#theroundup 10-2-20 With Guest Host Nina Singto

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now, here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello, Music City, and welcome to the Nashville Restaurant Radio Roundup, presented by FOH and BOH.com. They are FOH and BOH. My name is Brandon Styll, and I am joined as always with the editor of Eater Nashville, Delia Jo Ramsey. Hi, Delia. Hi, how are you? I am great. Today, we have an amazing show, and we have an amazing guest host. She was going to come on for a segment, and now we have talked her into just being a guest host for a little while. Could not be more excited to welcome Nina Singto. Hi, Nina. Hi. Nina is the owner of, Nina is the owner of Thai Issan, and is it Issan? Issan. Thai Issan. I don't know why I want to say Issan. Thai Issan, and she's had some big announcements this week, so we're so excited to have you here. We're going to wait to talk about that for just a minute. We're going to keep everybody on the edge of their seats. Oh my God. I know this week has been so exhausting for me. It's overwhelming, so overwhelming, but so exciting at the same time. I'm so excited for you. Thank you. But first, let's check in with Delia. How was your week this week, Delia? Oh, you know, it's been busy, personally and professionally. There's a lot happening. Obviously, Nina's got a lot going on, and we haven't been able to cover that. I saw everyone else post it, and I was like, well, I'm going to wait until Monday. I want to have mine differently, different times. So,

02:02I'm going to wait until Monday to share her news, but there's a lot going on. I moved. I'm in a new space. Oh, that's nice. I like your new studio. Hey, I have five doors down the hall from the last year. Oh, okay. You move in the scenery. Yeah, I got a bathtub, and I've got a desk now. So, I used to have this whole ghetto contraption where my laptop was on a stool, like a bar stool, and now it's on a real desk. So, moving on up. I got my eyelashes tinted and lifted yesterday, and they feel weird. Looks good. Really? Thanks. Yeah, they tape your eyes shut, and I'll tell you, there is no scarier feeling than wearing a mask and having your eyes taped at the same time. I was like, this is terrible. I told the girl, I was like, can you just talk to me? I'm freaking out right now. So, I don't know if this is going to be a repeat offense or not because it was scary, but my eyelashes are like up here now. So, that's good. Looks good. Very good. Thanks. I don't know, but it's been a good week overall. What about you? My week has been fantastic. You know, it's been so fun, and I'll say, what's up, Gary? I can't, for some reason, the text isn't working, but I'll say hi to Gary. Being back doing live interviews was like there was a part of me that was missing, and being back in talking to people has been so, so great. Carrie Bringle's episode Monday, over the last two weeks, I've just been reading all about all these things that are happening in Nashville, and I've seen Carrie's op-eds, and I'm like, I just don't know. I feel like I know some of it, but I don't know all the answers, and he was gracious enough to just sit down and say, dude, this is what the deal is. He's so opinionated. He knows what he's talking about, and I've got a lot of positive feedback from that episode just saying, dude, I learned a lot, and he's a sharp guy, and the call to action, just for everybody to get out there and

04:06do what they can, was great. Talking with the scene editor, Patrick Rogers and Megan Seeling was really great. Talking about their new book, Nourish Nashville, which I believe Ms. Nina Singto is in that book. I am. Yes, she is. Can you believe it? I'm everywhere. Everywhere. Nina is hot. Definitely. That's going on today. At the end of the show, we are going to release the Nashville Hot List, which is Nashville Restaurant Radio's first list. It is going to be the 10 hottest restaurants in the city right now. I want to know if I'm on there. You will have to wait until five minutes. It's going to be the last thing I do. We're going to release the top five on this show a little bit later, and then the five through 10 will be available at NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com starting Friday morning. If you're listening to this, not watching it live, you can go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com right now and see the top 10 restaurants you need to go eat at right now. That's what we've got going on.

05:25I'm excited to do this show. I get so excited coming up to Thursday to do this show. I just love it. I love talking to you guys. It's so much fun. To have Nina Singto on this show today is just super exciting. How was your week, Nina? Busy. Super, super busy with all the release and everything going on and signing the lease. It's just been a crazy week. I've been not returning people's calls or texts this week because it's just so overwhelming, but so exciting at the same time. I guess this is a good time to jump into it. What do you got going on? I've been reading that you're expanding, but give us all the details. I'm going to give you the details that I've been holding on for so long. One day, back during when we first opened the restaurant, a customer came in and was telling me about how Nana closed down. I literally been digging and digging and digging. One day, I went on vacation back in July. I was talking about the whole time on vacation. I guess it was just a dream come true because Monday night, when I came back from vacation, I looped that. I was digging and couldn't find anything. Tuesday morning, I opened my email and boom, Nana was there. I thought it was meant to be. It was 6.06 in the morning. I called my pre-order, John Petty, and I said, make this happen to me. Here I am a month and a half later.

06:53That's awesome. Congrats. I know. I always told myself when I went to eat at Uncle Julio, I looked at Nana, I'm like, if I ever come to Brentwood, this would be the only location I would come to. Guess what? I'm here. That's awesome. Congrats. The only scary part is, it's going to be opening right before a food hall opens. It's going to be crazy. That's a cool area over there. When that whole Maryland farms, when all those people come back to work in all those offices, there's going to be plenty of people are going to be coming out crazy. I was over there at Mayor Bowl for such a long time. We're going to practically be neighbors over there. I'm really excited. I'm excited because I'm going to be there. If you don't want to see me in Midtown, then you're going to have to make an appointment. Okay. That's awesome. That's not the only place, right?

07:57Yeah. Then I got the fifth and broad coming up in March. I just got the email today that they're opening up March the 4th. Okay. They have a date already. Wow. Yeah. She had a date for me on my email. Fingers crossed. Give me a chance to open Brentwood and then head downtown. Wow. You're like mogul status. Yeah. I know. I don't know how I'm going to do it. Let's just pray everything goes well. There's a lot going on before I turn 40 next year. That's incredible. That's one heck of a success story. We don't need one of those right now. It's so good to see somebody thriving amid all this chaos. It's so good to see that for you. I'm excited. How did you decide on Brentwood though? What did you say? How did you decide on Brentwood? I always wanted to go Brentwood, Delia. I just didn't know where to go. I was going to go to Franklin. I was going to go here. I was going to do a lot of things in Brentwood. I just didn't know, but I told myself, if I ever go to Brentwood, the Hill Center or that area would be the only place that I would go.

09:02Yeah. When NAMA came open, I had to make it happen. I told my Realtor guy, I was just like, you got to make this happen. I don't care how, what, just got to make it happen. Yeah. And he made it happen. I'm just so overwhelmed. I feel overwhelmed right now because I feel like I worked so hard. It's like a dream come true. Everything that I ever put myself this past 10, 15 years, all this hard work is finally paying off. I haul ass, every single day, be there at work every day and work so hard and to see just all this coming together. It's just, you know, it's all this happiness coming. It makes me want to be teary because I feel like I knew one day I was going to get here, but I just didn't realize it's going to be so soon. Well, it's absolutely well-deserved and so happy for you. It's good to see you happy. Yeah. Thank you. I want to see you happy, Delia. I want to see that day. I'm going to cater. You're going to have a Nina hot wedding.

10:07I'm going to, I'm at whatever Delia wants. We'll continue that on the side. Awesome. I love it. I am so excited for you. Thank you. It's been, it's been, you know what, like you just said, Delia, it's, it's a, it's been a crazy time, so much uncertainty and so much fear and so many people. And to hear a story like sad Nama closing, but like to have that space come available, you want to be there. Kind of one of those things you pray about it. You're, you're hoping that it works out in the one day at six Oh six in the morning, you get an email and you're like, I want, I mean, for everything to work out like that. And for somebody like yourself, what a, what just an amazing thing. And we just, we're just so excited for you. So, and thank you for coming on this show to tell us all about it. Thank you. I'm just so excited. Like I, I've been holding it for so long. I was like, okay, but finally I signed the lease Monday. I'm just like, let me just let it all out.

11:13Wow. That's huge. Well, um, so let everybody else who's joined the podcast right now, people that are live on YouTube and Facebook. No, we are speaking with Nina Sinto, who is the owner of Tai Issan. And she has just announced when she announced this week, it's been in the Nashville business journal. And I believe the Nashville scene that, um, she's opening a new location in Brentwood and the Hill center. It's going to be in the former Nama sushi place, uh, as well as she has a location that's going to be going in fifth and Broadway, right? Yes. The original location, um, where your location you're at now is on the roundabout, the naked people statue roundabout, the buddy killing circle, and, uh, it's directly across the street from tailgate brewery. You're directly across the street from tailgate brewery. So please, if you want to preview, if you're from Brentwood and you want to know what this whole Tai Issan thing is about, you can go get it right now. If you go downtown and, uh, go to go and which I will tell you right now, this is the time to go eat downtown. I mean, like phase three starts today. We'll get into that in just a second. But if you want to go eat downtown before just the flocks of people come back in and tourists flood downtown Nashville, you live in Nashville. Now is the time to go eat downtown.

12:41They need it more than ever. Go visit your locally owned and operated restaurants. If you're going to go downtown and eat, go to a locally owned and operated restaurant, go to your farmhouses, go to the black rabbit, go to Tai Issan, go to etch, go to a missing people here. But, uh, there's, there's a ton of restaurants downtown that you need to go visit. And parking is discounted at most places right now. I'll add that because I'll notice that. I mean, I walk around downtown a lot and parking. I mean, I don't really see a place for $10 right now. So it used to be super expensive to park when you came downtown, but now it's, it's pretty good. Okay. That's reasonable. Yeah. You have free parking for your spot, don't you Nina? Uh, well in the parking lot. Yeah, we have really good parking now because we kind of got strict on it. So, uh, once you go to, uh, Issan parking lot, what you want to do is just register, um, text 500 to this phone number. And then you come up to us and we give two to two hour and a half for free because before, um, right after we came back and open, we had no parking left. Customer was getting frustrated. We've been illegally parking and all of a sudden, no one spoke English and it's just been a mess. I mean, everyone was just parking everywhere because, um, and we finally got with the element, uh, managers and stuff and got that all fixed. So we're hanging in there with the parking situation because before people just park and go to the restaurant, but now actually they're, they're booting people.

14:05Well, let's, um, uh, I have to say, Nina, your segment bringing you on the show today is sponsored by super source, um, super source. If you're going to be opening your new restaurant, you need to give my friend Jason Ellis a phone call. He's over at super source and they are a dish machine and chemical company and they have no contracts. He will hook you up the best chemicals. They will do staff trainings on exactly what chemicals to use, when, where, and why he's saving people on average 15 to 20% right now, every single place he walks in and what they're currently paying. You can go to Nashville restaurant radio.com and you can click the sponsors tab where you'll see super source, click the tab and you will get three, three months of dishwasher rentals. And, uh, he is a proud sponsor of Nashville restaurant radio and we are really excited to have him sponsor Nina Cinto today coming in as we are not doing a what's the Delia today.

15:06We'll be doing one next week, I believe next week is what's the Delia and that will be back to being super sources segment, but today they are hosting Nina Cinto. So Nina, when you get your whole thing set up, you got to call Jason Ellis over at super source. He will take care of you. Are you sure? I heard all this time was just free. That's all I heard was free. Well, he does offer a special offer for anybody who comes on our show. All the people I do interviews that he has a super special secret probation office offer. That's my caddyshack joke or we'll talk to after the show. If you really want to talk to, we'll get that set up for you because he does offer some cool stuff for, um, for new customers. So today's a big day, Nina. We are going back or we are going back to phase three and, um, I think there's a lot of confusion as to exactly what phase three means. So I wanted to kind of go over it with you guys as to what does phase three mean as far as restaurants go. Do you know what it means, Nina? I don't honestly.

16:24I'm so confused because people come in and be like, can we sit at the bar? And I'm like, what phase? I don't even know. I'm so lost track. All I know is all my table is six feet apart. And if you want to sit at the bar, go ahead and sit at the bar, skip about three chairs and go on. I really don't know. I'm not going to lie. Well, we're going to let you know. We're going to, we're going to inform you right now. It's going to tell you all about it. I think weren't you already at 50%. So this is what I'm confused about. What is changing today? Except that now you can have parties of eight versus six. Everything else I think is the same. Right. Everything else is the same. So I'm going to break it down here real quick. Restaurants and bars are open at 50%. Right. So 50% of your capacity now, 50% of your capacity means if you, your capacity is 350, you should be able to see 175. Is that half of that 50%? You should be able to see 175 people socially six feet apart. You have max.

17:28So it says max 100 patrons per floor and 100 outside. So I think that's really for downtown bars. Like if you have five floors, it's 100 per floor. I mean, if you have, if you're the music city center, I mean, I think it's, you're fine. Just do 50% capacity. Um, instead of it being six people per table, now you can go up to eight people per table and restaurants and bars may now stay open until 11 o'clock PM. That was already happening, right? I think it was 10 o'clock and 30. Oh, we have 30 minutes. That's right. So the new ordinance COVID COVID out for an extra 30 minutes. I'm sorry to interrupt, but what about this? You have a party of nine. Do you leave that one person out or you have to be like five and four separately? I don't know. Here's the rule. The rule of thumb that I've always had is when I'm talking to my restaurants is that if they all live under the same roof, cause you feel like a mom and dad and they're seven kids, we had six people, there's mom and dads with five kids. And I'm like, if the mom and dad have five kids, I'm not making Sally sit at a different table. You know, I'm, you can, I would see the whole, the one family there, but if it's like five couples or something, then no, then you have to sit at two separate tables.

18:48There were eight of us and I think they just put like two tables or four next to each other. Yeah. I mean, if there's nine, I think it, I think you're not supposed to seat them. You're supposed to have somebody else at a different table. Maybe do a table of four and a table of five. I mean, per, per the guidelines, I mean, I think it's up to each individual operator, you know, I mean, do the right, it's not up to each individual operator, but it's a, do the right thing, whatever you decide you want to do. Right. The ordinance is eight people. I mean, so I don't know if you can go to an event now at 30% of an event. So like you said today that you can go to an event. Now, like, um, event, you can open at 30% if there's a maximum number there, too. So you can be in a gathering now in a certain number, but I don't know. Are you, is somebody typing? I hear like a little bit of feedback. Something's going on. You hear that too?

19:52I wonder what that is. There it goes. It's back. Okay. Well, hey, we'll, we'll, we'll keep rocking and rolling. Uh, real quick to Gary, um, Gary Garrett saying stay true to your roots. Great to see you. All that stuff. Thanks Gary for jumping in. Um, Jamie Fingles says congratulations to, uh, Nina out there. Just to let you know, we do have people commenting live. If you have a question for Nina or if you have a comment for Nina, um, um, Gary says I thought you were chicken pecking on your keyboard. That's why I was like, is somebody on their keyboard? I typed it earlier, but that was like a while ago. That is a no. My keyboard's not working right now. So I don't know. Um, yeah. So, um, back to phase three. It's all the same except for 11 o'clock and eight people, right?

20:55Yeah. 11 o'clock, eight people. Um, retail stores are available to open at three quarters, by the way. You're still not allowed to do open containers or to go alcohol. In midtown and downtown, right? Yes. Cause you do that, Nina. You do to go alcohol. Where'd she go? We've lost Nina, ladies and gentlemen. Just people been calling in. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Are you on your phone? I am. Yeah, because, um, my son's doing some on my iPad and his computer, he said he got play games. So I guess it's more important. Huh? He's not watching you live. He said, I watch you every day. Yeah. Every day. Yeah. Every day. That's awesome.

21:57My husband don't even listen to me. He was like, I'm just so scared. What are you going to say, honey? And I'm like, so yeah, every time I do something like this, he doesn't, um, he doesn't watch me. He's just scared. I'm like, Hey, we got this far because of, right? You guys, you got to watch the video. Yeah. He, um, he doesn't listen. Like when I do interviews or when I talk or anything like that, he doesn't, he's, I already know you and I just, I'm just scared to hear what you're going to say. That's hilarious. Well, let's, um, let's jump into some new restaurant openings and announcements. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so we have obviously let off with Nina's news, um, which I had for later, but we covered it now. So congrats to you on your expansion of your, um, I got a word. I'm a little late on the game on the beach. Can we drive in, open in wood vine, but it was really good. Um, there's a patio, big patio for dining outside, which is really nice right now.

23:08So much lamb dip sandwich with, um, so I'm excited to try that out sometime. It's, it's hard to keep up with all these things opening as one person. So I love getting in my messages and email about things like this that you can go check out in neighborhoods outside of downtown. So wood vine, not too far. Um, silver sands cafe reopened, which is a really good piece of news also, cause they were hit by the tornado. Um, if you don't know about silver sands and she, um, then there was like a botch repair job and then COVID hit. And then there was a big fundraiser that's handy. And I think Sean got a bunch of people like collabed on to raise money for them and silver sands reopened on Tuesday. So exciting news for a long time Nashville breakfast and lunch place. Um, what's this week? Moonshot coffee. Uh, it's a cute little place on the ground floor of this new town place sweets. It's in between like Germantown and the Capitol building. I don't know what they're calling that area, the Capitol district, maybe. Um, that opened on Tuesday on national coffee. It is now, yeah, capital district now. Um, they opened on national coffee day, which was Tuesday. And, um, also this week. Oh, and, uh, Jeffrey Rhodes is doing the food at that place at Moonshot coffee. He's from Liberty common and Butchertown hall. Okay. And they also have a rooftop spot at the hotel coming soon.

24:40Sweet. Um, a lot of coming soon things. Well, Marsh house is open today. They've been closed for a while. They have a new chef and a new entrance where you can walk in from right off the street in the goal. So excited to have Marsh house back in my neighborhood. I bet, um, big news from Sean Brock and the brand national today that they will open next Thursday, October eight for takeout and delivery only. So it's an interesting time to get fine dining from Sean Brock for takeout. I mean, 20, 20, everyone's 20, 20. Right. Exactly. And then he'll open in November for reservations only. And I do think if you, um, stay in the hotel, you can get room service from there on the main time as well. So very exciting time in Nashville. Also on the October peninsula comes back with their tasting on you. And I'm excited to be there. Um, and, um, Rolf and daughters are doing brunch never happened before. So much happening. You guys so much happening.

25:45Say Rolf and daughters is, um, Nina popped off. I'm going to see if that fixes the sound for a second. I wonder if she was getting texts and it was like, that did fix it. So I was, I was trying to troubleshoot that because it's just, I know I kept hearing those like typing. Yeah. I think that did it. I think it was her internet connection, maybe through her, um, her provider. She's going to jump back on. Maybe it'll be fixed. Okay. Um, what else? What else? There's so much happening. I'm sorry. Great. Really good stuff. Um, Nikki's coal fired bagels announced they're permanently going to be on weekends at, um, insert chef here on 12 south. Is that right? And, uh, and Otaku East. So that's exciting for Nikki for Nikki's coal fired bagels, which I still have in my freezer and I'm very excited to have my freezer. A couple more things. I've got, um, Tennessee brew works. I just got an email that they are, they're, um, expanding their bar at the airport. So they have that kiosk. It's going to be a full bar now in the same area that opened there in 2016. Sweet. And I think I have, um, is a closure.

26:56I noticed, um, revelator coffee and Hillsborough village. I was there the other day and they were no longer. So two coffee shops over the last week. Um, Zoli and, uh, I don't know when revelator closed, but I just noticed it. So that's my word vomit of restaurant news. Wow. And that's why I miss something. So I'll hit you back with that later. Oh, you did great. We've got, um, we got a quick hiring update brought to you by Faux and Bow. F-O-H and B-O-H.com is the new way to hire and be hired in music city. Are you familiar with Faux and Bow.com Nina? I'm not. That's the first time I thought it was actually the noodle soup. Oh, she's like, is this a Vietnamese hiring site? Uh, no, but you can send me that link because I definitely need some more employees. So, so this is such a cool thing because you know what they do at Faux and Bow, like, so right now, if you want to hire somebody, you have to go like on Instagram or Facebook and then, uh, Indeed or whatever it might be. I just said their name, but some other place and you have to create a job and then you have to post it. Then you have to wait for people to, to like, you know, send in their resumes and you gotta filter through like 40 resumes. You gotta call them and then people just don't show up. So what they've decided, what they've done is they've created a website. They've got a ton of people who this is Nashville and it's a locally owned and operated company. It's a woman owned company. And what they do is they have, there's, there's, they don't be saying how many people are there. There's a lot of people, thousands of thousands of people who are restaurant professionals in Nashville. They go on as a candidate, you create a profile, you put all of the things that you want. I can work these shifts on these days. I want to make this much money. I want to be a bartender. I want to be a line cook.

28:57I want to be a host, whatever it is, you create your profile and then you, as a restaurant owner, you go on and you need a job. You need a line cook. You create a line cook position. You tell them what you're going to pay. You put in the days you need the people you put in. You offer insurance. You put in, there's a little questionnaire. It takes literally three minutes. Wow. Okay. You hit find candidate and it pulls up immediate matches from the thousands of people who are on the site right now who want to work. Yeah. It pulls up. You'll see 50 immediate matches or whatever the number is. If it's 30, 50, 500 immediate matches of people that match all those criteria, you can look at their profile, click a button that says request interview, done. So you don't have to create the job. Yeah. Send a job. You don't have to do any of that. You just immediately go on there. You need to hire people tomorrow. You sign up for Phil & Bo. There's people on there waiting right now. You can interview as many people as you want. There's one low price monthly payment and you can hire as many people as you want. Thank you for that. I definitely going to need that for sure. Yes. You definitely need to give it a shot. If you are out there and you own a restaurant and everything I just now told you sounds too good to be true.

30:12It's not. This is a real thing. We have some special rates. Again, Nina, we're going to talk about this special rates, especially for multiple restaurants. We've set up an email address, Brandon at foh and boh.com. Please send me a message that says, Hey, we want to see a demo. We will get a demo set up for you personally. Jasper just made an amazing entrance to. I do have complaints after this is over. Her cat has a new restaurant coming up. No, that is it. There is lots of restaurants right now that are on foh and boh that are hiring people every single day. I'm going to give you a list of just some restaurants that if you go create a profile on foh and boh right now, you can get a job at Edley's, Martin's, Amerigo, the all new Jasper's, the grand Hyatt, cinema, great cops, new river house restaurant, mayor bowl, green Hills grill, Santo, the peace Liberty common mojo tacos, hawkers, and then all the a Marshall hospitality restaurants and many, many more. These are the people that you can go work for right now and hopefully very soon. Tai isan.

31:31So, uh, yes, lots of people are going to phase three. We've announced that that doesn't mean a whole lot, but restaurants are ramping up to get back going, bringing people back. If you need a job, go sign up. If you want to hire people, this is for you. So what did you have Delia? What is Jasper doing? I have a complaint and a question for any cat owners that might be out here. Um, so, you know, we moved into this new place and he now starting at like 3 a.m. every night. And if I ignore him, he continues to meow. And if I give him attention, he continues to meow. And if we shut the door, he scratches the door and meows. Also his paws. And we got this brand new leather sofa delivered yesterday, yesterday came home from dinner and he is clawed the crap out of it. He's using it like it's his home base and running around leaping. And so he's going to scratch the brand new couch. And I've been so stressed out about it. And then he just made an appearance. I was like, I'm about to call him out and ask for any solutions. Should I put like a grandma slip cover on the couch? I mean, I don't believe in declawing anymore because I've read too much information. I don't want to do it, but I need to like a really good nail trimmer or for him on this couch.

32:45So if you're watching right now, if you're watching on YouTube or Facebook, post a comment. If you know what to do, if you're a cat person and your cat, how do you stop the cat from jumping on the leather sofa? I'm the guy that would say don't buy the leather sofa. I know. I thought I was like, it was a good price. And I was like, well, he's never scratched up any other sofa. It's something about this Italian leather. I don't know. Or maybe it's like a new place because he's running around. He just runs around on it. And I think he's excited to have space. Probably. It's a new home maybe. This is his third move. And this is the first time he's called up any furniture. This is like Minnie, what's the deal? What's the deal with my cat? When are you going to eat your queso at? Do what? Where are you going to eat your queso at? You got a new patio space for your queso? Oh, yeah. I got a nice new patio.

33:48I'm going to go get my dining room table. I could even eat a dining room table now. Nice. Somebody just said Cat Suck Nina Rocks. Yes. Matt Leff of Rhizome Productions, who does a very cool show. If you're a beer person out there, go follow Rhizome Productions. He does a show where he interviews really big time beer producers and brew masters. And if you're a beer nerd, follow Matthew Leff and Rhizome Productions. They do a great, great show similar to this. It's live all the time. Thank you, Matt, for watching. You are the best. He says. He's so sweet. You know, Matt and I went way back, like way back. Really? He says King Market, but at least 15 years. Oh, wow. Oh, he's a good dude. He was, he was, by the way, Matt Leff was the very first interview that I did for this show. If you go back, episode two is an interview with Matthew Leff. I put it, I put a thing on Facebook and go, who wants to be interviewed? And he was like, I'm game. He lives like 10 houses down from me. He's like, I'm game. Let's go. And I'm like, let's talk. So one night we just got on the phone. It was amazing. It was an awesome show. He said, Matthew Leff is an OG King Market crew.

35:13I love it. We love Matthew Leff. Hopefully, hopefully this event business gets back up and running here pretty soon, man. We've got to get you back on the show and learn about what's happening right now with all that this new. Yeah, up to 500 people are now allowed. Matt, you got anything to say about the new phase three? Anything new going on with events right now? Let us know. I'll send you a link and come on right now. And seven minutes or eight minutes, we are going to have our local legend of the week. Daniel Majapinto will be on the show and he is the owner of Cafe Nonas in Sylvan Park, which is an absolute Nashville legend. If you like classic classic Italian food and every time that I go eat at Cafe Nonas, I feel like I'm transported to Europe. Oh, I need to go. I need to go a lot of places, but I end up always at work. You're always at work. You're right. You're always more at work. Maybe I'll have to start like being personal Uber eats. I'll just deliver you food at work. But you know, I'm like I told Brandon before I'm such a chain restaurant and fast food kind of girl yesterday at water cheesecake factory. I mean, you know, I grew up, you know, that's all we do. Oh, that's why I grew up with fast food chain restaurant. It was 50% off your dash. So I had to take advantage of that. Right.

37:0350% off like the whole thing. Yeah. Like it's first time me logging on door dash. So that's a management. I did. I got the cherry something. I got the Thai salad and then I got the carbonara. It was good. Did you approve of the Thai salad? I mean, I wasn't cooking it. Let's just say it was nice for to get served sometime. Absolutely. You know, it's really nice. That's why I'm like, I don't know. I just sometimes I don't even eat because I get so busy. But for, you know, for door dash to come and my server helped me put it on the plate. It was actually nice. You know, my server, they helped me like, let me plate it for you, Nina. Cause you know, you're so tired all the time. Like I am. It was like, at least I felt like I was in some kind of restaurant, right? Even though he's my own, but but we're gonna, um, we're just going to hang out with you, Nina. You get to control the conversation for five more minutes before we, before we have to bid you ado and we jump in with, with chef Daniel. But, um, what do you want to talk about? What's on your mind? What's on your heart?

38:18What do you want to, what do you want to talk about? Um, I don't know. I'm just overwhelmed with so much love that Nashville had given me like this past couple months. And then this past few days here, I just want to tell everybody. Thank you so much for loving me and believing in me and my dreams and all the support. I mean, it was just very overwhelming. That's all this week. I, I'm just overwhelmed. I don't have much going on except focusing on Brentwood, focusing on fifth and broad. So what are you focusing on? Like when you're opening Brentwood, what are the things that you have to do right now? What it's on? What's the first things that you're trying to set up? How I'm going to take all that purple booth out. How I'm going to take that orange floor out. I feel like, I feel like, um, gosh, have y'all seen Nama? I mean, I love, I used to eat Nama Ellison all the time. It was just so much color. It was orange. It was purple. It was, it was just so much. It was a lot. And then now I got to get with some upholstery people, some, I don't know. And then, you know, and I got to get with a whole bunch of people this next week here. And then at the same time, and then I got to call people to come and sanitize the whole place down. Cause I don't know, I'm scared. So we got a lot of work to do ahead of us before they come in and ambush that place. So you're going to be right next door to Maple Street Biscuit Company. It's going to be exciting. You know, who's right down the street from you also is a Soy Bistro. Yes, I love Soy Bistro. Oh my gosh. Is that not, uh, Kenji is the guy that owns that place now. He just changed hands. He was the manager. He just bought it, him and his wife, Jen. And, um, he's like one of the best people in the world.

40:09And Chris and his wife was very sweet too. I wonder what they're doing. I haven't, uh, heard anything what they're about to do. Who? Chris, the previous owner. Are they doing something else? Oh, I don't know. I haven't heard anything, but, um, I mean, that was such a great business. I wonder why they gave it up. Yeah. I, you know what? I think it was a lot of, I think they're like you, you know? I mean, there, it's a lot of work and they're tired. And I think that Kenji was one of those guys that just loves to get in there and work every day and wanted to take ownership. And I think that, um, they were like, Hey, you're going to do us proud and make it well, then, then do it. And I think it was more of a respect. That was really shocking to me though. I was like, what? Cause they did so well. It was so solid, right? I mean, and all of a sudden when I saw on Instagram, I'm like, Oh my God, I'm like, what happened? Was it COVID? Was it what? Right. Um, I never asked. So I've been in the works. It wasn't cause of COVID. It's been in the works for a little bit. Oh, okay. But, um, that bibimbap that they do there. It's so good. It is good. The skillet bibimbap is the best thing like next to Nina hot. It's really good. Actually, I'm going to go have lunch there Monday. I got a meeting there Monday. Oh, nice. Yeah. Hopefully they don't think I'm going to go scoop them out, but I mean, I'm going to ask them to go lunch and I'm like, okay, let's just go to soy bistro.

41:38Cause I hadn't had it in a while. Yeah. I try and get it like as much as I can. If I'm ever in that area around lunchtime, like, Oh, I'm in Brentwood around lunchtime. I'm going to go get soy bistro. Now I'm in that area. I'd be like, Oh my God. Um, what's that burger place by Taco Bell? The burger place by Taco Bell. Yeah. Right there in Maryland. Like, um, backyard burgers. Every time I think about Maryland ways, I think about backyard burger. I mean, you know, everybody think about, you know, wherever you go. I mean, I mean, it's real talk, right? I mean, you know, there's, you know, they have a new place right over there, right down the street. You'll have to get used to. So there's a couple of places right there in that little Brentwood area. Um, there's a place called peace love and little donuts. Oh yeah. I've seen that. Oh my gosh. They have, all right, check it out. They make these little donuts to order. Okay. It's like you, there's a tiny donuts and then they top them. They have a lucky charms donut, right? So they put like a, like a pink frosting on the donut and then they load it up with lucky charms marshmallows. It's called, it's called magically delicious. Nice. I bet they do like a Heath bar donut. They do. They have a whole selection of tiny donuts and they're made fresh. They make the donuts. Like there's like a machine that makes the donuts and then they're like fresh hot donuts and they top them and give them to you right then and there. They're amazing. There's also around the corner for me right around the corner. Like, okay. Like for us on the is right around the corner, like, um, like where Jenny's ice cream is like on that side or like down towards Muya and uh, eat the frog fitness. Is it new? Okay. Yes. It's, um, it's not new. There's, I don't know how new it is. I mean, I just noticed them like this past month. We took the kids there last week and got a dozen donuts and like tried them all. Yeah. I posted them on my Instagram. I think. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Once I head over there in January, I think that's what I'm going to be

43:42doing. I'm just gonna, um, eat out every day. Yeah. I'd be eating tiny donuts. Yeah. I get tired eating my food. I don't even want to look at it. I mean, I am so tired of my food. Like I would leave my restaurant and go to someone else's Thai restaurant and order the same thing. Is that sad? Is that sad? That's sad, huh? This is, this is where your husband's like, I don't want to hear real talk. I'm around it all day, smell it all day. And, um, when I see people coming at the restaurant, I'm like, you come here three, four times a week. Aren't you tired of it? And I'm like, no, we love it. I'm like, thank you. You know what I mean? Cause I want to know. Cause I do the same thing, but I'm like, I guess I'm around it so much where it's just like, you know what I mean? Do you know what? I don't know if realer words have ever been spoken on this show. True. What? I don't know if realer words have ever been spoken on this show, right? Sometimes I just, I mean, so we're so, we're so in this like promotional machine of like, you need to come try this dish. It's fantastic. You're like, y'all no bullshit. Like I'm tired of my food. Like you eat it all the time. I mean, that's a thing. Like that happens to anybody. I love your honesty. I mean, I'm honest. You know me. I mean, you know me. I'm honest. I let you know how it is. So. Well, you're amazing. I'm so, I'm so happy you decided to stay with us today.

45:06Yes. Thank you. Thanks for taking time. Oh, anytime. I always make time for you girl. Anytime. Brandon. Yes. What'd you call him? Have you seen your brother? I saw him last week. Yeah. I'm, I'm going to see him in like 30 minutes actually. Yeah. Having dinner. It is weird. It is my mom's birthday today. And so when we get done with the roundup, happy birthday mom. When we get done with the roundup, I'm going to take a trip through the woods, through my backyard, to my parents' house. And we are going to have everybody there. We're going to have a little celebration, just, just our immediate family. But yeah, everybody. What's that? Who's cooking? Dude, I don't even know. I've, I don't even know. I don't even know what the food situation is like. I know that my sister's, no, I knew what my, I do know what's happening. My sister's husband is cooking and he's making chicken thighs. He has like this famous chicken that he makes and he's grilling like slow roasting chicken thighs. And I'm pretty excited about eating his food. And then we're going to do like, you know, a little app and snacks, like hot dogs for the kiddos, you know, cause that's all kids eat. Yeah. That's awesome. Talk about chicken. So I don't know what it is, but there's so many hot chicken place here in Nashville and I really don't want to throw my chicken out there, but people keep asking me, why don't I do fried chicken? Let me just put it out there. I don't know how to fry chicken. I don't know the batter and I'm not going to try. I'm going to leave that to Hattie B's and all the chicken place. Okay. Just to clear for everyone.

46:46Cause everyone's like, Nina, we want you to do Nina hot chicken, Nina hot this. No, that's not my specialty. My specialty is just cooking stuff that I know. So for all the chicken lovers out there, I don't do fried chicken because I don't know how. Don't do fried chicken cause you do not know how. I mean, I know how to fry chicken, but I don't know how the battery is. And I was talking to Carrie about the other day, Carrie, he's such an amazing person and amazing chef and pit master, but I'm going to bring them to all of them. Yes. And he came, he said he came up with a really good fried chicken and I believe it, but I'm going to leave all the fried chicken to all y'all chicken people. I'm not going to do fried chicken. The only thing that I do is my Bangkok wing fry with no batter. That's all I know how to do. I'm going to leave the batter to everybody else. Jamie Fingo says, do your food from your heart. Yeah. Go try and do something you know how to do. Do it. Lord knows you have no shortage of fried chicken. So yeah, I don't do fried chicken. The only fried chicken I do is with no batter. It's going to be, it's going to be naked, naked chicken.

47:53So it's healthy. Yeah. So yeah, I'm like, I don't do that. I don't do, I do good spaghetti, Thai spaghetti. Shane Nasty, if you're listening, you already know. Katie Cross, you know, they try my spaghetti and I use ragu and I tweak it. Is it spicy? It sure was. Secret menu? Do you have a secret menu? It was ragu. Buy one get one free public. And I tweaked it and they loved it. You gave it to one of the two best chefs in Nashville and two of the best chefs in Nashville and they approved. So I guess it was good. All right. Well, we are going to say goodbye to the lovely and talented Nina. Congratulations on your new locations. We're going to bring in chef Daniel Maja Pinto now, but thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. And I see you soon.

48:58Bye. All right. So we're bringing in right now, Daniel Maja Pinto, the owner and chef at Cafe Nona and his appearance today is brought to you by Mobile Fixture. Mobile Fixture is your equipment headquarters and so much more. They are there through the entire process. They'll help you plan your kitchen, sell you the equipment, install it and make sure you know all the specs. You know how to use it. They are true professionals when it comes to kitchen equipment. So if you are opening a restaurant or just need an upgrade, go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com, click the sponsors tab and set up an appointment today. They're located in Smyrna. They've got a showroom. They love to talk to you and learn all about your business and help set you up for success. Without further ado, welcome Chef Maja Pinto. Hello. Hello, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity. Man, it's so good to see you. Last time I saw you was in the Costco parking lot.

50:07That's right. And I tend to see you all over town because you're a Nashvilleian. We're all different places for the restaurant. Yeah, I usually see the most chefs I usually see is at K&S Market. Yes, that's definitely a favorite and a good place to run to for your last minute needs. If you ever want to run into a chef randomly, go to K&S Market and hang out because that is where they all go. So how you been, man? We're bringing you on it as a local legend. We like to highlight people that have been in the business who have created this culinary scene that we have. And I absolutely believe you are one of those you are one of the forefathers of this Nashville culinary scene. How have you been doing? I've been good. I've been good. I mean, I feel honored to be considered part of that because, you know, it was what helped build the foundation for Nashville grown into such a culinary hub. You know, I mean, it's just it's just a great feeling.

51:09But we're doing well. We're, you know, working through all of this craziness and, you know, we're just doing the best we can and then, you know, bringing consistent food to people and trying to fill their appetites and keep them engaged, you know, and remembering us because there are a lot of other, you know, choices and stuff. But we try to, you know, put like everybody does some love in our food with a little potion in there just to, you know, make them want us more. Yeah, I think consistency is something that you do. You guys do really well. You're just you're consistent. I think that's really important. And you guys have been busy. Did you close? You've been doing takeout since when they started pretty much, right? Yeah, pretty much. We what was that? That was like March 13th, 15th, somewhere around the middle of March. They decided to close everything down, but you were still able to do the to go orders. And we, you know, fortunately, I had started that to go platform, like in 2017 with the third party things and that type of thing.

52:19And there was even times where I delivered, you know, some some local orders for regulars and stuff that didn't want to go through them because they didn't want to have to pay all that extra charge. Right. And, and yeah, so we had a, you know, foot in the door with that. You know, we didn't have to add it to our to our program. It was already there. So that helped a lot. And it adds to the bottom line. So it's really good. So Chef, one of the things we like to ask our local legends is let's teach the youngsters, let's teach the youngsters in this town have just got here. What does it take? What is the magic potion? What is the secret to your success? What has kept you around so long? Like Delia was saying, you know, the desire to be consistent, you know, and focus on what you're actually providing for, you know, for for the community, that, you know, the food and the service and, you know, trying to dot the I's and cross the T's on all of those all the time every day. I think I heard you talk on on one of the, one of the broadcasts about, you know, going into a place and, and, and, you know, they're all grouped together. There's no recognition.

53:37There's no, you know, there's, there's, there's those finer things that that make that initial, you know, initial reservation or night or, or even lunch, you know, memorable or even just enjoyable and to feel neglected or not to, you know, like people have other other things on their mind and whatnot, that it's, it's not good for the customers, you know, so we strive on consistency. And I think, you know, I'm a workaholic anyway, so, you know, that has a lot to do with it, too. You have to be willing to put the hours in. I mean, you know, and I'm not talking 60 hours a week, you know, I'm talking 80, 90 hours a week in the beginning when you, you know, a lot of these places now have large, um, staffs and, and, and, and backing and stuff so they can, you know, a lot of the people may not necessarily be overworked. Like if you open a place strictly by yourself and, you know, you're the, you're the show and, and you have to control everything, you know, front of the house, back in the house. So it just takes a lot of love and it's a love hate relationship. You'll hate it, you know, but then you'll love it because it's so, it's so satisfying, you know, it's so gratification.

54:57So, you know, I remember, I remember years of, you know, being in this business for a long time, but you, there's all the taste of music cities. There's, uh, I see Paul Brennan just gave a thumbs up. They do, uh, Nash or is it local flavors? Tennessee flavors is the event that they do over at Nashville state, but you're like, every time I go to one of those, you're there. You're part of the community. Like you're, you're not just a guy who's out here. Like this has been something that's been part of who you are, the fabric of this culinary community. I've seen you do cooking classes, but you, you genuinely are a guy that cares. And I think that there's, there's a lot to be said for that. Yeah, I think, you know, you know, a lot of people enjoy serving the community and, and, and doing fundraisers and stuff like that. And I'm definitely one of those people. I, um, you know, I, I just figured, you know, also in the beginning, when you're trying to watch a budget and everything that that's all free marketing, except for what your food cost is, you know, and if I'm doing it and I have, uh, the restaurant covered, I don't see it's, it's like one of those things. It's a no brainer, you know, just, you know, do it, but I do it because I enjoy it. And, um, and I like to be part of the community and, and, and, and we give as much as we can, you know, during the tornado, even, you know, for the essential workers. Um, and we still do things for different organizations, you know, um, you know, meals or just, uh, like a buffet type of thing or whatever, you know, but we just are, we're a community and family, you know, oriented, so to say, but yet we try to, you know, have a little bit of our signature, uh, touch on our food and that type of thing. 100%. I absolutely love that. So if you're out there right now and you're listening to this and you're thinking, gosh, where should we go this weekend? It's, it's Friday. We're looking to go out. This, this guy who likes to talk on Nashville restaurant

56:58radio keeps yelling, we need to go out and eat local. This, this is it folks. Um, you need to go out. If you haven't been to cafe Nona in a long time, or you're trying to plan what you're going to do, go by and see chef Daniel Majapinto who's, who's running your kitchen. Are you, you're not doing the chef Lee everyday chef duties. Are you? No, there's, um, there's, you know, I've, I've stepped away a little bit to, to concentrate on, like you say, community. My, my, my known as gourmet foods where I make sauce and donate it for St. Jude's, but I mean, I can always get back to that, but my main, you know, people in the kitchen are people that have been with me minimum of six years. I have somebody that's been there in the kitchen 16 years and who is it? Uh, he's a guy named Juvie. He's a Spanish guy and he started out as a dishwasher, you know, 15, 16 years ago and just had a desire to cook and is amazing. And those are the people, let's call them out. You know, let's, let's say Juvie, you're the man.

58:02Yeah. Juvie's the man. Jen, Jen Monk. She's the, she's a, she's a fantastic woman. She runs it. Luis, he's in there kicking, kicking butt too. I mean, the front of the house does what they need to do. The back of the house, you know, picks up their slack and I try to tell them that, you know, your job is the kitchen. It's not the front of the house, the front of the house. Your job is the front of the house. It's not the kitchen. So, you know, they all know what their boundaries are and they allow each other to do, you know, what they need to do. And a lot of times that helps with consistency because you're not, your mind's not muddled with, with all this other kind of front of the house, back of the house attacks and stuff. Yeah. We want to keep away from creating silos, but at the same point, do the things, you know, you're really good at and focus on them and knock them out of the park, right? Absolutely. Deal. You got a question. We've got a couple of comments. Paul Brennan says we truly appreciate you chef. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Appreciate you. Gary Garrett, who's had also, he had, he's got some, he's been commenting all day. New methods of giving us will cost a lot of money up front within three months. You will not be using any equipment or tools. He must have a day off today if he's been doing it all day. And then Jamie says, I love that you give back to your community.

59:23And that's, that's really one of the hallmarks of things that that's, that's who you are. I mean, you've, you've always had a spirit of service. You've always given to your community and that's why we want to highlight you, right? Well, thanks, man. Yeah. I mean, you know, we, we, we've been doing it before day one, you know, before we opened up. So we, you know, we, we just keep on doing it. We keep on plugging. I mean, there's, there's people that need things out there and there's, you know, causes that need money raised. And, and if my meatballs can help raise some money and bring people in for $50 a head or whatever it is, then let's do it. You know, but, but it's, it's also joyful to see the people come and they talk to you and tell you how much they actually, you know, enjoy your restaurant. And that is self-satisfying in itself and, and honorable. I mean, it's, it's such an honor to, to, to have people talk to you like that. Absolutely. I guess the question I have is going to be service focused. We've talked a lot about service and how it can make or break an experience. I think that's something that you also do well there beyond like consistency of the food is consistency of service. I was griping earlier this week because there is a bar that is very near to where I live. And if they ever acted like they recognize me and didn't tell me, tell me they were closed 30 minutes before they're actually supposed to close, as if I'm a tourist, then I would go there a lot. And so something that you do differently is like, you remember people and you pay attention and I think you wouldn't turn someone away 30 minutes before close just to come in for a drink. Like, so what's the secret sauce with your restaurant in mind to a good purpose and what you do so well there?

01:01:05Um, that, you know, is, is just the love of seeing smiling people want to come in and, and people coming in through the door and, and recognizing faces, you know, who have, some people have not been there for 10 years and they come in or some people live in the neighborhood and they come in twice a week, but just recognizing them and, and, and saying, you know, hello to them, ask them how they're doing, not smother them unless they want to be smothered, you know, and some do, some do, but, um, you know, and seeing their faces when they sit down and how happy they are and, and just the joy that they feel when they sit in there. I mean, it's just, it's just sort of an amazing feeling. And, um, you know, just, uh, while you guys were saying one other show about just recognizing somebody, you know, when they come in the door, so they don't feel like they're being shut out, whether it's busy or not, you know, um, and a lot of people we recognize, you know, we know what they want, what they drink, they, they come in the same thing. And, and those are all keys to service. I think that I didn't develop, but that I just followed from working in other places and learning, um, you know, growing up in the industry, um, and, uh, just, you know, wanting to provide, you know, a positive customer service all the time. But as you know, I mean, you can't always please, you know, some customers, but you try your best to do so. And you just, you know, you, you kind of try to smother them with love, you know, and then, and do what you do. Well, it's your, your point exactly Delia. And I love that answer, Daniel. I just, I'm sorry to call you Daniel. You go by Dan or I've always called you Daniel. Yeah, that's fine. Whatever. It's all good. They call me Danny growing up. So they call me Daniel down here, Daniel growing up, you know, Dan here and there. So I, I answer it all. Well, I, um, do you take, how do you, do you take reservations?

01:03:06Yeah, we call up. We, I think we have, uh, uh, there, uh, we'll just bring it on or we just brought on some, uh, reservation system. If you go to hello Nashville, uh, Cafe Nona, hello Nashville, I think it is.com. And, um, it can, uh, you can, you can place, you know, places to go or make a reservation. Excellent. So that's, this is what I wanted to say, um, to people out there who are listening. If you're, if you go to restaurants and you don't feel like you're appreciated, you feel like you're doing them a disservice. Cause a lot of these places you can walk in and you're like, hello. You're like, Oh, how many, or did you make it? Like, it's just this whole attitude. This, you walk into Cafe Nona and if you've ever been to Europe and you like the little cafe, it's, you're not a little cafe, but like the vibe in there, it's just so, it's so nice. It's just like the best feeling. It's like a warm, I've come home. I need to be here. The food is authentic. It's fantastic. You've been around. When did you open?

01:04:07We opened in 99. So we're 21, 21 years. And, uh, you know, originally we were probably, we were the smallest restaurant. We had less than 40 seats at the time because you had to have 37 to get a wine license. We didn't have the pad, two patios. Um, and then, um, you know, we started putting flip up tables and beliefs in between tables and different things like that. And, and we were able to fit, fit more people 50 inside, you know, 20 on the patio. Now we have a front patio, but yeah, there's a lot more restaurants right now that are actually probably smaller than what we actually started out with. But, you know, it was, it, I, I like small restaurants because they're always, you know, they always look filled. So, you know, that kind of starts to buzz right there. And, uh, you know, wow, it's filled. It must be great. And when they get in there and realize that it is great, then they, you know, that it becomes, you know, something that they put in the list of places they love to go, you know, what they choose What's if somebody has never been there before, first of all, shame on you, but there's somebody who's never been there before. What's the thing that they gotta get? What's the, what's like the, the dish that is the most popular and then that's, what's the most popular dish? Number one. And number two, if I'm the owner, if I'm you, what's, what's the best thing between, between us, nobody's listening, just between us. What's the best, what's the best? Oh, the lampshanks, you know, is, is really good. Um, it's braised for four or five hours. It's got its beans and greens saute type of thing with it. It's got this really decadent sauce. That's the reduction of the braising liquid, uh, the, the seafood Angelina. I mean, some of these dishes have been on there for 21 years. And for the reason that if I, there are some dishes that I've taken off and people want me to make them again. So I'm like, well, you know, I always do specials and stuff like that to help,

01:06:10help different stuff. But those are two of the main ones. The lasagna Nona, the butternut squash, spinach lasagna. We do do a bolognese lasagna, which is, uh, which is really good as well. And it's a, it's a popular cell, uh, but are probably our most popular, uh, section of the menu is that mix and match pasta section that I, that I came up with. And it was, I don't know, 30 years ago at a place I ate in, in, in New York, probably somewhere on the East, you know, seventies on the East side. And they had this thing and I was like, wow, this is kind of different, you know, I never really thought of anything. But then when I came around and started cooking and doing, um, you know, coming up with a menu that it, you know, it was something that I wanted to do because it gives people choices of what they want, you know, and I would have to say that over 21 years, I mean, we've probably sold, you know, I don't know, 600,000 or more pastas, you know, over, over that time, you know, so, you know, it's, it's definitely probably the most popular because people create things. It allows them to create what they want. And then that's what they, they, that's, that's the only place that they really can get it. Cause if you go to somewhere else and they don't have it specifically on the menu, they're subbing this and subbing that a lot of places don't like to do it. So it sort of brings people back. But when they come back there, they say, oh yeah, I had to come back here to get that pasta I created, you know, last year or something like that, or last week. So, you know, I'd say those, those things, the lasagna is the seafood Angelina, which is, you know, really rich broth, uh, with heavy cream and saffron in it, some seafood, baby clams, the, uh, the lamb shank, definitely for sure.

01:08:01Do you still have the pizza, um, that has the pear, the pear? Right. No, we don't because we, uh, the reason why I opened up the pizzeria was because making pizzas in my small kitchen on top of my menu was just starting to become crazy. And the whole flour gluten free thing was, you know, was starting to, starting to evolve and, you know, we're rolling out pizzas and it's sort of the same place where you're doing other stuff. And, you know, so I figured cross contamination. So we had got that space became available and then we got that wood fired oven and that was the, uh, it had the, um, the prosciutto, the pears and it had the gorgonzola and, uh, yeah. What was that pizza called? Three graces. It was called the three graces. Hallelujah. That was the best damn pizza I've ever had in my life. You know, it's so simple. You know, it was so simple, but, um, yeah, but that, um, my business partner, Bob Sillers, who, you know, has been a big, uh, influence in, uh, in all the years. I mean, he was with me for almost the whole 21 years. He passed away in August of 2018. So, um, I just decided to dial back and, uh, and close, you know, the pizza side down, um, and just continue with what the tradition has been. And that's Cafe Nona. That's what he used to call the goose that laid the golden egg. So, you know, uh, so we figured, you know, I figured, let me just run with that. And that's, that's where we've been since 2018.

01:09:41Well, I can't thank you enough. Delia, do you have any more questions for, for Chef? No, just, uh, thanks for all you do for Nashville and all you have done and hope to see you soon. Yes, absolutely. Just let me know. This has been a blast. I appreciate you guys for what you do and, and what you're bringing to everybody's eyes. So, uh, keep it up and, and you're knocking it out of the ballpark. Well, thank you very much. The New York Mets had, even though they were in last place this year, but you know, he got to represent, right? Exactly. Thank you for, for always being a friend to me and being a sales person who was just trying to make his way throughout town for so many years. You were always so gracious and you're always willing to teach me something new, but you were always somebody who welcomed me into the restaurant with open arms. And I will never forget that you've, you're, you're a true, um, your spirit of service and just who you are as an amazing individual. I'm so honored to have you on the show. I'm going to contact you. We're going to do a full interview for an hour. It's going to be awesome. Thank you for being our local legend. Thank you. I appreciate you guys.

01:10:52All right. Have a great day. Bye bye. I tell you, I love that guy. Good guy. I haven't been in there in a while. I need to go back. Uh, I was just thinking my sister turns 40 on October the third and not, it wasn't the last time we were there, but we went to cafe Nona for her 30th. Is that the last time it was not the last time he said, not the last time I was there, but I'm my Facebook. So I just signed up for Facebook. Like when my first post was I checked in at cafe Nona, I think, I guess I've gotten takeout from there. But other than that last time, like actually the only good bumble date I ever had was there. Maybe it was the vibe. Maybe it was just a good vibe. There was never a second day, but it was like not a terrible thing. You are too funny. All right. Um, what else? We had bar, we had some bar stuff to talk about and then we're going to get into the Nashville hot list, which is my list.

01:12:00Competing list. Do you have a song like a drum roll? No, I don't even have my logo yet, but I will. This is the list is a little premature. Um, but we're going to have the whole thing rolled out next month. It's going to be amazing. All right. What do you got as far as, uh, the bar scene? Well, this segment's brought to you by Pennington distilling company, um, located there in the nations. They're the very first green to glass Tennessee sour match batch whiskey, um, sour mash whiskey made in Nashville, made in Nashville since prohibition. There's many others, but they are the first one since prohibition and they're doing a damn good job with Davidson's reserve. So go pick up a bottle today or next time you're out, make sure you ask for it. It's really good. And it's local support our local people. What do you got? Great. Okay. Guess where we went last night for the first time. I've only gotten takeout from there before I went to German town pub. Yes. It was my first time there. And we just went by after dinner for a drink and it was packed. There was preview going on. Um, so we snagged like the last seat on the patio, which it was nice out. So it's great, great time for patios and social distancing and all that, but we had great service and the drinks are like cheap for cocktails in Nashville. Yeah. Well, man, it's a neighborhood pub. I know, but I mean, in German town, I think I usually pay like $15 for like this sort of cocktail and it was $9 there.

01:13:31And then, uh, my guy got a beer and a shot for $8, which I guess is a special every day of the week except Saturday, maybe, but that's a good deal. Yeah. They do the beer and a shot thing. They're, um, they're all over it. They're a cool little neighborhood pub, man. I mean, they're not like super hoity toity going there. It's anybody's welcome. Good. It's a, it's a melting pot. You walk in there and you're like, there is not one like demographic of people that is hanging out here. It's everybody. It's awesome. I liked it. Um, and the service Travis maybe was super nice and was telling us we had to try the wings and I was like, I just ate like eight things. So I got to come back for the wings. He said the trifecta wings. I think I got to try them. Oh, they're, they're absolutely legit. I wrote about them before cause people have told me, but I've never had them. So I got to go back to that. Um, so that's it. That's a new find for approachable, like cool vibe and affordable cocktail in Nashville. Um, my old standards for just when I want to take somebody to a dark cocktail bar, I go to old glory, the Fox bar sovereign. And then my, my new hotspots are Joseph hotel. I love, um, denim, the rooftop is cool view is awesome. And Daniel, um, I don't know if it's Carrillo, Daniel Carrillo, uh, leads the bar up there and he makes excellent drinks. And then downstairs, the guys, Nate, and the guys downstairs at the bar at Yolanda, I've, I've frequented that since it opened because it's walking distance away and it's just a good new spot. So that's my like hot list personally for drinks right now. Denim is like the coolest. I thought like the L's, L24, L27. I think it's okay. Seven. Yeah. Was a super cool top of the Weston. Yeah. That denim up there with the cabanas. I had no idea how many other pools were on rooftops. Yeah.

01:15:24It's the thing. I don't know. It's definitely a thing. I didn't know. I walked up there and I did kind of a tour and I looked at it and I went, wow, there are pools all over the place on rooftops, but theirs is like, it's the catbird. It's up there looking down on the rest of them. I think this one's like the classiest, like most luxurious rooftop field that I've seen. Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. I love it. So those are mine. I don't know. No, that's great stuff. Um, so I guess that's going to bring us to the Nashville hot list. Nashville hot list. Nashville hot list. So here's the deal. We are providing the best. This list is the best restaurants in Nashville right now. This is a list of restaurants that are doing the best job. So we're, I'm grading them on food, service, innovation, and X factor. And the X factor right now is COVID response and safety. There's a bunch of just different things that are going to the X factor. That's the X that's why it's the X factor. So what we're going to do is I'm going to list the top five. And if you want to hear the rest of them, you want to hear six through 10, you'll need to go to nashvillerestaurantradio.com. And, um, I don't know if I'll have it on the homepage or if you look up there, you can click hot list. I may have a special tab for it. I haven't put it up there yet. It will be up midnight tonight. You will be able to go and see six through 10. You better hear one through five in just a moment. But here's what I need your help with. If you are out there and you have an idea, you go somewhere you think is amazing. This is the best restaurant you're on Instagram. You're an influencer. I want you to start using the hashtag Nashville hot list, hashtag Nashville hot list. Let me see. I want to see if you're a restaurant out there and you're putting food out there. You're doing cool stuff. Use the hashtag Nashville hot list. And I will absolutely see all of the cool stuff that is going on. I will repost,

01:17:32let you know, because I need help. I need more information that I can possibly get because I cannot go out to eat everywhere all the time. And we will have something new, which, um, we're working on probably in November, uh, maybe even December where we're going to have a voting system where we're going to bring this to you, the restaurant owners, or we're going to have a voting system for you to let me know what you think the best restaurants are. And we're going to expand it to not only the top 10 best restaurants in Nashville right now, we'll have the best new restaurants. Um, we will have the best legacy restaurants, best restaurants in Brentwood, best restaurants in Mount Juliet, best restaurants in Hendersonville, best restaurants downtown, East Nashville. So we're going to have different lists that you need to go to at Nashville restaurant radio.com. Uh, so you'll be able to come in and vote for your favorites. It won't just be all up to me. So this list is, uh, I've talked to a lot of people. I've got a lot of opinions on this. I've eaten at a lot of places and, um, this is the hot list, the Nashville hot list. Are you ready Delia Jo? I'm ready to hear it. She doesn't know who this is. She's, she's got her own list. Number five on the list coming in hot with one of our friends of the show. Um, they have pivoted throughout the pandemic and have done a great job recently reopened a few weeks ago to great fanfare and absolutely killing it. They've had their coffee shop, low hand coffee and bake shop has been just killing it throughout this thing.

01:19:17They did Lanyard Po Boys, Pelican and Pig coming in number five, best restaurants in Nashville right now. Number four is a, the newest iteration of this restaurant, which is an innovative restaurant that is nationally recognized. Uh, Josh Hobbiger was one of the original chefs at this restaurant. Brian Baxter is now at the helm. They've been doing amazing things, uh, keeping people socially distanced and creating amazing food throughout the pandemic or during the pandemic here. Uh, the catbird seat coming at number four's fourth best restaurant in Nashville. Number three or one of the top three here, ladies and gentlemen, number three is a staple in this city. They've been around just about 10 years and throughout the pandemic, they have been helping people from the tornado through the pandemic. They've been helping people. They've been doing it right. They've kept their entire staff intact. They have been socially distancing and all the while helping their community and creating amazing food day in and day out. Number three, best restaurant in Nashville right now is Lockland Table.

01:20:34Hal was on the show a couple weeks ago and, um, couldn't be more excited for what they are continuing to do in the East Nashville area. Number two on our list is coming in hot with another person who has been on the show. If you're on the show, it's not a factor. It's really not your restaurant is the best, by the way. This person happened to have been on the show. He actually has the number one show of all of our episodes. This one has the most listens. And, uh, one of my favorite interviews that we've done is, um, Josh Hobbiger, the owner and chef at Bastion. Uh, him and his wife Lauren run an amazing operation over there. They've had to completely pivot to their big bar 86ing just doing nachos out of there, but their restaurant is amazing. They've gone back now. I believe that they have gone back to the big bar and the small bar, the dining room. And what they're doing is second to one as they are number two best restaurant in Nashville right now. Bastion in the Wedgwood Houston area.

01:21:47Number one, who is the inaugural number one, the best restaurant in Nashville right now? That was my drum roll. It was your drum roll. This restaurant is new to the scene. They are not a local legend. However, the man at the helm of this is a local legend in the city of Chicago. He's a James Beard award winning chef. He has a Michelin star. And what they are doing at the Joseph hotel is second to none. Yolan is our number one restaurant in Nashville right now. So there you go. We can start the debate. Um, feel free to let me know what you think. Use the hashtag Nashville hot list and tomorrow morning you can log onto Nashville restaurant radio.com and you can see number six through 10.

01:22:53Couple surprise on there. Couple of missions. Um, now I'm excited to see what happens in the month of November. This was the October list. The first episode of Nashville restaurant radios round up in November. We will be announcing our Nashville hot list again. Uh, so we will be compiling data throughout the month. We'll love to see what your restaurants are able to do out there with new restaurants opening and everything that's going on. That's it. There's your Nashville hot list. What do you think Julia? Congrats on the first list. I think it's a solid, solid five. Um, yeah, good places, good people, talented people, and people that have, I think been innovative and, um, good to the community during the pandemic and consistent. So I think is the number one question I get, I think from people is where should we go to eat? There's so many restaurants I don't even know who to keep up with. And I wanted to create a top 10 list that is absolutely solid from top to bottom. If you want to go out in Nashville and you haven't eaten at any of these restaurants, you need to go. You will have a fantastic time. There's a zero percent chance you will not love it. So I am wanting to put out a list that is a absolute de facto. This is your list of places that you need to go eat right now. I tell you that is a question that I get almost every day. And I swear every time I get this deer in the headlights, like I've never been to a restaurant before in my life, as if I don't go every day. Oh my God, I don't know. But I think for me, it's cause I feel like they're like my children and I, every day I could have a different idea of what is my favorite. Like maybe today I want pizza and I'm gonna tell you three pizza places. I don't know. So it's, it's a tough question for me. So I think it's good to have a finite, like here's, here's your list. Here's my list. Here's my top 10. If you ask me the question, these are the top 10 restaurants in Nashville right now. Just direct people to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Say if you want to know where to go eat tonight, go to

01:24:55NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. That's going to be your list. I know you are going to be bringing back your Nashville heat map, right? At eater.com. Let's give you a little bit of a plug. Coming back to Eater Nashville on Monday, we had to push pause because of just company restrictions during the pandemic, but it is coming back. That's our like six months and less, a list of hot spots in town. So coming back Monday. Awesome. Well, we look forward to that. We look forward to interviews next week. We are going to have on Monday on NashvilleRestaurantRadio, we're going to have Hannah Heusman. And who is Hannah Heusman you asked? It's a great question. You have no idea who she is. She is not in the industry. She's not in the restaurant business. She's not even in Nashville. She is the mental strength coach for the Philadelphia Phillies. I follow her. She's a good friend of mine, Rod Thurley's daughter. And I follow her on LinkedIn. And she does something called mental sweat Mondays. And they are absolutely fantastic. And during this time, we're going to do a motivation Monday, we're going to talk to the mental strength coach for the Philadelphia Phillies. She's going to motivate us. She's going to get us ready to go for a hell of a week. So I'm so excited to have Hannah Heusman on the show. Coming up this Monday. Wednesday, we're going to have a man named Fleming Wilt. Fleming is the president of Christie Cookie Company. So they, they've had an interesting last year. I mean, right in the middle of Germantown, they've had took a ton of damage during the tornado, going right into COVID-19. So hearing his story, being at the helm of that leading his team through a tornado and then through COVID-19.

01:26:47And what they're doing right now going into the holiday season is just a really fascinating journey that he's going to take us on. And I'm really excited to share it with the rest of you. Coming up the week after we have BJ Luftbach, who's going to be the owner of Pinchy's Lobster. I know you're a big fan over there, Delia. And Funk Soul Brother. And we've got some other pretty big names coming up. I think that same week, we're going to have Taber Lucky, who is the owner of all the corner pubs. Not the original, not Jeremy Palmer, the original corner pub. He has all the new corner pubs. He's the new owner, as well as Askeena Cantina. So I can't wait to hear his story. He used to be the executive chef at J. Alexander's and he was part owner in Infinity Hospitality. He's going to have a great story. I can't wait to share these stories. Lots of great interviews coming up on Nashville Restaurant Radio. And then next week, we have an all new roundup. Get ready for a rousing episode with a segment, What's the Delia?

01:27:54Which I am super excited to get back to doing those here and there. Once a month, right? Yeah, once a month. Once a month. So thank you guys for listening. Yeah. Hey, say pretty music city. And remember, you can still be pretty with a mask on. And phase three. Yay. And phase three, we hope that you continue to be safe out there. Moving to phase three, still wear your mask when you go out. Very important people. Don't mess this up. We want to get to phase four. Don't start being idiots. We want to get out of this. So still wear your mask. Social distance. Be smart and be safe. We love you guys. Bye.