#theroundup 10-30-20 Featuring Tom Morales, Laura Wilson, and Hrant and Liz Arakelian from Lyra

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. My name is Brandon Styll and I am joined, as always, by Delia Jo Ramsey. She is the editor of Eater Nashville. Delia, how are you feeling this week? I am much better this week, Brandon. Thank you for understanding last week and thank you to Caroline for filling in and people who check in on me. I just, I think this weather is getting my migraines triggered and I've heard a lot of people had headaches lately and I think they were making me sick last week, so I'm all better this week. That's fantastic. I'm one of those people too. I've been having headaches too and I'm like, I don't know what's going on, but keeping Advil in business. So, so happy to have you back.

01:04Like you said, big thanks to Caroline Galzin last week and that's our obligatory Caroline Galzin mention for the show. Every show, every show. Today, we have one hell of a show today and Delia, where's Christy Cookie gonna be taking us today? Well, Christy Cookie is taking us to one of my favorite places to dine in town. There's a lot to delve into later in the show. We are talking about East Nashville. That's right. We're gonna be talking East Nashville today. People that call it East nasty. Is that like a thing? People like, ah, East Nashville. Nobody from here calls it that, do we? I don't think, I mean, I don't think so. I won't say it. Also, like, I'm not cool enough to be like an East Nashville person. I just like to eat there and drink there. I don't know. I've never heard anyone really say it. Unless they're really drunk, maybe. I cannot wait to delve into that, what you just said. I'm not cool enough to hang out there because I'm definitely not, but I am. I feel like I am though, so we're gonna get into that. But right now, how was your week? Big week this week. Um, you know, I think it's been a good week. I ate some good hot chicken yesterday. I've been working on a collaborative dinner where I'm bringing in a bunch of pop-up chefs. Where? It's a secret so far. It's a secret. Oh, I'm working on something with Julio from my Zilla Vida and Josh from Ellie on Dorado and Edgar from Alabrije and Brad from Set Sun and Rooney from Black Dynasty. Wow. I'm working on something. It's not the details aren't ironed out yet, but that's what I've been working on this week. I voted this week, which I think you did too. So what was your week like?

02:57It was, you know what? It was a huge week this week. I did vote and it was, it was amazing. You know, I voted every time I've been able to vote. I think this is my fifth time voting. And I've been seeing people posting and voting that it was special to them, but there was something weird. I got behind the curtain and I'm pushing the buttons and I was, I felt this weird, crazy, like, power. And, um, you know, after all the complaining, all the arguments, all the rhetoric, all the the only thing that you can really do, I mean, like physically that I can do as like my, my God given right as an American is to go vote, is to go make your, it's that one little thing. You just go and make your voice heard. And, you know, voting is such a privilege and it's such an amazing thing. I mean, you think people of color, uh, women, anyone who's been told they weren't allowed to vote. I mean, for, for me not to vote is really a slap in the face to everybody. And I mean, I just, I don't think it's ever a more important time to get out and vote. I'm so excited for next week. Um, I'm ready to get this election over with and, uh, ready, so ready to like move past it. We have such a monstrous week next week. Starting off on Monday, we have got, uh, Benjamin Goldberg is going to be our interview Monday morning. And then Tuesday, we're doing a back to back Monday and Tuesday, Tuesday, we're going to have Dee Patel, who is the managing director for the Hermanich Hotel, and we're going to have an election day kind of special interview, not putting that Wednesday, we're going to fast forward it to Tuesday. And we're going to be talking about all things.

04:39She is one of the most amazing people and I am beyond excited. Uh, she is the new president for La Dame Scafie. Like I said, managing director, first managing director for the Hermanich Hotel. And we're going to be talking about all of these, uh, all these things. Could you like go live and distract us during, uh, like the results? I may, I may. Uh, big week for me. Also yesterday, I celebrated one year of sobriety. Much, um, it was so crazy. I was feeling so much pressure coming up to it and, um, it was a pretty emotional day. My wife said yesterday, she said, well, now there's no more surprises. We've gone through an entire year. That is all the birthdays, all the holidays, vacations and a pandemic. So, um, we feel pretty confident that going forward, like, what are you going to throw at us? I feel like I'm ready.

05:39However, uh, I do know that it is still one day at a time. I'm not getting arrogant over here. Just, it was pretty cool. It's a pretty, pretty big moment for me and, um, super humbled by all the love on social media yesterday. It was just really a, um, really a special day. Absolutely. Just really proud for you and of you and everything that you've done and put your heart into. Um, just shining a light on this industry. I mean, and surviving a pandemic without a drink is a feat. So I will call that out for sure. So I'm proud for you and for what you've done and your wife and your boys. Just proud for you guys. Thank you so much. Um, we, we're going to jump right into this show because, oh my gosh, we have, we are, we have got a hell of a show today. The first segment of our show is going to be the what's new segment. It's brought to you by Cytex and, um, Cytex is a third generation family owned and operated linen mats and uniform company.

06:42They're really the good guys in the linen business. And I know a lot of people think that that's like an oxymoron, but they really are like the linen business is such a crazy business. They're the ones you can trust. They're going to come in and they're going to shoot you straight. Um, and they're transparent with their pricing. They have incredible quality, uh, and their service is second to none. Please, please, please go to Cytex-corp.com or give Ross Chandler a call at 270-823-2468. They are standing by. Oh, and I want to show you something. Cytex is a new sponsor has hooked it up. They hooked you up Delia. You ready for this? I'm going to show you, I'm going to show you this. 52 is the high on Monday and you now have a brand new vest. I like that one. This vest is Nashville restaurant radio vest. And then you also have a polo and our brand new Nashville restaurant radio t-shirt. Holy outfitted, outfitted.

07:47You can get your own. Not only Delia has her own, but you can get your own right now at Nashville restaurant radio.com. We have these t-shirts. This is a tri-blend. It's like that super, super duper soft with the rayon in it. It's just the most comfortable thing in the world. So we're excited to have Cytex. We're going to bring on, um, a, our first guest here in just a second. We're going to be talking to Mr. Tom Morales, um, of the, uh, of Tom Katz fame. Uh, he was on our show a little while back in the middle of the pandemic and he made a pretty big announcement just, um, a couple of days ago and we're going to bring him on, uh, in just a moment. But let's, um, let's talk about what's new. What's opening right now, Delia. All right. I'll try to like run through this really fast because I think it comes on at five minutes. Is that right? Yes. Well, yeah, he comes on at four or three 45. Okay. Um, so, uh, first I'm not trying to play favorites, um, but Locust opened today and I am so pumped about some dumplings and shaved ice.

08:52So, um, I tried to look to make a reservation for today and they're already booked up. So I'm going to get back here this weekend, probably because dumplings and Japanese style shaved ice, like Trevor just killed it. Like everything he does, you know, he came from Tappers and instead to have someone of that caliber making a casual restaurant in just like 12 south neighborhood is really, really cool. So I'm excited for that today. Um, also this week, you know, Jasper's from Deb and Doug open on Monday and Nikki's coal fired bagels come into the gulch on Saturday for the first time. The old Zoli coffee space, another Caroline Galvin, uh, mentioned if you'd like to have a drink, look at that, um, at a boy again, reopened last weekend. So really, really good. This exciting like uplifting is from such a place that went through such a hard time. And Sid Gold's request room on Gallatin is open as of now. It's supposed to be a karaoke piano bar, but they're open sans karaoke for now, but they've got the cool thing.

09:55I mean, it's another silver lining because a lot of artists aren't touring right now. So they've got some great pianists that tour with big names that are just playing in this national bar right now. So that's happening. Um, I've been trying to catch up with what was happening in the old royal cleaners on 12 south. Um, and that's going to be a place called Emory from the owners of the Stillery. So it's going to be like a wood fired menu with pizza, burgers, steak, seafood. Um, there'll be a patio, so I'm trying to get more information on that. I think it's going to be spring of next year, so that's a coming soon thing. Um, I'm just glad it's a restaurant. Yes, I know. I was like, it has to be restaurant. And then there's also, do you know what's going on with, um, was it embers, the bar on 12 south? Like they're building a two story thing. So what I understand is that on top of that, uh, we talked about this last week, the on top of that is there's always like a bus parked out front, like a Volkswagen bus that sells t shirts. That's going to be their permanent store there. They're upstairs.

10:56I think they're going to make it. That's from everything I've heard. I mean, don't quote me on that, but I believe they're going to make a store out of that. I was like, I was going to like a rooftop bar is what I kind of like went in my head to. It was that part last week, but cool. Um, so that's, I mean, coming soon and newly opening places. That's what I did. I did it kind of fast just now because I was like, didn't realize I was talking really quickly. You did a fantastic job. And you know, Mr. Morales is waiting right here. Are you ready to go? He gave me the thumbs up. Let's bring him in right now. Live Mr. Tom Morales. Welcome, sir. How are y'all? We're making it, man. Yeah, I said I'm up at the Buffalo river. I took a pause about six moons ago to assess the situation. Sometimes if you're not in the leadership position in terms of, really for the hospitality industry, I think we're getting great leadership.

12:01But for the federal government, we're not. And it's kind of a sad day for me and the hospitality industry. We just laid off over 200 people and didn't lay them off, furloughed them. But I'm in the pause zone is what I mean. I'm just looking at the river flow by. I saw an eagle this morning. I've got my sons with me. So life is good on that side. On the other side, there's a lot of sadness really in our company. So tell me about that. I mean, I've read the other day that you had decided that you were going to go ahead and close ACME. Does that include also the Southern or any of your other ventures? We're keeping the Southern open. I think you have a little bit more of an upscale crowd there being polite. I mean, and people, it's a higher ticket average. So people are coming in there on best behavior generally.

13:04We've had some incidences. We had some people walk in with mesh masks that said fake news on it. And they wouldn't put on a real mask. So we just kindly asked them to leave. In the hospitality industry, you don't count your hours. You don't count the money you make. You count the pats on the back, the compliments, how great your food is, how well they were treated. And when we become the police, it diminishes the reason you're in the business first off. Lower Broad is like a perpetual Trump rally. I mean, it's non-believers and COVID spreaders. And you've got to look at it as college kids. They're not flying in on airplanes. They're driving in on cars. And I've got twin sons, 19 years old. Their prefrontal cortex is not developed yet. They're going to make decisions not based on what's best for them or best for their mom or best for their grandmom. They're going to make them what's best for them.

14:05Let's have fun and the hell with everything else. And I've watched it for a month. And I've watched the Metro government really just fail us. They can say they've got people down there watching it, but it is so obvious. I mean, there's people packed in these places and they come to our doors. We've had eight or nine cases of COVID since we opened in a month. And some of them are serious. We've had one person, actually, he got it before we even opened. He lost 23 pounds and was in ICU for two weeks and he's 43 years old. And I've had other people that didn't even feel symptoms. So science is going to lead us through this. I think we could have instant testing at every mass gathering place right now if the government, the federal government had the will. And then you'd know right off the bat, I'm getting ready to get on an airplane in a couple of weeks. American Airlines is going to test me for COVID before I get on the flight.

15:08So there's a way right now to reopen the economy, but it's not just pretending that this isn't real or saying it's fake news or whatever the hell you want to call it. But it's sad. And I wish some of these people could look in the eyes of the people that work for me. You know, who can live off $275 a week with kids who aren't in school? You know, and they're feeding them. You can't do $900 a week. Everybody says, oh, there's no incentive for them to go back to work. Who in this country can live off $900 a week? Tom, I want to go back just, and I don't think anybody can, but I want to go back a little bit. And so you were kind of the one that held out the longest. You were the longest to wait to reopen. So this is going to be a two-part question. When you did decide to reopen, why did you decide to go ahead and do it? And then was there a moment that you realized that we need to close this thing down?

16:08And was it like one thing that happened or was it just a collection of a bunch of things? Well, I did some soul searching to even reopen. And the reality was is the way the PPP money was designed, if you didn't spend it, you owed it or you lost it. And between our operations, we have 360 people that work for it, not including the musicians who depend on our stage, all the other people. So it was a difficult decision to reopen. And then we watched the usual suspects just violate the mandates. I wrote a strong letter about three weeks ago to the mayor. He didn't even have the courtesy to respond to me. His leadership is shown in the fact that he won't even respond to the news people who are trying to get a comment about what's going on on lower abroad. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to walk down Broadway and look.

17:10No one's wearing masks. The police, they're not citing anybody. They're handing out masks, you don't have to wear it. Just here, here's a mask. And they're in an impossible position. I understand that. I know we need hotel rooms. I know we need the business back. They need tax dollars. Wink, wink. That's the way I look at it. But it puts the safety of my people in jeopardy because we're having to deal with these yahoos. And then you put just an unfair advantage because the guy next door doesn't follow the rules. And so then they come in with the attitude. Well, I didn't have to do it next door. Why do I have to do it here? Well, because we're doing our way. The community has asked us to do it. And so you can see the frustration in my face and probably hear it in my words. Well, I mean, I think you have every right. Is it like a group of downtown owners of these bars that can hang out?

18:13And do you guys meet in a room and go, hey, if I'm going to be the one policing, I need you to do something similar? Or is it every man for himself? It's Nevada freestyle, every man for himself. You got people that don't believe it's real. You got people that think you open your doors and magically the economy comes back. Well, it comes back for 50% of the people who don't believe that it's a pandemic. And we need, you know, it's so short-sighted for the city and for Butch Bearden and everybody else. What we need to be advertising is Nashville is a safe city. We take your health seriously so that the Music City Center will be packed. Then there's no nuance in the application. You could put 30,000 people in an outdoor stadium and not jeopardize anybody. But they choose to put 10,000 in there. And then, you know, then everybody packs the sports bars. You know, I don't know. Maybe I'm just stupid. I don't know. But I just think like common sense. I was raised to do the right thing. But anyway.

19:18The first one to close, the last one to open. You're doing it right. You're socially distancing. You're taking all the precautions. I understand. It's got to be so frustrating because you were a trailblazer in that way. You're certainly a trailblazer on Broadway in that way. So, you know, I was freaked out against what everyone else is doing in any situation. So kudos to you for that. But I guess what do you think? What can they do differently to make it a safe place where people can come safely now? I think that the cat's out of the bag. I think we're seeing all these rural spikes around Nashville are probably the lower broad incubators that have sent them back home. And now they're getting grandma sick. And, you know, once again, I'm not a scientist. I'll listen to them. And I believe them over a politician any day. And, you know, they kind of greenwash everything. They're trying to say, oh, we're doing this. We're doing that. No, they're not. They're saying the right things, but they're not doing it. And they know they're not doing it. And so, you know, we're in a desperate situation that the whole industry is.

20:19I mean, I planned for a rainy day and not a pandemic. But we had 90 days of money sitting on hand to pay all the fixed cost. And PPP ran out in October. So you can just do the math. We're on our last 90 days without raising more money or borrowing more money or closing. And I know I'm in better shape than a majority of the people in the industry, really, because I talk to them. And, you know, you ask a question, you've got things like they could close lower broad and spread the people out off the sidewalks. Well, they don't do it because two bar owners down there are friends with the mayor. They don't want to do it. You got the governor who's trying to take the mayor's power away from him from even declaring a mandate on health. So, you know, it's a frustrating time.

21:19November 3rd, hopefully, everybody go out and vote. And I don't care who you vote for, but vote. And I do care who you vote for, actually, but I'm not going to tell you. But I think we need to vote for common sense and true leadership. Leadership is transparent. Leadership is doing the right thing, even when it hurts. And it's not about me. If it was about me, you know, I could just do Nevada Freestyle and just ask for volunteers to come to work and get sick, you know, but I don't do that. So thank you for that. I got to admit, this morning I looked down and I live right beside a liquor store. So I looked down and there was a line outside the liquor store at 9 a.m., which I guess is when they open. And then I was like, do they knew something that I don't know yet? I was like, is the mayor going to shut down stuff today in the press conference? So then I logged on to the press conference at 9 30. Fair enough. No, he didn't say anything. He said cases are spiking, hospitals are full. But there was no mention of any changes to the rest of it.

22:22I was kind of surprised because I felt like when I saw that, I was like, oh, we're going to shut down again. We didn't. So what do you think? I mean, do you think the mayor felt his hands are tied as far as that goes because there's such a clap back about the economy? Or what do you think is happening? I think I pray that after November 3rd, there'll be let's just back up. The hospitality industry is 12 percent of the working economy. Small business provides 56 percent of the jobs in America. We are the largest employer of people other than the federal government. So you think you're safe in your job and in your position. They didn't give me any relief on the HEPA filters I put in my establishments to kill the virus. They didn't give me any relief on the $400,000 in AP I have sitting owed money on payment plans with. What they did is they gave me money to pay the landlords who now I have 50 percent of what I used to have for the same amount of money.

23:32They gave me money for my employees, which was God bless them, and they gave me money for the banks. So the airline industry got a tax cut and they got a big $220 billion. They're a publicly traded company. They bought their stock back. Then on October 1st, American Airlines laid off 15,000 employees. United laid them off. They didn't give them the money and tell them how to spend it like they did us. They gave it to me to do what you want with it. If they'd given me this PPP money, I wouldn't have ever reopened, number one, until the science says to open, and we would have done things smart. An entrepreneur, let me tell you, I've never had self-pity. I started with nothing. I'll end with nothing. We all come into the world naked. We'll go out naked. That part doesn't bother me. The part that bothers me is you're dealing with human beings who, if I don't keep them on some kind of payroll or whatever, they're going to lose their insurance.

24:42So, and you know what's the soul of Nashville is that probably 30 to 40% of our people that work for us have a day job and a dream. They're here for music. They're here for the arts. They play gigs. They practice, and they get their little, they make great tips and they make a 30-hour week living so that they can qualify for their insurance and pay their rent. And then they go and pursue their dream. One day, they're going to be big deals and I'm going to be just a restaurant owner. But we want to give them the opportunity to realize their dream. And that's the soul and the core of who Nashville and what Nashville is. It isn't pedal taverns with girls booty grinding. You know, it's not, no one moved here. No corporation moved here because of the pedal taverns. No one moved here because a kid rocks.

25:46No one moved here, you know, I can give you a hundred other examples. The creative business has always been seedy, but it was seedy built around creativity. Yeah, George Jones would get drunk down there, so would Willie Nelson and smoke some pot and all that, but that was the seediness that came with the territory. Now we just have, if this is the Nashville we want, then, you know, it's not the Nashville I'm going to be part of or participate in. And that's what I've chosen not to do. Lots of bold, I mean, that's putting your money where your mouth is. I mean, you know, that's backing up what you're saying and that's a bold statement. We can limp along or we can, you know what, if everybody came together as a community and said, let's do the right thing. When the tornadoes hit in East Nashville, no one said, it's a hoax. I'm not going over there to help those people, it's a hoax. You know, they didn't do that. They went over there and helped people. When the floods of 2010, people didn't say, it's a hoax, it's fake news.

26:46It's not really happening. No, we went over and helped. That was what Nashville was. The advertising we give ourselves. I have a saying, a skunk gets his reputation from the advertising it gives himself. And to be 100% honest, we're just stinking the place up right now. Yeah, I remember the days after the tornado, just the Nashville strong and how passionate everybody was right during that time. We're about to go into a segment where we talk about East Nashville. We're going to be talking about that moment and I'll love to get back there. What do you think that if we're talking to the people out there, let's just say thousands of people who live in Nashville and the hospitality industry are going to hear this. What can the individual do? What can the individual person do besides November 3rd? Go vote. We know that. But right now, just in your opinion, what do we need to be doing? Can we organize? What can we do to help? We're all in the same boat. The real people are doing the right thing.

27:49They're wearing masks. They're hunkering down. They're not doing unhealthy behaviors. God bless my 20-year-old. They're 19. They'll be 20 soon. But they haven't done anything and I feel so sorry for them. They don't even have a date in six months because they're worried about their mother and she has a pre-existing condition. And they're worried about me, I guess, because I do too. I'm 65. I'm glad this is radio. But you're on video too. Oh, life's a struggle. No, I just feel like the thing that I am grateful for is that I've been able to slow down, spend time with my kids, get to know them better. It's kind of been a reprieve. They go off to college. You think, oh, they're gone. I'm free. OK, blah, blah, blah. But then they come back into your life. And I see them watching them practice guitar, which is something they never did prior to COVID.

28:55And I see them doing, they're working out and they've put on all this. They're healthy and they're eating healthy and they're doing things that maybe wouldn't have happened if they'd just gone off to college and party for four years. So I'm grateful for that. And I'm grateful that we've done the right thing because you know who I hear the most from and it means the most. And sometimes I cry by myself because of it is the employees. I mean, you get an email from somebody that says, I know I'm going to be living off $275 a week, but anything's better than going into that building knowing that we don't control the people who come into it. And that's an emotional thing. Wow. That's an incredible statement. I think that's one of the things that people from the exterior don't recognize is going on. Selfish people that care about themselves and their own having a good time going out at the expense of other people, hearing the perspective from the actual people in the trenches doing the work that when you close down and they say, we're going to go on $275 a week because we'd rather do that than have to go in and be in an unsafe situation because of that, it's heartbreaking.

30:14We've got females that are pregnant, you know, and they have to work. They want to work, will work. I don't want to work, but I have to work. And, you know, that's heartbreaking. I mean, it's heartbreaking. I don't, you know, you can't say no, but you don't really want to put them in that situation either. So everything, I mean, I sound dire here, but, you know, I don't know whether this is a serious thing. It may be weakening. But you know what? Let science tell us, you know, this fake mirage of open up, you know. Well, Bridgestone is a 30-story building. They don't have a soul in it. You got, you know, Pinnacle Bank, which is my bank, and they're a bunch of great people. They had a COVID outbreak. There's 150 people in the Pinnacle building. You know, all the people that are living off the stock market, they're not in their offices. No. Well, Tom, I saw you post on Facebook. I saw you post on Facebook. What's that?

31:15Probably just lost about 50 customers. That's okay. You know what? I think that you've got to speak the truth and you got to speak from your heart. And we try and do that here. I saw that you had posted that this was happening on Facebook yesterday or the day before, and I knew we were doing this show today. And I just wanted to give you a chance, instead of just that paragraph where you say something on a Facebook post, the ability to come on and talk it out a little bit. I wanted to hear kind of a little bit about why you had to make that decision and how hard that decision was to be made. And I salute you, man. I salute you for having morals in the backbone to stand up and do the right thing in a time that it's really hard because a lot of people are strutting their backs against a wall and they don't have options. And your option right now, the one you're taking, is to take a pause and do the right thing. And I salute you. And thank you for coming on the show today. Let me just say one thing in closing. There's greed that motivates people.

32:20There's desperation that motivates people. And then there's just, you know, the right thing to do. And there's people that are in desperate situations that have to be open. And I respect them. I don't. The people that act at a greed that don't follow the rules are the people I'm talking to. Hurt. Tom Rallis, thank you so much for joining us on the roundup today. And love to have you back anytime on the show. We'll do another interview. Thank you so much and nice to meet you. Bye, Tom. Wow. I'm going to turn off my hair. Sorry. I thought I had that off. I didn't hear it. That was nice of him to come on the show and give us that update. That's when I've never met him before. Like that was the first time like sort of interacting with him. Really?

33:20Yeah, I know. I usually interact with like the first like Lauren Morales. We're Facebook friends. I saw his post on Tuesday. But that's not the extent of it, though. So he's I admire anybody with that kind of passion for his employees and taking care of his own and to do his own thing. I just admire that, you know. You know what I love about him is and it's not just me being a homer, but one of the main things I love to have when he did the interview on Nashville Radio is just his love for Nashville, his love for the city of Nashville, the history of Nashville, and just really caring about everything that goes on inside of Nashville. And he's been a champion for it. I mean, you notice like the Southern, if you I got to he gave me a tour of the Southern. He walked me around the Southern, I think the second week they opened and he showed me all of the things. There's like Easter eggs all over the Southern. He's like, and this picture over here, I put this right here because it faces this way. And I met this guy on a day where he told me that the South was the way to be.

34:25So the picture of him is facing this way. And there's like so many little things like that all over the Southern just because he has so many memories. And, you know, it's not he's not doing anything for any other reason. And I love that. Like his true North is like I just want to I want to do what's right. And that's so refreshing. It's not you just don't ever see it. So true, especially, I mean, lately, I think some people are just acting out of desperation and not necessarily out of intelligence. They're just desperate business or to do whatever we're doing. So anybody that speaks differently than Justin in different acts, I think it's cool. Yeah. All right. Well, let's let's keep it rolling. We're going to jump on. Let's keep going. We've got a new kind of a new segment that we've been teasing all week. And this segment is going to be the bars, best bars and happy hours. We want to keep you up to date as to where to go and have drinks.

35:25And one of our new sponsors, Miracle One, is a and it's he's got a test video and you got to turn your your speaker on there, Charlie. There he is. We're bringing on Charlie McPherson. Charlie, how are you, sir? I'm well. How are you guys? We're doing great. Charlie, do you know Delia? I don't know. No, there she is. I'm listening to you on the on the show. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you as well. So Charlie's t-shirt. Sorry. What's that? I'm liking the Christie's Cookies t-shirt. Oh, yeah. We're about to get into that one. Very cool. Well, Charlie, we've you're the owner of Miracle One Wines. Tell us real quick about Miracle One Wines. Will do. So my wife and I back in December of 2019 decided that we were over. Well, I was over working for billionaires and millionaires and egomaniacs and we were going to start our own wine company.

36:29We were going to put all the wine in keg. We were going to source from family wineries and we were going to focus on the restaurant and hotel channel. And so we put all of our chips in the middle of the table, if you will, and started that process and then COVID hit. And we had to do some full searching. And after some conversations with some great restaurant partners around the country, decided to stay the course. And so here we are. We have launched in Colorado and in Tennessee. And we currently have three offerings. We have a Pinot Noir, a Chardonnay, and a Rose. And we are on the cusp of getting several placements both here and in Colorado. Nice. Congratulations, man. So we are so excited to partner with you because I know you outside of, you know, Miracle One. And I think that you're an awesome guy and you're very knowledgeable. And you love to support Nashville restaurants. And if you are a restaurant out there, I want to tell everybody about our new promotion because this is going to be so much fun starting next week.

37:35Right, right. So starting next week, we're going to do exactly this. We're going to bring Charlie on. You see, Charlie, you look like you're somewhere that sells wine. I'm at the Westin Hotel, which is going to be a partner of ours. What's that? Are you upstairs? I was like, it looks familiar. Yeah, upstairs, L27, yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right. So Charlie, like, so next week, Charlie will come on. He'll be at a bar or a restaurant. He's going to say, I'm at L27. And then he's going to invite our entire audience to come join him there to try his wines. Is that right? That is correct. Yeah, we want to show some love to the people that are partnering with us. We're going to spend a little bit of money. Anybody who wants to come try the wines, we'll have them available for them and we'll be available for probably an hour and a half or two hours, somewhere around four to six, something like that. So now not only do we bring you the best Nashville news, the best interviews with the top chefs, we're now giving you free wine. Is this the best show on the planet?

38:36I don't even know what's going on here. So make sure that you are listening to the Roundup every week at four o'clock. We're going to have the Where's Charlie segment and Charlie and your wife, right? What's your wife's name again? My wife's name is Julie. She's actually on another call that typically she'll be with me and she's much more pleasant to look at and talk to. I assure you. So it'll be a Where's Charlie and Julie and you better go join them and drink some wine. You got to stay tuned. You got to watch the Roundup. You got to know where they are and you just go join them. So free wine. If you're watching the Roundup, you will do this socially distanced. You'll stand back. Everybody can go have a good time. It'd be nice and safe. And then we'll talk about all the best bars and hopefully promote some of the bars that you're currently at, like L27 at the top of the Westin Hotel. Absolutely. Yeah, awesome. I want to take my laptop and just walk over there right now. Come on. The internet's working fine. I'll just do walking down the road with my laptop. Sure, you got it. I'm now going to lose Delia every week at four.

39:40Yeah. Are you going to be available in stores or restaurants here or what? No, this is importantly, actually, I'm glad you asked that question. One of the positives about having your own company is you get to choose what you get to do. And these will be only available to restaurants, hotels, and they're ultimately direct to consumer. But you won't see these wines in retail and or grocery store chain, which is something that most restaurateurs like to hear. Right. Nice. So these are great. These are great wines for are they high end wines? Good house wines are great, just all around? So these are unique wines in the sense that they are first of all, they're 100% certified sustainably farmed by the state of California. There's no animal products used in the making of these wines, which means they're vegan and vegetarian as well. Because of the keg delivery system, there's a couple of things that are interesting to, I think, consumers and business owners alike is that the margins are much better because we don't get tied up in the packaging of dyes and cardboarding glass and all that stuff.

40:59The kegs are reusable. It is the lowest carbon footprint delivery system in the wine business today. And it's existed for a while now in the beer world. But in the wine world, it's really only become popular in the last few years. And we're really taking it and pushing it as a margin enhancement tool. It's cleaner. It's a better delivery system. In a COVID world, that's important. Speed of service. There's a ton of things that I can run down a list on why these wines are just awesome. But they're all by the glass pricing. So they're going to be between $10 and $15 a glass. So they're, quote unquote, everyday wine. But they're over delivering at that price. And that's what we want to achieve. Good. So tell me the variables you have real quick. And then we'll talk about where people can get them. And then we're going to talk about the best bars in town. Excellent. OK. So we have Pinot Noir available, Chardonnay, and Rose right now. Chenin Blanc and Gravert's demeanor are on deck.

42:01Those are very small production, but worthy to note the Chenin Blanc is actually quite good. And we'll keep you guys informed as to where you can get them. You can always go to MiracleOneWineCompany.com. Right now, you have to actually type that in. Or you can just email me, Charlie, C-H-A-R-L-E-Y, at MiracleOneWineCompany.com. And I will get to you. And you are distributed by? Empire distributors. OK. So you could also call your Empire rep, right? Yes. You can call your Empire rep and they should be able to look us up. They can share pricing with you. We can get you samples, anything that you need. Yeah. You want to reach out for, I would say, probably go direct to Kevin Church at Empire. He's a Nashville icon. I think most people in the restaurant business know who he is. So yeah, we love Kevin. Yeah. All right. Well, Charlie, thank you so much for coming on. We are so excited every week to join the Where's Charlie episode.

43:05Yes. Yes. Maybe you just need to broadcast from wherever we're going. I'll give you a heads up maybe ahead of time. And then the curtain drops and we're like, where's Charlie? Because we're here too. Sweet. Yes. Now you're giving away ideas. All right. See, next time we do a live, somebody's like, we're just going to go live. And then Charlie will just show up and we'll just go there. So where are you physically? I'm in the Gulf. I can look at I can look at the ultimate seven from right here. Wow. That's awesome. She's in her apartment. All right. Awesome. Good. Well, thanks guys. I appreciate it. Thanks, Charlie. Have a great day, man. All right. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. All right. Charlie McPherson. There you go. I got my address there. That was almost dangerous. I was going to say don't don't say it. Don't say it. Okay. Well, so let's let's go into we're going to bring on Laura Wilson here in just another couple minutes and we're going to go into our full on East Nashville segment.

44:10What are the best bars? Give us a bar update. Just a couple seconds here. Delia. All right. So I guess I kind of just focus on happy hour when I was rounding this up because there aren't a lot to be had these days. So it's very different going to a bar right now because you might go to a bar. They used to have 20 seats and now it has four. So I think from bars that you typically wouldn't get happy hour specials at you can get now. So Patterson House is one of those. So you can get cat bird seat, Baxter's food downstairs at the Patterson House bar style from four to six p.m. They've got ten dollar some specific cocktails. They've got snacks that are five to seven dollars. Historically, they've had a great burger. I haven't had it in a little while. But Patterson House is my favorite all time bar is just because the vibe is super dark and mysterious and cocktails are always always excellent. Got a shout out that Andy Little on last week and 12 south. I got a shout out his cheesesteak happy hour because good drink.

45:12Yeah. You know, I judged a cocktail competition a couple of weeks ago and they're watching there as a Kelly. He won. And so she's she's making drinks there. She can get a great drink, good cheesesteak. And that's one of my favorites in town. Cafe Rose, who I think is going to be opening any minute in Bell Meade. But they've got eight dollar martinis and five dollar wine and discounted food also from four to six p.m. And also Husk recently, I think revamped their happy hour from four to five on Monday through Thursday. They've got nine until our cocktails. They got the Husk's burger, which is one of the best in town. Pimento cheese all at special prices for happy hour. And then I had to include one rooftop and they were getting sort of out of like prime rooftop weather. L.A. Jackson at the Thompson Hotel has four to six p.m. Five dollars. Rose, which, you know, Rose is like, hey, so to me, I'll run to it. So those are my top five right now.

46:17Happy hours. Awesome. And thank you for doing that, too, because I have no clue. You need to get less like a mocktail round up, which is something I do need to. We went to the goat over there in Sobro, my wife and I the other day to go do just like a little opening thing that they were doing. And they made some mocktails, this like blueberry mule that was fantastic. We had four of them. I was like, can you we're going to get sugar high? Is that what's happening here from these mocktails? They were so good that we had so much fun. And I will I will start working on where to get the best mocktails anywhere that sells may pop right now is like the thing. I'm like, yes, let's do that. What's that? Where do I buy that at the at the farmers market? So they said. I have no idea. I drink mango spin drift is kind of my. I drink way too much of it. My wife goes to Target and hooks it up. So we're about to jump into this new segment and we got we're going to bring on Laura Wilson here just a second.

47:18But do they tell us about neighborhood spotlight at the time? It's time already. Neighborhood spotlight is East Nashville and it's brought to you by. Christy. Represent. Like I think. So I realized that I'm one year older than it's 1983, 1983. I was born in 1982. So for 35 years, slight meltdown. Christy has been making the best cookies on the planet right here in Nashville, Tennessee. We got Laura here now. I just threw in while we were talking about this. They're going to jump into the stream. How are you doing, Laura? I realized I was one year older than Christy cookies and then I was like for over 35 years. Okay, so then had a moment. So hi, Laura. But Christy cookies are great.

48:20You can smell the butter in the cookies when you walk into the shop and 12 South. They have good ingredients and you can get these tins, which we showed you. These are great gifts for Christmas. You can ship them anywhere in the country anywhere I opened it. Did you eat one yet? Oh, I have like a whole box of cookies. Believe me, when we started doing the Christy cookie thing, I said we need to be eating their cookies throughout the episode. It's very important that we pick up fresh cookies every week. I know I was like, I got distracted by the cookies. Now I'm like, I was talking about it. You can get these tins with Music City Flair. They kind of just show some Nashville flavor and they are spotlighting our new East Nashville neighborhood spotlight this week and they're the sponsors for that segment. Yes, I'm going to point this cookie out. This cookie right here is a lemon white chocolate cookie that my wife threatened my life if I ate it.

49:21Is this white chocolate macadamia? Yes, they have white chocolate cranberry and I have a white chocolate macadamia too, which I'm going to enjoy right now. Laura, I'm so sorry that we are going to be eating white chocolate macadamia. That cookie is right here. Can I mail her a cookie? You can mail me a cookie, bring me a cookie. So I'll tell you, I was at the Green Hills Grill today and I was wearing this shirt like in my sweatpants I'm wearing right now and I was standing there and everybody walked by and goes, oh my god, I love those cookies. Those are the best cookies. Those are the best cookies. So if you're listening to this and you're not from Nashville and you want to send a piece of Nashville anywhere in the country, christycookies.com. All right, so we have one more advertisement. Gary just dared me to eat the cookie. You should bring it. With this segment where we talk about East Nashville, it's going to be so fun because we've brought in our local legend for the week, Laura Wilson. Have you ever been referenced, Laura, as a local legend?

50:25No, I'm incredibly comfortable with any of that. I'm a big dirty wine cook. I mean, really, like, that's what made this all happen. Which is precisely why you are a local legend. We eat different steaks at the same time. So we're going to bring Laura on to talk about East Nashville because she's practically the mayor of East Nashville. And she's like, just stop it. Local legend is brought to you by Mobile Fixture. If you're opening a restaurant, you need expert advice, quality kitchen equipment. They are the company for you. They're located in Smyrna. They have a warehouse. You can go to the showroom. You can go check out all of their stuff. So if you need somebody to help you organize your kitchen, set up where everything needs to go, give them a call, set up a consultation, go visit them, go look at their stuff. Ben Whitlock's been on the show.

51:25He's cohost of the roundups. Fantastic guy. He's the guy to give a call over there at Mobile Fixture. Go to our website at NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Click the sponsor tab where you will find Mobile Fixture and set an appointment today. Okay, Laura, thank you for hanging out through all of that. I so didn't realize there were going to be pictures. I so would have gotten like my TikTok ring light or something. I'm kidding. I don't do the ring light. The ring light. I have a ring light. I bet you do. You look like- That's what? Look at you. I'm in trouble when the sun goes down, which is going to be like in 10 minutes next week because I don't have any lights on. I just- Yeah, I'm in the fall. Our house is full of Zoom right now. My son's downstairs in a Zoom DMD session. A Zoom what? Dungeons and Dragons, man. Oh man. It's a thing. I thought you said DMD. I'm like Dave Matthews band is doing a Zoom. So Laura, do you live in East Nashville? I do. I've lived in East Nashville since I moved to Nashville from New Orleans in 2002.

52:29Oh, wow. So- Before East Nashville was East Nashville. It was- So my husband- We live in a house that my husband Grant bought before we met. And you know, Grant- I do. We were one of the first adopters of Creation Gardens when Brandon was first coming into the Nashville scene at the- Wild Iris. Where Grant proposed to me on a Friday night in the middle of service. So I didn't tell him much, yes. So anyway, I love East Nashville. I mean, it has changed in the last 18 years, a great deal. Some of that change had already started with the tornado in 1999. And we're seeing another cycle of, you know, I mean, that's- Of churn, as it were. Sure. So Laura, let's let everybody know who you are and what you do.

53:35Because I think that Citizen Kitchen is so cool. Like, tell us, like, give us the 411 on and all your- And so at some point when you're a chef and you're like, what do I do because my back hurts? Figure out what that is. And I had my son when I was 38 and kind of had to figure out a thing. You know, we had a restaurant called Oombee and I just needed to figure out something else that I could do. It wasn't 80 hours a week. And so I worked for the National Farmers Market. And when I worked there, I saw the need for small food producers to have a low-cost space and a licensed kitchen to be able to produce their goods. You know, most food that is not non-hazardous, potentially hazardous food, you have to cook in a licensed kitchen. And building something like that out, you have to put your house on it or it's, you know, $75,000 to even knock on the door.

54:43So there were a lot of other kitchens like this that were popping up in the country and they're called commissary kitchens. And it's really like a co-working space for chefs where people can reserve time and the owner of the kitchen owns the ovens and the tables. And, you know, we even go so far as we provide towels and aprons and spatulas and whisks and cutting boards and sheet pans and all that. So now we have, we started in West Nashville with the Kitchen in the Love building at 4611 Alabama Avenue. And we started that in 2015, October of 2015. So we just hit our five-year mark. Congratulations. I mean, it's been such a great pivot and turn. It's really rewarding for me because I still get to hang out with all my people. You know, cooks and kitchen people are all just this tribe. And I'm super weird and I just don't fit in anywhere else.

55:50And so then in 2017, when Hunter Station was starting, they were starting to talk about that. And I had talked to Mike Bodner from Fresh Hospitality a couple of times about what we were doing. And he said, you know, let's look at this space. And so ended up we became partners with Fresh. And one of our brands, one of the brands that works within Citizen Kitchens is already has their brick and mortar in partnership with Fresh Hospitality. So really the thinking of that was, you know, I want to be the farm team. I want to put different kinds of opportunities in front of our clients. And those including, like, you want 20 multi-unit-casual things? Go that way. Wow. Yeah. That's so cool. Now my husband works with us. And so he fixes ovens and walk-ins. And my old sous-chef from Umbi is our general manager.

56:56That Umbi though, that Umbi back in the day, I gotta say, was one of the coolest places. He had Terrell Rayleigh bartending, right? It was you and Kim Totsky and your partner. Yeah. And then who's, I forget who the sous-chef. So Rob Cox was the sous-chef for a long time. Yes. And then Alan Horsnell, who is now the general manager of Citizen Kitchens. And Molly Martin of Juniper Green. I love Molly. I love Molly. Oh my gosh. She's the best. She was a server at Umbi before she started cooking. When Rob Cox left and went to table three, Molly went there and started cooking and went from front of the house to back of the house. I tell you, that place, I remember going there. You had like whole hog dinners. Oh, but those were fun. And then the table, the little copper bar, it was fun.

57:59That was the cool, I was there all the time. I don't know how often I came to that little back alley and brought food in and you preserved the lemons. He'd go back there all the time asking if he could stop cook. Do what? That's where our soup wells were. And he'd like just park back there behind the expo, eat soup and can I stunt cook? Oh, the old days. Well, it's funny because I'm looking here and I got a couple comments for you. Amanda Virgilito says, hi Laura, they aren't wrong. You are a local legend. She's lovely. Isn't she the best? And then Gary Garrett points out that he remembers the old creation gardens days also. Oh, Gary, hi. Gary from Ruth's Chris fame, where I proposed to my wife. Gary was the chef there and little known fact to many people, Gary was the very first chef I ever called on on my own as a salesperson.

59:02In my whole career, Gary was the first guy I walked in. I don't know why I felt confident enough to walk in to talk to Gary, of all people, because you are not approachable, Gary, but I did. What's that? Didn't someone steal a truck or something way back in the day? Oh, yes. Gary remembers that. Yeah, we had a driver steal a truck. Yeah, bless it. We had some fun times back in the day. My favorite thing, though, was the CD that I got a hold of one time that y'all made and gave out at a Christmas party. Do you know what I'm talking about? Or were you still there? Made a CD, and that times it of when it was that someone actually burned a CD of it, of all the chefs ordering late night wasted. And so there's still floating out around there, a CD of tons of national chefs, because creations you could order till like after midnight.

01:00:17Late night, when you used to still be phone ordering and not online, like, I want to release some of that. And then the next day they go. Like, I'm totally dating myself. It is all good. OK, so Laura, we do have an East Nashville segment that we need to talk about. Because Christy Cookie really wants us to highlight neighborhoods that were in the middle of a pandemic. And they are a Nashville company and they love our city and they want us to shine a light on the people of East Nashville. But I want to give a quick little history, just kind of a Wikipedia version of East Nashville, if you will. East Nashville is an area of creative and artistic flair, has a trendy progressive atmosphere. And after 10 plus years of the slow and steady rise, the neighborhood has managed to keep its eclectic, artsy vibe while welcoming a diverse mix of newcomers.

01:01:20Like it attracted many in the late 19th century, it continues to attract young urban professionals and liberal minds because of the easygoing environment and quaint neighborhood qualities. There are many coffee shops and art galleries interwoven within the neighborhood, making it a biker's or walker's paradise. The Tomato Art Festival is a popular summer festival in East Nashville, specifically at the Five Points, where Woodland, Clearview, and Eleven Streets Festival in East Nashville intersect. There are many other festivals and fairs throughout the year. Also, residential redevelopment has taken hold of the outer neighborhoods since it's been spreading from the Edgefield area, significantly brought up home prices, more and more younger people are calling it home. There's three specific areas there in East Nashville. And those areas are East End, there's the historic Edgefield, and Laughlin Springs. So it's just a little bit of a general idea of East Nashville. And then I want to talk about some of the really cool places to eat.

01:02:21And I don't want to talk about the big boys, right? Because everybody knows all the big boys, and Delia has got a whole, she's just going to go into a whole list of the coolest things. If you want to know the inside dish about East Nashville, Laura, you're here to help us with this. Delia is about to give it to you. What? No, I want to hear Laura's top neighborhood, like she lives in the neighborhood thing. I want her to go. All right. So there's something that I'm most excited about right now. And it's a little more in the Ingle Hood. Which is TKO is hosting the Bill's Sandwich Shop. Yes. Have you had it? I have not yet. So bad. So it's Brian Dissler from originally Breeden's Orchard, but we've been friends since I moved to Nashville. He's part of that small group of folks in the East. So he's been East forever. He used to manage Ralphie May. And now he is making pasta and pasta sauce and bread and bagels.

01:03:25And queso. Yeah, I know. And so he's just with taco shells. Have you had the queso with? I want them so, but no, I need to have them. That's cool. I know. So Aaron Dissler, Aaron Clemens of City House, Katrina and Keller, amazingly talented chef, and Ryan Bernhardt, who owns TKO. They are going to keep launching Bill's Sandwich Shop. And I'm here for it. Yes. I'm very excited to try it. I keep seeing the pages on Instagram. I'm like, oh my gosh, I missed it. I've missed both of their pop-ups recently. I'm dying to try it. Shotgun Willie's also for Inglewood. It is odd, I mean, not odd, but it's rare to see Texas-style brisket. I mean, other than Terrell at Butchertown, who does a great job with it there, but in a barbecue joint. Shotgun Willie's is a great barbecue joint. I love the makeshift patio he's made on the front there. So if you like the AstroTurf and picnic tables, if you want to go eat barbecue outside, you could totally do it at Shotgun Willie's.

01:04:30I mean, that's some of the things that I'm really, I'm enjoying seeing. You know, when you look at what's happening, you know, you can be really sad that there is a hollowing out of the restaurant world that does not have the resources to stay. And that's terrifying and awful. And the only thing that I can do to make myself feel a little better about it is really look at what the pivot is. And so like at Citizen Kitchens, we have a bunch of people that are making the pivot, like Zito from Rock and Rolls, who was a tour manager for really big music tours, like Ariana Grande. And now he, yeah, like, I mean, a big deal. And now he and his wife are making, are making cinnamon rolls. Have you had them? No, I haven't had them. Okay, those you must have. It's called Rock and Rolls with a Z. And they're just the best cinnamon rolls I've had. They were good, yeah. I love a good cinnamon roll.

01:05:30It's a fun story of like a pivot, like you said, too. But yeah, so like, Lauren and Ryan are doing with TKO. I love that. You know, I love the, I love the fact that they're figuring out ways, and this is outside of East Nashville, but like what Julia Sullivan's doing at Henrietta Red with the market. You know, taking existing things and figuring out how to make sense out of them. You've already mentioned Cafe Rose. I think they're now a big dog. I know. I had this list of like places that everybody knows. Yeah, Lou, where Fort- Fort Louise. Louise, Lou is really lovely. So I have a funny story about that. Because I went there, I went to Lou yesterday to meet Malia. And I didn't, I didn't catch her, but I was, I was at Pelican and Pig yesterday talking to Nick Guidry and he goes, I know the baby is so adorable.

01:06:33Oh my gosh. But I was over there and Eastside Bon Mee is something I'd also don't want to forget, because that's a new place. It's a really, really, really good. But he- I had him at the farmer's market, but not at their place yet. Super good. So I live in West Nashville. So I don't get out to East Nashville as much as I like to. Like every time I'm there, I'm like so excited. So I'm like, holy shit, I have so much stuff I can eat right now. This is amazing. It's hard to even decide. But I stopped in there and I'm doing this. Where should we, where should we go? And he goes, you got to go check out Lou, man. Lou is amazing. And he looked at me and he was like, every time I say that to you, you look shocked. And I go, isn't that place has been there for a little bit? And he goes, oh, it used to be called Fort Louise. And I went, oh, I keep thinking that that's what you're talking about. It's Fort Louise. He goes, no, no, no, that place is gone. It's a whole new place. And I was like, oh, I thought, because I had been in Fort Louise and I was like, that's what I mean. You know, it's- Yeah, it was there. Yeah, it's there. And he goes, that's why you keep looking. Every time I mention Lou, you look at me like I'm crazy. He goes, because you didn't know it was a new place.

01:07:33I'm like, I haven't been there. I don't know. So he was like, get over there right now, because it's that good. Great. We're so excited. We're happy to be neighbors. I mean, I think when we were planning Sizzling Kitchens, I was there a lot. She's so talented and he's so talented. And their adaptation during this has all been incredible. The boys. Yeah. Now, those I had like five. I missed those boys too. That was a good pivot. That was a fantastic pivot. Agreed. And then, you know, Greco. Don't sleep on Greco. It's really good. Their octopus though. I think I'm off of octopus for a little bit after watching My Octopus Teacher on Netflix. I can't watch it. I can't watch it. What is that? It's just distracted. It's called My Octopus Teacher. Has nothing to do with food. How smart octopus are?

01:08:35Yeah. Yeah, they're really good. It's a beautiful. Anyway, I digress. But Greco, another, I think, for themselves. Yeah. Let's see. East Nashville. I mean, you know, clearly I'd love and see all of the wonderful small businesses in Sizzling Kitchens. So, you know, I'll give them a minute because I don't want to not talk about them. So pink eyes. I love them. And you're so good. And Thanksgiving's coming up. So they have a lot of ordering. We've had some pop-ups in Citizen Kitchens, too. So Deep Sea Vegan. A lot of our vegan restaurants are bringing stuff in. And another thing that we're seeing in the pivot as well is in Ghost Kitchens. Yes. So we have several people that are operating as Ghost Kitchens out of Sizzling Kitchens. Out of Europe space? Uh-huh. Out of East and West. Soy Cubana.

01:09:37Brandon, you should check out Soy Cubana. I wouldn't want to try that. OK. He works out of the West Kitchen. And that's one you can. So just so everyone knows what the Ghost Kitchen is, is it only serves third-party delivery services. Like you'll see the menu up on Uber Eats and Door Dash and all that. And they're working out of a shared use commissary kitchen or something that's not a brick and mortar. And so that way people can try out an idea and not be out a million dollars when it doesn't work. I love it. When it works. You know, I traced down this address. It's a pizza place. I traced down, I think, 12 different concepts on Uber Eats and Door Dash to this one address on Union Street. And I was like, hmm. Yes. So that is the cook kitchen. That's another one that we're a bunch of different places to serve. Right, right. That is the same thing that we didn't know a year ago.

01:10:41I wanted to ask you about Surf and Bird Hot Chicken. Yeah, so they started this weekend. Yeah, I saw that. I wanted to ask you about it. It's legit. I have not yet had it. I'm a hot chicken person, so I'm not going to say until I have. But yeah, he has won several awards. Oh, yeah. And so I'm excited to try it. I think I'm going to have to order it. You know, I definitely have the ability to just walk in and be like, oh, thanks. All right, Laura, I love you. And it warms my heart to see you live and to talk to you. I miss you. And we should grab coffee sometime. I'd love to come see the kitchen and do the whole thing. Unfortunately, we've got some amazing people in the wings waiting. Harant and Liz. You want to say hi to them? I love those guys.

01:11:46Here they are. We're going to do the second half of our East Nashville segment. We're going to highlight our what chefs. We're going to highlight that we're going to highlight Lyra. So we're really excited. There's fantastic. Awesome. So, Laura, thank you for stopping by today. And we will do this again. I'd love that. Bye, guys. Bye, Laura. Harant and Liz, what's up? What are you doing? We're doing fantastic. Do you guys know Delia? We do, yeah. Hi, how are y'all? We're excited to have you. Can y'all hear us OK? We can. Excellent. Back in the back room. So hopefully there will be an interruption. We're so excited to have you guys on. We're in the middle of a feature for East Nashville. And you guys are being brought on today because what chefs want, otherwise known as creation gardens, they want to sponsor every single week a highlight of a local restaurant.

01:12:51And I'm going to do a little bit of a spot. I'm going to tell you a little bit about creation gardens and what chefs want. And then we're going to jump in and hear much more about you. Is that OK? So local spotlight brought to you by what chefs want. What chefs want is exactly that. It's their business model. It's so fun. When I used to work, as we just referenced with Laura, used to work at what was then called creation gardens. They created their business model based upon making the difficult lives of chefs easier. The owner did an interview. He said, I'm going to sit down and talk to chefs. They kept having all these different needs and wants. So he said, I'm going to sit down and just identify what it is. And he sat down with chefs and he said, what would make your life easier? And they said, we'd like to get deliveries every day. He goes, even Sunday? And he goes, even Sunday? And he said, done. They said, we'd like to be able to split more cases. Sometimes I don't need 60 avocados. I just need four. And he said, done. Figured out a way to sell everything that they sell.

01:13:51They'll split every case. They said, hey, look, you know what? We'd like to order later at night. We don't want to have to place our orders by 3 o'clock. All these big broad line companies make it. They make us order by 3 o'clock and we can't do this and we have to do that. He said, I'm tired of big companies making all the rules. Where's the service in this thing? They have 24-7 customer support, more options, local options, done. That's what they did. They're called What Chefs Want because that's how their business is founded on being what chefs want. So you may know them as Creation Gardens, What Chefs Want. Check them out at www.whatchefswant.com. All right. That brings us to our new, I'm going to change my little thing up here so we can see exactly who you guys are. I'm so sorry. Because it still says Laura's name up there. There they are. How's that? Perfect. Boom. Well, welcome, guys. We're so excited to have you here. We've been talking about East Nashville. Tell us about how things have been going at Lyra.

01:14:54Yeah. Well, we're lucky to have a really big patio. Yes. That has definitely saved us more than anything else. And I mean, we're doing OK. You know, we definitely struggled like everyone else did in the middle of quarantine, but we've come out OK. Yeah. That's the best case scenario to hear. So people that don't know Lyra, you guys are in the space that used to be, a long time ago, the Holland House. Right next door to the pharmacy. Kind of. It's a Middle Eastern cuisine. Give us like the 90 second. Tell us about the food. And yeah, so we wanted to open a restaurant forever. And I think Middle Eastern food in general is a little underrepresented in Nashville. And we, you know, my family, that's what we ate growing up.

01:15:57So that's what we wanted to kind of serve. We wanted to highlight all of the food and the spices and the whole Middle East and kind of bring it under one restaurant. So we don't really stick to a particular country's cuisine. We kind of draw from all the Middle Eastern countries and just have a nice mix of flavors. To say if it's someone's first time dining in, what are like three or four things that you say they have to try to get a taste of what you guys are doing? Well, definitely a homeless or some of our fresh made pita. We've got a wet oven and do all of our pita fresh to order. So when you get it, it's still inflated and piping hot out of the oven. You know, we change the menu a lot. We use a lot of local products. So it's hard to say, you know, what one thing is always on there, but always at least pita or our za'atar menu is definitely to start off with. So yeah, and there's a great selection of vegetarian and some vegan options as well, which is amazing because meat eaters, vegetarians, they're all very happy.

01:17:07Nice. So if you haven't been, you've got to go check out Lyra, but let's talk about you guys besides being like the cutest family in the world. How many children do you guys have now? You have just one, just the one child. Okay. And what are your roles throughout the day at the restaurant? So you're a chef. You've been a chef all over Nashville for a long time. And what do you guys, what do you actively do on a daily basis? Well, we just kind of recently actually flipped roles a little bit. I used to be at the restaurant most all day, you know, every day. And, you know, Liz would come in in the morning and do some work and go home with our son at night and we flipped it around a little bit now. So I come in in the morning and Liz hangs out here at night to hang out with our little guy. That's so awesome. Yeah. It's nice to have that flexibility to be able to do that.

01:18:08Yeah. And I'm the reference director as well. And I do a little bit of the baking too. Really? Yeah. So for those that don't know, you were at Lachlan Table for like since they opened for so long. Right. If you don't know Elizabeth. And Harant, you, I met you when you were at Amerigo. Yeah, a long time ago. Which was a long time ago. And would you go to Treehouse? Were you at Treehouse for a while? Rumors East. Rumors East. Rumors East and then went to Holland House after that, which is how we ended up meeting everyone here and getting into space. That's fantastic. The neighborhood community rallied around you guys. Have you had, has it been positive experience? Yeah, we have a lot of amazing followers. Customers that are just tried and true and great people.

01:19:08Yeah. We were lucky to be in a neighborhood where people can walk here. And we do have people come in for happy hour or come in for lunch. And it's nice seeing the same faces every week and having a really good support, good following. That's one thing about East Nashville. There's a lot of community support. Do you have any effects from the tornado? No, we got really fortunate. We lost power for a while, but. Yeah, thankfully, this area wasn't really as bad as Black Queens was. I'm sorry, Delia, you're going to say something. I was with the East Nashville Facebook group. It kind of just gives you like a glimpse of what a community is over there. Like the Facebook group is, I get a lot of intel about restaurant stuff from that East Nashville group. So we've been talking about East Nashville and we just had Laura Wilson on. You know, we were kind of just gabbing about cool places that are kind of under the radar.

01:20:13A lot of people know the big places, the Margo's and all the big places. But do you guys both, do you live in East Nashville? We do. Yeah. As a local, where do people, where are like the hidden places that you know about that we should tell everybody else about? And don't be selfish. Because I know you're like, I don't want this place to get busy because I love it. Yeah. I think I've been hitting the East Side by me every Monday for a sandwich regularly. So it's so good. Yeah, yeah. A couple minutes from here, so it's easy to pop out and grab one. It's definitely one of the best things that's hit East Nashville in a while. It's so good. Where else do we really go? No, I mean, with a five-year-old, we don't really get out much. But let's see. Yeah, there's a lot of new things to be opening up. Was it the Hawkers that's opening up in the old family wash space?

01:21:16Old family wash. Yep. Interesting. All these things partnered up along Gallatin now. We haven't had a chance to go to any of them, unfortunately. But you know, the Fringe Place, the Hart's Café, there's a lot of stuff. Well, you got to go back and watch the beginning of this segment. You'll get some ideas. Yeah. It's the time thing for us, unfortunately. I totally understand. So Delia's got a list of restaurants. I mean, yeah. I'm going to kill you. Let's go over. Do you guys mind if we go over some of the cool places in East Nashville? Tell us what your thoughts are. I mean, jump into our segment. The big places that everybody knows. I mean, I think everybody knows places we always talk about, right? Yeah. You guys are one of them. I mean, you've got your Fulc, you've got your Butcher & B. There's this list I have, but we all know those. And then I've got the bars that we all know about.

01:22:19Attaboy, which I'm so glad is back. Beano's, which I'm so glad is back. The Fox, all these places that worked really hard during the tornado and then with the pandemic closures. And so I wanted to shout out those. But I feel like I have. And so I kind of like made a point to make a list of like 10 places that I haven't covered really on Twitter lately, that I haven't posted about on Instagram, but that I like that are in East Nashville. So this is kind of like my unsung heroes, like hidden gems, also some takeout friendly stuff that I just haven't talked about. So King Solomon's Eros was one that I tried when I was in like takeout only mode back in the early pandemic days. And they've got a double drive-through. I thought they were solid. Like I drove through, ordered like 10 different things and parked on the side of the road until we just ate it. I think that's a great place for people who don't feel comfortable dining out yet. Yeah, we ate there a lot during construction. It was at least twice a week. Yeah, I love that place. I don't know the owners. Like a lot of these places I don't know the owners.

01:23:19I've never met them. I just like popped in and out and thought it was good food. So kudos to them. Also, I am zero vegan. As we all know, I have a cheese problem. But Beehive Vegan Deli. Someone on Instagram told me about this crunch wrap they're doing. And I do love the redheaded stranger crunch wrap version. But Beehive is doing a vegan crunch wrap that I order. You can order online and pick up contact lists. And it's super good. And even they have like a vegan queso that goes over these hot tater tot nachos. That's good. Yum. And I'm not anything worse that vegans like. I'm like, hey, try this because it's good. 615 Chutney is also a place. It's a beautiful little house near Five Point South Indian Restaurant. Unfortunately, I don't know if they're around anymore. We saw that it was released the other day. Oh, no, that's so sad. And that's where Remers was. So that's where it came from. I know. I like 615. That sucks to hear that.

01:24:22There you go. We touched on TKO earlier because of the sandwich pop-up. I just think they're solid. I also saw they have a chicken pot pie bun right now. But I'm like, that's going to be great. I want to try that. Yeast Nashville. So after 10 years in Texas, I moved here. And I was like, oh, my god, there's no kolaches on every corner. And I miss breakfast tacos. And so that's how I found East Nashville. It's hard to say Yeast Nashville. Like, you know what I'm saying? Not East Nashville, but Yeast Nashville with a Y. So I love that. And Five Points Taco Truck right there in Five Points. Is that still there? I haven't been there in a few months. But I'm assuming they're still. Yeah, I believe they are. The one that's next to the gas station. Yeah, yeah, by the gas station. I love their tacos. They got California burritos, carne asada fries, all of that. Yeah. This is good. We need this input from you guys. Thank you for hanging out with us for this. I haven't seen all of these in the last three months.

01:25:23Brightside Bakery. I had this, yes, sweet spot. We're obsessed. Yeah. El Halle Siense. Their ranchero steak is super good. And taco is also there. Eastland Cafe is another one that I tried for the first time only in the last year. Wow. I've never been there. Just because I was like, oh, I don't know. Like, I don't know anything about it. It's a beautiful space. It's a great space. It's a great bar to just dine at. And then I just love the vibe of I Dream of Weenie. And I don't ever, like, eat a hot dog, but sometimes I'll go there and I just think it's a beautiful experience. That's adorable. Yeah. Yeah. That's my, like, unsung heroes of East Nashville list. Also, Maru Sushi. I've had some great meals at heart. Yeah, we haven't been there. I've had great things. Yeah. That's my, uh.

01:26:25Yeah. And you got your sweet, the sweet side. Oh, I forgot. Yeah, I have that. So Brightside was on my, I was like, since it's Halloween, I was thinking of sweet things. I love Brightside. Hi-Fi Cookies. I think they have some fun stuff for Halloween also. Sweet 16th Bakery. Oh, they're wonderful. I haven't been there in forever. And they have that, I forget what it's called. It's like a green sheet casserole on a biscuit. It's a great sandwich. Oh, that little breakfast sandwich. It's so good. It's so good. It's like a biscuity scone. Like a sweet, delicious. It's so good. Also, all the stuff Audra has done at Slowhand Bakery. Which is Nick doing it now. I know. Is he really baking? He, so I was there, like I said, I was there yesterday. And he was pulling like these chocolate cakes out of the oven. And he said, he goes, I'm good with doing all this stuff. Like I can do everything. But like the pressure of making desserts and pastries and cakes when my wife is out of town or my wife's taking care of the baby is like, it's legit.

01:27:26He goes, it's legit hard to really do this because she is so good. And then it's there again, the cutest couple ever too, because he's posting pictures online of the cakes that he's making. And then she's like, baby, it looks great. Are you guys in the next room? Yeah, I love how they communicate through Facebook. It's so funny. And you have status dough and I went, I went, I was on, we had Matt left from rhizome productions on the show Monday. And I was telling him that we're talking about local donut shops. And I said, I just love Fox's. It's just like a classic best donut shop in Green Hills. Fox's donut den. And he goes, have you had status dough? And I was like, no. So I was driving by it the other day and I like made a U-turn in the middle of the road and pulled in at like 11. Third is nobody else in there. And I was like, hi, I'd like to learn about your restaurant.

01:28:30The woman looked at me like I was the craziest person. Her name was Acacia. And I want to give her a shout out because she was so nice. She said, I said, I'm going to say your name. I want to give you a shout out. She was just saying I'm the one with the green hair. So Acacia, I remember her name, Acacia. And she's the one with the green hair and their donuts were legit. Big donuts. It's right. It's on Gallatin, I believe. Okay. Near Greco. Yeah, just past Greco, I believe. Yes, status dough and Connie and Johnny are my favorite donuts in town. Connie and Johnny were really good too. I don't know. Mr. Gow's in Madison. Oh, yeah, yeah. They're really good. It's just like a straight up simple. Super old school, but it's perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the best sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. All right. So that's that is our anything else about East Nashville that we should know. Any as locals, any insider information while over there?

01:29:31Like, where do people shop in East Nashville? I don't know that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Cool springs. I really like Upper East Side. It got hit by the tornado, but she's about to open up a new shop. I don't know exactly where it is, but her place is really cute. Other than that, oh, what's the welcome home shop is really cute. And that's over by 210 Jack. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Anything over here really, it's good. I mean, it's all all locally owned pretty much. And that's, you know. Harant really likes the knife shop. Yeah. I spent too much money there, but yeah, yeah, yeah. You can never spend too much money there. Yeah. Well, yeah, I try. I think that the goal here is if you're out there and you're deciding where you need to go, we're approaching the holiday season and versus going to a mall of any kind. There are so many locally owned and operated shops, so many local restaurants, gift cards help us right now, just spending money any way you possibly can to keep it here in the city, to support your community.

01:30:42Please East Nashville is still reeling. If you go, if you haven't been to East Nashville, go drive down. Just drive through five points. They're not, they're not better. Like it's not, no, it's not back and they need you. They need you to go out to eat. They need you out there supporting them. Reach out to Hands on Nashville because I think that they still need volunteers to help out anything that you can possibly do. East Nashville is such a massive part of our community and they're just this cultural center for who we are. I have the vibe in East Nashville is absolutely amazing. I love every time I am there. Delia said to start the show that she's not cool enough to go there. No, no, I'm not cool enough to live there. I said I eat in the same way. That's not what I said at all. I don't think I said I don't think I am either. But every time that I go to East Nashville, I always like there's a vibe and I feel it and then like I get into it. I'm like, I don't want to leave. Like I love it over here.

01:31:43I feel like at home, like the place you just be yourself and just kind of like whoever you are be you. And I just, I love that about East Nashville and I just. Yeah, it's a nice community and it's nice to see your neighbors walking down the street. And it's diverse and loving and yeah. What? 10, 15 years almost now. Yeah. Well, thank you guys for coming on the show today. We are so excited to learn a little bit more about it. It's not Lyra. It's Lyra. Right. Yes. Right. We named it the constellation, which is the constellation of music. Yeah. Being music city. And we did incorrectly pronounce it as Lyra when it first opened and people had corrected us so it is Lyra. Well, and that's the important part. That's why we do these things. You know, we got to inform everybody. Absolutely. All right. Well guys, thanks so much for coming on.

01:32:43And like I said, I'd love to do a full interview with you too. And we'll play the newly reopened game. It'd be a lot of fun. Yeah. Awesome. It'd be awesome. Thank you guys. I'll be in touch. All right, guys. Thank you so much. It's good to see you. Bye. You too. All right. Well, that was fun. Yeah. It was like a long segment. It was a big long. I mean, I think it was a big neighborhood and it's an important one for dining. I mean, I don't have kids so I have like favorite food things and it's my favorite dining neighborhood. So like there's a lot to say and I didn't even I didn't even read the paragraph about the like the big dogs. We talk about the big dogs a lot. So. We do. And you know, I love doing that. And thanks again to our sponsor, Christy Cookie and What Chefs Want and Mobile Fixture for our local restaurant spotlight, the local legend, as well as our neighborhood spotlight. We're doing what we can to highlight the people that need it right now and to let you know where you can go to make the most bang for your dollar.

01:33:47So we're about to get done. We have one more segment on this show and I'll let Delia do the intro. Yeah. So Super Source, our friends are proud to present. My what's the Delia and your on brand segments of the show, which are our final segments of the show, Super Source is the answer to your dish machine and chemical needs in your restaurant. They have zero minimums and zero contracts, so they have to earn your business every single week. Jason Ellis, our friend who I see driving around my neighborhood a lot, he's always driving around, you know, taking names in business and he wants to save you money and increase the cleanliness of your dishes and provide the best service in all of Nashville. You can check them out on our website at nashvillerestaurantradio.com and click on the sponsors tab. When you find Super Source, you can get three months free for a dish machine rental. And this week only you can get 15% off your first chemical order if you visit the link on our website for new customers.

01:34:50So check them out. And now, this is the time you've been waiting for, Brandon. Let's stay on brand today. Take it away. Yes, we're so excited. Delia, thank you. One of the things I really wanted to do when starting this podcast was really talk about operations and talk about things that were going on inside the restaurant. As I visit multiple restaurants, I keep observing things. And so this segment is on brand. We're going to talk about restaurants. We're going to talk about all the different things that are going on. And today, our topic is mediocrity. I have a couple of disclaimers at the front end of this. I'm doing this today to reach a certain part of our audience. This is not a blanket rant. If you don't fall in the lines of this, it's okay. Please know this is for motivational purposes only. And if you're on very hard times, you don't know what you're going to do. And this doesn't make sense at all. And you think I'm being insensitive.

01:35:51That's okay. I totally understand that too. Feel free to contact us. I'm happy as a consultant, as somebody who talks to restaurants, I'm happy to talk you through any ideas, anything that's going on free of charge. This isn't an ad for my company. Feel free to DM me if you do have any questions. So when you talk about mediocrity, this is something that's been on my heart because this is something we see every single day. Mediocrity, the definition of mediocrity is the quality or state of being mediocre. Okay. So the definition of mediocre is only of moderate quality, not very good. So why talk about mediocrity today? Because I'm seeing it everywhere and I'm seeing it everywhere and I'm hearing it as an excuse. Well, there's a pandemic, so we have this excuse to be mediocre, which again is of moderate quality, not very good. I see it at the sub shop. I see it at one of my favorite to go spots here in Bellevue.

01:36:54I see it when I look in the mirror. I'm not immune to it. This is something that I have to tell myself on a regular basis. It's easy to get caught up in this. It's a pandemic type mentality and that we're all victims. True. You know what? We are. We are all victims. Nobody out there caused this. This is something that has happened to you. And once you process that and move past it, it's just a mindset. Really, that's what we're dealing with right now. It's a mindset. One of my favorite quotes is whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right. And it's by Henry Ford. The cycle of mediocrity as defined by one of my mentors was I can't because she didn't, because he won't, because they won't. It's this constant pointing fingers to others as to why you can't perform at a high level.

01:37:59John Miller, the author of my favorite book, QBQ, says to ask yourself different questions. Stop asking yourself incorrect questions such as how come they always? When is somebody going to train me? If they don't, why should I have to? Instead of blaming, those are blaming questions. When you say those, you feel like a victim. Well, it's not my fault. Nobody ever trained me. But now I'm putting blame on somebody else. Nobody will blame me so it's okay for me to not do a great job. Start asking yourself what John Miller calls the QBQ. Insert yourself into the question and ask yourself if it works. What can I do to ensure? What can I do to get better at? Insert yourself in that and don't ask this out loud. Ask this to yourself. What can I do? And right now, last week on this On Brand segment, I talked about to go and delivery and how we need to be upping our game as a collective restaurant world and to go and delivery for multiple facets.

01:39:05It's getting darker. It's getting colder. Everybody out there knows how to do to go and delivery. It's made it much easier. The technology is there and the COVID numbers are rising. People feel more safe with it. I think that you need to do everything you possibly can right now to up your game and to go. But what are you going to do? We have choices. How are you going to do it? Are you going to change menu items? Are you going to have specific menu items that work really well to go? Are you going to get new to go boxes that preserve food better, that last longer? Are you going to put different food in different boxes? Maybe you already do that. Maybe not. Maybe just throw all food in one box, throw it in a bag and you go. Are you going to get the really cool to go bags that clothes like Delia loves that they have at Germantown Pub? Are you going to get those bags that when you arrive, when you get the food, you know nobody's touched it? Are you going to bring in extra staff because you've put in extra steps so you can have flawless execution? Are you going to do your own deliveries like Green Hills Grill and Will Newman over at Edley's is doing now?

01:40:07Are you going to pivot to doing your own deliveries and save that money instead of a third party vendor delivery company? Do these things. Excel and whatever you do and you're going to succeed. Don't just do the bare minimum. Do not be mediocre. This is a time right now where people demand more. When you're deciding when there's not enough money to go out and spend, when you're living on pennies and you go spend money and something is not good. I went out to lunch today. I'd stopped in and just got a sub somewhere. I'm not going to say where, but I walked into the counter and the guy's standing there and he looked at me and I went, are you ready? And he's like, uh-huh. And I said, I'll have the whatever, whatever sub. And he just looked at me and I was like, hello? Like, are you okay? And he said, oh yeah, do you want it? Like, do you want a Coke or do you want this? And I said, sure. And then he, and he pointed down at the, like at the place where my credit card and I was like, am I ready to pay? And he goes, yeah. And there's things to swipe on. So I swiped and I looked at him and I go, did it go through?

01:41:10And he goes, yeah. And he handed me a receipt and he walked away. He didn't say, hey man, welcome to XYZ Sub Shop. We're so excited to see you here. They didn't explain anything. It was just like, we could do better than that. If you're a business owner, you're a worker, do better than that right now. You've just got to, why be mediocre? So I wanted to challenge everybody today. I wanted to challenge everybody out there to just stop. Look in the mirror, do something. Pick something this week that you're doing right now. Pick something that you could be doing better. And this week, knock it out of the park. Figure out a way to do that thing and do it better. I don't care if it's work. I don't care if it's personal. I don't care whatever it is. And I'll tell you what mine is. For me, it's parenting, right? Because I spend so much time helping other people do stuff like this.

01:42:10I help people identify core values and I help people put systems and processes together to where they can excel. They can operate on a very high level. But I'm not doing that with my family. And my kids are running all over the place and I'm here all the time and I'm trying to figure things out. But I'm going to challenge myself this week. We've already started. We're putting together our core values for our family. I'm putting together our core focus. We have a vision where we want to be. We've got a 30-day plan. We have a six-month plan, a year plan. And I have a plan for five years from now. We've talked about it. We're going to put it in place. We're going to actively start doing it. And that's going to be my thing. That's going to be the thing that I'm going to focus on. I'm going to stop being mediocre at is being a dad. Because I feel, I mean, I'm just being honest right now. I've been focusing a lot on podcasts and work and all these other things. And I've got to balance my life out. I got to balance out. And that's one of the things that I can look in the mirror and recognize that I haven't been doing as good as I should. So I challenge you this week to get out there and figure something out and go freaking nail it.

01:43:14Go do it to the best of your ability. I'm going to step off my soapbox. Delia, did any part of that make sense to you? Absolutely. And you had a great comment here from Jordan just saying, I'm a mere national restaurant scene consumer and not in the business. So I'm probably not the target audience. But I needed to hear this message on mediocrity. It's a universal truth. And he said, thank you. So I think I will, I guess, say to the side of not in the restaurant business, I cover it. But I'm not working in it, inside it, in a day to day. So also just going through what I've gone through. I can also attest to that. But also giving grace for that guy at the sub shop. Because maybe he's doing the best he can to just get through the day. So for myself, I have had to put a focus on self care. And I don't mean bubble baths and massages. I mean mental health care. I can't watch the news right now. I can't be tapped into all this politics that's happening. I have had to put a focus on sleep and on boundaries. Because that's something that I've talked through with my therapist. And so for me, in order to not be a mediocrity, I have to take care of myself.

01:44:18And so I think for some people that we might interact with in a less ideal service way. Like across, I have a restaurant very close to me that I go to. And I'm always so frustrated. I'm like, they just act like they don't care. They're not trying. And I still am trying to tip them. Because I know they're still working during a pandemic. And that's not an excuse for them. But I guess just seeing the other side of it. And maybe they need to take a break and take care of themselves. And just, I guess that's where I'm at on it. Is we can't all be great all the time. And sometimes we go through things. And we have to take care of ourselves before we can do excellent things for other people. I completely understand. Which is why I put the caveat at the beginning of this. I'm not trying to be insensitive to people that are just like, dude, I can't do it. I don't know how to do it. I'm completely stuck. That's a thing. I understand that. But if you're in a different place and you feel like you're just kind of like, damn, I need to get better at something. I got to focus on something. I wanted this message to be, if everybody as a collective group focused and identified something that they didn't do as good as they could and just picked one thing a week and did it better, I want to say you feel better about yourself.

01:45:34You feel better about what you're doing. But you know what? If you're not, it's okay too. Like it's fine. We are, the truth of the matter is we are in a pandemic. And that's a legitimate thing. It really is. And everybody's going to deal with things differently. I just hopefully was going to motivate some people out there today. Of course. And I mean, for me, my excuse is not the pandemic. My excuse is, you know, not an excuse, but like losing my mom last year and the divorce last year and the fallout that's happened through that. Like I've done all that through a pandemic without the support because we've been isolated. So I just, I think there's a lot more going on than just the pandemic. People say 2020 is the worst year. For me, it has not been my worst year. So I think because a lot of people have a lot of things they're going through. And I think, yeah, focus on one thing each day that you can do. That's good for yourself, for others. I think that's a good start in place for people. Do you know what, Delia? I want to say this publicly. I, you know, I've only known you for, you know, I guess several months now, but the level of courage that you have to say what you say and do what you've done in the face of all this adversity and the things that you've gone through, the way that you've taken it on head first and you've just kind of felt all the feels and you're working through everything.

01:46:51Like you inspire me. Like you're one of those people that just inspires me to be real and to be authentic and to not hide behind anything and to say it's okay to have feelings because it is. It's okay to have feelings. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to have these different things and work through them. And like, totally, I think that it's one of, you've been absolutely inspiring to me and your leadership for other people who potentially have been going through grief and different things. You've been such a beacon of, hey, everything's going to be okay and it's okay to feel the way that you feel. It's just been really, really amazing. I wanted to tell you that because I've been meaning to say that and I never had like the forum, but I want to say it publicly. I think that you are non, I think you are the definition of what mediocrity is not. Thank you. Does that make sense? Is that the right way to say that? Some days, but thank you. I appreciate that and thank you. All right. Well, I think, hey, we're done with the show. We're going on almost two hours.

01:47:53I am going to take this episode and I'm going to cut up the individual segments and I'm going to put them out on our YouTube channel. So we would love to have you on our YouTube channel. Like I said, next week, huge, huge week, Benjamin Goldberg will be out Monday. If you're a subscriber to the podcast, you get notifications when new podcasts come out. This podcast may come out early, which is I normally put out the podcast the night before. If you're a subscriber, you get the exact notification when that happens. A lot of people jump on that. So just as a note, subscribe YouTube as well as wherever you get your podcasts. And sometimes they come out early. So you get a little bonus sometimes and you get to watch these videos if you're used to listening to them. Thank you for all of your work. This was a big episode. A lot of guests, a lot of stuff happening. Thank you to our guests, Tom Morales, Laura Wilson, as well as Harant and Liz. Thank you guys so much for coming on. And Delia, I'm so glad you're feeling better. Thank you.

01:48:54It's great to have you here today and do it. Oh, well, stay pretty, Music City. And remember, you can still be pretty with your mask on. Have a great week. It is right. Again, hope you guys are being safe out there. We love you guys. Bye.