Zyhir Baker

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. We have got a big, big day today. We're talking to Zaire, my main man Zaire, over at, it's a Philly thing in Bellevue. And if you don't know where this place is, it is tiny. It is across the street from the whole new Bellevue 1 area. It's right next to the Staples. It's behind the Dairy Queen. It's a little double-wide trailer. It's painted bright red and it's the place you'll know it's there because there's a long line of people waiting to get food. And we're going to learn all about how that became a thing. We're going to learn his entire story. So excited to talk to Zaire today.

01:01But first, we're going to talk with Murray Nicholson again. Murray is with What Chefs Want, Creation Gardens, and he is going to come on today to tell us what chefs want. How are you doing today, Murray? Good, Brandon. How are you doing? Good to see you again. Good to see you too, man. It's always good to see you. And you know, we're talking earlier and Ron Trenier and Ron and Molly Trenier, the owners of the company, What Chefs Want, and, you know, I said I mentioned I'm really digging into Simon Sinek's It Starts With Why, and he's such a great example. I'm reading this book and it's all about identifying your why first and then figuring everything out from there. And your why is the title of your company, the what chefs want, like really his entire idea was how do I make chefs lives easier? What are some things I can do really, really well? And so it started with it was an ice company and it moved into produce and gourmet items.

02:02Then they started splitting everything, delivering seven days a week and it just kind of added from there. And so you can get hand cut steaks and something that you guys do that I don't know if a lot of people know you do is you have a fantastic seafood program. Can you tell me about that? Sure. So just to go back a little bit, you know, Ron had a relationship with a company in Louisville, I think going back to the genesis of Creation Gardens. So it's called Bluefin Seafood and the owner there, Ken, Ken Berry was almost like a mentor to Ron and so Ron really respected him throughout the years as our company grew. He kind of coached along the way. Well, like you spoke to earlier, as we added on different product lines, then most recently the Butchery Meat Program, Ron really saw a good fit and need for seafood. And so Ken and Ron came to an agreement and Bluefin essentially became part of What Chefs Want several years ago. And since then, we've rolled out in all of our territories.

03:02But Brandon, kind of going back to what you're talking about, the whole What Chefs Want motto and how we do it different versus others out there is, you know, Ron wanted to stick to that with the seafood program and wanted to make sure, you know, all of our markets are landlocked. So you can't really have local, so to speak, with seafood. But what you can have is relationships with high end producers, fishmongers who are sourcing wild caught products. So kind of doing that, you know, for our territories down here, a lot in the Gulf, some on the Atlantic. But depending on the season, we go to the northern Atlantic, the Pacific, so just various parts of the country. Getting those wild caught, hard to find items. And then another differentiator is we purchase everything whole. So all of our fish, it's bought whole, brought to our facility in Louisville, and then portioned to order. I mean, you can obviously buy a whole fish, but you can buy a portion, skin on, skin off, so that, you know, having us control more of the process of getting the product in whole really maintains its integrity.

04:07And then not to get too scientific here, but one final process before the product's actually packaged is it's washed with an ozonated water, and ozone is, I think the scientific formula for it is O3. So it has an extra oxygen atom, and what that does when it's mixed into a water solution and you spray it on something, it disinfects it immediately. So it kills any bacteria or parasites that are on there. So you know, a lot of these restaurants we service in our territories, some of them being more, you know, restaurants wanting to do something in the realm of a sushi-grade product. You know, chefs can rest assured that the product we have is properly sanitized, fresh, taken care of. So yeah, it's a great program and really proud of it, and we continue to grow, looking for more growth in some of our areas outside of Louisville. So it's something we just want to keep growing. I love it, man. And you know what I also love? I love following you guys on Instagram, at What Chefs Want, because they often show pictures of the full fish, and it's so cool seeing like, you know, an entire shark or other big fish.

05:20Like, that is so cool. And the fact that you're getting the whole fish and you can cut them exactly to what the chefs need is, again, that's what chefs want. That's what people out there want you to do. They don't want to be pigeonholed. Oh, I have to buy this. I have to buy that. No, you can really do whatever you want, because you guys have the versatility to make that happen. Yeah. If I'm listening to this for the first time and I've lived under a rock for a while and I don't know how to get a hold of What Chefs Want, because I would like to explore my seafood opportunities, my cut steaks, produce, gourmet, whatever you guys are doing, how do people get a hold of you to do this? Easiest way would probably be to go to our website, whatchefswant.com, go to the contact us page and then they'll be asked to fill out a form. And then from there, it gets routed to the appropriate region. Another way, if you're big on social media, just What Chefs Want, that's our Instagram handle. So just find us there, DM us. That DM would go to our marketing team who can then get it to the appropriate region.

06:20So whether social media or the website, reach out. We'd love to hear from you. And we're always looking to bring on new partners. Excellent. Well, Murray, thank you so much time for taking the time today and we look forward to hearing more about What Chefs Want in the near future. Thanks, Brandon. Appreciate it. Thanks, man. Have a good day. All right, Murray Nicholson from What Chefs Want, thank you so much for you guys are amazing sponsors, you know, and there again, when it comes down to me talking to locally owned and operated restaurants, supporting locally and operated restaurants, money was one of the first people like, man, we want to get on board. We want to help you with that. What how can we do it? And they've been an amazing sponsor and partner. And that's what they've done the entire time. They've been here in Nashville. Just great people. So sit back, relax, enjoy this episode with Zaire. So excited to welcome in Zaire Baker Elam, owner of It's a Philly Thing.

07:20We're trying to do this for a long time, man. I finally got you. You definitely, everybody doing today? I'm doing good, man. So you I've lived in Bellevue. I was at the opening for the original Bellevue Center Mall in like 1990 or whatever. Whenever it was. OK, I've been in this area for a really long time and I have driven by this little double wide or it's a single wide. Is that is it a single wide double wide double the double wide trailer, the parking lot behind DQ and next to Staples across the street from the new Bellevue one. It used to be a catfish shack and then it was Murph's. I think it was a barbecue spot. And then and I never saw anybody there. I never saw anybody and never, never anybody there.

08:21And then all of a sudden, the double wide is painted red. A big a big Liberty Bell goes up on the side and it says it's a Philly thing. And now there's a damn line every day. It's hard to get in. What are you doing over there, man? We just we just bring an authentic Philly style food to the south. Authentic Philly style food to the south taste of Philly. Who would have ever thought Philly cheesesteaks are hot right now, man? Yeah, yeah. So I got to know. I tell me the whole story like you're from Philadelphia, born and raised on the playground, spend most of your days. Yes, I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I grew up there my whole life. And then once I decided to go to college here in Nashville to Tennessee State University, you went to TSU. OK, yes, you. So I went there.

09:24It was fun and I enjoyed my time there. I actually thought I was going back to Philly. I didn't like the South at first, but eventually I gained a love hate relationship with the South, kind of love Nashville. And I thought about staying here for a while. And then I noticed that Nashville didn't really had like had good food, but not really a lot of diversity. There wasn't no like real good Philly food down here. And I'm like, yeah, like, you know. So I always thought about bringing like Philly water ice down here. So that's the Philly water ice. So I started doing that out of my dorm room, my apartment dorm room. So when you see on the shirts that says ever since twenty nine, twenty eight, that was my apartment dorm room. So, oh, so since twenty nine, twenty eight. Yeah, it's ever since twenty nine, twenty eight. That's the that's the apartment apartment door number. I you know what? I had no I just saw the two and you just I guess I just glazed over. You think it just says you see a two and an eight, you think 2018.

10:27Yeah, so that's that's the story behind that. I started doing it out of the dorm room. I started with two hundred dollars in a deep freezer and then the whole campus kind of got hooked on the time. Nice. So I was like, man, I got to keep doing it. So it came time for me to graduate. And I was like, I'm going to try to get a food trailer to serve the time. I saw. So I went home, saved up some money, did some fundraising events, and then we got the food trailer. We came. We drove back from Philly. We did everything like all the modifications in Philly. And we came back to Nashville. And I started doing Philly water ice. And then I started going to all these different events. People like, man, it says it's a Philly thing. But like, where are the cheesesteaks? I was like, well, we just got the Philly water ice, you know. So people were asking me like, man, we need Philly cheesesteaks. So we started doing the egg rolls. And eventually in 2019, we started doing the cheesesteaks. And then it kind of took off from there.

11:27We started going to a lot of different corporate office events. So then we found a spot that you now see and kind of took off from there. So that's a tiny spot. Yeah. And your hours are very interesting. I like every time I want a Philly cheesesteak, because I live five minutes from you, like I literally live five minutes from your location, which is great for me. But I want to eat at like 1030 or like right at 11 or at like seven o'clock. You know, like, what, what, what are, what are your hours? So we were from Wednesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We were from 12 to 530. And then Friday, Saturday, we were from 12 to 730. We actually look into extend our hours, but we probably still keep it on Wednesday through Saturday, Wednesday through Saturday, because we're getting a food truck redone. So the food truck will be open as well.

12:28Certain days throughout the week. So we'll be basically kind of have two locations up and going throughout the week and travel around Nashville, surrounding areas and counties. Nice. So we could that's that's upcoming. We're going to have an It's a Philly Thing food truck rolling around. Yeah. Springtime 2021. We looking to be around Nashville. So a lot of people complain about always coming to Bellevue. So we're going to try to come to everybody one day out the week. So who complains about coming to Bellevue, man? Bellevue is like the greatest place in the world. Exactly. That's what I said. That's exactly what I said. Do you live do you live in Bellevue? Yeah, I live in Bellevue. I like Bellevue. It's cool. It's a nice place to come home. It's relaxed. We'll have to leave Bellevue. Really, you don't you don't have to because everything is there. Hey, shh, shh, shh, shh. We we don't we don't want the word to get out. Yeah, we can't tell everybody. No, I mean, it's cool to come get it's a Philly thing, but then go back to your neighborhood.

13:30I feel like Bellevue is like its own tiny Nashville inside of Nashville. That's like it's cool to visit, but don't don't like go home after that. Go home. Don't go. Well, this is really cool over here on the west side. You're like two minutes from the Harpeth River. You can go canoeing. You got you know, it's great. We're just going to let's just let's move here. Like, you know, like the least amount of traffic in the whole city. Right, right. Oh, I love I do traffic growing up in the north. Yeah, I just try to stay away from traffic. All right. So tell me the greatest thing. So if it's a it's a Philly thing is here in Nashville. What is the what is the how do you what is the essentials to making the authentic Philadelphia cheesesteak? Authentic first. Definitely is the bread is the bread that I got. That's the main reason I wasn't going to start for the cheesesteaks because you've got to have the meat. The meat matters.

14:30But it's the bread. It's like, you know, when you bite in that bread, it's the Amarosa roll. It's sweet. Oh, it's soft. So the bread just gives it that that that home feeling. That's that's that's like the number one key key ingredient. OK, so do you do you make the bread or do or do you buy it? We get the bread from the Amarosa company in Philadelphia. That's what most of every food cheesesteak company gets their bread from. It's really nobody really tries to remake it because it's like it's it's it's it's that's what we know for Amarosa bread. So it's like you got to go with Amarosa bread if you're making a cheesesteak. OK, now, do you know Chef Little over at Josephine? No, I haven't met Chef Little. Have you been to Josephine? No, I haven't been. What? I'm going to try it out. OK, I'm going to take you to Josephine. You and I are going to go in there. I'm going to introduce you to Chef Andy Little. He is from Pennsylvania. He's a Philly. He's a Philly guy.

15:31He does Scrapple. Oh, I love Scrapple. Yeah, of course you do. That's a Philly thing, right? It's a Philly thing. He like served Scrapple. And then he does a happy hour where he does Philly cheesesteaks. I wonder if he gets the same Amarosa bread. OK. Yeah. Will you go? Will you go with me? We go over there together and try all this stuff. And you can and let's rate him on see how legit Philly he really is. Yeah, yeah, definitely. We can definitely do that. But you do know I'm going to bring him over to It's a Philly thing. And we're going to have that too now. You know that, right? Definitely. We're going to make a whole show out of it. That's cool. That's cool with me. I'm just connecting Philly people over here in Nashville. It's important. Definitely. So Amarosa bread. And then you got to have just roast beef. What do we what do we what kind of meat are we working with here? Thinly sliced rib eye. Thinly sliced rib eye. And definitely a person, you know, the people that's making the cheesesteak. It got to be established.

16:32The person who established everything got to be from Philly, but everybody else or the person cooking it. It got to be some type of Philly history going on inside of the establishment. Or because it's like, you know, if you got to be a Philly person and know that they're doing OK, so that's interesting. I got to know more about this. So I have nothing. I've never been to Philly. Not one time in my life. I've been to Pittsburgh. I've never been to Philly. Right. I can't make the sandwich. So what you're telling me, like if I if I'm like, you can make it. But if I wouldn't be a Philly thing, it wouldn't be like, oh, that's cool. You know, but like, for instance, you've got to got like a not a what is it called? They're in the opera mills. I can't think. I can't think of it, but it's cool. It's good. I mean, it's a cheesesteak, but it's not a Philly thing.

17:35OK, it's not. So you got to be from Philly. Is there something that being from Philly teaches you how to like saute steak? Yeah. Yeah, it's just you know what you're doing. You know, like this is what it is. This is I know I grew up on it, so this is what it is. So are the people that work for you all from Philly also? No, some of them from Philly, but some of them actually from Philly, but not all of them. But the person the person who taught them was from Philly. So they say they get a pass. Oh, so they're not allowed to make the sandwiches, though. Only people from Philly get to make sandwiches. No, long as the people from Philly taught them how to make it. That's OK. OK, well, I'm just I'm just I kind of figure this stuff out, you know, because it's a Philly thing and I want to get involved in this. It's a Philly thing because the sandwiches are damn good. All right. So I've got this bread. I'm roast bread and I got sliced ribeye cooked by a is it? What is it? Is it a Philadelphian? Is that? Yeah, well, we say Philly. We don't really say Philadelphia.

18:36We do a Philadelphian. Yeah. What do you like? I'm a Nashvilleian. What do you call somebody from Philadelphia? Philadelphia. OK, so you have to have a Philadelphian cooking the steak. What do you do next? How do I make the best Philly cheesesteak? What's next? You said, what do you do next? The seasoning you got to have, you got to have the seasoning right. Is it Philadelphia seasoning that they make in Philadelphia? Yeah, mainly a lot of places use the salt, just salt and pepper. OK, salt, pepper. A lot of people, definitely people in Philly use ketchup. Ketchup. Yeah, ketchup. They put ketchup on the sandwich. Yeah, definitely got to put ketchup. And then the all time, the best thing that has to go on a Philly cheesesteak. What else do you top it with? A lot of people in Philly, they do like American provolone. Some do cheese. It's really kind of different, different. It depends on what part of the city you're in. So it's not really no true cheese. But as long as you have those three cheeses.

19:39What do you use? We use all three American cheese was a provolone. American, you say cheese whiz, cheese whiz, cheese whiz and provolone, the cheese whiz in the can. Like the sprayable cheese. No, no, no, it comes in a bag. It comes in a bag. But yeah, it's kind of like it's kind of like some of the different. But yeah, that's what Philly know for cheese whiz. OK, so cheese whiz. Yeah, the whiz, the whiz. Is that the most and how many different styles of sandwiches do you guys serve there? Five. Five. OK, you have five different styles of Philadelphia cheesesteaks. And then you do sell the water ice there, too. Definitely sell the word ice. And I love the I like the mango water ice. Yeah, mango and cherries, that's that's the best flavors. I go. Yeah, that's kind of my that's kind of my kryptonite, by the way, is Italian water ice or Philadelphia water ice, whatever, whatever you want to call it.

20:46Like, I can't I can't say no. Sometimes if you're there and you're lying, you're like, do you want some water ice? You're like. Yes. Am I going to order the water ice? Like, yes, I'm going to order the water ice in the summertime. It's a given. It's like, I've got to order this. It's hot. It's going to keep you cool and it's good. So you definitely got to have it in the summertime. We're going to take a short break to hear from our sponsors. OK, so here's the thing. It's impossible to find a Lennon company who you can trust, who you like, who you'd recommend. And if you're a restaurant right now and you're looking for that company, you're unhappy with who you're currently using and you want to start sourcing out but you're waiting for recommendations right now is your lucky day. Citex is a third generation family owned and operated Lennon, Matts and Uniform Company. They really are the good guys in the Lennon business. They're transparent with their pricing. They have incredible quality and their service is second to none.

21:47Check them out at Citex-corp.com or give Ross Chandler a call at 270-823-2468. Introducing the Culinary Arts Program at NOSI College of Arts. Chef Anthony Mandriota, formerly of the Art Institute, is now heading up a brand new culinary arts program at NOSI College of Arts. You can be part of the inaugural class right now. Head over to NOSI N-O-S-S-I dot E-D-U and schedule your virtual appointment or schedule an actual appointment at NOSI to check out the kitchen and talk about the curriculum. This is your time right now. So head over to N-O-S-S-I dot E-D-U and schedule your appointment right now. Now, you guys just you guys opened what in 2020, beginning of 2020, 2019. When did you open the store? Opened in May 20, May 27, 2020.

22:51So you open right towards the beginning of the pandemic. Yeah, yeah. So it was it was I was really nervous. So it was like because I, you know, we did the food trailer around Nashville. So that was cool. But I mean, the store is kind of a whole different ballpark. And then us being all the way on Bellevue, you know, getting our clientele just to come out there and our own getting our tribe to basically just come to this new location was like as everything was new. So we were kind of nervous in the pandemic, but we actually got a lot of support and a lot of people showed out and showed up. So it was crazy because we didn't expect it. But from day one, since we opened, it's been it was it was a lot of a lot of love and support. A lot of people came out and just continue to just support us and just tell people word of mouth and support us on social media. And we had made some articles in the news, which was cool.

23:51Like, so was that back in the day you had the article in the news or just recently I saw an article from Chris Chamberlain talking about how TSU is the backbone of our culinary society. And you guys were, you know, firmly mentioned in that article, too. So we are right after we opened in May. I think we did and we were on the news about July. We were on the news about July. So then we we've been in the the national scene a couple of times. And then we were on the Tennessean. So it was it was amazing to just have that. At that exposure. Well, yeah. And now now that the granddaddy of them all, you've now been on Nashville Restaurant Radio. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But now, I mean, you could just mail them all and you can go call them. Like I was on Nashville Restaurant Radio. Now it's really on. I was I was always everywhere now. No, I saw you. I saw you on the news and you were walking out.

24:53There's this long line of people you open in May, June, July. It's hot as fire outside. And you have the tents outside and drove by the day after a storm. And one of the tents was like, yeah, down in the Goli. I was like, oh, that's that's that's a tough one. But you have these tents outside. And I saw you walking around giving away Italian these these water ices that just promo. Just people stay in a line. Sometimes you feel like, hey, look, it's hot outside. Here's a here's a free water ice. Because we just seen a lot of people come out and they line up way before we open up. Maybe sometimes people come out hours to 30 minutes before we open up and just stand in line. I know it's high. You know, you know, people are hungry. So, you know, it kind of gets frustrating. Sometimes people outside is high and there's a long line. So just to, you know, try to keep just to show our support and that we acknowledge them for being like loyal to us. We just want to show some love back. I love that. That's good.

25:53Especially during a pandemic, people come out to support you. Let's talk about what's going on behind you. Oh, so I'm looking and I see a bunch of whiteboards and I see a target of 100 million. What is this 100 million target that you've got working here? It's just a goal that I want to hit one day. So it's just I try to be as organized as possible. So it's it's a lot. It's a lot going on. Each one is just each one is a different. What's on your to do list right now? As far as disability. Yeah, what's on it? And I'm looking at it says to do list. What's on? I'm just curious. What's on your to do list right now? Commercials. Are you trying to film commercials? Commercials. Yeah, we try to film some commercials. I actually went to school for a production, so that's like that's my main like something I always want to do in life.

26:55So we're going to start producing some short films through this affiliate thing. Just a funny just because it's a silly thing is a taste of silly plus entertainment equals this silly thing. So we're going to release some just some short films and we want to release them at stores or some late nights. We'll have a movie night. And it will just just do different commercials on a page, just keeping our customers entertained. We want a lot of a we're working a lot of entertainment as far as just to keep our customers entertained and show them that we more than we sell more than just food. Yeah, you're when I first met you, the guy that was one of the times I met you, but the guy was working right there at the front on the counter. He has like a whole video production company, doesn't he? Yeah, my best friend, Jonesy. Yeah, he has Jonesy. Yeah, he has a film production company as well. Yeah, he was helping out. Does he still work there? No, no, he's back. Actually, he's now in Atlanta. He's in Atlanta now, so he'll be back and forth.

27:58No, definitely. He's one of the main people for our marketing team. So. OK, I follow my Instagram. He's got a he's got a cool company, does some cool stuff. Yeah, I think I checked that out. Yeah. So when you say like short films, like what what is the example of like a short film you're going to do? Do you have like a premise? Just. Just something funny to be maybe we're thinking about a lot of different ideas, ideas that we're playing with right now, maybe like a TV series about just kind of like working as a silly thing. We've got a little funny TV series that we can put together or just using making a short film, just something other than a silly thing, but using, you know, the location as using the location as part of the short films. Gotcha. OK.

28:59Well, I look forward to seeing that. What else we have on the board back behind you? I'm so fascinated by all the stuff you have written there to do this. You got to do commercials. Is that like all of your sales numbers and stuff on you back there? There's just savings goals for the company and stuff like that. Just stuff that we got to pay off or stuff that we're trying to get. We try to get another another food truck in 2021 as well. So does that say focus of the year, goals of the year? Goals of the year, goals of the year. Can you share what some of your goals are for the year? Some of the goals of the year is to expand as a silly thing. Start looking for a second location somewhere in Nashville. As a silly thing, short films to be debt free, to be debt free. Grow again, grow profit.

30:05Second food truck. Those are some pretty hefty goals that for 2021. Yeah, 2021. Yeah, we're just trying to achieve all of them. If we're not, if not, we'll push it over to the next year, but it'll get done. I like that. I like that drive. Where did you get that drive? From my parents. Both my parents were entrepreneurs growing up and my great grandfather, he was the first African American to own a pickle factory in the United States. So, yeah, really? Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. And I appreciate that. How much do you know about pickles? A little bit, a little bit. Well, I mean, my grandfather, when I was growing up, same way, super unsure. He just passed away this past Thursday. Oh, sorry. Sorry. It's OK. It's OK. I thank you for that. He he owned a fire extinguisher company courtesy fire extinguisher. And my whole life, I grew up going to work with my grandpa.

31:07And I know more about fire extinguishers than I ever need to know. I guess a random fact, like I could break apart any type of fire extinguisher, ABC, Halon, all the different kinds. I know way too much about fire extinguishers. Do you know way too much about pickles? I think I know enough. But now, I mean, now I know if I need to know about fire extinguishers, I can always go to you. Look, look me up. It's a random thing that I don't think anybody in the world. It's like one of those questions like, what's a random thing that I know a lot about, like pick A, B and C, like alligators, fire extinguishers or the continent of, you know, I don't know. Anyway, so cool. So your grandfather, entrepreneur, first pick African-American pickle factory owner, your parents were entrepreneurs. What your parents do? My dad, he owned a carpentry company. And now he does ATV and motorcycle repair.

32:07He sells them. He builds them up. He customizes them. And my mom, she owned some beauty parlors. And is she are they in Philadelphia? Yeah, my whole family is still in Philly. They come down to visit a lot, though. I'm sure. So are they they super proud of you? They they how's that whole thing going? Yeah, they definitely, definitely proud of me. They motivate them. They motivate me. They they really excited. Yeah, I think they're really excited, really excited. Are you a single man? No, no, I have a girlfriend. You have a girlfriend. OK. The wedding bells in the future? Possibly. Oh, how long have you all been dating? About three years. Three years. Well, that's awesome. I appreciate that. Do you guys do you guys meet in college? Yeah, we met in college. We both ran track track together. Really? What did you run in track?

33:09Four hundred and eight hundred. I ran the eight hundred when I was in track. Oh, I wasn't I wasn't very good at it. Yeah, that's tough. But oh, and I ran cross country as well. That's why why why does one run cross country with not being chased? Hey, she I never ran cross country until I got to college. My coach made us we had the order for us to run cross country. So yeah, that was I didn't like it. But actually, it's kind of cool. The meets is the meets that aren't cool. But everything else is cool. Everything else is cool. Hanging out. Just I'm a sprinter. Like I played basketball my whole life. So I like I sprint. I can't do like the long distances. Did you play any other sports? I did a mostly every sport. I tried everything. I used to box. I did football. I did basketball. I did football. I was a three sport athlete in high school. I did football, basketball and track.

34:12Do you get to play anymore? Do you obviously you're an entrepreneur, you work a lot. But like, do you get to play any sports currently? Basketball before the pandemic, I was playing a lot throughout the city, finding different gyms and stuff like that. But I haven't really been playing since the pandemic. It closed a lot of the gyms now. But football, some of my frat brothers, we still play here and there. Nice. That's good stuff. So what do you do for fun? Like, what do you do like when you're not working? When I'm not, I'm always working. I guess I try to go running, trying to go on a little jog. I spend time with my girlfriend and my dog. What kind of dog do you have? Toy Poodle. Toy Poodle. Yeah, my girlfriend wanted a little dog, so we got a Toy Poodle. What's the dog's name? Willow.

35:13Willow. You might have heard her scratching on the door. She was trying to get in. Are you going to let her in? We always like having random visitors on podcasts. That's what makes it fun, you know? Yeah. People love dogs. I just try to explore Nashville just to see what's going on and try to check out and kind of connect with different entrepreneurs and just connect with different people. So what do I need to know if I go to Philadelphia? What's the most special thing about Philadelphia? The most special thing? Yes. The food, you definitely get some good food in Philadelphia. Definitely I go to the cheesesteak. There's a lot of different places that you can get a different cheesesteak from. My favorite place is Max's. You go to Max's, Delasandro's. You go to the gyms on South Street. They're like the main spots. Pats and Geno's are more like a tourist.

36:16They're real authentic for the cheesesteak. I say go to one of them three places. Gyms, Max's or Delasandro's. Those are my top three. Gyms, Max's or Delasandro's. If you're going to Philly, those are the places you've got to go to get a cheesesteak. Are you an Eagles fan? Philly everything. Philly fanatic. Philly everything. Philly everything. It's a Philly thing. I think that Philadelphia is one of those places to me that people are like that. They're so into Philly and everything about Philadelphia. Nashville is a similar way. People are the same way about Nashville. They just love everything Nashville. I don't know. I'm interested in why that happens. What is it about Philadelphia that brings apart that pride? Yeah, I don't know because Philly has some of the craziest fans. I guess it's just this is the city, the toughest of the city. And I don't know, just growing there, growing up there in Philly, it's just kind of it's a little different, kind of a little different.

37:20But you definitely need to tour the city and go check out the rocky steps. Have you done have you ramped the rocky steps and done like the whole thing? Is that just something you have to do? Yeah, it's definitely something that you have to do. Once you get to the top, you'll really see the whole skyline of the city. It's definitely fun going to Philly in the summertime. You go down South Street. That's a nice place to be. There's everything you need. It's kind of like Nashville and Broadway, but a little bit bigger. So where are some of your favorite places to eat here in Nashville? Some of my favorite places, some Huskies, that's one of my. There you go. Yeah, and get my friend, brother. So some Huskies, Coneheads, they're over in East Nashville. I'm not too good with the direction. But they sell like the chicken and the Cone. So, yeah, yeah.

38:20So Ritman's Spice, that's that's a good place. That's a great place. Yeah, I love Ritman's Spice. That's really good. That's that's like my favorite flavors. Yeah. What they're doing over there. Oh, my God. It's so good, man. Yeah, I like Hattie B's Princess Hattie B's. I love the banana pudding. Have you had the banana pudding at Honeyfire Barbecue? No, no, I haven't. I got to check. They've already crossed the street, so I haven't had. You got to go over there and check it out. It's amazing. Oh, yeah. I'm definitely checking them out. That's my to do list this week. I got to organize a food trade between you two. Yeah, you just roll up there with a couple of Philly cheesesteaks and be like, look, hook it up. Make a trade. Shane's a good dude. He's down for that. OK. Their banana pudding is like so legit. Oh, yeah. I'm going to check that out then. Yeah. Do you have a favorite other restaurant in the Bellevue area? On the Bellevue area?

39:23I have for some reason, I actually haven't really ate over here like that. I always. I mean, I want to try to try hooks, but they were closed. Well, right next door to hooks is Cancun. Yeah, that's a really good Mexican place. OK, OK. If you want like good Mexican, then you've got El Aguero right over there. Do you eat Mexican food? Uh, not really, not really. Well, then you're screwed for Bellevue, OK? Oh, yeah. It's all it is, is Mexican food. Oh, I can't really do the spices. It's just my body just rejected. Gotcha. OK. Yeah, we need some more locally owned and independent restaurants in the Bellevue area. So if you're a restaurateur and you want to open a great restaurant in Bellevue, we're welcoming to it. Yeah. Right. At least some more good food in Bellevue. Yeah. Well, I mean, you can't you you you've got a great thing going there and your food is amazing, but you've got to have other people also, and they'll bring more people to town.

40:31They get to try. Yeah, exactly. Bring the whole city over here. Have you been down to the Harpeth River and done canoeing or kayaking or anything? No, I have. I've been over there. I went jogging over there. Dude, it's it's fun. Yeah. Like the narrows just to get out there and have a good time. It's so close. Yeah, I'm thinking about getting a bike this summer and just kind of start biking over there. Like a bike sickle or like a motorbike? No, bicycle. OK. Yeah. Right. There you go. More exercise, see? Yeah. That's how you make up for all the water ice. Yeah. What I see. Cheese steaks. Yeah. That's all we do. I'll be having to find myself eating them every day. Well, dude, I I'm so excited for all of your success that you're having. It's fun to have you on just to get to know you a little bit better. I am going to come pick you up someday. And we're going to go to Josephine together. We're going to go eat the Philly cheesesteak over there.

41:36We're going to film it. We're going to make it. We can we can make it short. Let's do that. We can make it. We'll start doing it with your production company. We'll share it. This is my idea. OK, that's cool. And people can watch out for it. A lot. A lot. Yeah. We'll have like a vlog. We'll go over. You try the Philly, the Philly, the Philly guy. We'll go try the other Philly guys' food. Then he'd come over and try yours. That'll be a lot of fun. You have some Scrapple. Exactly. I haven't had Scrapple in a long time. I haven't had Scrapple in a long time. So I definitely need that. He's a he's a pretty damn good chef, too. Yeah, yeah. That'd be cool that we can. Maybe we can learn some stuff from each other. Yeah, no, I'd love it. So one of the things I do before we sign off on these episodes is I like to open the floor and give my guest the open mic to say whatever they want for as long as they want to take us out. So anything you want to say to the Nashville community or whatever you want to say?

42:40I had a guy the other day that said, I love UConn basketball and talked about UConn basketball for like five minutes. It was awesome. What do you got? The floor is yours. All right. I just want to say thank you, Nashville, especially W, for all the love and support over the past almost year that everyone has given us and our staff. We really appreciate it. You guys make us better and make our business better. Without you guys, we wouldn't be anything. So I definitely appreciate the love and the support. And 2021, we have a lot to look forward to. We have a lot of new things on the way. So just look out for that and keep supporting us. And we want to keep showing love back to you as much as we can and try to implement some more things and for the customers. Yeah, so 2021, we got a lot of store and for the future ahead as well. Definitely. So just look out.

43:41Make sure you guys are following us on social media. Stay up to date with everything that we're doing and we'll let you guys know what's new, what's happening. All right. I love it. How do people follow you on social media? On Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, it's it's affiliate thing. I TZAPHI LLYTHING and go to our website for more information. Check out our stories. Check out our menu and also on our website. You can put your email address in and subscribe to the newsletter. We will email you any updates or any new things that we have with the company. And come to Bellevue and stand in line. It is worth it. The food is good. It is legit. It's in a tiny it's hidden. You got to find it bright red. But when you do, it's like an oasis. It's like there it is. Now you could be in the know like everybody else.

44:44Definitely, definitely. Zaire, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate having me on national radio and I appreciate the support. Absolutely, brother. We will talk soon. All right. Thank you again. Yes, sir. Have a good one. Thank you, Zaire, for joining Nashville Restaurant Radio. And thank you, the listener, for listening to Nashville Restaurant Radio. What a fun way. Now you now, you know, if you wanted to make Philly cheesesteaks at home, now you know how to do it. You just got to get the Amorosa bread and stay tuned, because I am going to take Zaire over to see Chef Andy Little. And we're going to hopefully do a Philly cheesesteak class between the two. It's going to be awesome. So thanks again for listening and hope you are staying safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.