a very biased way and it does turn into profit as a sin, unfortunately, but the goal of any business is to make a profit.

16:25It is to make a profit, but not just make a profit and put in the bank, in the owner's bank, is make a profit, pay your employees a fair wage, pay them a bonus if they're, you know, do a bonus or if the company performs the way that they should and more importantly, reinvest that money into their business or a new business to create more jobs, to create more profits and to keep the cycle going. By talking about money and profits and record earnings and things like that, that just puts bad taste in people's mouths because capitalism has become such a bad word to use in our world. Capitalism is not bad. It's the way that it's perceived on television, on the radio, in newspapers or wherever. It's okay to talk about a successful business. I'm proud to say that our company has had a very good year. We've been very successful. We've been very fortunate, very blessed, but it doesn't come for free. You know, I'm up at sometimes at 3 a.m. I know that some of my partners are up until midnight some nights, some of our installers are working all night.

17:29That is a direct result of the, excuse me, the success of a company is a direct result of what you put into it. Not me as the owner, it's the installers doing a good job and getting a shout out from Caroline or our sales guys working on a Saturday to deliver a sandwich unit somewhere else. That is what drives the success of a company. And I don't think there's a bad thing about it. There's nothing wrong with saying that. I think that because I think that it's very easy for people to compare any company ownership and any company workforce with any other in our capitalist society. I think that we have a bit of capitalism out of control in our society where we have billionaire CEOs and then people who don't have health insurance. I think that it's very easy for people to just quickly make that comparison and say, the owners and the workers, the owners and the workers. I mean, this has been happening since the industrial revolution, essentially.

18:33But I think that the difference that people really do need to stop and consider, of course it's obvious, but Ben, I'm sure you do very well. I think you live a nice life. I know you like to play golf, but I don't think that you are living like Elon Musk while your employees are losing their homes because they broke their leg and don't have health insurance. Whereas there are people, Elon Musk, or CEOs of Walmart or maybe some of these bigger corporations who may have those scenarios where, hey, I work at Walmart. I make $20 an hour. I can't get more than 20 hours a week because then they have to pay me health insurance, so on and so forth. Some of these things that corporations are skirting. And yeah, there's some restaurant operators out there who are bad guys and they're doing the wrong things. Maybe they're stealing tips or sexually harassing their employees, or maybe they are living large while some of their employees are making poverty wages. But it's not every scenario. And I do think that the culture in the restaurant industry is changing.

19:39I think that for a long time, the restaurant industry has been an industry where the people at the top are doing okay, doing well, and then you have the workers who are kind of trying to scrape by. I think that something we talked about a lot this year with tipping, I think that some of those disparities are starting to change. I think that during the pandemic, a lot of people made adjustments. Restaurant workers are now kind of overall making more than they've ever made before. I'm not saying that that's, and the problem's solved. There's still work to do, but. But there's also, there's another side of this as a business owner and all of us have owned a business at some point in our lives. What a lot of workers don't see and don't hear about, and it is done on purpose, is a business owner doing something nice for an employee, loaning them money or helping them out, co-signing for a car, whatever it might be. It might just be, here's $20 to get home. A business owner doesn't necessarily want that to get out. They don't wanna do it for the publicity.

20:40Elon might or Tim Cook might or whoever it might be, but a restaurant owner or a restaurant equipment owner, we might do something nice for an employee and say, do not talk to anybody about this because I don't want it to become the norm. And when it does become the norm, we don't do it anymore, and then all of a sudden we look like the greedy jerks. When in fact, all we were trying to do is something nice. There's a lot of... I think these are important conversations to have because I think that everything is about perception and you see people, oh, he drives this or they live there or they do this. And it's like, I don't know. I like to celebrate when people work hard and they're successful and they treat people well and they're good human beings. I hope success comes to you. Like, I don't know who you are or whatever it is, whatever form of life you're in, I root for people. I root for people to do well. I like it when people do well. And when people don't do well, I like to help. I wanna help her. I wanna provide information or coaching or whatever I possibly can.

21:41And it's a thing. I just think it's weird how there's just such a, oh, I drive this car to work and I'm afraid. I don't know, it's a whole thing. I think you also have to pick your opportunities too, though, particularly in the independent restaurant scene. You kinda wanna feel somebody out and be like, hey, how are you guys doing? Because I don't know about you guys. I'm not gonna go and open a conversation with like, hey, I'm having the best time ever. We're doing really great right now when somebody else might not be. It's just not tactful. Do you think there's a side of this that you don't want people to think you're doing well because people will come out to support you because they think that you're not doing well? Do you think people like that there's a general perception out there that, hey, I wanna support the local restaurant. And if I know that local restaurant's doing well, then I'll go support the one who isn't. I don't think enough to move the needle. No? No. There's a random thought that popped in my head. Now, if you announced that you're closing and you've been loved by the community, you're gonna get really busy from that day on. My best friend in Chicago, very sadly, has decided to close her business this month.

22:47They just had their last night of service on Sunday. And since they announced their closure, it's the busiest they've ever been. Best restaurant in Chicago. I mean, it really is. I'll give them a shout out at Split Rail in Chicago. This is my childhood best friend. We're still best friends to this day. Honestly, they have a couple of other businesses as well. And I think it was just time to move on so that they can pursue some new opportunities. It's an excellent restaurant, but the independent restaurant game is tough. Yeah, it is. So sometimes- Josephine right now. Josephine, really. I feel like that's kind of the big year-end news in terms of closures. And they're crushing it right now. Oh, I'm sure. Record December and yeah. But them closing had nothing to do with bad business. It's just the way the world is changing. Real estate is out of control in Nashville. I would assume.

23:49Yeah, absolutely, it's rent, absolutely. What Josephine opened, I would say within a year or two of Nicky's- 10 years. Yeah, they're 10 years. Okay, so we had seven. We just had our seventh anniversary. And so I can guess what I think they were paying when they signed their lease 10 years ago. I know what we are paying now. We signed seven years ago. And man, that's rough. And I'm sure if it is rent related, which everybody assumes it is, if they close, somebody else is gonna go in there. And somebody else is gonna think whatever that rate amount is, is a good deal. But those people are not necessarily based in Nashville. They are based in New York, Chicago, LA, and they say, oh, X amount of dollars for rent. Cool, we'll hammer that. But how, I guess the question I have is like, and listen, I don't know what the rent is in 12 South. I would guess, what do we think, $75 a square foot? Higher, 100, you think? 90.

24:4990, okay. Price is right. $90 a square foot? Hi. Who is doing that volume of business? I don't know, that's crazy to me. Well, it's a good segue because we had Lyle Richardson on earlier in the year. And Lyle Richardson is the director of operations for A Marshall Hospitality. And one of the prognostications that he had towards the end of the show is he said, I said, what do you see for 2023? And he goes, restaurants closing. And I said, tell me more. And he said, throughout the pandemic, people were damaged, restaurants were damaged. The whole thing was very tough. He goes, the government propped up a lot of businesses because you had PPP loans, you had this. ERTC. ERTC, all this money. He goes, and that's all run out. He goes, so that's run out and you're gonna start seeing the businesses that were struggling that this propped up.

25:50You're gonna start seeing them close. Now, I don't know if that's a, I can't name restaurants that happened, but I do see restaurants that are long time locally owned and operated restaurants that are struggling because, Josephine's a great example of a restaurant that had a really good model that was doing things that was a restaurant you could go to as a great neighborhood restaurant. Owners were passionate. They cared about the community. They were part of what makes 12 South special. They really are a special place. And Andy Little and his wife, they're just amazing. Karen is, they're amazing people, but they are what make 12 South what it is. They made, they're one of the people that made 12 South what it is. And then they jacked the rent up because somebody could get that. And then some other restaurant from out of town will probably come in from, like you said, LA, DC, New York, this has, oh, 90 bucks a square foot, that's great. And then you hear the complaints of, well, there's no local restaurants anymore.

26:52There's no neighborhood anymore. Now it's just this, all these corporate places come in and they just take it over and you go, guys, this is the thing. This is what's happening in Nashville. And I don't know to full circle there with his comment, Lyle's comment of you're gonna start seeing restaurants go away, but I think this is a trend you're seeing in Nashville. So I don't feel like we have really seen this at such a volume in Nashville yet, but other cities that are a little bit bigger restaurant markets than we are right now are starting to see this a lot. It's a lot of closures happening in New Orleans right now. Closures are happening in Chicago. These other markets that I'm, you know, I don't mean to be a harbinger of doom. I hope that I'm wrong here, but I think that sometimes Nashville is not far behind these national trends of independent places. But on the flip side of that, we've all been, I've been saying that since 2017-ish.

27:53Oh, it's gotta slow down, it's gotta slow down. And it hasn't, it hasn't. And, you know, I'm not a city planner. I'm not, I'm not gonna ever run for public office. But if you look at our city and just the demographics of who goes out to eat on the weekends, and I'm sure you guys do this a whole lot more than I do, it's much more heavy in the tourists, the tourism side, even out on 51st. I'm sure you get a disproportionate number of tourists or out of towners visiting. In the summertime, yeah. And as long as that tourism train still is running, the restaurants are going to do well. And the ones who don't, don't deserve to be in the restaurant business anyway. So I remember it was in the first few years of living here, and I can't remember who told me this. It might've been Sarah Gavigan, but I don't wanna say that it was, in case it wasn't. But- I think she just did. No, no, no, she, I mean, it's not anything bad. It's actually quite an intelligent observation.

28:54So it was probably Sarah, cause she's really smart and intuitive about these things. But she was saying that, you know, Nashville, Charleston, and New Orleans are kind of all around the same size city. New Orleans and Charleston have like triple the amount of restaurants, massive going out scene, massive amount of business of people who go out and support restaurants on a regular basis. Nashville is inherently a town where the dining culture here is so different than these other cities. And I really agree with that. I don't feel like the dining culture in Nashville is like anywhere else I've been in terms of how people dine out, how people spend money, how people go out. And whoever said this to me, maybe Sarah, maybe not, said it's because Nashville is so Baptist that, you know, it's like, you're not going out, you're not drinking, like kind of the Baptist church is so kind of rooted in Nashville.

29:58Does this make sense what I'm saying? It's just like, there's less of like a culture of people who are like going out to eat, drinking, spending money in this way. I guess maybe kind of that religious conservatism that is rooted in Nashville, which of course Nashville has changed a lot over the last 10 years, but. It's definitely become more progressive. Since I lived here, I moved here 18 years ago. It's way less conservative now than it was. Yes. I went downtown a couple times in the past week. I went to an ACF meeting the other night. What's that? I'll tell you in just a second, because this is something that could tie into all of this. But we also went downtown, we went to a hockey game and we took our kids to assembly music hall or assembly food hall and we ate dinner. I don't recognize that. I don't live, that's not in Nashville I know. I mean, it's weird because I was walking down there and it's just insane. And there's so many, there's so many things happening. And that's not normal.

31:00Like what happens downtown isn't normal. And I think we tend to compare ourselves on what's happening downtown. Downtown is 100% tourism, 99% tourism. And there's so many of these restaurants are in the suburbs. I mean, you're lucky, I'm lucky, I don't know what to call it, but like you get both locals and tourists, right? So you can kind of get both of that, but I'm in Brentwood. And Brentwood, there's free parking all the time. And you can just show up and you can walk into a restaurant. You can make a reservation. We're gonna remember your name. The important stuff to us is the people that eat there two, three times a week. None of what I do at Marable or even Green Hills Grill, I don't do any, I mean, I guess they get peppered in, but like Green Hills Grill is all people. I know I can walk around the building. I can tell you 20 names of guests in that building. I can say, hey, and I know what they're gonna drink. I know what they're gonna eat. And it's very personal to me. I go downtown, I'm like, this is a machine.

32:00This is just a machine that is different. And I can't, I didn't recognize it. I wouldn't have any idea how to operate a restaurant in this atmosphere where it is just go, go, go, go, go. I don't know who you are. What do you want? I mean, I went to somebody's food hall and it was almost like I was just, I'm so personalized when I go, I love, I love love. I love people to recognize you and to say hi and be, and that downtown is not, it just wasn't a thing. It's transactional. It's a hundred percent transactional. But I think that we, in the summer at San Diego, well, man, downtown is so busy or vice versa. If they're slower downtown, like, oh, all these people. And I think that Baptist thing, you know, kind of like I don't mean it like as any sort of like insult to religion that's for a different episode, but it's more that there's kind of like, I grew up in a very Catholic area and there kind of does seem to be more of a culture of like going out, gathering together, you know, activities.

33:02There's more of a culture around drinking and eating as opposed to like my family in central Alabama, which is very Baptist. There was like no drinking, like we're eating, but it's like, I don't know. It's just, it's very different. There's not a going out culture. There's not a getting together for a party culture. No, but there's also the stigma and you just mentioned it. There is a stigma of Broadway to locals. You know, you're dreading, you know, how many times you went downtown recently. That's not normal. You know, when, when, when I have to go downtown for a meeting or whatever, a job site meeting or whatever it is, like I'm thinking about the night before. I'm like, God, I got to be there at nine a.m. means I got to leave at seven, you know, from Murfreesboro. I got to leave at seven o'clock. And all of a sudden I am dreading going downtown because that's not the real world. Broadway is awesome. If I didn't live here, I would want to be on Broadway all the time. I live here. I work there.

34:02I'll go down there when I have to work. But as far as going out at night or a date night, that's not real. That down there is not real. It's not a real, it's like a, what, what I don't, I don't, it just was foreign to me. It was just weird. Yeah. I mean, it is, but I think it's different. Sometimes we get in trouble because we go, well, they're so busy. How come? And I don't know. It's just different. I was like, when I go to Chicago, I'm not like walking down Michigan Avenue every time I'm there. I'm not going to Navy Pier, but like everybody who's visiting does, you know. We went to so so we went downtown Saturday night yesterday in the storms, but it was my daughter's 21st birthday. So none of her friends are 21. So, of course, mom and dad, you know, by her first shot, I'm sure that was her dream scenario was to go out for her 21st birthday with her mom and dad on Broadway, on Broadway. Well, he's saying we had dinner at Luogo. Amazing dinner. Anthony and Teresa are fantastic clients. And they just met them the other day for the first time. They are. They are a hoot.

35:02Stay tuned in January for a show with them. You're going to love them. So so, you know, all right. Dinner reservations at six. Well, we got to leave, you know, Murfreesboro to pick her up in Franklin and then the whole way down there. It's a white knuckle drive up 65 in the rain. You know, in the storms and all that. But take the storms out of the equation. I'm still dreading going downtown. I know where I'm going to park. I know what I'm going to do. If I didn't, I don't know if I would go. So it it goes back to the reason why I'm on this little rant is Josephine's neighborhood restaurant. If I lived over in Franklin, Brentwood, or even in the Green Hills area, I can go to Josephine's and never go downtown. You know, 12th South to a lot of people is still considered downtown. To me, it's not. I don't have to get on the interstate to go to 12th South. So if if you can, if you can support the restaurants that are in the 12th South, the Eighth Avenue, Green Hills, Brentwood, Murfreesboro, wherever those restaurants are all going to do well for the local people.

36:08They're not going to get the the bachelorette parties or the unreal Broadway experience. Well, I think that the issue for restaurants like that, kind of to go back to not to harp on this. But, you know, I don't I think Josephine is is a busy place that locals do support. I think that the kind of fundamentals of operating a restaurant, aside from business volumes, are what's getting out of whack in Nashville. Number one being the real estate. Like if I had to pay thirty thousand dollars a month in rent, I mean, could I do it? Is there a way to figure out how to make it work and make it happen? Sure, maybe there is. But do I really want to live that kind of life where I'm killing myself to pay a corporation rent? You know, and this actually maybe goes back to our original conversation of this kind of like worker versus corporation mentality of like there's a perception of like, oh, these real estate guys are so rich and making all this money.

37:08And then you have this independent operator who's kind of like toiling and, you know, kind of breaking their back to pay these corporate landlords. And do you want to start at zero every single month on the first of every month? You start zero and the first thirty thousand dollars you bring in goes to rent. What kind of life is that struggle? It's it's difficult. And I think that's that's kind of also in a nutshell what I was saying, that like we should celebrate when you do have a really good month, like when you are able because every month we all essentially start there and you're constantly putting plans together to get past that. When you do have a month that you are really successful, I think we should all high five each other and be like, yeah, we did it. Like you can start next month off with less stress. So what do we think is going to happen over the next year? Because there are a lot of restaurants coming to town. It seems like most of the places that are coming are kind of larger, more corporate places who, you know, thirty thousand a month is a regular rent to them. What what do we think is going to happen here?

38:10Are we going to see more independent restaurants close? Are we going to see less independent places open? What what do you think, Ben? I feel like you've you're you got your finger on the pulse with this. Yes, yes, to all of that. Yeah. I have heard from a lot of people, not from a lot of people, but like you kind of hear through this grapevine of like, you know, people like you or like, you know, maybe our farmer that sells to a bunch of different places or like different vendors. I feel like I've heard that everybody's had a slow fall, that places are slowing down. Yeah. And I think we're doing a lot a lot more second and third generation restaurant build outs than we than we ever have before. So whether or not that's a good thing or a bad thing, it is what it is. So we are we are involved with. We we did the first, you know, we did the first restaurant. And I'm thinking of two or three in my head right now, and I'm not going to mention their names. But, you know, we we did the original restaurant A. So we have all the history of it. We have, you know, it's an autopsy.

39:11So when a restaurant closes and another one goes in and if we get back involved, it's an autopsy. I can tell you how that patient died. And I can tell you what still works in that patient's body or the kitchen or whatever. And and I see a lot more of that than I ever have before in 18 years of being here. The problem that I think we as the community industry people are going to run into is the out of town people. They're bringing in their own training staff, their own managers, their own servers, their own architects, their own equipment people. And they have no ties to the community other than a financial investment. And I don't see that being a long term sustaining business model. I could be wrong. I could be rainbows and unicorns. But the community is not dumb around here. The community is going to support the community. They're not going to support. In my opinion, they're not going to support the new pretty shiny restaurant just because it, you know, they escort you to the bathroom or whatever.

40:14The latest niches when you do these autopsies, what's the most common cause of death? That was going to be my question, too. What do you what are places doing wrong? What's that when you go back and you go, all right. My my my findings, my findings are. You didn't what most of the time, and this is not going to come as any shock to you all, most of the time, the owners are not involved, period. If the owner is not involved, product is walking out the back door. People are getting comped. People are getting, you know, drinking on the job or whatever the case might be. There's a whole laundry list of things. But is it the ownership or lack of leadership? I don't know what that difference is. If it's leadership or ownership, I look at those as the same. You know, a restaurant manager may not be an owner. They may have a vested interest or they may be bonus dependent on the success of a restaurant. To me, that's kind of one in the same. If they are not present and if they are not involved in their restaurant operations, they're going to fail, whether it's in Nashville or Mobile or Boston or wherever it might be, they're going to fail.

41:21There you go. I, I, I tend to agree. I don't think it has. I think it has very little to do with marketing on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok, or I think the marketing campaigns are great. Marketing campaigns should take a successful restaurant to stratosphere. They are very rarely going to save a restaurant from going out of business. Interesting. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that even with some, even with larger places, you can feel if there is somebody at the top who cares or not. I think a great example of this is Pat Martin, who I know we all love, of course. But Pat has so many places now. But even though he has so many places and his business has grown so much, you can go to any one of his stores and it feels very dialed in. You can tell that there is somebody who cares, who's making sure that from the top down, it's happening the way it's supposed to. I was driving down Belmont the other day and I was passing Martins and he was pulling into Martins right in front of me.

42:22Yeah, I was like, hey, there's Pat pulling into Martins. And I was going to say, Steven Smithing for our restaurant. And I told him this about a month or two ago. I said, you know why the Green Hills Grill is the success that it is today? And he goes, what do you think it is? And I said, you are because he genuinely cares about the guests. He is in the building every day. He's in almost all three restaurants every day, not because he wants to tweak all the things. That's my job. What he wants to do is he wants to visit with the guests and he wants to learn about their kids and he wants to tell stories. And he needs to feel that community. And he's in the and his presence in the building brings about a level of accountability. It's like, oh, shit, the owner's here. And the fact that he's there, I go, dude, you're the mayor of this entire company. And he's at the Green Hills Grill every night. And every single Sunday morning, he's at the Green Hills Grill. And it's like, what are you doing, man? Go watch the Titans game. He's like, now I got a bunch of people are expecting me to be there. I got to see him. I got to check in with them.

43:23That's why during the pandemic, he would he gave out his cell number. It was like, I miss talking to people. And it's one of the I go, dude, that's the secret sauce. If that is not present, so many people wouldn't come back. You wouldn't know those 20 names walking around the building. That's why they come back because they see the owner and it makes them special. And I bet you he he has had a broom in his hand in the past in the past 30 days. 100 percent. And he busts his tables all day long. And he's not there. He busts his tables and he's visiting with guests that that bleeds into your your coworkers and your employees. They see that whether whether you want them to see it or not is irrelevant. They see it. And if they see the owner picking up a piece of trash in the parking lot tomorrow, that employee is most likely going to pick up a piece of trash in the parking lot. That is leadership. You said leadership. Yeah, it is leadership. Lack of leadership is what makes restaurants fail, in my opinion. Do you think that that is something that is a potential pitfall for some of these places that are coming in from out of town, from bigger groups?

44:27I think that's exactly what you're saying. Yeah, it is. And when I see him fails because the owner lives in a different city and comes here and there's no roots, there's no there's nothing tying them to the city. And I hate that because, you know, I'm not originally from here. I don't know what Nashville was like 20 years ago. I know what it was like from 18 years ago until now. And yeah, there's there's, you know, 50 different communities and neighborhoods around the city. But it's all one big community. The tornadoes that have come through over the past three years. You know, I live in Murfreesboro. I paid attention to what was going on in Madison and Clarksville and all that, because they are still part of the community. I I have a hard time believing that the owner of the new steakhouse going, you know, somewhere in town who lives in New York City, they pay attention to what's going on in Madison. And I think that will eventually bleed out to their employees and then to their guests and then possibly to a demise. I hate saying that, but I I believe that. We're going to take a let's take a short break.

45:31You guys can drink a cup of coffee or take a break. I want to talk about building community. I want to talk about this ACF meeting that I went to the other night. But I do need to say, are you going to tell me what that is? Yeah, I am. So the this year we have some sponsors on the show that I'm just I'm so grateful for. And these are the people that allow us to do what we do. And they allow us to go out to eat around town and support other locally owned and operated restaurants. So I want to say thank you to Cytex. Cytex has been an amazing partner. They're a linen and uniform company. They also do mean linens, table linens. They do first aid kits. They do uniforms. They do all kinds of things. They're located in Henderson, Kentucky. They have a facility here. Quality is amazing. And they've been a supporter of the show for a couple years now. And I use them in my restaurants. They're amazing. So if you have a linen company, if you need a linen company, I highly recommend Cytex. You want to call Ross Chandler. I'm going to give you Ross Chandler's number, but I have to look it up here because I don't have it by memory. Call Ross Chandler. He's at 270-823-2468.

46:37I also want to mention Supersource, Supersource for Dish, Machine and Chemicals. Ben's giving the big thumbs up. Jason Ellis has been a massive supporter. As we go into talking about community and this next thing, the companies that genuinely care about small businesses, that's who that's who really supports this show. I mean, they support this show because they do care. And Jason Ellis is one of those guys who will come in and install a dish machine. But they they have you sign no contract. He earns your business every single week. And that's that's something that every time you go into a restaurant and you're like, hey, how many years do you have left on your contract? And you're like, oh, my God, you're just getting raked over the coals. You signed a seven year deal and you're paying. There's so many nuances that he can help teach you about. So Jason Ellis at Supersource. And if you go to the this episode, go to the show notes, I'm going to have all these people's phone numbers written down. But Jason Ellis is 770-337-1143. And I always want to shout out Gordon Food Service because these guys are doing an amazing job out there and talking about the only major broadliner that is still family owned.

47:47They're not doing this because shareholders need to see a profit. They're doing it because the Gordon family still operates this company and they genuinely care. I mean, they're a company. Caroline, anything you want to say about that with Gordon? Yeah. Oh, I love Gordon. There's no other broadliner that I would work with that I would consider work with working with, and even before I own my own business, when I was in Chicago, restaurants that I worked with, worked at, that worked with Gordon were really they were always the best vendor. I loved working in places that worked with Gordon. So it's really Gordon as a company, not just. I mean, Gordon Nashville, of course, will, you know, give a shout out to our local guys. But but they really are a company that tries to do things the right way. And it feels like a real partnership. It feels like even though they are a large company, they they really do care about their customers and they really are invested in your success. You have any dealings with Gordon over there? I love them. I like Gordon.

48:48We don't cross paths very often, but I've heard that same comment from so many different people. And I've talked to salespeople for Gordon who have since moved on to other things out of the industry. They couldn't say anything but nice things about Gordon. I'm going to I'm going to plug Jason Ellis just for a second, please. So Jason and I had lunch together last Friday. We get together every once while we text back and forth because we kind of share the same kind of customer base. That guy works his ass off. I don't think you all fully recognize the amount of work that he has had to put in. He opened up during Covid, like he bought the territory, moved up, moved his family up from, I think, Atlanta. He's got an Atlanta number, but he moved everybody up here during Covid, opened up his own business, opened up his own restaurant supply business during Covid. And he made it work. The guy will do whatever you ask him to do. He cares. He does. You know, I think that's and he spends money with the people that spend money with him.

49:49And I give a lot of people credit for doing that. I was going to say when you said the what's the leading cause of death, I was going to say care if you're doing this because you're trying to get a profit. Usually in hospitality, that doesn't work. If you genuinely care about your customers or your guests, you it's you can be successful because you're making decisions based around what's going to make the guest a repeat guest. And he does that. He genuinely cares about dish machines and chemicals and being sick. And it's like, I'm glad somebody does because it's not just one of these big corporations that are like you're locked into a seven year deal. And it's like, how do I know what I'm doing in seven years? You know, I don't know. It's a whole it's a whole thing. Thank you for that. No. And community is so important. And I went to an ACF annual holiday social the other day, the American Culinary Federation. Wow. OK, they have that they awarded a chef of the year. Who was it? Max Knope fell.

50:50OK. Do you know, Max? You don't know Chef Max. Chef Max was the he used to be the chef at the Kennedy Center in New York. He's been in Nashville since 2013. I think he's been here 10 years now and he is the executive chef of the Music City Center. Oh, awesome. Oh, Max from the Music City Center, one of the nicest. One of the best chefs I've ever met or worked with. He's kind. He's he leads a team of like 200 over there and he puts together some amazing events. But he's also a massive give back guy. I mean, he hires tons of kids straight out of culinary school and then wants to develop them and coach them. And he's he's he's an amazing guy. So he won chef of the year for his work in Music City Center. But the American Culinary Federation, I've long said I used to be on the board for the American Culinary Federation, like 10 years ago. And. I think we need something that builds the community of restaurants, something that is and they do monthly meetings.

51:59They haven't awarded a chef of the year since 2014 because it's kind of been crazy. And it ended up kind of being a bunch of catering chefs and a bunch of students and a bunch of retired chefs who all wanted to keep up with each other and the people who are actually in the buildings doing the work every day didn't really have time to go out to a meeting all the time. And they just weren't able to be there. And then all the reps and all the vendors started showing up because if you were one of those chefs, like you're there with no gatekeeper, you're just at an event and it's like everybody in the world. Hey, man, I want to talk to you about my crab meat. Hey, I want to talk to you about my steaks. Hey, do you know that Halpern is like, I just I want to connect with other chefs. I need something where I connect to other chefs. And that's what it was for. And that's what the ACF used to kind of be. And Tom Neville, do you guys know Tom Neville? Tom Neville is the president now and he's bringing it back. And so I would love to see something like that really take off.

52:59And he asked me if I wanted to be on the board. And I was like, hey, I don't think I have the time to do another board, but I would love to help. I would love to help bring people together. So I think that their website is Middle Tennessee chefs or Nashville chefs dot org. And he's going to start doing monthly meetings. So if you're out there and you are a chef and you'd like to start building community, I think I'm going to try and start going to these. So I'd love to meet you guys. And if you are a chef out there and you want to come, maybe this could be the start of a new version of the ACF that could bring some people together because I think we need and that's kind of what I want to do this podcast for. There's there's questions that people have like, hey, who should use my dish machine and chemicals and what's the how do I negotiate a really good deal with my vendors? Why? Why is Cisco offering me this? And this person is offering me this. And I don't know what to make of all that, because most of the time we're chefs. We're not trained negotiators. We used to host ACF meeting once a year. I've been to your place and it was great.

53:59We went all out the first year we did it. It was very well attended, probably 40 or 50 chefs. Most of them were catering or older teachers and whomever the the second and third years. It was just a bunch of reps and, you know, industry affiliates. So we stopped doing it. And then, you know, the ACF chapter kind of died, not died, but it just died. It died. And that the excuse that I kept hearing for years was, oh, I can't make it. My dishwasher called out. So I got to stay in the restaurant or, you know, we've got a party coming in doing my hair. They were finding whatever excuse they could. Now, granted, my building is not the easiest building in the world to get to from downtown at five o'clock. But if I'm going to make the investment into bringing everybody in, I brought it. You know, we would have food made and alcohol. And I don't remember if we can still do that, but we used to do that. There was still no alcohol. And usually there's free booze at the at the ACF. And we would have gift bags. And it was a great time.

55:00There's a raffle at the end of it. Yeah. The problem is, unless you are continuing to recruit newer, younger chefs out of Nasi or out of, well, it used to be AI. But, you know, if you're not recruiting those younger people, national state, you're not you're not going to keep it going. So I'm all for it. I would love to be a part of that. And I intend to be a part of that next year. It just you've got to have a recruiting plan in place or it will not last. I think that we just I think more panel discussions, you know, I think it needs to be interactive. You used to show up and there was like a meet and greet and there's some kind of like appetizer. And then you would have a presentation by this is Joe from Ecolab. And he would come in and tell you all about Ecolab and why you should use Ecolab. I would fall asleep three times during this presentation. And everybody's on their phone. Nobody's listening. They're on their phone. And then it's like, all right, we're going to eat. And then they would serve some kind of food. And then there was a raffle and then you would leave.

56:01And you're like. Didn't really get anything. That was a waste of money. But if you had Margo McCormick, Tandy Wilson and how hold them base up there and you said, hey, look, we're going to a panel discussion, ask them all the questions you want. We've got three James Beard nominated chefs here. If you're a local restaurateur and you want to find out what they're doing, come on down. And it was just that you'd show up. And maybe you have no vendors allowed. Yeah. Look, we're not doing it. I know you have to make money and you have to they don't have to make. But they have to be able to afford to do all this stuff. There's there's a financial arm to everything. But maybe you have one sponsor. You have one sponsor that pays you a thousand dollars and then they can be there. But they're not soliciting and they're not trying to sell you on something. If there's a safe place for chefs to go where they didn't feel like every time they turn their back, there was going to be four different people trying to sell them something. And they could genuinely go there because they want to connect with their community. I think that would be amazing. Hey, well hosted. We used to keep the showroom open.

57:03We had we had good sales on the nights that they would show up because they it was the only reason the free this it was the free booth. So we get them all liquored up and then we'd sell a bunch of stuff for quote unquote good deals. I used to get the one I went to at your place. And I didn't even know you then, but I was there. I had a 32 ounce. I walked in with like there's like a couple. There was a couple of gas stations right down the street and I stopped and I filled up a 32 ounce container full of Blue Moon. I remember I put a straw in it and I walked in with like this route 44 type thing and I just sat there and I drank this. I was wasted because I'm also drinking wine. I have this tall boy. That's why I don't drink anymore. So that's the whole thing. I remember being at your show, just being housed by anything. No, but I think I won a cutting board in the raffle. Yeah. They made it for like a dollar. You get a raffle ticket. And then at the end of the thing, all the different vendors would supply. Hey, we've got a measuring cup from Cisco.

58:04It's like it was probably returned from, you know, so and so all this bullshit. It's like a repo, you know, repo and cutting board. Every time I go wife, if you come home with some bullshit again, like I don't need another cutting board or a, you know, shitty chef's knife. Don't do it. You know, it's like that. This seven dollar chef's knife that Cisco donated. And it's like, we've got a really terrible chef's knife and it's all. So I don't mean to abruptly change topics, but there was something that I just came across yesterday that I wanted to bring up because I was wondering if you guys had heard about it. Let's go to which is, are you aware of this new regulation that the FCC is trying to pass regarding junk fees? Have you guys heard about this? Do you know what this are? So the government is trying to pass a law that relates to junk fees. This would be something like a a bank service charge or when you pay your credit card there, when you pay your credit card bill, there's a operator's fee if you pay it over the phone or, you know, these kind of fees that seem arbitrary surcharges and made up, right?

59:16They don't seem like, hey, this is an actual line item of expense that goes to something. Why does it cost me seven dollars if I make a phone call? Right. Exactly. Exactly. So I found out through the Independent Restaurant Coalition, they are making a post and actually asking for restaurant operators to go on their website and answer like a four question survey because they are now the government wants to include restaurant service charges in this junk fee regulation, which would make it so that restaurants can no longer charge service charges. So the IRC is trying to do a survey and get some information and work against this regulation. Would that be directly correlated to what you're doing? As far as I understand it now, I haven't, you know, spent extensive time researching this. Like I said, I just found out about it yesterday. So, you know, I'm certainly going to look into it and gather more information. But as I understand it right now, it would apply to any sort of restaurant service charge or, you know, some restaurants will charge a line item of like staffing fee or, you know, I think catering companies in particular do this a lot of, you know, invoicing fee or whatever it might be.

01:00:25How about our service companies that charge a trip charge? Trip charge is that's always a fun one. I mean, like, like, you know, a lot of our vendors will charge a fuel surcharge. But I don't know, I feel like I don't want to pay it. But I do feel like that's a legitimate charge, right? No, you don't think so? I think it's a bullshit charge. I think it's something that we all pay gas. Everybody understands it. And if they can add three dollars to an invoice, multiply that by 60,000 a day. And they went, we just figured out a way to make 300 K a day. When you they already milk is already seven fucking dollars a gallon. Like the restaurants have a menu that stays for six months sometimes, and we don't change our prices. The second, the second a market changes, their prices go up. The algorithm for them to include gasoline in that is so fucking easy. Sorry, it's so easy. But the second that they went, hey, fuels up.

01:01:28Everybody knows fuels up. We'll add a fuel surcharge is the I think it's a bullshit charge. We get the stainless surcharge. You didn't realize your stainless steel sink was made out of stainless. You've had 11 price increases this year, and now you're going to add a stainless surcharge. Those are always fun. Wow. Yeah. Stainless charge. Let me tell you something. Those are those last year were pushing double digit percentages. So I'm I'm OK with the government getting rid of that stuff. So here's here's what is posted by the Independent Restaurant Coalition. In October, the Federal Trade Commission added restaurant service charges to their proposed unfair and deceptive fees rule. This rule required that would require that restaurants include service charges in menu pricing rather than a separate dynamic line item. So the only way to cover that is to raise your prices. Yes. Which is going to go over like terrible. Well, I actually did a little math yesterday when I read about this. And I because we implemented a service charge at the end of the summer and we use a service charge also on our private events, which is a huge part of our business and actually allows me to bonus my manager, who is our events manager.

01:02:45We are able to bonus her through charging a service charge. We do tell our party guests this is in lieu of a gratuity. This is you're not expected to leave an additional gratuity on top of this. This is that's what it is. So I did a little math and we are charging an 18 percent service charge. And very reasonable. And we do already get comments that we're too expensive, that our pricing is too high, that the restaurant is too expensive. I will say we are not the cheapest place to eat, in particular, for a place that does a casual counter style service. However, we're a small restaurant. We charge what we have to charge. Shit's expensive, right? So if I had to go from a pizza that's already twenty five dollars to a pizza that's thirty dollars, how how's that going to go? How how will that be? Because you got to do it across the board, don't you? Across the board. Every single item would have to go up. And if somebody is deciding if they're going to come eat at my restaurant and they look at my menu prices as they are now and they come in and then they get tacked on an 18 percent service charge, people are fine with it because they're like, great, you got a tip anyway.

01:03:55But if people are looking at my menu and I say, hey, we don't charge a service charge, we don't charge any tips, but pizzas are thirty dollars. I mean, you guys seem you guys know my pizzas. That's why nobody wants to pay thirty dollars for that pizza. But everybody pays thirty dollars for that pizza right now. Well, that's the thing is that perception is everything. I know, but like everybody still pays thirty bucks for that pizza, but they just don't they'd rather be tricked. You know, what's funny is my side of the. And not that you're tricking, not that you're tricking. I don't want I don't want that to come up. I understand what you're saying. My side of the industry is the exact opposite. And it's funny to to to listen to you because I wish my industry was like that. Our clients look at the price of a refrigerator is x three thousand dollars. Then there's a five percent stainless surcharge or bullshit, you know. Oh, there's an air surcharge, whatever it is. There's a there's a oxygen surcharge for five for five percent. So that's another one hundred and fifty dollars. My client would rather see me charge them thirty one fifty for that refrigerator and no surcharge, which is the exact opposite of what you're saying.

01:04:58And I think which is what I'm saying about fuel surcharges. Just put that in it. It's already in the price, by the way. Yeah. It's already in the price. That stainless surcharge is already in the price of that refrigerator. They know that. Yeah. But it's weird because I wish I wish our clients would look at things the way that you want them to be. And I think you want them to be the way I want them. But I don't I don't think it's the way I want them to be. I just think it's the way that they are. That is what everyone that's what customers are conditioned to is you pay for the food and then you add a tip. You know, I don't think people are conditioned to look at it that way. Can you make service a line item so you can now have a scale? If you have a thousand dollar minimum, then you're going to pay a hundred and eighty dollar line item. It's not a surcharge. It's if your bills, if your minimum is a thousand dollars, then we're also going to charge you a hundred and eight dollars. And you can ring it up as a pizza.

01:05:59You have to buy a hundred and eighty dollar pizza. If you spend a thousand dollars, if you spend two thousand dollars, you got to pay a three, you got to buy a three hundred and sixty dollar pizza. And that pizza is going to pay the staff. I'm taking the price of that pizza and air quotes. I mean, can you not call it a surcharge? Can you change the name of it and make it a line item? I mean, I'm sure that somebody is going to figure that out. I mean, there's a way to if this rule, in fact, passes, you know, it seems that the IRC is working on behalf of restaurants to try and ensure that that's not included. I just I will say as a as an operator, it feels incredibly frustrating because there's so many things that we already have to deal with. And I feel like from kind of the commune, we're getting it from three different angles, right? We have our community who's saying it's too expensive. I don't want to pay more. There's a couple of people who are like, just add it to your menu prices. You know, you can't please everyone. And then you have workers who say, I want to make more money. I want the restaurant industry to be more equitable.

01:07:01You have a whole group of workers who want unions and want to eliminate tipping and all of these things. So you're trying to please that bucket of people. And now you have in my view, seemingly we've come up with a solution to say, hey, it's going to keep most of the customers happy because it's not in the prices. It's an extra line item. It's going to keep most of the workers happy because we're able to pay a higher hourly wage that is not tip dependent. So we're being progressive, trying to do the right thing. But then now this other entity comes in and says, hey, you know, that really good solution you came up with. Now we're going to make that illegal. Like, what the fuck? It's very frustrating. I can't imagine that goes through. I think that the I can't imagine that they could stop because any party of eight or more, every restaurant has more. There's a you have to pay actually. No, that is illegal in some places. Now, in the state of Illinois, it is illegal to charge a gratuity. It has to be as a taxed service charge. So like if you have a party of time, you go to Gibsons, you have a party of 10. It's illegal for them to charge you a gratuity.

01:08:03Wow. It has to be a tax service fee. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. Well, I mean, we do a service fee on every private event that we do just do it until they tell you not to. I mean, it's just it's just a thing that we do. Yeah, I. As far as that goes, I think that's bullshit as far as fuel surcharges and all the other stuff goes, and maybe I get maybe I get some from GFS to come and explain to me exactly what fuel surcharges surcharges are and how they exactly work. And I don't want they don't want to. I don't want the BS answer. I want to know, like, how come that five dollar delivery fee? Is it a delivery fee? And then there's a delivery fee on top. I'm not saying GFS, but just like five dollar fuel surcharge. And then there's a delivery fee. And then you're like, so I'm paying twenty dollars a delivery every time anyway. I thought that was based around. And I think you can negotiate all that stuff out of it, by the way. If you they want the business, they'll go, we'll waive the delivery fee. Take that off. Active leadership. If you're an active leader, an active owner, you're paying attention to those invoices and you're going to fight them.

01:09:07Yeah. Ben, what do you think from just purely from a consumer customer perspective? What do you think about tipping service charges? You know, all of this. You know, there are times where I am over the tipping. I'm over it. There are times where I'm like the screen. Yeah. If you flip a screen, I'm saying no tip. If you if that is all you do feeling fatigue, I am not tipping. If I'm going to Starbucks, because I don't Starbucks isn't based in the community, so I don't care about naming them. If they if they say it's going to ask you a couple of questions, you know, the the the look with it. It's just going to ask a couple of questions. Yeah. And then they turn around something else. I have I have no problem saying no tip. However, if I'm sitting down at a restaurant and I've got a server and I see the staff and I know the owners, you know, and they're based in the community, once again, it's all about the community. I will not only tip the server. I love that Ophelia's they have a line item for kitchen tip.

01:10:09I am always putting in a kitchen tip. Whether or not that's the right thing to do, I don't know. But I'm doing it. I love tipping the people that that are making an effort to make my experience better. And I hope most consumers feel that way. I'm not going to tip the person at Starbucks who flips the screen and then moves on to the next guest. They're not doing anything. So what do you think? Honest opinion, you're not going to offend me one way or another. What is your opinion on like how we're doing it at Nicky's, where it is a counter service, but we never ask for a tip. We we don't even make it an option to bring the food out. You have to initiate if you would like to leave an extra tip. But we do charge a mandatory 18 percent service charge. What is your thought there? I don't have a problem paying service charges. I when I when I go to a restaurant, I have no problem doing that. If you're going to be open and honest and say we charge 18 percent because we don't ask for tips, I don't I got no problem with that zero. And there is a here's the thing. If Starbucks did that, when you went to Starbucks and you said, I'll have a cup of black coffee and they went.

01:11:14There you go. And they said there's an 18 percent service fee on that. That's a problem. Probably a problem. But at Caroline's restaurant, you order the food, you're sitting down. A lot of times they're bringing you the food. They're refilling your drinks. There is a service to what you're doing. Do you have to pick up your food and go clean up after yourself? No. No. Somebody's 100 percent worth doing your table. No problem. But you're providing a service and then I don't have to go, oh, well, the server you're eliminating is, hey, look, I'm going to give you this drink so that you give me a bigger tip. OK, so they're not there's no line on her thing that says additional tip. Yeah, no, no, not at all. They're not they're not pandering. No, I have no problem with that. Give me an extra 10. So I don't want this to go on too long, but can I reach you guys a review and see what you think about this charge? Oh, please. OK, so this is I saw this posted yesterday on Instagram, a restaurant in Chicago called Giant Great Restaurant. They were on Brandon's favorite show, The Bear, this last season. OK, so they posted a review that they got from the weekend that says celebrated husband's 60th birthday here, looked at a list of restaurants featured in the bear and wanted to try this one.

01:12:25Love the menu, food, wanted shared plates and not a tasting menu. Love dishes with vegetables dressed up will definitely go back. Atmosphere and food service were good. I do have one negative. Charging a five percent charge for server health care was excessive. My background, I used to work in corporate world and now a realtor. I went from nine to five with full benefits to 100 percent commission with no benefits, pros and cons with all jobs. I'm a firm believer that people make choices. What job works best for them? When you choose to work in a restaurant, the schedule is different than nine to five and you don't have the corporate benefits. I'm very offended by all the quote unquote gig workers and other non-corporate workers who expect corporate benefits. Can't have your cake and eat it to make the choice that works best for you. Restaurant servers are like all the other commission based workers, and they are making a choice not to work in corporate America. So they should not expect benefits. I don't think this restaurant should add five percent to every bill. I've seen three percent at other restaurants, which I also disagreed with for the logic stated above. Ben, you want to go first or you want me to jump on this?

01:13:27I mean, I don't own a restaurant, so it's easy for me to respond. Go pound sand. Seriously, go somewhere else. You don't give a shit about my business. I don't give a shit about you. I hate saying that. It's true. There's two sides to that. This is my response. One is it's a completely different debate. Do I charge three to five percent for my health care? That's a whole separate debate. Should you do that? Her reasoning for why she had to pay it is like she can kiss my ass. Yeah, gig workers don't deserve corporate benefits. Like, what are you talking about? Like, why do people who go and earn a wage, a commission based wage, not deserve health care? Listen, are you kidding me? A five percent health care surcharge is a steal. That is an absolute steal. That is the best deal that they're going to get. And I don't know if you guys are familiar with Giant, but Giant has maybe 40 seats if they're really packing them in there.

01:14:28It's a tiny restaurant. Look, the idea, I've said this a thousand times. I want to make retiring from restaurants normalized. I want you to go to a restaurant and work forever. And that's why you have insurance. That's why we offer a 401k in our restaurants. I want to celebrate. John's worked here 25 years. He's got a bunch of money in his 401k and he's retiring. We throw a big retirement party. There's not enough retirement parties and restaurants because of that mentality. And I think we I think you need to offer health care. I think those are things that people deserve. Now, if you're a small restaurant and you can't afford it, maybe a surcharge is someone that helps you do that. But back to the original comment of why does nobody want if I'm profitable, I can offer health care to my staff. Like, why is there such a stigma around? Well, I'm paying like the reasoning makes no sense. Well, I don't make any sense to me. I think what's interesting is that this person who left the review tries to make the point by saying people have choices in life.

01:15:33And if you want this benefit, then you should make a different choice to work in a different industry. Well, she also has choices to eat somewhere else. Right. Life is all about choice. It's fine. Anyway, that's just that. That was interesting. You know, the the the reasoning behind her, her rant. She's almost wanting you to list how much every slice of pepperoni is, how every shred of cheese, the sauce, the dough, the ingredient list. And it's a it's a justification of the cost. Absolutely. I mean, believe me, we've been there before where we've had to justify our prices to people who, you know, wanted to try and call us out for what we were charging for things. And I'm just like, hey, come on over. I genuinely will sit down with you and show you my PNL. Hey, listen, I have shown clients who think I've overcharged them. I've shown them my invoice from the factory and they're appalled. They're appalled at how little money there is. It's true.

01:16:35I feel like we could go on and on about these topics for such a long time. I this is going to be a controversial take, but I have kind of been wanting to do an episode. I really am genuinely curious. You know, I think that there's a lot of conversation about employee benefits. And I know there's a lot of people in Nashville who want to unionize restaurants. And I really would like to talk to some of these people to hear their perspective and maybe share our perspective as owners. You know, I just I think it would be a very interesting conversation. It would be controversial. It would be controversial. It would be controversial for sure. What do you think in the New Year? Yeah, I mean, hey, look, you know me, I'm not I'm not really scared to talk about anything. And if it's going to help the community, excuse me, if it's something that other owners and workers want to talk about, then that's what this platform is for. I'm not this isn't a well, that might be something that people could learn. Like, no, let's let's open the floodgates.

01:17:35I don't care. I don't really have like a staunch opinion to come in and say, you guys are all crazy. I think that there's facts we can put on the table and we can talk about argument on both sides of unionizing the restaurant world. Yes, for sure. I'll be out of town that day, though, that y'all want to do that. I just checked my calendar. I'm out of town that day. Y'all y'all find somebody else to talk to. I think I have a call. I got covid. Actually, I'm getting covid that day that we're doing that. Uh, yeah, well, this year has been fun. We're an hour and 15 minutes in to this. Sorry, Zach, I'm going to be late again. Did you reschedule for like 11? Yeah, well, we did. But but he's running late, too. So I said, take your time. I'm still talking about you. Yeah. Well, that's good stuff. Thank you guys for being here. I I think we should just kind of go around the table. There's a ton of stuff I still want to talk about. I have this huge list of things to talk about. We've talked about the ACF meeting.

01:18:37Best episodes of the year, like looking back on 2023. What was anything super memorable stick out to you? I loved the episode with Steve Cavendish. I thought that was such a fun conversation. And I loved our interview with Freddie O'Connell, our who is our now mayor. I mean, that was really great. Those were two highlights for me. It was that was probably the toughest interview I think that we did because it was the morning after the Covenant shooting. And you had a candidate come in. Literally, we're all reeling from this devastating action and just the anger and confusion. And the next day we get a mayoral candidate in here who winds up winning to be the mayor. And we're like, dude, what can I mean, it just was. What about you, Brandon? What were your favorite episodes? Hands down, Will Gadara. I mean, it was my birthday and Will getting to talk to him.

01:19:38I mean, as somebody who I just absolutely lives in my brain for that book was everything to me. Everything in that book was what I was referencing. Downtown is different than what we do. You know, outside, we're able to do a lot of that. That episode is really special to me. We got to have a couple of people on my Mount Rushmore, of people I wanted on the show, just locally. Having Philip Kradjic in studio was great. I've always wanted to have him in. I don't I didn't know him. And having him here was a lot of fun. Tandy Wilson, having Tandy in studio was another Nashville guy who's just an absolute leader. I mean, I think getting to know me, I'm just like everybody else. It's not like it's, oh, I really want to learn from them. So I thought those episodes were good. We had three episodes this year we recorded that we did not release. I let's see, I can remember two of that. OK, I remember the third. Yeah, I'm not going to say what they are. I'm not going to get it.

01:20:38No, you know, I'm not going to get into these. But just I think people like, do you ever have anything like we've had three episodes this year that one of them, one of them was not even controversial. Not at all. It just wasn't. No, we've had four that we didn't release for. Yeah, I can think of the fourth. There was one that was just kind of random. I don't know. It doesn't matter. We recorded four episodes this year that we decided not to release because our core value of building community. This would there are things that were in the thing that we just didn't like. At the end of the day, it just doesn't feel right to. I think we've had a couple of times that, you know, it just I don't know. We just didn't feel the didn't it didn't have the vibe. I don't think it's irresponsible for us not to put them out like, oh, these people need to be. It wasn't like it just was a it didn't feel like it has a vibe. It just didn't promote community as something that we really felt like was in in lifting, lifting people up and people were educational.

01:21:38It was just kind of like, I didn't feel it like it just wasn't. And then one of them, a PR company said, hey, we don't want to put this out. And I was like, OK, I mean, there's just some inner company politics that happened. And they were like, hey, we this is a difficult time for this particular restaurant. We'd rather not put this out now. Of course, sure. You know, happy to do that for anybody. And so I think that's kind of an interesting. We'll let you ponder. And nobody knows anything about. I'm sure somebody does. But there's so that that happens to on the on the podcast, which is not every idea is a is a winner. For only four, it's not too bad. Yeah, I mean, you break the record next year. What's the personal best? Who wants to come home with some some terrible hot takes? We got a Spotify wrapped back. Because we're on Spotify. OK, and so Spotify does a wrapped kind of a thing. How many people and I don't put out a bunch of numbers. I think people have this perception, as I said, you made a post about the ACF meeting and he's like, I don't need like 500 people to show up like, no, no, no.

01:22:45You might get like two. Like it's not like nobody is not like Nash Restaurant Radio said it, let's go do it. How many people do you think were in their top 10 podcasts? I'm not good at these guys. Four hundred and ninety eight people. Wow. We are in their top 10 podcasts. How many people were in the top five podcast? Two hundred and seventy nine. We're a top five podcast for 279 people. That's pretty cool. How many people do you think we are the number one podcast for? It's less than that. One brand to sell. You didn't even put yourself in there. Well, actually, you know. No, actually, I can't listen. I don't listen to anything through my own Spotify account. I can't do a wrapped because it's what we use for the restaurant. So my top songs of the year are like Rolling Stones, Bob Seeger, Elton John. It's all work stuff. 80, I think it's exactly 80 people. We are the number one podcast for out there.

01:23:48Ben, I'm sure you're one of them. I really am. I really am. Well, I just know I'm so I'm I'm I think you again in the real world, we hear Joe Rogan gets millions of listens and you think about these huge things and you think about Nashville Restaurant Radio, like we're in one city, a specific industry and kind of leadership in that city. And you're like 80 people. I learned of 80 people were the number one podcast. So I'm like super humbled by that number. The fact that there's 80 people out there that love this. And I want to give a special shout out to Stephen Faust. Stephen Faust, who's chef, Stephen Faust. He's he was he was an episode on the show this year. He's an amazing guy. He owns McGuffin's catering and they're out of he's in California now. Nicest guy had brunch with him and his son the other day. Nicest guy. He told me he said, I've officially listened to every single episode. Wow. Because I went through and I've listened to every single episode. I'm like, it's like 350 episodes, man.

01:24:48For you to invest that amount of time and listening to one of those 80. I think it's a prize. You should let him come in the studio and listen to the four we never release. I thought that would be an interesting prize. I wouldn't do that. But I would know there's a fifth one because I did an episode. I recorded an episode that I didn't release. That was my negotiation episode. That was like a 45 minute episode where I. At least I release it in the break. How to negotiate different things. Well, the break's almost over. I mean, we're still time. January is coming. I don't I don't know. I guess that if you want to hear the negotiation episode, which really talks about I want to do something around it, like an episode where we really dig into it and talk about it. I think it's very educational. Why it's important in all of the tactics you can use and all the things to get the best deal from your broadliner and words that you can use and just little things. So, no, so I enjoyed that 80 people out there. If you're one of those 80, thank you.

01:25:52That means everything to us. But if you're one of the five hundred and eighty nine or four eighty nine who are in your top ten, thank you for that, too. Yeah. And if you've just learned about us or whatever, thank you for that. If you're into the followers anywhere, that means the world to us. It's been an amazing. It's been an amazing year. What about New Year's resolutions? Do you all do those? I personally don't do New Year's resolutions, but we I think instead of our Gordon Food Service final thought, maybe we should to close, go around and everyone say what we hope for in the New Year. What do you think? Well, we will let you go last because you're our guest. OK, I'm very nervous because this is an election year. OK, we're not even going to start that. And I'm not going to Zach's going to be waiting for me soon. I'm not going to get into it, but I'm just saying it's an election year. So I am hopeful of a peaceful transition and that this world doesn't blow up in an election year. I'm scared to death.

01:26:53I know you've got to put a pin in that, though. Yeah, we can't even start that right now. OK, I am. I'm quitting nicotine on. That's my New Year's resolution. I started dipping like a year ago and I've got welp uterine and I'm going to stop this. New Year's is my day. I've lost 30 pounds. Wow, congrats. So that is something from dipping. I don't eat in my car now. I just dip. I started dipping as like my own personal ozempic. Yeah, but now I see I started dipping. So I stopped eating when my car, I just tend to eat stuff. So I started dipping. Well, I'm hoping the welp uterine can help like calm that. I don't want to mess up who I am. Yeah, thank you. You quit dipping, smoking, smoking. Yeah, OK. And it just happens. It just happens. It's going to happen. Well, that was my problem is I just ever since I've just constantly snack. So my goal is to.

01:27:53Curb my other addictions, keep not drinking, but find balance. My New Year's hope is balance. There you go. That's what I want. I want to be booked and busy in the New Year. Booked and busy now. I want to stay booked and busy. That's fair. That's what I want. Nice. I'm going to take more of an existentialism approach, I think. But the election. But no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't talk about politics or religion. I'm not going to do it. My hope is more personal. I want to. I want to. My hope is to portray a more realistic attitude towards people. I've always I've had this stigma of being rainbows and unicorns, because that's my job. I've got to, you know, always portray a positive optimism, glass half full mentality. I'm hopeful to I hate saying it, but to do less of that and to be more realistic and to be more of a realist moving into next year.

01:28:55Because I don't know what's going to happen next year. And what's happening next year? Yeah, yeah, we could sit here for days and talk about that. But I do want to be more realist, more realistic to to my coworkers and to my family and everybody. I think it's great. I do, too. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you all for having me. This is great. I miss I miss doing this so much. It's like my happy place. Yeah. Now back to work. You got to go to work. I got to go to work. You got to go to work. Let's look at this. I'm going to put this out today. Thank you guys for being here. Hope that you guys out there are being safe. Have a wonderful holiday and a happy new year. And I love you guys. Bye bye.