#theroundup 9-25-20

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 today, as always, I am joined with Delia Jo Ramsey. She's the editor of Eater Nashville, and she is here live. Hi, Delia. Hi, live from Houston. Live from Houston, Texas. I cannot wait to get an update. You are alive. You are live and a live, which is a good thing. Yeah, it's our full storm beta. Passed through, a bunch of rain got dumped down, but still here. I feel like you need to introduce a guest host today, but it's just yesterday.

01:01We don't have a guest host today, and this is by design. Today is going to be a fun show because we are going to talk about a lot of things that are happening out in the city and the restaurant world, but then we're also going to be talking about our brand new Nashville Hot List. The Nashville Hot List is going to be our very own Nashville Restaurant Radio list of the best restaurants in Nashville right now, and we're going to get into a conversation about that in about 30 minutes, and then we're going to have Jim Myers is going to come on, and he is going to talk to us about his new gig over at the Elliston Place Soda Shop, so we will have a guest on the show, just nobody guest hosting with us today. Right, so I guess we'll start. I got to catch up with you on Sunday at the Mirable Chef Dinner with Alex Ballou, but maybe tell already about the dinner. It was a fantastic dinner. I mean, we had a really good time. You know, Chef Alex Ballou's just, he's just got that person, he's got that it factor. You know, he gets up there and starts talking and does his own thing. The food was amazing. The company was fantastic. Yeah.

02:13Could have got me. I got to meet the guy. Not many people left. I know. I feel pretty honored, and I like Smitten. He is like the best. We're like going to have a coffee date soon and just kind of hang out because I certainly liked hanging out with him. He was a lot of fun. You both have such similar personalities as far as like business-minded and entrepreneurial thoughts. We had a great time with you guys and great time eating. The eating part was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the eating part too. It's just great. After that, what's, what are you gonna do this week? Oh my gosh. So we haven't had any live, like we haven't had like actual live interviews, but we've done a couple of best of episodes and the best of episodes with Jim Myers. We just released that whole interview because it was just so good. And it was so positive and just fun learning about a journalist and what he's writing and how he's writing. And then the episode that we put out on Wednesday was probably my favorite that I did because I went back and listened to the episode with Sylvia Gagner. It was one of the top listened episodes, but Sylvia, as the CFO, the chief farm officer over at the Green Door Gourmet, her talking about farmers markets and why they're not necessarily good for the farmer was so eyeopening. And just her whole, all of her stories, she's just such an amazing, amazing person. Tom Morales talking about how he started Tomcats when he bought the first mobile kitchen. And then his stories, if you go back and listen to the Tom Morales episode, where he starts talking about golfing with Joe Pesci and they're golfing for like five grand a hole. And he's like, I have $5. It was just, those are just classic stories. And then we threw back to Alex Ballou, the very passionate, kind of an interesting gaze into the life of an entrepreneur and a chef trying to make it pre-COVID. Just so much fun going back and listening to those

04:13episodes. And then Andy Little, the most referenced thing I talked about was Andy Little doing his, where he gets on a ladder and films his line while they're working. He calls it game tape. And just the idea of doing that, I thought was so innovative and so just so cool. So that was a really fun episode to put out there. And then here we are today. We've got a pretty big show next week. We've got a pretty big week next week. I am going to be, we're going to have Kerry Bringle on the show on Monday. We're going to talk about our city and we're going to talk about what's going on. We're going to get his full opinion. We're going to chat back and forth. And I'm pretty stoked about that. It's going to be a good one to come out on Monday. May we're all going to be on the show? Maybe. We can see what he talks about. I mean, he's got his hands full with barbecue and he's got Kerry's smoking Oasis that's going to be going in over there in the nations eventually. I don't know what their planning is on that, but I'd love to hear it. Last time I saw Kerry, we sat in his office and it was about, I don't know, a month ago. We shot a video for his one star review and we talked for like an hour and I went, damn it, why didn't I record this?

05:30We got to do this. We got to come back and record what we're talking about because he's just, he's obviously very opinionated and he's a leader, which is something I think that we are, I think we're missing. I think that in his long note that he wrote where he said, we don't have leadership. We have people who are in charge. And I thought that that was a really unique perspective. I want to dig deeper into that and kind of talk a little more because last week, you know, we talked on the roundup. We talked, it was the day that Dennis Barrier's report came out and we were all like, what the yeah. And you know, obviously that's come back now and the Fox did a retraction and they said, Hey, we may have jumped the gun a little bit. And the president tweeted about it. Tucker Carlson had a whole episode about it. It went national. It blew up. The thing is that you can't trust everything you read even from sources that should be fact checking. And you know, it's an issue. Media is an issue and politicians as puppets are things. So I think everybody just paying attention is important.

06:37And it's hard to vet information. We don't know where it's coming from. But if you're out there watching right now and you're absolutely correct, Delia, we'd love for you to say hello. Type a post in the type of comment there in the comments. Just let us know that you're there. Or we will be talking about the Nashville hot list, which is going to be coming out a little bit later. Post your nomination for your the what you feel like is the best restaurant in Nashville right now. If you feel like you've got a restaurant you think is the best restaurant in Nashville, post it in the comments. And we would love to take that as a nominee to go to our hot list, which will be released next week live on this show. We will have a top 10 the top 10 restaurants in Nashville right now as the Nashville hot list. So you're in Houston. Yeah. What's going on there? How'd you get to Houston? Um, the guy don't say airplane, the guy. Yeah, I flew. Um, no, I just flew down from anywhere. And mostly was trapped in the hotel all day Tuesday because the downpour was real that day. And most of the crazy thing was most restaurants were closing early. We had a reservation for dinner that night. They called and said, Hey, we're closing up shop at five o'clock because we want everybody to be safe at home. And so the city kind of shut down. You can tell that we were found that's been hit before by hurricanes and flooding. And you can tell the way they reacted. I was like, I mean, I'm not used to this because when I lived in Texas, I lived in Dallas. So I haven't experienced that before. So I was kind of like, wait, what, what are we gonna do for dinner? So I went, of course, and like to the coffee shop across the street and bought like five boxes of pastries. I was like, we'll just stay nice. I saw that. I was like, gosh, she got a lot of pastries for like, I did. But then I sent them with, uh, with yesterday into the studio to share. So I only ate two and a half cookies, um, the cherry pastry and the, well, okay, like five things.

08:37I want to be, that's, if I buy those, I'm gonna eat them all. That's just the thing. Like if I get them, I'll bring them home. And then like later on the afternoon, I'm like, am I hungry? I don't know if I'm hungry, but I'm staring at pastries. So yeah, I am. And it's on. So I did that. And, uh, just been hanging out here. I, um, had a weird thing happen this week. And I do want to get your thoughts and maybe some viewers opinions on this because y'all know I've been eating take out delivery food pretty much throughout the pandemic, right? And a lot of times I will use postmates or Uber Eats when I'm in a meeting, like when I'm on a zoom call or whatever, cause I can't get away. So I'll have, you know, the door code and I bust somebody and I have the contact list delivery drop-off option selected. So they just leave it at my door. It tells me it's there and I can usually like run off and get it right from, from my front door or the apartment. Well, I get a notification after I ordered my smoothie and my juice shot. This is all I was getting for lunch that day. Cause I was trying to get back on my intermittent fasting and then a smoothie. Where'd you get it from? Um, from urban juicer. Nice. So they have a great, it's called a flu shot. That's like two slices of apples. And then it's, it's a, it's a tough shot. It's got like garlic in it, lemon.

09:52It's not a good one, but I feel like it's helped my immunity this whole time. So I just ordered that smoothie and I get a text, you know, they can start to communicate with you through the app. Right. And she's like, um, so I don't come in apartment buildings because of COVID. So, and I'm like, okay, well I'm in a meeting. So I guess I don't know what to tell you. I said, don't you have a mask and gloves? And she's, she snaps back at me and she's like, well, if you can't come downstairs, then why did you order it? And I was like, well, audibly speaking or texting text. And I'm like, well, if you don't feel comfortable delivering, then why are you delivering food for a living? I mean, that's, you feel okay to go in a restaurant and like open that door and pay. I mean, I don't, I don't know. Like you feel okay with that. You don't feel okay with apartment buildings. So then I'm like, okay, can you just leave it in a leasing office like downstairs lease so that when I get off this call, I can go down there and say, I don't want to touch the door. And I'm like, how did you get in the building door?

10:58How do you, how does she get any bill in any building? She doesn't want to touch the door. Yeah. I'm like, okay. So eventually I, she's like, well, I'm not risking my life to deliver your food. And I was like, no one's asking you to risk your life. And also like, why are you delivering food for money? Like you can have a job that you stay at home for. If you don't feel safe right now, then this should not be the job you're doing. So I got mad and I was like, getting angry at this point. Did you yell and snap? And I just, I just was like, you know, I said, I can't come get the food right now. You won't enter the building. So I was like, you might as well just throw it in the trash or drink it yourself. Like it's the truth. Like just drink the damn smoothie, throw it in the trash. Cause now at this point I've, I've made her mad. I think she's made me mad. I'm like, she could have spit in this movie. She could have like put whatever she wanted in the smoothie at this point. I'm like, I don't really, it's like this, it just has a lid on it. You know, like anything could be in the smoothie. I'm like, throw the smoothie away. She ends up leaving it downstairs or like outside of the door on the sidewalk of the building. I'm like, yeah, you know, it's weird because I hear that story. My brain goes in a couple of different ways, right? You hear the story and you go, where, where's, is there a little bit of grace here? And is there like my, I want, I want to like, I hear, I can, I can identify with both sides of that story. Right. You know, I can identify with the person who's out there working right now. I don't know if Potts Mace is their first job, their second job, whatever it is. It's just a cup, but you had to walk into a restaurant to get it.

12:38You know what you're signed up for. You have a phone, you're going in places like, that's part of delivering food downtown. Right. And, you know, I mean, I want to say, we don't want, thank you for doing this. Like we appreciate it, but at some point also, like, what is that? I mean, like that's gotta be frustrating. Like I've ordered this service. I'm paying a premium for this because I'm on a meeting. I need you to bring it to my door. Yeah. You don't have to, I don't want to touch you. I don't want you to come. She said that's like coming into someone's kitchen. I was like, no, it's like you open, you just like leave it in the hallway. Maybe she thought she, like, you wanted to bring it like into your, into your apartment. It says on the thing, it says leave at doorstep and then it's like they send a picture and it's at your doorstep. And that's what, that's what has always happened. I've never had an issue. I think there were like two older men one time and one was like, I have a, I'm terrified of, I think it's just the way she said it. She was just like, I don't want apartment buildings. And I was like, then don't deliver food because you're delivering food downtown. There are lots of apartment buildings. Well, you know, another thing is this is something I experienced. So I had a similar experience, kind of not really, but I had a similar experience this week and it made me think about service, you know, and just about like just basic service and people innately in our, in our world and our society want to be victims and you want to blame other people for what's going on. And COVID-19 is a great opportunity. If you have a victim mentality that this happened to you and it's, and it's, this is what it is. And it's, it hurts me more because I'm in this industry, whatever it might be, but I went out to get a burger and I got a burger at a place the other day.

14:17I'm not going to say what place it is. I'll just say that it wasn't, there was four guys, four guys, four guys, not the other. Is this live? Yes, Alex, this is live right now. It was a burger place that wasn't, that there was one more than four guys that run it. And I went up there and I ordered my food. I really liked the smash burgers and I wanted to get a burger. And the woman was kind of like looking down and I was like, and can I get like a tea with that? And she's like, oh yeah. And then I put the credit card in, she wasn't responding and like look over and she's got her phone underneath like the cash register and she's scrolling through Facebook. And I was like, uh, thank you. You know, and I got my, and I went over and the guy's like number 12 and I'm like, I don't know. I never got a receipt. I don't, the girl was on her phone. Like I didn't get any kind of response, but I don't like service is one of those things right now that I think we all have to be empathetic because I think we're all on edge as it is, but I don't think that we need to be empathetic to the point to where we accept like a, like a really sub standard level of service or like where we're just really okay with mediocrity, but there's, but there's a fine line there. There's a balance that you've got to find from accountability versus anger versus all these things. And I think what you're talking about is every time I get this delivery, they come up to bring it here. I've got the thing checked there. And I feel like this person is using that as an excuse. And then I go to the place and I get a burger and it's like, what happened to like, just comment, like you're working right now, like enjoyment in your job, doing your thing. And it's, and it can be really frustrating and it is, and then, and then they go, will you leave a tip? Right. And I mean, right now, especially I've been trying to tip like 30% as, as often as I can. So then I get

16:21something like that. I'm like, I'm not giving that girl anything. Cause she like, I had to throw away smoothie. I mean, Alex Ballou is jumping on here and he has said, he said, you know, Alex, who was our illustrious guest host last week, he says, there's no room for anything other than the pursuit of excellence. And I mean, you know what, that's in all things, but there's also empathy. Now, now me, if you look at these culture index or like these, you know, enneagrams or whatever, I'm a, I'm a 10 on logic versus empathy. And I typically am like two plus two is always four, but I'm trying to learn how to be like nicer to a degree. I'm super empathetic. I just don't like when I feel like people are doing a job that maybe they shouldn't be doing and are just being lazy. I don't know. Yeah. It's how do you decipher that? So I mean, I think that the key out there is hold people accountable. Don't leave ridiculous gratuities for people that don't do their job. Um, let's bring service back, but it doesn't, it's like, it's the little things. There's the little things that make up the difference between being good or bad. And you know, there's a guy, uh, his name is Doug Hogan. We're going to talk about Doug here in just a second, because they have a new location about to open the owner at four top hospitality. And he was also my manager when I started working at Amerigo at age 20, 21. He was the GM. And during my orientation, he said, listen, what we do here is, um, we do it a little differently. And he painted this story for me. I mean, I've used this story a bunch of times in a bunch of scenarios, but this is the difference between good and bad, right? He goes, imagine you and your girlfriend or your boyfriend, whatever you are, you show up to a place, it's a new place. I'm just going to use our Charlie's as an example, because we've all been there. We know what our Charlie's is. It's fine. It's good. It's nothing wrong with our Charlie's.

18:13Great. Good people. We like them. Um, they're fine. Do you pull into the, this is just hypothetical, but you pull into a parking lot, right? And as you pull in, you look up at the big sign right there and that the, uh, C is out in the, and it just says, Oh, Harley's. And you're like, Oh, they need to, uh, and you get their sign fixed. Look at that. You pull in the parking lot and you park and you open the door to your car and you get out of the car and there's like beer bottles right there in the parking lot. And you're like, Oh, I guess I need to not run over those on my way out. And you walk up to the front door. There's like the ashtrays out front. You know, there's like people outside smoking, but there's just like 50 ashtrays, 50 cigarette butts in there. And there's like wind rolling. There's like the little wrappers from the mints that are kind of swirling around the front door. And one of the light bulbs is out to the front door. So you're kind of opening the front door, which has like finger smudges on it. These are all not, it's like the end of the world, but you're kind of like walking in the door and you open the door and there's the host and it's host hostess, but there's like four people hanging out around the host stand and you have to walk up and be like, and she's like, Oh, how many?

19:24You're like, well, it's great to see you too. Uh, we're, yeah, we're just here to spend money. And they're like, how many? And you're like, um, two. And then she just like grabs menus and just starts walking. And you're like, are we, are we following you? Is that what we're doing here? And so then you start walking. She just walked way ahead of you, sets menus on the table and is like, Brad's going to be with you and just like walks away. And you're like, okay, you know, we've all, we all had this experience and you sit down at the table and you look at the menu and you're like, okay. And the menu is kind of like dirty, but you look across the table and you're like, wow, okay. Well, this is, uh, never been here before. I guess this is a different kind of restaurant. This is interesting. And, uh, you kind of wait and you wait and you look around and you're like, it's not that busy in here. You know, it's kind of a weird vibe, but can't really hear the music or the music's way too loud. And then you wait and you wait and like, where the hell do we have a server? Like, where is the server? You see the manager over there talking to like a couple of girls and you're like, what is this? Like, where, where is the people? And then the dude comes to the table and he's like, Oh, Hey, with him comes a big waft of cigarette smoke. And you're like, Oh, how was your cigarette? He's like, I'm Brad. I'm like, Hey, Brad. He's like, Oh, I'm going to be your server. Oh, what do you want to drink? And you go, bro, what kind of beer do you have on draft? He's like, I don't know. I'm new.

20:41Yep. You're like, what the hell is going on here? The thing here is that you haven't even looked at the menu, nothing to do with food so far. It's all these tiny little details that are easy, easy, easy things to fix. If you care, if you care and you're doing a good job, they have nothing to do with COVID-19. None of these things have to do with COVID-19, but can all ruin your experience and are all things you can blame on somebody else. Absolutely. Oh, well, that person didn't do this. That person didn't do that. They didn't clean the menus. That person, I just wanted a cigarette. I like, that's not what Alex is talking about. That's not that we are striving for excellence. And you go back to that scenario and you pull up to a beautifully lit restaurant that has all of the lights burning. The front entrance is clean. And they're like, hello, welcome. We're happy to have you. They open the door for you. You walk in the door and the host is right there. And it's like, good evening. Welcome to Charlie's. We're so happy to have you here. And you're like, wow, thank you. It's just me too. Do you want a table or a booth? As you walk back, like you guys celebrating something tonight, we're just excited to have you. You're like, damn, I really like this. Like the vibe is really good. You sit down, the menus look nice. Servers like, bam, welcome. Let me tell you about our specials. You're like, immediately you're excited to open that menu. It's all those little things. Look at that. Yeah.

22:01Yeah. I mean, you're all of a sudden like this restaurant negative experiences start so early and you've got to really focus on those things. And I think that a lot of that stuff gets missed right now because we're so focused on pivoting towards different things. And we're afraid and um, just, there's just this, this fear and there's much animosity and anxiety that everybody has that we've just got to beat it. We've got to get past that somehow. And it starts with every individual person who's in the service industry and guests, guests need to be considered the hell down. Absolutely. Um, so it's a long, long story about service that I like to tell, but I mean, that's, that is the brutal truth. It's the little things, the devil's in the details. Absolutely. Absolutely. So let me ask you a question about tropical storms. You learned anything about tropical storms while you were there? Did I learn anything? Yeah. So you were, you were just like, afraid about getting food. Like you weren't afraid for your safety. You're like they're closing stuff.

23:04Everybody else is afraid for their life. I was just like, what if I can't have dinner? Hey, um, we have a special treat right now because we've been talking about service. Um, Jim Myers is going to come on early today. He is here right now. Let's bring him in. Hey, can you hear us? Yeah, hold on. I had to turn on the stream because that there was a difference in the time there. So yeah, how's it going? Pretty good. You are live on the roundup right now. Yes. I feel alive on the roundup right now. I was sorry. I would have jumped in sooner, but I was out getting, uh, you know, cleaning up cigarette butts in the parking lot right before I came in here. Well, you're listening. I like it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So Jim, we kind of started jumping and talking about service, but let's do, we, we did a, I did a show this week where I replayed our episode from April the 9th.

24:15Wow. Smack dab right in the middle of the pandemic. And now here you are at the Elliston Place Soda Shop. And I said on that podcast, I said, Jim Myers, who is at the helm of the Elliston Place Soda Shop. And you said, whoa, let's stop, stop the clock here. Slow your roll. I have an official update as to where you at, what you're doing. Yeah. I'm the chief soda jerk. If you want a title, um, or just the big jerk is some people call me. So, uh, yeah, in fact, I wanted to do some merch, you know, using jerk, but it's, it just can go south so fast that we decided not to, but, um, yeah, I'm part of the management team here. I have, as I tell people, I have opinions and no authority. So, uh, I try and influence things as much as I can, but, uh, but, uh, yeah, just, uh, part of a great team of people, uh, and actually a pretty incredible team.

25:19When you think about, uh, some of the history in Nashville that we have, Carter Hall is working with us. His grandmother, Fila Ha was the grand dame of cooking in middle Tennessee. Uh, we have Debbie Sullivan, who is a 20 year veteran of Nashville, uh, Linda Melton, who's coming over from the original soda shop where she was for 27 years, uh, still bakes all the pies. So we've got some, uh, some real professionals. We, we have not to date hired a ton of millennial, uh, hostesses like you were talking about earlier on the show. Um, but it, uh, we've, we've got this, well, for one, we haven't hired anyone outside of the core management team right now. So, um, we're holding it down. Uh, we have a chef, uh, Kevin White who's, uh, from New Orleans. Um, but he's worked in a lot of different places, uh, in New Orleans, in New York City. Uh, he, he was the chef de cuisine at the Space Needle, uh, in Seattle. So, um, he's done a little bit of everything. He also helped open Galatoire's after Katrina. Um, so he brings, uh, a really broad set of skills here and we're thrilled to have a chef gift kitchen manager in place. So that's, uh, that's my role. My role is a little bit of everything.

26:44A little bit of everything. What, what are you, is this your first time like doing this? Uh, in terms of working in a restaurant? Yeah. Well, yes and no. I mean, if you go way, way back to the, uh, to the, uh, around 1986, 87, um, I waited tables at Miss Daisy's Tea Room in, in, uh, Green Hills. Oh, nice. Yeah. It was a lot of blue hairs and, and old folks eating chicken divan and congealed salad and that kind of thing. Um, but that was, uh, that was where I cut my teeth. But I've spent, as you know, I've spent a lot of time in and around restaurants and worked with chefs in different capacities. So I know my way around, but yeah, this is the first, uh, first full-time job in a restaurant in a long time. And it's terrifying. It's absolutely terrifying. It's 10,000 times harder than, than, uh, than you think it's going to be, even if you know, even if I mean, I came with a pretty informed opinion, but, um, it's still terrifying. Uh, there's a lot to getting a place open and then you fold in, uh, a pandemic and a recession and it's just, uh, it just makes for all kinds of frivolity, uh, trying to get the doors open. So you haven't actually opened yet. Do you have a timeline for when you're going to open the restaurant? I wish I did, um, because we need a timeline to be able to start checking off certain boxes. Um, we're, we're still waiting for our full use and occupancy. Um, we've got a couple more little things, uh, permit wise to get taken care of. That always takes longer than you think it's going to take. Um, but construction wise, we're, I mean, we're, we're set up. I mean, we're ready to go. We've got the equipment fired up and, and, uh, starting to work and, uh, we're starting to

28:49test some recipes now. Um, so, but in terms of a date, um, uh, later this fall, winter, we'll just, we'll say fall, winter. Um, it's just, you know, it's, it's hard to commit to a date, um, with the pandemic and timing is everything when you're opening. And, uh, especially if you're going to do your, your marketing push and your promotional push, um, you don't want to have a big ramp up and then have to scale back down right away. Um, and you know, once you do ramp up, you're, you're hiring your servers, you're hiring your, your back of the house staff, you're doing all the training. Um, you don't want to do that and then have to lay people off. Uh, so it's just, uh, it's a delicate dance right now with that. And you'd like to be able to open as close to normal, as close to capacity as you can. Um, and it's hard. And I think, I think it was, it may have been Nick Guidry last week talked about, but someone's talked about, no matter what phase we're in, as long as they're still requiring social distancing, your, the capacity of your restaurant is bound by the social distancing and the spacing of your tables. Not, not whether it's 25, 50, 75, a hundred percent capacity. If you still have to space everyone out, you're using essentially every other booth or table and which, which effectively puts you at around 50%. So, um, so that's, that's the, that's the hard part about trying to find, find that best date. But, uh, but you know, we're all itching to pull the trigger and get open and, and, uh, we've had so many people coming by and knocking on the door, the window and saying, are you open yet? And, um, and you hate to turn those people away

30:49because there are a lot of people anticipating the reopening. That there is, is there any, um, just you guys bringing this whole thing back, what are you most excited about? What are you most excited about opening the doors, you yourself, like when you lay in bed at night and you think about the day of the doors open, what gives you butterflies? It all gives me butterflies. Um, the other, the other day we had some, uh, VIPs friends of, uh, Tony Giratana, who is the, who is the, uh, financial backer in this venture. And, uh, he had some people in town and, and it was late in the afternoon, early evening. I was the only one left here. And so I had just had my first primer on milkshakes 101, uh, that, uh, Linda Melton had given me. So I made a milkshake and I, it was great, got it up and, and it made another one, man. I'm, I'm just, this is awesome. I know what I'm doing.

31:50Made a third one. Oh, these are turning out great. Best milkshakes ever going to make two more. And I said, I'm going to make two at once. You know, I'm getting cocky now and, um, I'm going, but suddenly one of the cups isn't staying up on the, uh, on the blender the way it should. It's not locking in. So I've got one I'm holding up and I'm moving the other one. And before I know it, the one just, it falls off the blender and strawberry milkshake goes everywhere. It was just such a fine, fine moment for me. Um, I'm covered in milkshake and it's all over the machines and the back wall. Thankfully it didn't splatter anyone sitting at the, at the counter, but, um, but I, you know, so butterflies of, of, of thinking what it's going to be like doing the work when you're really busy, when you're in the weeds, when you've got hopefully these beautiful days ahead, when there are people standing in line to come in and, and get in, how are we going to, you know, how are we going to work? What are the, what are the systems we're going to have in place to be able to take care of people efficiently, uh, in a timely manner and get hot food out that's hot and cold food that's cold. So I think about that, but I think the thing I anticipate is just kids sitting at that counter, you know, just a kid whose, whose eyes are as big as silver dollars as you pour a ginormous milkshake in front of them and, uh, hand them a straw and put the cup down next to it to let them know there's even more milkshake in that silver cup, uh, that you just made. So I think that, I think, um, the fact that we're going to be, uh, we're going to be a rock solid meet-and-three in a town of meet-and-threes and, um, and that we're, that we're keeping the meet-and-three tradition alive. Um, you hate to hear about places closing. I worry about places like Sweats where

33:52David Sweats is going to retire and doesn't know yet who's going to take that over. Uh, you worry about some of the older meet-and-threes in town and how they're doing and, um, when, you know, we, we have a, we have an ambitious menu in terms of a full soda shop menu or a full soda fountain menu, a full breakfast menu served all day, a sort of a diner menu with sandwiches, burgers, fries, egg salad sandwich, that kind of thing. Um, and then a meet-and-three on top of all of that. Uh, so, um, and, and, and when we talked about it, it's like, well, do we really want to do all of that or do we want to scale it back a little bit? And we looked at old menus of the soda shop and that's what it's always been. Uh, it's always been a meet-and-three and, uh, Lynn Chandler, who opened it in 1939, at one point, uh, proclaimed himself the king of meet-and-threes and, uh, he also claimed, uh, to be the first to go from two vegetables to three vegetables. But, uh, uh, we can't independently verify that fact, but, uh, but he was a major force in the meet-and-three, uh, landscape here in town and part of that DNA. And, uh, he sold one of his restaurants to a young guy that was working there named Jack Arnold. So Arnold's is part of the soda shop story and the old Sylvan Park restaurant, uh, was part of the Sylvan Park or the, uh, soda shop family. So, so I think, um, serving up just some great classic southern comfort food, uh, at a time when people could use a little comfort and joy. Um, and, and, uh, Delia, you've seen the, you've seen the, the menu. We've, we've, we're really working hard to keep the prices as low and affordable as possible because it's important to do that right now for people. Yeah, absolutely. Because people are, people are looking for that. People can't afford to go out and splurge right now. They're looking for prices like that. And I was shocked. I was

35:55like, you didn't like gaps of prices to move into the fancy digs. It's, it's all good. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, it's important, um, to, uh, to help build back consumer confidence in eating out and know that there's an affordable place and a comfortable place and a comforting place that's familiar to them. Um, and you know, it's funny, we're joking, well, what's different about the menu? Someone asked in it and it's hard. I mean, there are just, it's more tweaks than anything, than any major changes to the menu. Uh, like we were adding an open face roast beef sandwich, because there used to be one back in the forties, uh, but it hasn't been on the menu in a while. But one of the things we are adding is, uh, alcohol service. And, uh, we're joking, we're joking that, uh, we're going to have beer and wine spirits and boozy shakes and that, that whole thing. But, uh, we joked that, uh, when news that the soda shop was, uh, adding alcohol to their service, it's burned, finally spurned Khalil on to, uh, add alcohol to Arnold's and, and Cracker Barrel. I think Cracker Barrel is afraid of us already. So, uh, it's your leadership that you're leading the pack. That's right. Someone has to push, push the wedge forward. Um, but that's, that's what's, that's what we're thinking about. And we've got a little mini shakedown cruise on Saturday, uh, an event for Reverend Enoch Fuzz of the Corinthian Baptist Church, who is in stage four cancer. So we're doing a birthday party fundraiser for him to help with his, uh, his medical bill expenses.

37:40Um, so that'll, that'll be the first chance to really have some folks inside the space and serve them, albeit in a, in a very controlled COVID friendly, uh, Metro Health Department permit approved, uh, flow of traffic through the restaurant kind of way. So it's not sexy, but, uh, it'll be as fun as it can be. Yeah. But I'd say I think it's so cool, Jim, that you are doing this. I can't think of, you know, when we were talking the other day, we were talking about just kind of like fundamentals and going back to basics. I think so many people, kind of like that story I just told, which, um, you know, they'll become real to you, but the, the, the fundamentals of looking people in the eye, greeting them when they arrive, learning their names, part of, I think who you are is you're a Nashvilleian. You has all, you know, the stories in the history and being part of bringing something so historic back to the city, uh, and being, being part of the heartbeat of what's going to make it, what it is, um, is a big draw for you.

38:56Tell us more about kind of how you see yourself uniquely fitting into that scenario. Yeah. I mean, I think that's going to be one of my biggest roles is, is just, uh, meeting people and talking to people when they come in, uh, introducing myself, tell them, telling them a little bit about the place saying, Hey, come over here and look at this cool soda fountain that we put in that was, uh, it was manufactured in 1947 and fully refurbished or take a look at these pictures in the wall that were in the original soda shop. Um, but, but greeting people, one of the, one of the things that we've been doing that, that, uh, that I enjoy because a lot of people are coming up to the door and this is a small example of what you were talking about. Uh, we have signs on the door that say, we're sorry, we're not open yet. Thanks for coming by. Check us out on Facebook for announcements, but we make an effort that everyone, every person that comes to that door, someone gets up and goes to the door and says, Hey, thanks for coming by. It basically says what the sign says, but, but does it, Hey, my name is Jim. Uh, please come back.

40:02We look forward to serving you. Are you from Nashville? Have you been to the old soda shop? Is this your first time here? Um, did you used to eat there? Oh, that's so great. Uh, Ms. Linda is still here making pies, um, just to make that, that connection. And one of Lynn Chandler's sayings was, uh, you have to make a friend before you make a customer. And he ran the shop for decades, you know, uh, under that premise, but, but you're right. It's, it's greeting people at the door immediately. It's making eye contact. It's not, you know, if you're on the phone, fine, you're on the phone, but look up, look at the person, make eye contact, say, you know, acknowledge them and say, I'll be with you in just a moment rather than just ignoring people until you get to them. And so, um, so yeah, that's a lot of it. Cause we do have some tremendous stories to tell about this place. I mean, we've got eight decades of stories. Um, one of, I mean, one of my favorite ones immediately in this, again, this goes to that notion of hospitality and service. Uh, uh, uh, mom sent us a message on Facebook saying that this will be the first year her daughter who's six years old, uh, didn't have a chance to have her picture taken in the soda shop, sitting on the counter for her birthday. And, uh, we said, well, well, heck, um, bring her on by, uh, come by we're under construction. There's not much we can do, but we can give you a sneak peek and, uh, we don't even have a counter to sit her on. And so, but we got her in, we put her on the frame of the counter between two struts and, um, and took her picture there and showed, uh, showed her and her parents around.

41:49But then in talking to them learned that that little girl was a fourth generation, uh, soda shop customer, that her, uh, her mom, her grandfather, and her great grandfather, who, uh, was a ward of the nuns and, uh, they built out a little, uh, bedroom for him in a closet at the old Father Ryan High School, which was just down the street from here where the Hampton Inn is. So he lived there and his first job was working at the soda farm. So, um, it's that kind of, uh, a legacy and, and, uh, and it made, it, it made that girl's day. It was a simple act of, of, uh, kindness to say, hey, come on in. And we brought Ms. Linda in and the girl knew Ms. Linda and, but we didn't tell her Ms. Linda was going to be there. So when she came around the corner, she saw her and ran up and gave her a big hug. And so, so that's, that's, I mean, that's why it's, um, it's so important to save these places because you have years of relationships. It's not just regulars and customer loyalty. It's, it's real relationships between the service staff and, and the people that have been coming for years. And again, that's why having Linda and Debbie, who's, who has 20 years of that kind of relationship at Nashville, um, so great to have them here, uh, to, to greet people and say, Hey, we're still here. We're still here. I know you come on in. Sit down. Let me get you something. So I'm curious to know if you're like documenting this process, if you're going to maybe write about what the process has been like opening the historic place during the pandemic and just kind of seeing it from the other side, I'd love to read that story. Well, it's, I've been, I've been keeping notes. Definitely. Um, it's, uh, yeah, it's been, I mean, my learning curve is,

43:53is about that steep. And, uh, as much as I think I know, there's a lot I don't know. Um, uh, yeah, it's, um, it's been a great process. One of my disappointments when I was at the Tennessee and was, uh, I had, I had arranged, uh, with Julia Sullivan to document the process of opening, um, Henrietta red and to like, from the mishaps, from when the construction goes wrong and they have to rip something up and redo it to, and we were going to mount go pros and, and sort of chronicle the growth of the interior to the decisions made about fabrics. You know, I learned, you know, the, the, we, we killed a lot of noggers to get this Naga hide on the, uh, on the booths here. And, uh, but there are, there are grades of, of, of vinyl based on the number of rubs. Is this, uh, of 200,000 rubs or is this a million rubs?

44:55And which goes to, which you don't think about, but it's, you know, people are getting in and out of this booth every day, multiple times a day and how long will it last? How, how will it hold up? So all of those, uh, little decisions, um, uh, to make, uh, unfortunately, didn't get to write that story with, uh, Henrietta red, but I've been keeping notes to do something similar on this. Um, and it, you know, the thing it told me because I came, I came close in the last few years to pulling the trigger on opening a bar in Germantown and the old Matt platter, uh, and then, uh, shifted to a different concept built on the old chili parlors of Nashville. And, uh, I, I just, it's funny. I texted Jason McConnell, uh, just this week and said, I had no, I, no idea. And I had no business thinking that I could do that without this kind of experience. I couldn't, sure. I could have muddled through and learn as I went along. But, but man, uh, there's, there's a lot to know, um, uh, about running a business like this. Yeah. And a lot of it happens. There's a lot of, um, just get out there and do it and it's on the job training. Uh, a guy just commented that that is true top-notch hospitality. This is Gary Garrett and Gary used to be the executive chef at Ruth's Chris for a really long time. A good friend of mine with that's talking about what you're doing, um, by greeting people that really is that that's what service is about. And then Paul Brennan, uh, asks there. So Paul's been helping us too on this project. Paul is, uh, as you know, runs the, uh, the program at the Randy Rayburn, uh, school at, uh, Nashville state and, uh, and, uh, it's, uh, it's coming along. So we're going to have a chili taste off. I've got, I've got the old

46:56family recipe, uh, which I'm, I'm proud to say is, uh, derived from the Melfi family recipe and that the Melfis opened the first chili parlor in Nashville and invited the Veralas to come over from the same town in Italy and open up their chili parlor. So, um, before the Veralas, it was Melfi's. So, uh, so yeah, we're working on that. Thank you so much for taking the time today. I told you I wouldn't take up too much of your time and, um, I just, I loved our conversation today just about getting back to basics, caring about people. I think everything that you're doing over there is just, it makes me feel warm and happy. Does that, does that make sense? Absolutely. I mean, I, I, I don't use the words comfort and joy, uh, uh, lightly or, or as a throwaway thing. It's, it's both, that's, that's what we want when you walk in, that you feel that when you eat the food, you feel that the joy of an ice cream sundae, of a, of a great milkshake.

48:04Um, I promise I'll get better at making them. I've got some time and, uh, but, but, uh, again, it's about the, it's about the people who work there and it's about the people who come in and, um, and making them feel like you're, they're in your home, literally, you know, we are glad you're here. So. Awesome. Right on. Great to see you both. Great to see you. Yeah, man. I'm hearing your story always. I'm hearing your storytelling. And, uh, we'll see you soon. Thank you. Yes, sir. All right. Take care everybody. All right. Bye. Bye. I'm sorry, Gary. I just was going to pop you on there. Best of luck, Jim. I'm sure you'll bring you back to the hospital and that's what we need. That's right, Gary. That's exactly what we need to do, Gary. We got to bring it back. This is one of those things that I was just talking about a minute ago was, um, the details, the details, the fundamentals, the small things. I think people are so concerned with trying to dunk from the free throw line that the bounce pass is what gets missed. If you like, but if you like basketball, I got lots of basketball analogies. They're trying to do the crossover. It needs to be the layup. Anyhow, we have Nashville restaurant news. We got actual stuff happening in Nashville. Some stuff. We do. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about what's going on. Do you want to lead it off or you want me to lead it off?

49:32What do you have? I mean, I know that Otaku West opened on Monday and I know that we've got Taco Bell pop up at, um, Varsavarin on Monday, this next Monday night. Let's talk about that. Let's not glaze over that. The Taco Bell discontinued. Yeah. The Taco Bell pop up. I've been thinking about it all day because I mean, I wrote about it this morning and I was looking at the dishes as a chef, Josh Cook, who, um, most people know from his time at plus, but these guys all kind of like show up at each other's pop up. So I'm always like, I forgot who's doing this. Cause he's doing, you know, the taco shell is from Julio and Mais de la Vida. And, um, it's like Taco Bell on crack. He's going to do Doritos Locos Tacos with Mais de la Vida shell, Bear Creek farm beef, shredded cheese, lettuce, optional sour cream. Like that, that, that's the kind of, that is Locos taco. He's doing Mexican pizza, which is going away, which I actually went two days ago and got one because they're still there, but the tostada seasoned Bear Creek farm, uh, beef, black beans, red beans, melted cheese, diced tomatoes, the cheesy Fiesta potatoes, chicken quesadilla, chicken or beef quesaritos.

50:48So apparently there's going to be bands. It's going to be a blast. That looks so incredible. Yeah. So, and well, they have, I guess they'll have drinks from our, from the bar too. Um, yes. And desserts from, I think it's tantalito, pastelito. She's doing caramel apple empanadas, which I guess would be a thing at Taco Bell too. Yeah. Let me see if, uh, I have a thing here. Yes. Tantito pastelito. Wow. All right. So yeah, bar sovereign Taco Bell. I think the link is live today, so you can preorder to make sure you get, you can preorder. Okay. Um, a lot of times they sell out of that stuff, so it's good to get on and get your order in if you are craving fancy take on a Mexican pizza. And then, um, our buddy, former cohost on the roundup and his wife, Yuriko, Craig Schoen and Yuriko say are opening peninsula. Peninsula is coming back. October 8th, October 8th. I think so.

52:02It's October 8th. Opening night, but they're doing tasting menus. So I talked to her over the weekend. She was making a thousand dumplings. She makes a thousand dumplings a week right now, which is not, I was like, what are your hands? Like, do you need a hand massage? She said, she was like, my mom said the same thing, but she said all the noodles or the dumplings she does have different folds. So her hands were okay, but she probably needs somebody help her at some point, but I get it. I'm the same way. Like I want to do it and make sure it's right, but she probably needs help with the dumplings, but she's still doing the dumplings. And then they're going to be open on Thursday, Friday, Saturday with tasting menu. I'm curious to see what kind of stuff they're doing. Cause it's going to be different. Uh-oh. I'm going to call your, I'm going to call your better half. I'm going to set that up. We're going to go do that altogether. Let's make a double date out of that. That's the one place I haven't eaten yet on this list that I'm like dying to go to. Please join, join. You got to go to Peninsula. And then you're, I thought it was pretty cool that your cat announced that they're opening a restaurant this week. I know Deb and Four Top Hospitality got Jasper's online and I know that they think it's named after Jasper Deb's dog, but my cat has something else to say about it, you know? Well, Jasper's practically a co-host on the show. Not today. Cause you're at home. He's got his full-time pet sitter at the apartment.

53:30Yes. You have a full-time pet sitter at the apartment right now? No, I pay someone to sleep with him at night. You do what? He has desperation anxiety. And so, um, I found this crazy guy that comes and stays with him overnight. Does he sleep in your bed? Yes. It's a whole thing. Cause like, it's my little tiny apartment. Before I leave, I got to wash the sheets, change the seats. I have a separate comforter that I bring for him cause my comforter's like covered in cat fur. And then I come back tonight. I land at like 9 30. Then I have to like take off the thing, wash the sheets, put them back on, back to Jasper. Oh my God. Cat parenting, no? Well, I don't have cats. I mean, like I have kids which are plenty. Wow. So yeah, Jasper's restaurant. I'm excited about it. That is really cool. Yeah. Right there where Saltine used to be right next to Amerigo. But I keep saying like, that's just like the best location in the world, right there on West End. I mean, I think it is. I love that there's a parking lot and yeah, there's a huge parking lot and they own, you know, they own next door. They own Amerigo and they own the, their home office is directly above there. So I mean, like it's pretty nice, pretty nice deal.

54:41I'm sad about Saltine. I thought it was a beautiful interior. I hope, I mean, I'm sure they're changing it, but I thought it was so pretty inside. And they had a good queso on the menu that I always told people was like one of my favorite sleeper quesos. And then it was off the menu. And then they said it was happy hour. And I'm like, can Jasper's have queso? Yeah, they may, they may. So that's, that's cool. That's exciting. I'm glad that they're doing that. Those guys have run really good restaurants. Like I said, Doug was the one who originally told me that story like 20 years ago and I've always used that. There's a new, remember we talked about BrickTops opening a new BrickTops downtown. River. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was like two months ago. I said BrickTops, you're like, no, they're not. I haven't even heard that. And I was like breaking news. It's called the river house. Yes. And it is coming and they're hiring. That's coming. Yeah. So if you want to work there, what I think that you should do, you know what I think you should do?

55:48Can you guess what I think they should do if they want to work at the river house? That they should get on Foe & Bo and apply. Damn straight. Have you been on Foe & Bo? Yeah. What's that? Have you been on Foe & Bo this week? I have been on Foe & Bo this week. I've been on Foe & Bo a lot this week. Just kind of checking it out to see who is hiring, who's out there doing this cool marketplace. If you are needing a job, you want to work in the restaurant industry, go create a profile at foeandbo.com. That's F-O-H and B-O-H.com. You can see that you are down here watching the roundup presented by foeandbo.com. If you're a restaurant and you would like to hire people, this is a really cool way to do it. It's like a dating site. You can go on there and you can search all of the different candidates and look at them and then just request who you'd like to come work for you. You can go find places. The Grand Hyatt is hiring downtown right now. Hattie B's is hiring. Hattie B's is hiring. Oh, and I have a personal one that I know about right now that I told this person I would say something on this show. Green Hills Grill is looking for a general manager and that is to work for Stephen Smithing for a locally owned and operated restaurant that does high volume. That's just an amazing job and I know about that personally that if you would like to submit your application, send it. Send it to Stephen at marebowl.com and let him know you want to talk about the general manager job at Green Hills Grill.

57:28Cool. I know that's happening. Riverhouse, do you know if it's going to be a fancier, like is it going to be similar? I don't know. I haven't seen the inside of it. I looked it up today and I saw that there's one in Florida. There's already like a Riverhouse in Florida and the menu is similar. They have like the millionaire's bacon. I think it's a similar concept, same service, similar menu items, maybe a little more food-centric. Yeah. I don't know but I'm excited to find out and maybe we'll get a first look. You know the powers that be. We'll find them. March House is reopening on the first of October. That's when we shipped into phase three and I'm excited for them to come back because they're in my neighborhood and they have a new street entrance that looks beautiful so you don't have to even go through the hotel. You can just walk down the street to March House. They have a new chef that I think is new to Nashville but I need to get new details on that chef and a closing in the Gulch is only coffee is going to close September 30th. I saw in the scene and Music Kitty Cafe, the cat cafe is also closing on the 30th and they still have adoptable cats. Go to their website, adopt their cats because they need homes and the first cat cafe in Tennessee is closing. Thanks COVID.

58:56First cat cafe in Tennessee is closing. It's so sad. It is sad. Well I failed to mention earlier Delia that when we had Jim Myers on, Jim was coming on as our local legend and every week we have a local legend. We like to celebrate the people in town that have been doing this for a really long time who are the founders, the originators, the real trailblazers that created the foundation for who we are as a Nashville restaurant scene and Jim Myers, longtime writer for the Tennessean, one of the OG food critics. Jim Myers used to have like his name blacked out like it was just like a silhouette of his picture and he was like anonymous like not he would like go into places and nobody would know who he was and he'd have dinner and then like skewer them. In our interview with Jim Myers which I put out last week or this week he talks about when he reviewed Bar 23 which was like Max Goldberg and Austin Ray's spot over there in the gulch and he skewered them. It was just terrible and I was like that place was innovative man. It was amazing. I just think that's so funny. I remember being there with some Titans players back in whatever year that was. It was the same. It was the spot. It was the spot. You couldn't believe it but that segment is brought to you by Mobile Fixture and Mobile Fixture is the place to go for all of your restaurant supplies. Outfit your kitchen with the best equipment and not only just get the best equipment but talk to the people there. They are consultants. They will help you identify exactly what you need to outfit your kitchen with the right equipment. So they're in Smyrna. Go check out. They have a full showroom where you can go check out their products but go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com and click on the sponsors tab and click Mobile Fixture where you

01:01:00can go in, go to their website, schedule a meeting, go in there, just talk to them. They're amazing people. Go check out Ben Whitlock who as well has been a guest host on the Roundup. Who do you think the, I don't want to call them out but we have had Caroline Galzin, Craig Shone, Chris Chamberlain, Nick Guidry and Shane Nasby as our guest hosts over the last five weeks. Am I missing anybody? Alex, did you say Alex? Oh, Alex Ballou. Sorry Alex. We've had six. Last six weeks we've had six different guest hosts. I think they've all just been amazing. I thought that Caroline was an absolute natural. Caroline was great. Caroline was great and then if you were to have, I can't, we can't pick favorites. I'll just tell them thank you all for doing that and we're going to pick those back up very soon but our next thing we're going to talk about and we're going to get out of here is the Nashville Hot List. The Nashville Hot List conversation today. This is where you, the listener, we need you to jump in with your comments. It's brought to you today by Super Source. Super Source typically is our sponsor for the What's the Delia segment but we are going to pause What's the Delia for a couple weeks as we really delve into the Nashville Hot List and we are going to be talking about the best restaurants in town. Brought to you by Super Source. If you have a restaurant and you need a dish machine and chemicals, they are the people you need to talk to. Give Jason Ellis a call. He will come out and do a full, I call it an audit, but he's just going to check out all of your systems. Make sure you're using the right products.

01:02:44He'll do staff trainings. No commitments. You do not have to sign any contracts. They have no minimums. They are the real deal. Again, go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Click on the sponsors tab and go find Super Source for your three month dish. If you get a brand new dish, they'll lease it to you for three months for free. Awesome. They're amazing. Special COVID-19 discount. But Nashville Hot List. Nashville Hot List. So we've had a few submissions already from guest hosts and I'm curious to know what readers and listeners and viewers have to say too because I think we've said it's kind of the where to eat right now. Best of the best hot Nashville spots. We're probably going to get some blowback on this, which is fine because there's like a thousand restaurants. Everybody can't be on the top 10 list and we're going to do 10 and we're going to release these at the end of the month and we're going to expand the list. But the first list of the Nashville Hot List will be out next week.

01:03:53We're going to talk about it on the Roundup. So if you want to know the 10 best places to eat, let us know. Also, if you are listening right now, if you're listening on the actual podcast or you're listening live, you're live, let us know right now who you would like us to do. And if you are listening to this on the podcast, find the post that we talk about this, this, the Roundup, and post your favorite restaurant in town who you think is the best restaurant in all of Nashville. So let's talk about some criteria. How are we going to identify the best restaurant in town? First of all, I think that it's very important to say we take zero dollars from any restaurant, right? Absolutely. This is not what we're doing. We're not sponsored. This is not a pay for play sort of list. This is just good restaurants decided by people who dine in them and zero sponsors. There's no money involved here. First of all, we don't accept advertising from any restaurant. No restaurant has paid us a dollar, one red cent. Sometimes if we go out to eat somewhere and somebody sends us an appetizer, it's hard to tell them no. But we are not taking any money.

01:05:06There's no advertisements. The people who advertise on our show, the mobile fixtures, the super sources, the phone booths, those are the people who support the restaurants. We want to be a show that supports locally owned and operated restaurants and the restaurant scene. So when we do this list, it's going to be based upon some criteria. And number one criteria is food. We want to make sure that you are putting out really good, consistent food. Number two is innovation. What are you doing that's different? Are you setting yourself apart and differentiating yourself from everybody else and then service? I think service is the third factor right now. It's relatively tough. And how do you gauge service? I mean, I think there's a lot of different ways in which we can look over and find out who's got the best service in town. And that's through a bunch of the different sites, as well as actually going in and physically eating at these places, which is the really hard part about what we're going to do, right? The eating, yeah. It's the worst part, huh? Yeah.

01:06:11So last week, Nick Yidri was on the show and I think Pelican and Pig is definitely somebody who's right there in the top 10. Absolutely. They're doing a fantastic job of all those things. I think their food is wonderful. They're innovative. They opened up a pop-up in the middle of a pandemic to make it through. They opened with brunch now. Wow. Yeah. I mean, they're absolutely killing it. To passersby. Just here for the community, really. They're crybabies about their wood. One star. I think community is something also, employee promoter score. I think that one of the things I'm going to look at we're going through here is I'm going to talk to a bunch of people. I'm going to talk to somebody from each one of the big four food reps. I want to know who the chefs are that are treating people really well out there too. That's another side of it. But food innovation service. So people that we talked about last week, Pelican and Pig, Nicky's coal fired with how they moved to being fast, casual, top-level food, created a safe dining environment and is now doing the bagels in the morning. They've just done- Taking classes and chef classes with Tony. They were giving away all these meals during the tornado and shifted to just serving the community and true hospitality.

01:07:38On top of all of that, Caroline is heading up. There's a thing called Tennessee Action for Hospitality out there. And Bradley Weaver was on the show a long time ago and he kind of explained that he ... So we had this weird situation. We had a pandemic that happened in Nashville. It's still happening. And everybody was having to let ... All the restaurants were closed and we had to let everybody go and we didn't know what was going to happen. So we didn't know the government would pass the CARES Act, that people would be getting money for unemployment. It was very scary. We thought that everyone was going to be paid $2.75 a week and that everyone was going to lose their houses and we were just going to all collapse as a society. And a bunch of chefs, a bunch of restaurant owners got together and they said, we can't let this happen. So they started Tennessee Action for Hospitality. It's a fund to really help the industry if some of this were to happen again. So Caroline has taken up to be the president of the Nashville chapter. On top of everything else she's doing, she's like, hey, I want to give back. I mean, so I'm so proud of her. She's just amazing, especially for somebody who's from Chicago, who's here in Nashville, just really jumped in and is one of those heroes in my opinion.

01:08:48Like shape shifting is something that all these places have done that has been important and significant and that people notice. They've fully just adapted to the climate and as crappy as it might have been, I feel like they've thrived and created something beautiful out of it and I think that goes into the hot list in a big way. I think so too. Lachlan Table, Hal, everything he's doing over there, Henrietta Redd, Setsun, Lou, Bastion, Rolf and Daughters, Folk, Margot, Black Rabbit, Farmhouse, Catbird Seat, Etch. We've got a lot of names here. Jason Ellis has jumped in and said Pelican and Pig for sure and the 404 Kitchen. Yeah, I think that 404 Kitchen, what Matt Bolles is doing over there with his staycation series and just constantly pivoting, putting out food. He's got a beautiful location over there. I think that's definitely one to be considered for sure. I think there are just a ton of places to consider.

01:09:54So I mean, is this a point system or can you explain how this is going to work? Yeah, I mean, we're going to take the entire list. I think you have to rate everybody on food, innovation and service. And then there's the X factor, kind of that other thing that I'm not going to put a name on because it's too many things. It's just kind of that community, what they're doing for their community, what they're doing for their employees, what the perception is about them. And there's kind of that X factor. Do they have that? Are they doing the right stuff? And that's an important part of it, I think too. I think you rate all of those on a five star scale and whoever has the most stars at the end is our number one. I mean, I think that this top 10 list is going to be the number one restaurant in the city right now. And I'd like to expand this list to being 18 or 20 long. And I want to put it out every week, which we're going to do is we're going to put it out every month. It'll be the last week of the month. We will be announcing on the show, we're going to announce our top three for the hot list.

01:11:01And then as we continue to grow, we're going to expand it to individual cities. So we'll have the newest restaurant, the best new restaurant, which I mean, I think you can add East Side Bond Meat to that. I mean, they've just been absolutely killing it. Everybody's excited about what Chad and Gracie are doing over there. They're just amazing. And I think we'll have the newest restaurant, then we'll have the best restaurant in Mount Juliet, the best restaurant in Franklin, Cool Springs, Brentwood area. We have an East Nashville, a West Nashville. We have the newest, we have the best legacy restaurant, then we kind of can venture out into best steakhouse, best Italian, best Mexican. I think best Mexican is going to cause some fights because everybody has their favorite one. And I almost think that when we get to March, I would like to do a Mexican restaurant bracket. Okay. Because Ed, there's so many Mexican restaurants and I am a Mexican restaurant dude. Like I love Mexican restaurant. I love, I have my favorites. So if everybody's hood is going to represent and we're going to create a bracket and we'll go online and we will crown the best Mexican restaurant in the entire city, that's going to be fun. Set it here. It's going to happen. Set it here first. So we will continue to do things like this. Anybody else out there have any ideas that they would like to throw out while we are on the show? If I hadn't named the restaurant that you love, anything else you want to throw out there? I got a text from somebody asking, how do we vote? Is there a way for us to vote? So you can type it in right here, right now. And then what we are going to do starting in maybe December, we're going to roll out a new series. I've got a lot of fun things. I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag. Maybe next week we'll let the cat out of the bag. But there will be a way for the general, not the general

01:13:02public, but we will have a way to vote. And we will be changing the format of the list to where it will be a voting system. And we'll see where that goes from there. It's going to be a lot of fun. But we are officially announcing the Nashville Hot List, the top 10 hottest restaurants, the places you need to eat right now. When somebody asks you, where should we go eat tonight? These 10 places need to be on your hot list. Again, this is not necessarily new restaurants, just innovative. They're just on their toes with good food, with good service and constantly innovating and treating people well. So if you know of a restaurant who's doing all of those things, who is great food, they're innovative, their service is fantastic, they're great community members, let us know. Send us a message. Find us on Instagram at Nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio or Facebook at Nashville restaurant radio. We have a YouTube channel, we have a website. We both have emails. You can send emails to Brandon at Nashville restaurant radio to Delia and Nashville restaurant. Oh, she's like, damn, sorry to give out your email.

01:14:16Is that cool? Delia at Nashville restaurant radio.com. And let us know, just shoot us a message. Say, Hey, this is my restaurant or this is a restaurant that I love and tell us why. I love to hear why. Yeah, not just why this is my sister's restaurant. Why? Yeah. And we'll do, we'll definitely do our research. Our goal is for this list to come out and have everybody go. Yep. That's right. You nailed it. But you know, that's not going to happen. We know that apologies in advance for anybody who does not make the top 10, which is 99% of the restaurants out there. Um, but let me know, let me know if you feel like you should be on there. Yeah. That's what we got. What else do you have today? Anything else for our listeners? Rolled it up with the news today and, um, I had to catch a flight. So I will leave you with a stay pretty music city. And remember you can still be pretty with your mask on and even for like five hours when I'm at the airport government. Yeah, we didn't, I know you've already done your sign off, but we didn't announce, we announced today, mayor Cooper's opening up events to 500 people in restaurants. You can now see eight people at a table instead of six. And is that it with that?

01:15:36For the most part, I believe the big things that everyone wants to know. That's the highlights. October 1st. Yeah. I met with a guy this week who told me that, um, he's with a big, huge hotel in town. So the 2021, he has completely booked the entire year. At a hotel? Big hotel downtown said we are completely booked for the entire year 2021. It's going to be the best year Nashville's ever had. Well, I hope so. So we'll leave that with a positive note. We're going to be okay guys. Everything's going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay. All right. We're going to stay pretty music city. And I hope that you guys are being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.