#theroundup presented by Springer Mountain Farms Chicken 6-26-20

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 joined as always with my co-host, the editor of Eater Nashville, Delia Jo Ramsey. Delia, how are you today? Hey Brandon, I'm good. It's been a really good week. It's been a very busy week and it feels like a lighter week in some way. There have been normal coverage on Eater about patios and barbecue so I'm feeling a little more normal about what my job is right now which always helps. Positive news helps my mood a lot. It's been a good week. How's yours? My week was fantastic. You know what? I'm feeling so much gratitude from all of the people. I feel like we put a lot of time and energy into going out and interviewing people and just spreading love. We want to tell all these stories on the socials this week. A lot of people have been responding, giving feedback, telling us how much they appreciate what we're doing. I've got a lot of shares, a lot of likes. A lot of people have been just amazing so I have a lot of gratitude for everybody out there who's just been giving the show a lot of love and please keep that up.

01:32Love everybody out there. If you like what you're hearing, share it. Tell your friends. This is how this whole thing works. It's been great. We had two amazing shows this past week. We had Nina Singto from Thai Isan and she just killed it. What a wonderful show. She's such a I love her. We also had Naima Walker-Fierce who's one of the owners of the Germantown Pub. It was great to hear her story. She has been through a lot of adversity. I'm just absolutely honored to have both of them on the show this week. With all that being said, today's show we're going to talk about restaurants that have powered through a tornado. They've lived through a pandemic and now they're transitioning again into whatever we currently are in, I guess. Whatever this is. Westedelia is on hold this week but I'll be back next week and I'm going to talk about extra charges on your bill when you dine out.

02:38What's the deal with these fees that are added to our bills? But today we're not going to talk about that. We're going to talk to six restaurants that have done an amazing job at innovating, leading and just serving the community through these really hard times. So Brandon, why don't you tell everybody who we're going to talk to? I would love to. What an amazing week this has been just getting all of this together. We're so excited today. We're going to speak with Kalil from Arnold's Country Kitchen. We're going to speak to James Beard finalist Julia Sullivan from Henrietta Redd and the Party Line. Hal Holden-Baich from the Loughlin Table. Steven Smithing from the Green Hills Grill. We're going to talk to Naima from Germantown Pub and lastly, but certainly not least, Julia Jacksik from Cafe Rose in East Nashville. Is there any news we need to hit on before we get into these? Just a couple openings to touch on in one closing. The Optimist we talked about before open Monday and I was there, a table of one and it was the best seafood meal I've had in Nashville. Hands down. Well, what about it? What was, how was the interior? Was it, service was good? It's super moody inside, kind of dark. I can't wait for the patio to open up. I didn't get a leaf to see it because it was raining that night, but the food was incredible. It had amazing octopus dish, had some savage bond oysters, which is my favorites. I had an incredible grouper dish and then just, I just vastly over ordered for one and then like went home and was like, I should have walked home, but it was, it was a great meal. So I'm excited to have them in Nashville and upcoming openings, Hi-Fi Cookies is opening in East Nashville on Saturday and they're owned by this incredible couple, Sean and Kennedy, and they've been selling their cookies around town for a couple of years now, but now they have a brick and mortar. So that's an exciting small business to celebrate this weekend. And something that we're breaking today is the Virgin Hotel's

04:40rooftop bar. It's called the Pool Club and it's going to open next week. So the rooftop looks really cute. There's a menu from Chef Patrick McIntyre that has Nashville hot fish and chips, which that's a new one for me. There's a burger, there's clams, spiked shaved ice, and got an indoor and outdoor bar. And they're going to have DJs on the weekend and some events and stuff coming up for 4th of July. So those are cool. Some things to look forward to. Breaking news, breaking news. I know pretty here first. Also bring here first that City Fire is not reopening. I don't even know how to describe this place in the Gulch. It's been here for a while. It's not reopening. I think we all kind of saw that coming, unfortunately. So we spoke first this week with Hal Holdenbache of Loughlin's Table and this segment is brought to you by Springer Mountain Farms Chicken. It is the best chicken in the world, you guys. Check them out at SpringerMountainFarms.com. Click the link to locate where you can find chicken from them in your town. We caught up with Hal because he's a model for consistency.

05:49His focus was to keep his staff employed throughout the pandemic and to keep his community fed. But don't take my word for it. Take it away, Hal. So with excitement and joy, we want to bring in Mr. Hal Holdenbache, who is the executive chef and owner of Loughlin Table in East Nashville. Thanks for joining us today, Hal. Yeah, thanks for having me. So in this episode, we are talking about people who stayed open throughout the pandemic and had to pivot. And one of the things that I think that we've identified as a question that is a real question, not just a greeting right now, is how are you? So when I say how are you, like, how's your mental state? Like, how are you doing right now? I think that, you know, I'm doing okay. You know, there's obviously been, you know, new mental challenges the past couple months and, you know, staying open like we did and focusing on a to-go program. You know, the brain almost got tired at one point in time, just making so many decisions and thinking things through and trying to understand and trying to not let, you know, money be the reason that we make decisions, but, you know, health and well-being and, you know, safety and, but, you know, actually, I think since we've kind of reopened and regathered as a group, a team, I don't know why I might be feeling a little bit better if I'm allowed to feel a little bit better.

07:38You know, I know that we're not over with this yet and there's still, our numbers are rising, but at Loughlin Table, we have tried our best to make good decisions for the safety of our staff and guests and community and we continue to do so. So let's, I'm going to jump in right there. So throughout this whole thing, what's been the thing every single day that's kind of been your motivation? What's kept you going every day throughout? I mean, restaurants are asked to close. What sucks you out of the sheets every day? I think a lot. You know, obviously, I'm an owner, so that makes me think about things a number of different ways, but, you know, I care about my restaurant. I care about my staff. I care about my family. And every decision that we made for the past, you know, three to four months, I'm affecting these two places the most, my home and my work. And, you know, my job is to stay healthy and manage both. So, you know, there again, I think, you know, physically working is not hard. We know how to do that. But the mental part of this all, I think, has been the bigger challenge.

09:13And it's like there in the beginning, every week, we were learning more, and we were changing more. And I started staggering the shifts at the restaurant, so less people were together, you know, during the shifts. And then ultimately, when we went into like the Family Style to Go program, which was more of a take home and reheat situation, it was a lot easier for me to stagger the shifts here at the restaurant, where I had an AM group working from like, you know, six to one, and then a PM group working from like 115 to seven. And then myself and our sous chef Jason were the only two that would be present for both shifts. And, you know, we started doing, we started taking everybody's temperature upon arrival. And we had many, many meetings of what was to be expected of you while you were not at work, understand that your behavior outside of work gets brought to work. And, you know, worst case scenario is that your house gets sick.

10:21And not only are people now sick, but then everything else that follows that the shutting down, the cleaning, the time needed to reopen the four days of lost revenue. And, you know, our big motivation to never close was I wanted to keep all my staff on payroll. And if we could only do that by doing the To Go program and break even, then we were okay with that. And then, you know, the community also appreciated it. Like during the actual quarantine, it was very nice to support a friend or a local restaurant that's one of your favorites, you have some kind of connection to and not have to cook that night. You know, like I cooked more at home than probably ever. And I cook a lot at home when I'm home. But it was nice to, you know, visit friends and get to go food and support them and leave big tips and bring home something that you didn't have to cook. And it was delicious. And you got to go outside with the kids and play from, you know, six to eight instead of, you know, cleaning the kitchen after cooking. And, you know, those moments were nice and, you know, warm the heart a number of different ways.

11:38Sure. I know I talked to Kim Totsky on the show a week before last. And one of the things that she said throughout kind of this being locked in was having her house damaged by the tornado and everything. She said one of the things that she enjoyed the most was her time that she got to come to Loughlin table and get food and share just being part of the community and what you did as being like a beacon for your community, I think was amazing. And I think that you and what you do for your community hour, you know, every day, just how you give back is just monumental for the whole community over there. And I just want to say thank you for all that you're doing because I know it's naughty to every day intrinsically get up and just get out there and hustle that there is that deeper motivation of keeping your staff taken care of and feeding the community, nourishing your community was paramount to you. So that's why we want to highlight you, man. That's why we want to thank you today. What do you know? We were also nervous at one point in time that staying open could be a backlash, you know, and that was definitely something that crossed our mind. And we didn't want to be looked at negatively for making the decisions that we made. So, you know, we seeked wisdom from, you know, smarter people.

13:02And we made phone calls and a lot of research went into our decisions. We didn't just roll the dice and blind for ourselves and throw a dart. Of course, we actually talked about things and researched things and came up with what we thought were good answers. What do you feel like, I know you're strategic. I know you're intentional. What's your next step? What do you, I know nobody knows what's going to happen with this pandemic and everything, but like, where do you see, what are you guys doing right now? And what do you see as next for Lachlan Table? I think the past three weeks have just been us getting, you know, back into getting used to serving in house. Once again, lots of meetings with staff on how we are going to manage things, how we are going to keep them safe, keep the guests safe. They obviously have to feel comfortable. In the kitchen, you know, we're kind of blessed because we're back there, you know, and we can stay back there. You know, table touching for me has even kind of been difficult. I got to be careful about going into the dining room and getting in people's space to say hello, like I would normally do. And I realized that early on, I was like, how you might just need to stay in the kitchen and wave to people for a little while because I could get myself in trouble being myself. So, you know, these are all things we've had to kind of learn and focus on.

14:36You know, we're wearing masks at Lachlan Table. You know, you don't walk in the back door without your mask on. And of course, we've got hand sanitizer everywhere. You know, Kara's done a great job, you know, educating herself so that she can educate us with all the webinars and different things that have been happening on the computer and the internet. So she's been kind of focusing on that while I do what I do. And that's another beautiful part of the business here is that I'm able to focus on food and be a chef and other people kind of help me and guide me in the other parts of what's going on right now. Well, that is fantastic. And I've, you know, you came on a show earlier, which is one of my least listened to show. I don't people don't know that your virtual happy hour you gave away your cornbread recipe. Thanks for doing that. We I still have you on the books as somebody that we are going to sit down and do a full interview.

15:39I want to know in detail about a lot of those conversations you had the the intentional decisions that you made, what it was like serving food stories throughout the whole thing, and just kind of a little bit more about you in detail. And we'll do that another day. But thank you for coming on today. And we just appreciate you taking the time and best of luck to you. Yeah, man. Love you, dude. Thank you. Love you too. I tell you, I just love that guy. Everything about him. He's just such a genuine, genuine guy. And thank you, Hal, for coming on the show and joining us. That was that was fantastic. Stephen smithing from the is the owner of the Green Hills Grill, and they are presented by Super Source. Super Source is a family owned locally operated chemical and dish machine company. They are changing the game in Nashville. So go to Nashville restaurant radio com, click the sponsor link, click under Super Source, and they've got some exclusive specials for our listeners. Steven's bidding is a longtime restaurant tour in Nashville, originally the general manager at the Green Hills Grill when it opened in 1990, or he's shortly thereafter. He reopened the restaurant to great fanfare almost five years ago. During the pandemic, they utilize their very own delivery vehicles to grow their business. And let's hear from Stephen a little more about it. But both excitement and joy. I want to welcome in to Nashville restaurant radio, the owner of Green Hills Grill and Marable restaurant, Stephen smithing.

17:07Thank you, Brandon. Appreciate driving me. So Stephen, one of the things that we're doing today is we're talking about restaurants that have done just a fantastic job throughout the first phase of COVID-19. Because we don't know it's not over yet. But one of the questions that we've identified is becoming more and more important is just how are you? That is a standard greeting. Hey, how you doing? How are you? But when I say this, that's a question because a lot of people out there are not doing well. How are you? Well, I think like most of the folks in the world, I'm ready to kind of for this to pass on and move before us. Really, I'm doing pretty well. I mean, I internalize the ideal stress better than most people. I'm blessed. Got a lot of serotonin. Things are going better than I might have expected at this point for restaurants. I mean, the federal government's helping me out like they're helping out, you know, most people. So that's a that's a pretty good thing. Had they not been doing that, it would certainly be a longer, life it feels like. But we'll see. No, and I'm happy. I need to go on vacation. I'm ready for a little bit of time off. I can imagine for sure. What are, during the pandemic, what are some of the things on a daily basis? Because it's been kind of a grind. We all had to kind of pivot to doing to-go's for a while. But what are the things that you do on a daily basis to motivate you? And then my follow-up question, that's going to be how did you guys pivot at the Greenhouse Grill? And what have you had to do?

18:35Well, I fancy myself a server and a provider. I enjoyed serving people. I realized that a long time ago. And now I try to provide for people and I try to take care of as many people as we can who work with me and my family and work for me. And obviously, the guests are the reason I'm in this business. I love to see people. I like to make them happy. I love to serve them. And that's what we've tried to do all the way through. I mean, we knew we had a to-go system in place. We've always done our own to-go and delivery at Greenhouse Grill since we opened almost five years ago. And we were able to take that operation and scale it due to some very wise additions by my brother Christopher on the tech stack. I mean, we added toast online delivery. We added card not present ordering. We ordered card not present charging. We ordered touchless payment. So all sorts of things that we had prepared came into play when this happened to make it very, very good. I mean, we were set up to take care of it in ironically a COVID type of way, our system of operation. We just had to add people and food and boxes. Well, so one of the things that I really feel like differentiates you and one of the main reasons why I wanted to talk to you today is you have your own, I'll call it a fleet, but your own vehicles that you are doing your deliveries out of. You don't use DoorDash or Uber Eats or Postmates. Those companies aren't something that you guys work with. How did you, did you see that coming? What are some of the, I know a ton of restaurants will love to be able to do that. What's kind of the secret to your success there? Well, I think the secret to the success of delivery aggregators was one of the CEOs who said, they're my guests and I'll sell them to you. And in our case at Greenhouse Grill, these people aren't his, maybe they are, I don't know. I mean, he is a marketing company is what he does. He says he'll charge me 30% of my food ticket to market to people and then to actually send somebody out to come get the food and take it to them. Well, marketing is wonderful and it's great to have, but it's not worth 30%. 30% is not a realistic incremental margin in the restaurant

20:39business. This is an exceptionally low margin business where nobody makes 30% or not many. I do have one restaurant friend who does very, very well and actually servicing some of the army bases overseas makes more than 30%. But that's the only person I've ever talked to who does that. And we just can't withstand it. I mean, all of my labor together is 30%. All of my food together is a little bit more than 30%. Why would I give 30% of my profit to pick up the bag at the back door and take it to the house? That's the easy part. Going out and getting cars and getting a fleet of people and the people is the key. And really they're only giving you one person. There's about six or seven people inside when we're running to go at Green Hills Grill through the COVID that were dedicated not to cooking the food, but to taking the food once it's cooked, processing it, getting it from the box into the correct bag and into their line so that it could move out efficiently to the guest. That's the hard part. Taking it to the guest, taking it to the front door of somebody's house is not hard. Everybody's afraid of the insurance. They're afraid of things like that. Unfortunately, knock on wood, we haven't had any catastrophic insurance issues and hopefully we won't, but having your own cars doesn't cost that much money.

21:52It doesn't cost 30%. No, certainly not. And I think there's also an added benefit to doing your own deliveries is that it's almost like servers. People that order to go, order to go on a regular basis. We have the same people learning who's delivering to your front door. It helps a lot because one of the big fears is that nobody knows who the Uber is. You have complete control of your food from the moment it hits your kitchen to the time that you hand it to the guest. And that's a game changer too, because so many people are now trying to buy bags that seal and they're doing all of these things that are adding expenses to safeguard against third-party delivery drivers. Well, I read the other day a poll that said a third of all third-party delivery drivers have admitted to sampling the food on the ride. There's nothing about that that's the least bit expected or appropriate. I mean, does a guy take a piece of your pizza out when he's bringing it to your house? It just isn't realistic. Obviously we can control the behavior of the people. We can control the way they look. I mean, I look at some of these delivery drivers and I mean, gosh, God forbid you would dress up to actually prepare to go to work. But some of these people look like they rolled out of the tent and they're coming to help out, which again, misfortune all around the world.

23:03We try to control it ourselves. We have some really good people to do it. Young people, you know, some middle-aged people, again, all types of folks who do a good job and they know our standards and our system of operation. I had on Gep and Katie Nelson on the show and they said during that time, this was a couple months ago, they said, you know, we heard Stephen Smithing was doing something really interesting that he was putting a note inside the to-go boxes that had his cell phone number on it. What was your thought process behind that? Well, the thing I miss most is the communication with the guest on a perfect day when everything's going great in the restaurant business. I get to go in, I get to talk to people for a couple hours. I don't do it every day. I do it often enough, certainly where I have a connection, hopefully with my guests and with my staff. And I miss that connection. I mean, I wasn't getting that day to day. And I'll be honest, we had eight managers in the restaurant and some of them were doing to-go. I mean, my brother's the executive chef. He was cooking. He was actually broiling the food. There were a lot of regular jobs that those people did, but I don't think my being present there would have made it any better. In fact, I think it was better that I wasn't there.

24:05And Jason, who's the general manager, was able to take over and do exactly what he should have done without my interference or my questioning what they were doing. So I miss and I wanted to hear from the guests. And I did. Several people, I have a whole list of people that emailed me or texted me or called me. And it was kind of great. It was kind of nice on a day to day basis to hear from two or three different guests and people that I've missed. I mean, people that have eaten there 50 times, 500 times, three times. It helped get me through to the other side where we opened on May 14th and I actually got to be in the restaurant seeing people. So what's next? What do you feel like is next for the Green Hills Grill? Well, hopefully we'll get to a point where things are safe enough that we can open the entire restaurant and hopefully we'll continue doing a good bit of to go. I mean, our to go sales have stayed static at about 30% of our business, which used to be about 8 or 9%. So it's nice to have exposed our guests to what we do and something we do really well and that we can control from the moment the food is cooked to the moment it gets to your door. I think there's some strength in that. So your innovation prior to COVID-19 with really grabbing the to go understanding that the world's going to be moving towards it to go really prepared you really well for when this happened to really put that in place. And now you've kind of set in motion something that is that you can replicate and keep going at a pretty high level. Well, I think that one of the things we certainly read in industry, you know, things that are changing in our industry is having to have the ability to grab some of that delivery to go. I mean, certainly people want, I have to say, I'm kind of amazed from a point, although we did to go at the old Green Hills Grill many, many years ago, but the number of people ordering full entrees and full, you know, regularly priced meals to go certainly surprised me. And I think it surprised a lot of other operators as well. I mean, Joe Alexander's didn't even do to go until COVID came along and they figured it out pretty quickly.

26:04From what I understand, they did a pretty good job, but they didn't offer the service because they didn't believe people wanted it. Clearly people want this. I was always a little disappointed that our sales were down in the 9, 10% range because I thought we should be able to do that. And I knew that we could certainly, you know, operate more of that and put it out of the kitchen. So it's, it's nice to see it grow all of a sudden 430% over the course of a couple of weeks and have the system of operation be able to absorb that and handle it. So one thing that I'm going to let you off the hot seat here, and I want to say thank you so much for coming on. I've talked to you many times about coming on this show and we're waiting for the moment. Once you kind of get back going on, you've got two restaurants, you're busy as can be. We're going to do that one day. But in the meantime, I end every show and I, I tell my guests say, what is there? Is there something you want to say to the community? Anything that's going through your brain? If this is going across the whole Nashville community, what would you final words? What do you want to say? I'd say thank you for supporting us during COVID. And thank you for being there. We're doing everything we can to be a safe restaurant, taking care of our staff and taking care of our guests. And I would say please support your local restaurants. A lot of people are going to go out of business. This is extraordinarily difficult for a lot of people and this isn't certainly easy for me. I don't expect to have an income this year. But I think as we go forward, I can probably withstand that or get by. We're somewhat modest people in what we spend.

27:31Just support your local people. I mean, it makes a difference. I mean, I'm in Green Hills. There are very few local restaurants in Green Hills because the rent is really, really expensive. I'm fortunate enough to be in a place and be able to pay the rent moving forward. And the landlord there did give me a break and has given me a couple of months of discounted rent, which is very gracious. But you, when the local restaurants go away, everybody's in trouble. And they say, what happened to what happened to delivery aggregators are not our friend. They will put local businesses out of business. All right. That's a really good stuff, Stephen. Thank you so much for joining us here today and we will talk soon. Thanks, Brandon. All right. Just a little teaser. I did talk to Stephen and he is totally down to do a full episode and we are going to get him and all of his expertise talking about Green Hills Grill and Marable Restaurant in the coming weeks. That is in the queue. Perfect. Fun fact, Green Hills Grill had a restaurant in Huntsville, Alabama when I was growing up and they used to have this queso.

28:36I forgot what it was called. Pueblo dip. Pueblo dip. Used to frequently order that as a child in Huntsville. So long history with Green Hills Grill. I love it. Next up we have Julia Sullivan of Henrietta Redd and the Party Line. She's brought to you by Mobile Fixture. They're a kitchen equipment company that does so much more from kitchen design, equipment sales and service. They will outfit your location with all the equipment you need. Head over to MobileFixture.com to schedule a free consultation. The James Beard finalist and Nashville native Julia Sullivan pivoted her catering company the Party Line during the closure and helped create Tennessee Action for Hospitality. She's been really busy but we're lucky enough that she took a few minutes out of her day to tell us all about it. All right. With much excitement, I'd like to welcome in Julia Sullivan into Nashville Restaurant Radio. Thank you so much for being here, Julia. Sure. Thanks for having me. And congratulations on the making finalist for James Beard Award. Thank you. Yeah, very exciting. We're doing a show today and we're talking about a lot of things but mainly through the pandemic kind of how it's not over but through this kind of this first phase of the pandemic how people have been able to respond and one of the first questions I want to ask you because this isn't just a back and forth me and you asking like a polite way of saying how are you but right now that question is a serious question because there's a lot of people that are just in a lot of different places. We've been through a lot of traumatic experiences. How are you doing today? I'm doing fine. I think you're absolutely right.

30:21It's not over and I think that that's what we are dealing with most recently so kind of vary between doing quite well and being still really nervous at times. So we went through this first phase of the pandemic and restaurants had to close that you have another company called The Party Line. You continued to innovate throughout all of this and not even to mention I want to get into Tennessee Action for Hospitality but daily what motivated you every single day? What was the thing that motivates you to get through something like this? I mean I think that as a business owner first and foremost I take a lot of responsibility for you know for the most part our employees and their well-being and so you know not just figuring out week to week how we would keep going through the pandemic but also whether or not we would have something to come back to when it was over. So really it was just about you know first and foremost keeping people employed and then beyond that really providing a service for our customer base that we thought was useful and worthwhile and added value to the situation and I think we pretty successfully did both of those things by just you know reacting rapidly and staying sort of in tune with people's needs. So let's talk a little bit about thank you for that. I mean that's amazing just to constantly have to do that throughout what we've just been through. Let's talk about Tennessee Action for Hospitality. I had Brian Lee Weaver on the show and he kind of talked about hey look I was just a guy who wrote a text and Julia Sullivan really was the one who took the ball and ran with it. Tell me about how that came into play and what people can do right now to help support that initiative.

32:21Tennessee Action for Hospitality came into play I guess because we were all sitting around wanting to know what we should do and could do but also what we could do to help once again you know the people who depend on us to be open and so first and foremost it became a little bit of a an awareness campaign around what was happening and trying to use what leverage we do have to influence some of the legislation that was happening but I think that the most beneficial thing that came out of it was some fundraising for hospitality employees who might not have resources otherwise and what I really hope for it is you know of course we got it up and running so quickly that later there were stimulus and unemployment benefits built in and I think most people probably were able to make something sustainable happen. What I think is really great about it is that hopefully it will be sort of an ongoing resource for people if they do need to take time off work or have emergencies in the future that they need support through you know beyond this situation. I thought it was really amazing I think I heard you say one time that you know we weren't ready for this as a hospitality community we weren't ready for a pandemic and if something happens in the future we want to be ready and kind of putting something like this together this fund together for when something does happen we just really want to be ready and I just love the proactive nature it was reactive but then at the same point proactive so that when something does happen in the future we are and I'm sorry I'm in the middle of Arnold's right now there we're having a good time in here so I think that's just that's just a really great fund. What can people do right now in order to help with that initiative? I think if it's a cause that speaks to them it's being supported by the community foundation in middle Tennessee and so you can make straight donations to that fund that the community foundation will manage moving

34:25forward so it'll be in a safe place managed by an unbiased third party that uses an anonymous process with you know case workers or they can buy different products that are on the market through some of the members for instance we're selling a mosaic and a hand sanitizer that both benefit the fund so there's different ways to support businesses that also you know will go back towards that fund as well. I love that. What's next for you? What do you see coming down the line? What are you currently working on and what what can we expect from Henry the Red and the party line? I mean I think it changes day to day. I think we all thought the hardest part of this was going to be keeping our businesses and it's very evident that until there is a vaccine that the hardest part is going to be kind of juggling you know the reopening of the city and you know keeping our employees safe and customers safe and how that's going to change from week to week. So yeah I think right now we're not trying to move too fast where both locations are trying to keep doing what they're doing and see some growth but only at a pace we're comfortable with and so I think until further notice this is kind of what we're doing.

35:47Excellent well I want to thank you for coming on the show today this quick five minute interview but I also want to say how much I respect everything about you and what you're doing and I love dining in your restaurant. I love watching your staff when I'm in the building. How you guys work together is really for an operations guy like me is super exciting and I just love it there's just you guys there's not a whole lot of chatter but like the way that you move is is strategic and almost surgical and I just I'm so impressed by everything you're doing and I wish you nothing but success and everything. Well thank you I think we can use it but so far so good so thank you we appreciate the support. All right thank you so much Julia for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you so much Julia for you can see she's right there in the kitchen just taking a couple minutes she's one of the busiest people in this entire city and I just respect the heck out of her she's so amazing. Naima Walker Fierce is one of the owners of the Germantown Pub and she's brought to you by Pennington Distilling Company. They're a distillery right here in the nations making Davidson Reserve Tennessee whiskey. They're also the first grain to glass whiskey made in Nashville since prohibition. Find it at your favorite restaurant or your favorite liquor store today. Naima has been through a lot. Her outpost at Germantown Pub went through a tornado and a pandemic yet she still continues to give back to the community. She told me a little more about it in her full episode which you can find at NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Let's hear her talk about it right now. With much excitement and joy I'd like to welcome in Naima Walker Fierce.

37:36How are you today Naima? I'm great how are you? You know what I'm good I think that's been the question of the day that people are asking is not just in the standard greeting sense but like how are you? How are you doing today? I'll give our listeners background. You are the owner of the Germantown Pub in Germantown. Correct I am the majority owner. There are three other owners but I'm sort of the person who's been putting out a lot of fires lately given the state of the world and we are in Germantown and we sit at the corner of Monroe and Rosa Parks. So I'm going to go down this path because this is kind of the the part of your story. You're an attorney you you make this investment in Nashville now you you have a residence in Washington DC that's where your main work is right? Correct correct my my main my main work is in Washington DC. I spend a lot of time in New York City. I actually have an 11 year old daughter in Washington DC and an ex-husband that I'm very good friends with so my life prior to taking over was pretty much in DC and then it it got to where it was sort of 40% of my time was spent in Nashville and then when COVID-19 hit it went to almost 100% of my time. I decided the day that everything shut down that I it was far better for me to stay here and I spent 10 weeks in Nashville sort of trying to keep keep the the the business going. Yeah and then March the third of this year I get a call I mean so I'm working with you and I get a call I call you I guess at like seven o'clock in the morning and I go is there a pub like what's going on which to me you know we had a lot of good momentum happening within Germantown pub I feel

39:43like there's a lot of really good things that were coming and God dealt us a blow that day like anybody else because fortunately your restaurant was open and they're really it was almost like the the tornado skipped over Germantown pub super I mean I say lucky we're lucky that nobody was hurt inside the building but you at that point your optimism was still so high and I love that because I'm talking to so many people that were just like what are you going to do and you pivoted to community and we've got to stay open for these people you immediately got greater and you said we're going to reopen as fast as we possibly can because and I truly believe this in your heart it wasn't about hey we just got to get money your thought was we got to feed we got to nourish the community tell me about how like what that was like for you and you were in deep this happens I mean tell me what it was like for you going through that well you know it was really interesting because I left the afternoon of the tornado to head back to DC I had been in town I flew back to DC and I got a call probably six minutes after the tornado hit from a from another partner saying you will not believe what just happened that they watched the the tornado come down Rosa Parks as if it had jumped on the interstate was going down Rosa Parks and then literally demolished the two other quarters in front of us and also pretty significantly damaged the broker and my my honestly my my my first thought my first question was is everyone okay he said yes and then I said okay then we'll figure out a way to be fine and I'm going to get back to town because we need to re we need to reopen you know we are very much not only are we family-owned plus one partner is not in our family we are very very community oriented there we've

41:47got regulars who come every day right um and and and I knew it would be important given a lot of them had their homes destroyed because they're in the neighborhood that they'd be able to come in sort of fellowship with us for lack of a better word right cell phone you know whatever exactly exactly and so you know we we I think we opened what 36 hours later on a generator you know and and interesting you called me to ask if there were if there was still you know TTP was still standing um and sort of shorthand what we call the pub and a lot of the employees who were not in the building were convinced that we had been demolished right they saw on the news because I think you know one of the news channels um did one of their telecasts from the corner and you saw that the O'Reilly's was effectively gone the auto zone was gone right the region's bank uh it was pretty much destroyed the Kroger was severely damaged they were convinced the pub was you know was flattened we believe it or not random we had as you know we had minimal damage literally I think we had a rip in our enclosed patio and the compressor for our ice machine which sits on top the roof was broken otherwise everything was fine which was flat out amazing it was amazing and I just I remember that morning I woke up I talked to I called you I called Robert and he goes well I'm I'm gonna be there and I was there I've been there all night long I'm just there to kind of protect the building and see what it is I said I'm grabbing a chainsaw I'm putting on my steel toes I'll be right there and all day with him we got water we got we went to McDonald's and bought like 50 hamburgers we started to get police officers coming in it was the craziest day I can't even tell you how crazy that day was but little did we know we get the

43:50you get the the compressor or the generator we had power we started feeding the community then like literally two weeks later comes in and says actually you thought that was a challenge let's see what you got now to again you never stop smiling you always have this this smile you're always ready to go and you kind of said okay what's next let's do this and tell us about that experience you know it's interesting because when you first asked about March 3rd I thought it we know it's March 3rd of 2020 it feels like it was a decade ago that the tornado hit right well he does it because the world has changed since then so you know when we shut down I you know obviously my initial focus because I was a lawyer for so long was let's figure out how we are we can to the extent we can remain in business and comply with government guidelines right and so that was my focus sort of I you know what's the data where are we right um you know how do we how do we make this work and then my second thought frankly wise and and and there were points at which I started to reconsider my sanity my second thought really was how do we take this as an opportunity right you know crying in my soup is not going to do anything for me right you know how do I not only make sure we stay afloat but how do I make us better you know you know how do I make us stronger how do I make sure that folks in the neighborhood who come here continue to come not because they can buy beer but because their whole worlds have been turned upside down also right and simultaneously how do we make sure that if there are needs in the community how can we be helpful right and and as you know that that gets really interesting when

45:55you're bleeding cash which is what happened with all businesses that first several weeks right and so we you know we did things that weren't you know they weren't you know they they sort of seemed small in the scheme of things but it was letting the whole staff know look if you guys need anything right not only should you come in for free meals because there are folks in the kitchen you know if you need us to if you need us to advance you some money we've got you right because whether we make it or not it's far more important that you guys you know you guys feel like you're still part of the this community and this sort of this I call it our melting pot here um you know so I think that that was a big part of it and frankly I think that that desire to figure out how we could we could um be better and and frankly do the right thing regardless of what was going on it sort of motivated me um there were times when I drove up to the pub um to sort of package delivery food and to go food and I look at the landscape right and all the construction crews have left and all the buildings are still flattened and there are no dining customers and I'm sort of thinking this might be what the zombie apocalypse looks like but you know what we you know we still got to mad max it and live through it you know I want to say a big thank you to Naima for coming on the show this week that episode is available at our website at www.nashvillerestaurantradio.com if you want to listen to the full show Khalil Arnold of famous Arnold's country kitchen Nashville staple is brought to you by Kurt's hospitality marketing they're a full service sales marketing and public relations agency dedicated to growing revenue for their clients check them out at Kurt's hospitality.com that's Kurt's hospitality.com k-u-r-t-z hospitality.com Khalil is salt of the earth good guy friend of

47:56mine and I think he should run for mayor when we caught up with him he let us know how he was doing and this is just a taste of what's to come in the full episode that'll be out Monday where he might just hit a future in politics heard it here first Khalil how you doing today man great to see you brother glad glad you came in man super excited we are um we've been trying to get this together yes yes I'm sorry you know we've just been in limbo it feels like the past few months trying to figure out you know keep your head above water trying to figure out what to do next it's kind of just it's been a wild ride has something been going on well let's see here first started off in Nashville with the tornado luckily we were fortunate enough not to be you know fall fall yeah we're hit definitely weren't hit by it but there were several friends over in east Nashville that were um we still we donated a bunch of food to a bunch of different causes over there for that uh glad to help out I mean that's what Nashville does they help each other so but uh right now man it's just just trying to figure out what to do to keep business going so that's that's my next question is like how are you doing like are you are you not not not necessarily business wise but I think that anybody who's alive right now especially in this business has been through some traumatic experiences like the question of how are you is something that I'm asking people as is typically a greeting hey how are you but right now I think that question itself is so powerful like well I guess you're doing man the first is a huge exhale like well let me tell you because it's like I mean you know you see you see your something your family tradition and your lifestyle kind of crumbling before your eyes it's like my dad started this in 1983 you know Nashville has always been you know it was at that time it was a lunch spot so everybody would come into town at that time and then go home and then you evolve to the 90s early 2000s where it's been you know more we've got more of a destination spot you know us Nashville in general and it just seems like it's been uh you know it was business was thriving and then we were fortunate enough

49:59about 10 years ago we bought the property because you know business was thriving everything was going great and then you know and we're a tourist spot and then you know Nashville's great and then now it's like you don't know what's going on I mean it's like day to day uh first you have to shut down your you have to shut down the inside so we started doing to-go business which you know we started off really slow and then it got better and better and then now and then now you're trying to adapt and then now it's uh to where you have people coming in but your business is still down 80% so it's like you know how we're doing is this there's with that it's just to answer that question it's like lost almost you feel lost you feel like you don't know what to do next you want to you know you don't want to get your customers who have been your bread and butter who always taken care of you don't want to put them in jeopardy but then you have to be able to stay open to pay the bills and it's like so it's like that's just a loaded question it's like how are you doing now it's like I don't really know I just I want to survive but I don't know how to survive there's no right or wrong answer to that question I think there's just a genuine that's how you're doing man you don't yeah we're my head is above water yeah I'm treading water like crazy I'm trying to stay afloat that's a totally legitimate and okay answer 100% so you said um business been around since 1983 yeah tourist people come here what is it that makes arnold's so like everybody I had an interview with a guy named Howie Kahn he's a James Beard award-winning writer he lives in New York and I got done with the article the interview and I said can't wait to next time you come in Nashville man let's get you guys have lunch he goes I want to go to one place if I come Nashville and it's arnold's what is it about arnold's that has that draw you know I think there's so much that makes arnold's what arnold's is you know number one I think it's the customers that you see that you see a walk of life of all the nashvillians at arnold's you know you see anybody from judges to people that work at the homeless shelter to politicians it's a melting pot

52:01well and you see a lot of music industry people I mean it is a melting pot of Nashville and I think that's first off and foremost and I think that you know we try to treat everybody like family when they come here and I think that's a huge draw to you know I've worked in restaurants and that was something my dad always said to me it's like son you know you got to make them feel like family you know and that's something I've always tried to do and so I think that's that's also you know a part of it it's like it's and then my dad always said son you can work at a restaurant and and you might not have the best service but always remember that the food is one of the foremost things so food and service are the two things that make a restaurant a restaurant and that's something we've always tried to strive so we we get local produce we get local poultry we get you know we try to serve the best product we can something that we're proud of and then we also make sure we make everybody make them feel like family I mean you know it's like our food isn't you know uh it isn't uh it isn't the prettiest food you're ever gonna have but it it's gonna taste damn it's gonna taste damn good and we're gonna make you feel like family every time you walk in the door speaking of that there's phyllis have phyllis how are you doing and I think that's what it's all about you know I think it's you feel like you're you're at home with family you know and you're always here yeah yeah that's gotta be always be here I met you I think in 2005 yeah I ever met you on I'm sure from my brother I like different people we've been in the same circle for a really long time but really on the dock at Ernest Williams yeah I remember that because I used to be creation gardens on the dock every morning at like six o'clock in the morning I'm talking to Scotty and Justin and we're there I'm picking up produce and you were always there picking out oh yeah I would go my dad always said you know you need to go pick out your produce and he would always go there every morning he would get to work at five in the morning and he would go to the farmers market he would go to the to the produce places like you know creation gardens and mid-south produce and places like that and we used to be Ernest Williams he would go and pick out his produce he would make sure that he was serving the best product you know and that's something that has kind of been installed in me it's like you want to serve the

54:04best you need to go out and do it need to put the extra legwork in make sure that you're getting your customers the best the best produce and you're picking out the produce and then now you're in the building you're greeting people you're kind of you know like the mayor to a degree of this place to a degree I think you have to be I think people I mean people like to feel people like to feel welcomed I mean and in here I think that's huge everybody I mean I appreciate people spending their time a day to come see me the least I can do is go out and greet them yeah you know I mean they're taking the time out of their day to come see us the least I can do is give them the respect of their time so I know that a lot of people come in here and they love to see you they love to say hi to you and your mom rose yeah they love to come in here they love the food is great like you just mentioned that family atmosphere yeah when you're ordered by the government to close down COVID-19 is here and you're asked to close your restaurant doors when you're used to seeing people on a regular basis what did that do to your psyche having to close and not see people for that long it totally what it did to my psyche I mean to be honest it's it sucked the life out of me you know I mean I fed I feel it's like I feed off people's positive energy I feed up people's energy I admit whether it be positive or negative you know I feel like I can I want to go out there and I want to not only make sure the food is good I want to see how they're doing and that to me builds me up every day and without that for a long time it just I would go home and I would just sit there and just look at tv and just be like something is missing in my life so that was just a taste of what Khalil and I talked about we talked for almost an entire hour we talked about his restaurant what his guests mean to him we talked about his dad what it's like trying to fill your father's shoes and then we talked about current state of the union and I'm so excited for you guys to hear this episode which will be out on Monday full HD video

56:08Julia Jaksic is the owner of Cafe Rose and she's brought to you today by F.O.H. and B.O.H. Faux and Beau if you want to escalate your career in the restaurant business go to fauxandbeau.com if you're looking to hire your next superstar hiring is free for 90 days for all Nashville restaurant radio listeners go to Nashville restaurant radio.com click sponsors find the faux and beau link click it 90 days of free hires is yours so Adelia's first solo interview she caught up with Julia in the middle of her busy dining room where she let us in on why she pivoted to opening a bodega during the closure and what her future plans are there's a new place coming the Rose Pony. Very exciting for Belle Meade to have something like that and I kind of asked her you know if she's going to continue what she's doing and she kind of shared all that with us and I'm excited for you guys to hear it. All right so I'm here at Cafe Rose with Julia Jaksic and she also has a new place coming to Belle Meade soon called Rose Pony and just kind of here to talk to her she's been open throughout the last few months she was the first to come inside with a bodega some grocery items she was going to be take out and now the dining room is back open so I just kind of wanted to catch up with her and find out I mean really how are you doing I mean we always say how are you but actually how are you? Exhausted. Understandably. So exhausted.

57:37Yeah just trying to I feel like every day is a new something. Adventure every day. Yeah every day. So you never really closed right? You just immediately shifted. We didn't. We closed for three days kind of in the middle of it to do some repair work in the kitchen that we needed to do since you know I don't know for the last year and a half or so so it felt like the right time so we closed for three days to do that but other than that we've been open the whole time. So what were your daily motivations throughout all this? I think there's this responsibility as an owner to to keep your business going for the people that depend on it you know for me firstly that means my staff just you know a lot of my staff members were you know so chaotic in the beginning that everybody knew that they would get unemployment or how they would survive and secondly you know for the purveyors you know that grow our food for us and provide our food for us and all that stuff you know so that was kind of yeah that was like the motivation of doing and just you know it's it's you put so much blood sweat and tears into something like this like a restaurant right so yeah. So what did you do like how did you decide how you were going to pivot throughout this? Honestly that was the easiest part for me because it just felt really organic I mean I lived in New York City for a really long time and I'm just used in New York you can just order anything to your house and so it just felt like we'll just bring what we do to people you know and and kind of just day by day honestly we had so many amazing kind of regulars and you know other staff members that you know couldn't get things couldn't go to the grocery stores you know wanted this wanted that so we just sort of

59:43we're like okay what do we have here that we can offer people that they need and what you know what are people having a hard time finding I did like one of those little instant quizzes which is so ridiculous but honestly I mean almost 90% of the answers were the same flour eggs milk you know just all these staples that we have here anyways so it just felt like a no-brainer to offer them to people. Are you going to continue doing that? For a while for a while I mean I think I think this is our third day open and it's been very enlightening thus far but there's definitely a lot of people that aren't going out still and I know that we're scaling back a little bit of the bodega because you can you know you can get eggs delivered to you now I mean the grocery stores are restocked everyone's kind of like figured it out but you know I think they're you know we have a ton of farm produce that we use that we put you know in the bodega and people are buying it so as long as people are still kind of buying stuff and there's the convenience option of it you know I think absolutely yeah I like that I can just like add on you know some flour and toilet paper to my yeah and it's but it's interesting to see the orders because it'll be like chicken sandwich dozen of eggs two toilet paper and like matcha but it's great I mean I think right now it's it's just about you know our dining rooms won't be at full capacity so it's how can you pad the tables that you have right you know and I think that's what it's about and so are you going to continue to take out like has that ever been a thing before yeah so we this is this is also the thing I think that we were really fortunate with is that we did postmates before this so we had like the you know it wasn't our whole menu it's not our whole menu it's a section of our menu but we kind of

01:01:44already had that platform set up so it was sort of like okay cool we're just going to add to it yeah so what does the future look like or do you know I mean you're about to open something else so what is what is that all look like I mean right now it's semi terrifying speaking the truth here I don't know I mean so so it's our third day open and it's we haven't done we did an announcement in our weekly newsletter to people that have ordered from us in the past but we haven't done we haven't done like a formal announcement on instagram or anything and or social media outlets and you know we just wanted to sort of ease into it because it's a lot it's a lot to pivot how you do things and and you know it's inevitable that at some point somebody here is going to come in that has covid and what's our contingency plan how do we deal with that but I also it it was a really tough decision because it just felt like it just felt like we had to open you know in a social distance sort of level and and we I don't know I think the future looks like watching cases continue to rise is terrifying as well and I don't know I mean if this is if this is what we do for the next I don't know six months if it's just this amount of tables and take out and delivery and the bodega I feel like the bodega keeps evolving like it's just like okay maybe we're not offering apples and mangoes anymore but we're offering you know more like preparatory items you know like you can get like you know a pan of stuffed shells you know that you can heat up at your house or whatever like things that we're making yeah I think I don't know I think just roll with it I mean that's

01:03:44sort of been my whole like it has been this I feel like this experience is just kind of it's about day to day in like the truest sense you know well I feel like you're the first person I noticed that I just was like she's thriving and she's like putting her heart and soul into like adapting on a daily basis and it's been so refreshing and I think so important to national watch you do this so I just wanted to thank you for being flexible it's a survival probably maybe when you can take a vacation or just like take a few days off because I know we'll see yeah we'll see I mean right now it's it's interesting with the build out of the new place yeah it's like everything is more expensive everything is delayed you know I yeah we're tiling the whole dining room and the tile factory in Pennsylvania just all the workers just came back you know so it's like it's it's an interesting flow you know so you're everything is so different everything's so different and it's just like we have to adapt and luckily we're humans and that's what we do for the most part we're getting really good at it right now we're getting really good at adapting remembering our masks you know washing our hands I don't have a mask hooked by the front door I was like this is not something I ever thought that I would have but I have a mask hooked totally I mean who knew well thank you so much you got it thanks really appreciate it all right so that's it that is the Nashville restaurant radio roundup for June 26 2020 thank you so much Delia for all the hard work and your interviewing skills that was great I'm going to be I'm going to putting out all of these specific interviews on our Facebook page as well as at our website under the watch tab over the next couple days so be watching forum and we just thank you all so much for listening thank you thanks Brayden for all your hard work

01:05:47and for doing this awesome show every day and thanks for this hat stay safe Nashville