#theroundup with Guest Host Chris Chamberlain

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to the Nashville Restaurant Radio Roundup presented by Springer Mountain Farms Chicken. My name is Brandon Styll and I am joined as always with the editor of Eater Nashville Delia Jo Ramsey. Hi, hi. Hey, hey. We have a very special show today. I am so excited. We've been having special guests every week and this special guest this week is a food and drink writer for the Nashville scene. I don't think he even needs an explanation or an introduction. Chris Chamberlain. Welcome to the show, sir. Glad to be here. All right, so first thing, what is the language rating on this podcast? I want to know. You can say whatever you want, man.

01:04Actually, because I write for the scene. They encourage me to cuss. So I certainly encourage you. You can say whatever you want to. This is an uncensored. I typically try to keep it a little more PG just because that's me. But we're you do it ever. We are good. I'm a big fan of your show. Matter of fact, I'll be the one to remind people this week that you got only a couple more days until August 30th to vote for best podcast. So in Nashville scene, I strongly recommend it. There is another best of in town that finally changed their name from toast of the best of. So don't don't be confused. We're the originals. So best of Nashville, Nashville scene. Best of Nashville, Nashville scene. I have been telling people every day on the podcast. Please go to the Nashville scene website. Please go to the media and politics section. And under under under podcast, please vote for Nashville restaurant radio. That would make us very, very happy. And now, Chris, I heard I read somewhere the other day that it takes you have to vote for like some so many things in order for your vote to count. Yeah, that's the best to stop the ballot stuffing, you know, getting people to just go and click on one category for one restaurant or one one outlet or something like that. And then leaving, you got to dedicate a little time. We hope you get a little put a little thought into it. Oh, that's good. So how many things do you need to vote for if you go to it's either 20 or 30, I forget, but online, it doesn't take long, you know, and you're you're actually contributing to the content. Unlike some other contests, you know, we don't we don't prompt you. We don't put advertisers, you know, at the top of a list or anything like that. We really care about who our readers want to know about or want to want to recognize. And I guarantee those those lists are tabulated quite honestly, because we're surprised by them, too. You know, thank God we finally gotten past the point where wits kept winning for best barbecue. Who who typically does win for best barbecue?

03:09You know, we do a writer's choice of that every year. And that's where, you know, we often end up with some sort of chicken shit answer, because, you know, we all love four or five places in town. So it's same thing with hot chicken. I mean, you do a best hot chicken every year because you're just going to enrage people and everybody's better at something. So but you can guess the top three are generally going to be Martin's, Edley's and Pegleg. But, you know, that's leaving out the little guys like like gambling stick. It's leaving out, you know, the old Reliables like Jack's. It's leaving out Shane out there at Honeyfire. So last year, you know, it wasn't a total chicken shit thing, but I gave it to Honeyfire for best new barbecue. Yeah, we end up splitting it into ribs or split, you know, ribs, best chicken, best, you know, we'll find a way to recognize everybody that's excellent. I love that we I have a big barbecue week this week. I've been shooting the video for chefs or restaurant owners reading one star reviews, and we had Will Newman on Monday and Pat Martin on Wednesday. Last Friday, Shane Nasby was our guest host on the show and Kerry Bringle read one for us as well. So our all new barbecue edition will be out this weekend of chefs reading one star reviews and it features Will Newman, Kerry Bringle, Pat Martin and Shane Nasby. So I call them like that. I feel like that's a pretty solid group of guys reading one star reviews. Absolutely. And very opinionated too. They'll make it entertaining. I guarantee it. Yes, they will. So we've got a great show today, and I want to get into your weeks. Today, we will be joined by Chef Ryder Zetz, and he is the executive chef at Ford Fries, the optimist in Germantown. He's going to come on the show in a little more than 10 minutes, and he's just going to jump in, talk to us about how they're doing and everything. And then later in the show, around 430, we're going to have Khalil Arnold from Arnold's Country Kitchen come in and he has an announcement to make. Pretty excited to know

05:10what he's going to do. Breaking news today, he will make an announcement about Arnold's today on the show at 430. So it's gonna be fun. Excited. Looking forward to that. So Delia, how was your week? I had a good week. I tried out the new brunch at Pelican and Pig this weekend. I met my boyfriend's dad and stepmom this weekend, and I took them to Pelican and Pig, partially because I know that I love everything they've been putting out for dinner out there, and I was excited about the brunch. And partially because I was like, if I have four people, I can order the whole menu. Because when it's just me, and I'm like, oh, an appetizer and an entree, this was better. So we got to try that brunch. It was super good. I mean, her biscuits are some of the best in town. Audrey's biscuits are amazing. It was the best cheese Danish I think I've ever had. Insane brunch they're doing. I love, I think the thing that I like best about all this shutdown, there's so much negative, but I think chefs are really being creative and they're taking the time to make new things and innovate. And I think that's one of the most exciting things about all this. So that was my weekend. And I went to Yolan on opening night with my sister and her boyfriend. And I just ordered a ton of food there too. And we'll talk more about that later in openings. But just really excited to be here. Excited to have Chris Chamberlain with us. He is the OG Nashville food writer. He is the person, when I moved to Nashville and I had been in Dallas where there are tons of food writers and there are tons of publications, and I moved here and I was like, who do I need to meet? And it was Chris Chamberlain. And so I like finagled him into having lunch with me one day at Husk. And he's a great dude and a very talented writer and a wealth of knowledge of all things restaurants in Nashville. And I'm so excited to have him here. Glad to be here. How was your week going? I saw that your pup was sick this morning and just wanted to send my love. Thank you. He's hopefully getting better. I call him my canine coworker. So, you know, we don't know how old he is because he's a rescue dog, but we've

07:14had him for 12 years. So, you know, old dogs have problems. But, you know, we're staying on top of it. My best friend's my vet. So which is we played in a band together 100 years ago. So he lived in my house while he was going to vet school. So you figure I'd get cheap service. But there's no cheap. We keep asking him like, when are you going to buy a boat? You know, something we can all use with all this money we give you. That's a good call. How was the rest of your week? You've been out and about. What have you been up to? Yeah. I mean, I ate my first good sit down meal in a long time. I was with my friend, Carolee Ryan. We had just a delightful lunch at Et and I hadn't been out in that environment in a while. And, you know, lunch is a good time to do that. You can usually find a lot more social distance at lunch anyway. I don't spend a lot of time in the downtown corridor unless I'm on my bicycle now. So it was nice to get to walk around a little bit during the day. I enjoyed that. And I went on a trip down the ghost kitchen rabbit hole. Have you played with that, Delia? Have you looked at how many ghost kitchens we have in town now? I really enjoyed reading your post about it because I just, every time I walk on there, I'm like, what the crap is that? So I like that you track down like where these places are coming from because I'm like, I know this wing place is not, they're not wing specialists. I liked that article that you wrote.

08:44Thanks. Yeah. That was, that was eye opening when I started scrolling through Uber Eats. And I thought, I guess I don't cover restaurants in this town because I've never heard of any of these. Thanks. I found Brandon. Have you, did you get to see that article? I saw, I didn't get to read the whole thing, but yeah, I mean, I, I saw the article. I discovered a Hooties burger bar. I'm like, what the heck is a Hooties burger bar? And then I saw it was on Largo road. And I said, hang on, Hooters is on Largo road. And it turned out it's just the, it's just the Hooters menu with the burgers listed first and the wings listed second. But if you're searching for burgers, you weren't going to think about Hooters. So yeah, it worked. That's brilliant. I tell you, there's some innovative people out there. Yeah. And I'm, I'm burning up the carry out not only because I've got to write those weekly carry out picks for the scene, but my girlfriend's a kindergarten teacher. So if people think I eat out all the time, they're nuts. By the time she's done with what she's doing, you know, when she was in school, she didn't get home till seven. And when she's teaching from home, she doesn't log off the computer till six. So I end up cooking just about every meal at home right now and don't mind doing it. So everything else we just get carry out.

10:02What have been your, like if you had to name your favorite three carry out meals that you can remember from pandemic, do you have like a top three? I'll see. Oh gosh. Who's the, it's the vegan chef that's at the 12 South market. Um, they just style blueprint just wrote about her. Um, just a real small, uh, radical rabbit. That was a, that was a fantastic meal. And everybody knows what a carnivore I am. So when I get excited about a vegan meal like that, you know, it had to have been good. So that was great. I, one of the first ones I did early on was, uh, I don't know. I'm like, I know her name, Julio's place out in a nectar, nectar, urban Cantina. Oh yeah. What a fantastic deal for 40 bucks because, you know, I think we ate three full meals out of that $140 meal. So that one was great. And then I had a really good, um, meal from char, which surprised me because I don't normally want steak for a, for a carry out, but it was just a great experience. You know, a guy wearing a formal suit in a, you know, I knew a full meal of, of a really good burger and a fish sandwich. I think we got, so yeah, it was, those are probably in the top three for sure. Awesome. Love it. Do they, can they get in your building to deliver to your, to your apartment or do you have to meet them in the lobby? I have a note where they can, um, they call me, I buzz them in, they leave it at my door and I will get really mad if they won't do it. I have to go down there.

11:34I won't have the attitude if I have to go down. Like the whole point is not to have to go out there and put your shoes on. See, I want to get my car and drive and pick it up because then A, I know how quickly it gets back and B gets me out of the house. So sometimes I do that too. I'm going to have a difficult tax season next year because I'm going to have, luckily most of my income, but none of my expenses. So I'm not driving anywhere. I'm not flying anywhere. I'm, you know, paying a lot less for meals and stretching them out. I'm not doing the X hundred dollar meals at Yolan kind of thing. So I've saved so much money in dry cleaning. I'm like, I'm just, I'm, I'm in this new world of being comfortable that I like. I'm like, I like wearing like shorts and t-shirts all the time instead of the dress shirts and slacks and starch and having to go drop your clothes off and then bail them out and like that. I'm, I could be done with that forever. I'm cool with that. I don't know if I can, but it'd be nice. Yeah. I had to wear long pants twice last week. That was, that was grueling. Me too. So we have a, I started the show off today and I didn't know, I didn't know how to start the show off. I interviewed Q Taylor today who is one of the owner partners at cinema in eighth and roast coffee shop. And I didn't know how to start the show. I didn't know how to start the interview. I said, Hey man, let's, let's get going. But I'm, it's kind of hard to be like, Hey, let's talk about what's happening in the world because what's happening in the world is a category four hurricane hit our shores this morning and people are hurting and we're in a worldwide pandemic and police are still shooting black people for no apparent reason at all. And it's just, there's just a lot of stuff happening and it's hard to get on here and do this. And he had a great, we talked about it and I invite you, the show's going to be out Monday to listen to it because we talked about, we get into it a little bit and he

13:36says, you know what, man, this stuff is all stuff that happens for a reason and we're going to get through it and we are going to be better for it. Our country is, is hurting right now, but we're going to get out of this thing and there's going to be changes. There's going to be changes that are going to be lasting and we're going to, we're going to, we're going to be better. And I love this optimism. And I was just like, you know what, man? Yes. I said, I'm still kind of sad right now. And I feel very sad for our country. He goes, but we're going to get through it. We're going to be better than we were before. And I just love that perspective. So it's hard to come into a show like this and just talk about, and we, and we still got to eat. This is still a show we're doing. And I didn't want to not address it. And we're going to talk a little bit more about it when it comes to the James Beard Awards here in a little bit. But just to touch on our week that we're having so far as we're kind of getting into it, we had a huge week on the show. We are now on TikTok. We have a TikTok page and I have started putting all of these videos of chefs reading one star reviews really because people that go out to eat and leave one star reviews during a pandemic are really asinine and silly. And the chefs reading them has been a moment where people can go, are you serious? Like they're just so ridiculous, but videos are going crazy on TikTok. I had no idea. I put a video. I'm 16. I mean, yeah, that's what I figured. They, as far as they know, the people that are doing the video, hi, I'm Brandon.

15:06Yeah. Well, so I, this thing is crazy because like the video got like 70,000 views. Shane Nash, the Nashville restaurant radio is like getting TikTok famous. I'm pretty excited about that. So if you're not on TikTok, go to TikTok, check us out and you can watch all the barbecue videos are already out right now on TikTok. Secretly snuck those in. I'm waiting to see who's on TikTok. Who's already seen them. But yeah, we did have Pat Martin on Wednesday, Will Newman on Monday, big week this week. Next week we're going to have Q Taylor, like I said before, is the partner and owner of cinema. And then Steven Smithing. We were going to have Steven on today, but kind of with everything happening and just all this stuff happening, I decided to postpone it and put it till next week. So next week we will have another special guest for the roundup. Matt Bolas will be joining us live during our show in Chris Chamberlain's chair. And I'm pretty excited about that because he has a little bit of a personality.

16:15Yeah, he is easy to write about. Let's just say that. Hit record, start typing. He did a really good one-star review for us. I was really excited that Delia went over there and got that footage for us. I thought that was pretty funny. Long trip for you. I know. So yes, we got a lot of stuff. So we are anticipating writers that's to come on. And Delia, you've eaten at The Optimist. What did you think of it? I did. I went actually, I'm just a big opening night girl. I'm not there to judge anything. I just really like the energy of a restaurant on an opening night. I don't care. I know the service is going to be off. I'm totally prepared for a fiasco, but I just enjoy the energy of a new space. So I went opening night by myself. It was when bars weren't open. So I had my own little table in the back, almost in a private room with my laptop and ordered six things, had a fantastic meal, fantastic service. And then I went back the next week with a date, sat in the more intimate dining space near the kitchen. I liked the vibe in there more better, but I've had some really good seafood, solid oysters. I think they're doing some great stuff over there. What do we think of two fish camps operating within a half mile of each other in Germantown now? Isn't it interesting how the city has grown for so long? And now we have, I haven't been to Henrietta Reds yet. Have you? Not since she changed again.

17:49Yeah. But I love her food. I'm sure she's doing a great job. So I'm sure. Do you guys want to, you guys want to talk to Ryder? Absolutely. Hello. Can you guys hear me? Yeah. How you doing, Ryder? Good. How are you? You're looking quite angelic. It's sunny. I'm upstairs in our cocktail bar, lulu. And we have this beautiful room we call the green room, green furniture. But anyways, there's big windows in here. It's perfect. Sweet. Well, welcome to the show. Welcome to the roundup. You've got Julia Jo Ramsey over there, Chris Chamberlain, myself. We are so excited to welcome you in. We were just wanting to, you know, as we're kind of getting this thing going, we'd love to hear how your experience has been so far, how the optimist is doing and just kind of check in with you. Yeah, I mean, it's a kind of a long story, but I'm not gonna bore you with that. But I guess since opening a couple months ago, I think it's been a little, a little better than we thought it was going to be with the global pandemic. I mean, people are going out to eat. Granted, they're wearing masks and we're social distance dining, but we've been busier than expected, which is a blessing and knock on wood. But we just kind of feel fortunate that we can still cook and do what we all know as cooks and still execute things just as it was before the pandemic, but just a little bit different. You guys have a follow up? How's availability of product been for you guys? I've heard, I've talked to some seafood guys along the coast and they say that there's been so little fishing pressure that it's actually been a real positive for seafood restaurants. Are you all seeing that? Absolutely. I mean, supply and demand supplies up. So that's our prices have gone down a little bit, which is great. A few things, obviously we have an oyster

19:49bar. So we like to feature a lot of oysters. I kind of stopped getting West Coast oysters then, obviously with the logistics of shipping, I think people were sitting on them a little longer. So the quality kind of went down, but I don't know, it's kind of, I'm kind of new to this market. I spent a lot of time in California, but I've been impressed with, like people say Nashville's landlocked, but we're kind of like a hub and you get, you know, coming up from the golf or even from Boston or Atlanta is a major hub. So we have a lot of access to good seafood and I've been pleasantly surprised. Yeah. What do they say FedEx is everybody's fishing boat now? I mean, you can pretty much go straight to the dock. Yeah. I don't know. It's weird with four people trying to get everybody like, who's going to say something? And I can't because it's about talk because it's small on the computer. My cat's meowing in my ear. I think my cat's very excited about the seafood. Knocked in my microphone, meowing in my face.

20:50But I guess Ryder, what is the biggest challenge in opening during the pandemic? The unknown, honestly, because we've known, I mean, I've known this for my whole career and how to cook and the normal challenges, but you don't really know what you're going to be presented in a global pandemic. You know, obviously we won't survive if people don't come out to eat. So I think that was our biggest challenge is kind of chartering that territory and seeing where we went. And now it's just, it's really just keeping, you know, getting repeat guests, which we've been doing a good job of, but also just the normal challenges. But also we have a big space here. And with only half seating capacity, that's a bit of a challenge. But like I said earlier, I'm really just fortunate that we get to cook and go through the motions that like we've always done. I would reckon that you can, you know, because it's such a big building, you might be able to to tolerate social distancing, that six foot limit a little bit better than a place that's a smaller, more intimate place. No, absolutely. We're kind of blessed in that situation because we have this cocktail bar upstairs with the bars and the kind of people not really going out to bars.

22:06We're using the space as an overflow. It's been raining a lot or it's always threatening to rain. So we basically use this as our satellite patio, kind of. So that's kind of been fun because it's really cool atmosphere up here and the guests will kind of get to feel the vibe, but just in the optimist format. Very nice. What's the, have you had any big surprises? Anything that just like crazy you didn't plan for? Anything that's come up that you've had to overcome? I mean, they all kind of blend together because it is a restaurant business and every day there's a surprise, but I mean, off the top of my head and I think, I guess I'm just surprised by how well it's going. I know it's, I don't want to sound like fairy tale-ish or anything because I know everyone's having their struggles and we are too, but I mean, I think the public wants to come out and dine and, you know, as long as you're practicing social distancing and hand washing and masks, I think we're just going to keep chugging along and hopefully get over the hump and 2021 is just around the corner. What part of California are you from? I actually grew up in Virginia, but we spent, my wife and I spent about 13 years in Napa Valley, so a little town in Calistoga. Yeah, it's a rough part of town. Well, it's fire season. You don't want to live there.

23:32It's fire season right now. True story. True story. One of my favorite places in the world is Napa Valley. Just the most beautiful place and just it's so quaint. It's so amazing. Are you a drinker? Wine, beer, yeah, all of the above. Well, so I mean, do you drink bourbon? Not so much. I've actually getting turned on to it a little bit since I moved out here, but I don't know. It's kind of just strong for me. I mean, I don't want to sound like a pansy, but I appreciate it on the rocks or maybe just like a little nip, but I mean, I love wine and I love beer. I love Mexican beer and I love wine, especially European wines. Yeah, by the way, nobody who makes whiskey cares how you drink it. They just want you to drink it. Yeah, I've got that. I was talking to Kerry Bringle the other day and I said, how's your whiskey doing? Is it doing well? And he goes, oh man, it's doing great. And I said, what's your favorite way to drink it? He goes, I don't care how people drink it. People are saying, well, you gotta drink it. And he goes, I don't care. Just pour it out of the bottle. Finish the bottle and buy another one. He goes, we'll keep making it. And I thought it was just the funniest thing. But the closest thing locally that we have to Napa Valley is when you go up to the Bourbon Trail and you go up to around the Lexington, between Lexington and Louisville, there's the Bluegrass Parkway and you go, there's a culture up there that's palpable that's similar to when you're in Napa. There's that wine culture where you get into that bourbon culture and it's pretty cool. I didn't know if you'd gone and check that out yet. Not yet, but I mean, it sounds like a road trip for sure. I mean, you probably have to pace yourself. I know about four wineries in Napa, you think you can do pretty well, and then you're just, you can't make it to your dinner reservation. So I couldn't imagine four distilleries. I went to college out there and we'd find ourselves up at Ferrari Carano. I'm like, wow, this has been such a great day. And he realized, oh my God, we're at the north end of Sonoma and we have a reservation in San Francisco tonight and we are plastered. Yeah, doesn't happen. Way pre-Uber. Right. There was no safe way back.

25:34Wow. When I was out there, I did learn what you're talking about, that the four seasons are wind, fire, mud and earthquake. And if you live in Napa, you're going to get all four of them in a year. So hopefully, hopefully it'll be a little safer for you here. No, we love it out here so far. I mean, definitely thunderstorms. There's no thunderstorms in Napa. I'm pretty excited about that. But also the only thing I really miss from California is the agriculture and my backyard garden was kind of Mediterranean-esque. What county are you living in right now? Brentwood. Okay. Sure commutes are not too bad. No, no, we have little children. So the public schools are pretty amazing for the kids. How old are your kids? The boys are eight and seven and our girl turns six today. Wow. Happy birthday. Yeah. She's going to come in for some milkshakes right at five o'clock. Sweet. Yeah. We will have you out of here in plenty of time.

26:42We are live with Chef Ryder Zetz from The Optimist. And if you are watching this right now and you have questions you would like to ask, please feel free to type them in. We're going to be here for like another minute or two. Let us know that you are here, that you are live, that you want to just say hello to everybody. Ryder, had you worked for Ford anywhere else before you came here? No, it was kind of a little bit of a leap of faith. Ford worked in Aspen a while ago in probably the 90s with an old mentor of mine. And I kind of heard about this project, which took forever. I'm sure you guys know in Nashville the rumor mill and the delays and whatnot. So it's been on my radar. And then the opportunity kind of arose and we were ready for a change of scenery. And I came out and tried out with a group in Atlanta almost two years ago now. And I really liked their vision and the company and how they approach restaurants. So it seemed like a good fit. Yeah. I don't think people realize what sort of an empire Ford has built across, was it four cities now? Because in Charlotte too, right? Charlotte, Atlanta, Nashville, and Houston. Yeah. Super Ecos as you know it. And then most of the boutique or the independent themed restaurants are in Atlanta. Yeah. I love the optimists down there. So I was really excited to hear you all were coming. Good. Yeah. We're excited as well. So how long have you been in Nashville now, Ryder? A little over a year. So you got to take sharing for a little bit of free pandemic. One of the reasons I even knew we could move here is I went on a guys trip when we were out in Napa with some Raiders buddies and we went out to a Titans game.

28:24And even though I lived in Virginia for so long, I never went to Nashville and I was just kind of taken aback by the city. And obviously the music, but the food as well and the cleanliness, I was just kind of pleasantly surprised. And I was like, wow, it's a great little city. And kind of when this opportunity arose and I was like, I jumped right on it. It's a great, great change for my family. Sweet. If we were to come eat at the optimist, I have yet to come out and I have plans to do so. I've got some people that we're excited to bring out and we're going to do a small gathering. But what's the thing that I got to eat? What's the thing that I'm asking the chef? Not just the main thing. What is the thing that you're saying you got to eat? What's the best thing? Well, I don't yell at the servers. I sternly recommend that they push their guests to some fish that they haven't had before, like a skate wing or a pompano. But the funny thing is when I come in, I would order the most basic thing. Well, it's not basic, but I guess you would say crowd pleaser. And this is what I would recommend to you would be the whole roasted flounder. And it's just done in the style, like the old French, like beurre noisette. And as opposed to almondine, brown butter and almonds, we do pecans, which are obviously a little more indigenous to this region. So it's just a simple whole flounder. We get them in from the Gulf Fresh and they come in at about one and a half pounds and we pan dress it. So basically take the fins and the guts and the head off and leave the tail on. So bone in, and then we basically lightly flour it, pan fry it. And then we make a brown butter sauce with the pecans and lemon juice and parsley right in the pan. And it's pretty much just one of those timeless preparations where any fish that you cook on the bone, as you know, is just a lot moister and there's a little more margin for error for cooking. And it's just, I think, the best expression of maybe what we're trying to achieve here. The Spanish octopus is one of the best octopus dishes I've

30:31ever had. Oh, good. I'm glad you liked it. A little different, but that's, I think that's changed since you've come in. I think we're doing a grill, we're doing a grilled preparation right now. Okay. Well prepared. Had a great time. I also love the smoked, you have the rice, the fish fried rice still. Yes. Super good side. Good. Thank you. Well, come on in and visit us for sure. Most certainly we'll do so. I told you this would be quick. Give me 10 minutes. We'd love to have you on. I know it is your daughter's birthday. You're going into service tonight, Thursday night. We thank you so much for coming on and spending 10 minutes with us here on The Roundup. All right. Thank you guys. Thank you. All right, man. Have a wonderful night. Thank you. It's like one of those close and play record players that we had growing up, right? Yeah. Just slams the laptop down. Boom. Yeah. Works. A record player was like, we used to play our music on these discs. I made a Paul Harvey reference today to somebody and he goes, you're not old enough to know Paul Harvey. And I went, yeah, I am. I'm not a handsome man.

31:57I wore a KDF t-shirt yesterday. I have an old 103.3 rock and roll KDF t-shirt. So the jersey with the three quarter sleeve? No, it's just a t-shirt. Oh, the two color jerseys, man. That was it. Did you live here then? Did you know KDF? What year was it? What year were we talking about? No. It was the rock station. Yeah, it was. No. Okay. Yeah, there used to be the rock station 103.3 KDF and it was the best. I mean, it's all returned into a country station. Yeah. And it still is. Yeah. It's what it is. All right. So let's get into the, we've had, I've enjoyed this so far. Thank you guys so much for joining us here on the show. Let's jump into news of the week, openings, closing stuff going on in Nashville. Do you want to lead us off with that? I mean, I think the big one that everyone's talking about is Yolan and the Joseph Hotel and Denim upstairs on the rooftop.

33:03And I kind of wanted to hand the torch to Chris to talk about Yolan and Tony Mantuano and Kathy. Well, I didn't know you'd already eaten there, but I got to spend my time in the kitchen. I was there before they opened. I was in the dining room. Yeah. No, he's got a great setup there. It's always a good sign when you're walking up to a hotel restaurant, you look in the loading dock and it's just stacked with cordwood. You know that, you know, they're going to be doing something good in the kitchen with that cordwood. And sure enough, he's got a wood fired oven in there that he's, I know he's roasting his vegetables and roasting his proteins. And he hinted that he'll be doing late night pizzas. So, I mean, if you're looking for a good pizza downtown, I'd say going to Yolan will be a lot different than any other pizza options you can get. So I'm excited about that. And Tony and Kathy, they are old school. I mean, they are, it is high end Italian, like we haven't ever had in Nashville, I don't think. And I put in my article that I felt more like Milan than Rome. You know, these guys have got a real classy, you know, what is it, velvet chairs and leather inlays and it's granite tables or whatever. It was, it's a gorgeous space. So, but I didn't get to eat my way through the menu. I just saw it from afar. I did get to see the wine list and that's, she's brought some wines to Nashville that we have not had before. So.

34:22Incredible. I know. Did you see the cheese? They were loading the cheese when I was there. So I did not see them and they were frantically trying to get the temp control right so that they could store, you know, you got each of those wheels is what 80 something pounds. So they had, you know, 750 pounds of cheese on a shelf there. You don't want that to go bad. He said he's going to have, you know, different aged Parmesan in there. So, you know, he'll be able to really cook from the wheels. So did he crack a wheel while y'all were there? No, I can't believe he didn't do that for opening night. You think you'd roll in front of me. They were, it was a little crazy. They were pretty busy. I think they sold out opening night and I think that it was a little frantic, but I was very excited about the cheese when I took the tour last week and I was like, I saw the cheese like glass case and I was like, where's the cheese? Cause I saw it in somebody's story last night. So they took me into the walk-in. I got to look at the cheese. I threatened a lot myself in there with the cheese. I'm kidding. I was like, if anything in Nashville, it's like locking myself in there with the cheese. I don't know. How are the desserts? Because I was back there. They were kind of doing pastry practice and it looked and smelled so good. Everything seems really talented. So talented. I mean, we, we all were so full cause we, there were four of us and we just kind of, there was a vegetarian and they did, they did on the fly a tasting menu for my vegetarian sister, which was incredible. And then the other three of us just kind of split like four appetizers, the four pastas, and then three entrees. So we were so full by the time we got to dessert, but we got one dessert and got the sorbet trio and just, I mean, there's just nothing like it in Nashville. And somebody made a comment when we shared the article, that was something about all we need is another hotel and another celebrity chef in Nashville. And I just have to argue with that because there isn't anything, there isn't really a luxury hotel like this. And there isn't a restaurant like this. And they've moved here. Like they're, they're in this every day. It's not just like they're stamping their name on it and walking away. I mean, I, I'm glad they're here.

36:27That's a really brave thing to do. But you know, with the Pazooties behind them, they weren't gonna, they weren't gonna not build that hotel once they started it. So, you know, that would have been an easy project to put on a long-term hold, but you've already got two people of the Manuatu's, or Manuatuano's talent coming to town. You need to plunge forward, even though, you know, the Symphony Hall is not going to be open until next spring. You got to reckon that that's kind of the same with Etch. That's got to be a core constituency from them. So that's why I'm encouraging locals to go now before, before the convention center is open. That's going to be where every executive committee of every convention has one of their meals, plus 297 rooms in there. You know, you're not going to stay at the Joseph for three nights and not eat in Yolan at least once. So that's, that's 70 covers, 80 covers a night just from hotel guests. So go early. I look at it. I think it's just, you know, I think it's amazing having them in our town.

37:30Or the simple fact that they're going to elevate everything that we do. And from a mentor perspective, because I'm looking at all of the people that work in restaurants and the leadership that we have, the amount of people they're going to go in there and work under Cathy and work under Tony and what they're get the experience that they're going to take out of that and what they're going to take to other restaurants is going to elevate our entire dining scene. I mean, to have a guy who's been nominated for 12 James Beard awards, who's a James Beard winner to come in and do what he's doing. I just think that we're lucky. It's like having a national treasure here in our town. I don't think people recognize how fortunate we are and how amazing that this is going to be for us. Do you, do we have anybody else in town with a Michelin star? I don't think so. I mean, Sean Brock, didn't he, when he was at the Hermitage, didn't you get a Michelin star? No, they didn't. They don't cover Nashville. They don't cover Charleston. You got to be in Chicago, New York or LA or the Bay area.

38:35Yeah, I don't think you even get one. So yeah, that's going to be a big difference. I asked them about staffing because I looked at, I happened to be there when they were having a lineup before a practice service and it didn't look like real experienced servers. I would have expected if they could have, they'd have come in and, you know, poach some people just because there's so many people looking for work right now and who wouldn't want to work for Tony and Kathy. But he said, you know, we've hired a bunch of young people, we're going to train them. We want to train them like we want them. So we didn't go looking for, you know, somebody's, we didn't steal somebody that would have been at the palm for 20 years, you know, but that's the kind of kind of service you would expect. You know, and that's something that I noticed in New Orleans after Katrina, that the long-term servers didn't necessarily come back to the big jobs because they, you know, had moved on to find something else. So it was kind of a new generation of service. You had to train people in hospitality again. So it really means a lot when you've got somebody of their caliber to do that training. So I don't mean to change the subject, but I will say it's a very good intro to staffing, to bringing the right people in. And right now, you know, the way to do that is through Fow and Bow. Fow and Bow is a new hiring way to hire restaurant staff. I mean, this is a locally owned and operated company where it's different. It's a different way to hire. So if you own a restaurant out there, it's free for like another three, four days. I think it's free until September the 1st, completely free. So if you go in right now and sign up, you can request interviews from people all over the town. It's really cool because right now, if you want to hire somebody, you need to go on Indeed, you post and pray on Facebook, and you put this out there and you let people come to you. Where Fow and Bow,

40:35they have over 3,000 people right now on their website looking for jobs. These are not people that are having to put in jobs because they're certifying. These are people who want to work today. And that's a real problem right now. You know, I've done a little research into this. Apparently, every week, you have to certify in order to get unemployment, which is still, people are still unemployed. It's a thing that's happening, but they have to go to Indeed and they have to apply for three jobs. So a lot of restaurants were using an Indeed. They're just getting flooded with people applying for jobs, but then nobody shows up to the jobs because they just have to do it. On Fow and Bow, there's people that want to work. So you can go in there and you can find them and request interviews right now. Fowandbow.com. That's F-O-H and B-O-H dot com. All right. Sorry, there's a little advertisement in the middle there. You cued me up real well with that hiring fee. I barely even noticed it happen, man. That was awesome. Unintentional segues for the win. And I saw you take a sip a minute ago. What are you drinking over there, Mr. Chamberlain?

41:41Um, I was, I was saying I was feeling very woo girl. I'm drinking a Pickers. So this is their cranberry lime vodka soda. And it, I'm not normally a big spike seltzer kind of person, but I like that it's local and I like, you know, we could all save a few calories right now with the quarantine 15. So, um, I know I'll end up drinking four mixed drinks tonight. So there's, there's going to be 800 calories. I'm going to save it where I can, but yeah, it's been a week. So I was excited to find this Pickers at the back of the fridge. Very nice. So Pickers, uh, vodka, they're making these spiked seltzers. Uh, but Pennington Distilling Company is located right here in the nations and they are the first distilling company since prohibition to make a green to glass Tennessee sour mash whiskey in Nashville. Uh, it is called Davidson's Reserve and it is fantastic. Uh, we've talked to, uh, we talked to some bartenders that came on the show. They all love it. I've yet to find somebody that does not find the Davidson Reserve to be a very high quality, very good whiskey. And, um, Jeff and Jenny Pennington, obviously friends of mine for a really long time, local, uh, people grown up in the city, Davidson Reserves named after the fact that it's made in Davidson County. It is a local national product. So next time you go out to have a drink and you say vodka soda, ask for Pickers or ask for Davidson Reserve whiskey in your drink, support local. I tasted that when it was still a white dog, you know, when it hadn't even gone into barrels and I knew right then that this was going to be something special. Those guys, um, they put a lot of time into learning it and, you know, can you imagine what that's like to put all that time and money into your first product and then have to sit and watch it on the shelf and then watch it when, when, uh, you know, double gold metal in San Francisco and then all the bars are closed. So, I mean, they are, they have the patience and the intelligence to sit on it and it's only getting better in the barrels. So, um,

43:45I think that's going to be another benefit that comes out of the far side of all this. And when they were on the show, he goes, we want double gold and we haven't been able to tell anybody about it. Like nobody's been able to go drink it or try it. So he told me I bought a billboard and then nobody was driving anywhere. That'll be one hell of a delayed gratification when it happens. Absolutely. All right. What else? Anything else open out there, Delia? Um, pinchies from BJ of Funk Soul opened down at the factory at Franklin and I got very excited about Nashville hot lobster, which I haven't heard of that one before. I've heard of Nashville hot everything, but he's doing, um, a Nashville hot butter that he poaches the lobster in and I can't wait to get down there and try that. Um, do a full lobster roll menu tasting one day for lunch. And, um, also just coming soon, I saw on Instagram case of area from more hospitality is going to be a pop-up coming next weekend. I don't really know the details. Christy, you know, is it going to be in the Chattable space? I mean, Chattable still in the Chattable space, isn't it?

44:55But I was like, is it going to be a pop-up in the Chattable space? Maybe it would make sense. Cause it said Sylvan Nights and so I was trying to track it down and I responded to Tom's story and got like crickets back. And so I was like, okay, they want to control this information coming out, but I'm excited about it. Cause I mean, very is super trendy around the country right now. And I went and I saw Steve Cavendish posted this, um, Birria ramen from this truck. It was right by my chiropractor. And, uh, I went and got that yesterday and I saw they're doing a version of that with black dynasty noodles. So it'll be like the version of the instant ramen when I had yesterday. So I'm excited about that too. Um, when I just heard the name, I thought, hang on, that's cheese and beer case of Birria. That's, that's gotta be like Delia's restaurant. I'm excited for that. Um, I saw an update from Lucky's three-star dive bar, the Pearl Diver guys that's coming along in Wedwood, Houston, um, just down the pipeline in October, Jamie said, and also have you done the east side by me yet? I had it at a pop-up, but I haven't been in since they open. It's a, it's a nice little space. So it's so good though.

46:10Um, and another thing that's unlike anything else in Nashville, which I'm excited about. I'm going tomorrow. Oh, you are? Yep. Nice. Maybe I'll crash your lunch now. Yeah, they are. They were on the show week before last. They came on the roundup, uh, the day they were opening and kind of came on and talked about all that they were doing. And, um, she was talking about all of the bread that she's making. And it was, uh, it was a really nice piece. And I'm really excited for both of them. Also bless them for coming on, on opening day. Yeah, right. Seriously. Um, I'm excited about her. I think I've talked about her hot chicken before, cause he has a trailer in the dollar general parking lot and Mount Juliet, and I just don't get out there often. You know, y'all know I don't like to drive. So I don't get out that way much, but I saw he's, um, crowd fund or fundraising for a full front. So it'll be fully mobile. So he's sharing on socials links to a GoFundMe for that. And, um, Matthew Rice also, uh, formerly of Posteria is also crowd funding for Paint Door Cookies, which has a space at Bento Living at Chestnut Hill. So I'm excited to see these people breaking out and, um, doing their own things. Cause it hurts is one of my favorite hot chicken and fish places actually. So anybody that can fry chicken in a trailer, I mean, that's a talent. That is not an easy thing to do. Exactly. If you don't have that all the equipment nailed in place. So, um, yeah, they're doing good stuff out there. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know. That's, that's as much as I found this week. Y'all know more. You tell me openings wise and don't know of any closings again.

47:51No, I was just going to say back to you talking about the Pelican and Pig reopening and their brunch. One of my favorite things on social media is following both Audra and Nick Guidry. And every time she posts something really cool that like she makes, she'll post like a picture of a cake or she'll post like some kind of a dish and she'll post it. And then like the next post is Nick sharing it going, that's my wife. Look, look at her. I get to eat this all the time. It's the cutest thing. Like they always are posting like back to back. She'll post and he'll be like, look what I get to eat. And then the same thing, like he'll post like something. And then she'll come right back around and like, y'all, that's my husband. Also how lucky I'm like jealous of their kids. Cause, um, you got both dessert and dinner covered in that house. I know that when they get home, but I'd love to live in that house. So Paul Brennan is out there right now. If you guys know Paul, he's the director of the Randy Rayburn school of culinary arts and hospitality management at Nashville state. And he has jumped on and he has said, Hey guys, can you please give a shout out to the baseline employees representing in these times? And we will absolutely give a shout out to the baseline employees representing in these times. Uh, these are the people that are making it happen out there. Um, I think that all of our frontline workers who are out there supporting, um, supporting all of us out there working so that we can have food and so that people can be nourished. And, um, we absolutely appreciate everybody. So big shout out to y'all.

49:30Paul, thanks for representing. It's also thank you for watching today. We're happy to have you here. We're super excited coming up in 10 minutes. We have got Khalil Arnold's going to come on the show and I'm excited. He's going to make an announcement. I don't know what this announcement is going to be, but he has said, this is a big announcement regarding Arnold's country kitchen that he is going to come on and talk to us about. So I'm not going to, I mean, do you guys want to speculate as to what it might be? Let's not spoil the surprise, but Delia and I have, we have bets. Okay. That do not include who's going to write about it first. I've already written that he was going to hell. I gave my best stuff for it a couple of years ago and he still hadn't done it. So I, anything that they want to do, I'm always going to support them. I love that family and I love that food. They are, they are amazing. You know, we took, um, we went there and ate the other day and, uh, Shane NASB is on the show last week and we were sitting and he said, uh, I've never been, he said on the show, I've never eaten at Arnold's. So Brian from Cisco was, was there and he sells them their food and Brian's on the picture on his webpage, eating there for opening night. And he goes, Hey, let's take Shane to Arnold's this week. Let's take Shane. I said, okay, I'm in. So we, uh, I'll tell the story of how we're getting Arnold on the, uh, Khalil on the show today. And so he comes over and we go through the line, we get all of our food and we sit down and Khalil sees us and he's like, Oh, bro, what are you guys doing here? How did you, like, you're supposed to tell me you're here.

51:03And I'm like, no, no, we're not going to do that. We want to come support you, dude. Like, no. And, um, he's like, no, I got you. I got, you know, I got, I got, I got these new brisket tacos. You gotta try them. So then he just starts bringing this other food out and I'm like, stop like, seriously. I got, I went crazy and I'm like, I want the meatloaf and the chicken, fried chicken and the, you know, I got like six things. And I looked over at Brian. I was like, thanks. You're buying right. Uh, but Shane throughout the meal was just like, does he just do this? Does he, cause he's over talking to everybody. He's just the butterfly that he is. He's not talking to everybody, just doing his thing. And he's like, does he do this all the time? I'm like, Oh yeah. Yeah. This, this is, this is Khalil. That's what he does. You guys, I'm sure. I just wish his plates were bigger. I wish my stomach was bigger. Yeah. He will bury you. He will kill you. Yeah. So he came up to me and he said, I got some big news. And I said, Oh yeah. What is it? He goes, I can't tell you. And I said, why, why tell me you have big news, but you can't tell me.

52:11And he said, soon. And I said, what do you mean soon? He goes, soon. I go, how soon? He goes two to three weeks, two to three weeks. I'll tell you. And I go, so you're telling me three weeks in advance. I have really big news that you're going to tell me in three weeks. Like that's, that's terrible. It's like telling your kids, like I got you something really cool for Christmas, like in November, but don't do that. So I said, Hey, listen, I have Chris Chamberlain and Delia Joe Ramsey going to be on the show with me this Thursday. Why don't you come on the show and whatever this big news is, why don't you just announce it? And he goes, Oh, think about it. And he walks away, you know, social butterflies over there, talking to people online and Hey, Johnny, and the whole thing. And he comes back and he goes, okay, I'm in the best chance to make it real. If he announces it and we're both here watching and you're you're broadcasting it, we're going to make this happen. Yes. So I said, you're not going to get on a show with people who are more that will get the word out for you than the people on this show at this time. Absolutely. New pair of shoes. That's gonna be it. He's like, we're painting new stripes in the parking lot. brisket tacos. The new stripes in the parking lot wouldn't, you know, wouldn't be terrible. It could maybe use some stripes. I don't know.

53:40So we don't have enough time to get into it. His smoker Brandon. No, the smoke, the smoker in the side parking lot. I mean, that that used to be the the smoker at was a blind pig. Over there where we're talking to Del Sol is. Yeah. Yeah. Joe Shaw back in the day. And it had been the same guy that on the watermark and Louis, Louis, Louis. Yeah, he passed away. Oh, yeah. That's good. James Beard award winning. Oh, Steve, Louis Osteen. Yeah, Louis. Always Island. Yeah. Sorry. So he when blind pig closed, the owner of the restaurant kept trying to sell it to Khalil. And it's a great smoker. I mean, if you see it, it's a tricked out smoker would, you know, it looks like, like Harley, a company, you know, accoutrements on it, you know, and a pig and all that, and kept trying to sell it for like 10 grand. And Khalil was like, Nope, don't want it. Nope, nope, nope. And then so they just left it there. So when Tony moved in from Tucker Del Sol, he didn't need it. He wasn't going to smoke that much of anything to put in a taco. So he came over. I don't know if he ate at Khalil's or Khalil ate there. But he asked him about the smoker. And Tony said, Well, I've been trying to get rid of it. I got, I got no use for it. He goes, yeah, they tried to sell it to me forever, but they wanted too much money. And Tony told him, well, if you're going to use it for good instead of evil, you know, I'll sell it to you for a thousand bucks. Just come pick it up.

55:18So he did. He went and picked it up and brought it over. And so that's why we've had that cherry smoked brisket for all those years. So God bless him. Wow. That's a good story. Yeah. And Jimmy Phillips jumping in with the fact that is, that was Osteen. Jimmy Phillips, I'm doing well, man. If you're out there and you're listening, give us a shout out. Let us know you're out there. We've got a few people watching right now live. Give us like a hello. We'd love to know who's out there watching right now while we wait for Khalil to jump on. He should be here hopefully any minute. Probably cut in a conversation with them. Oh, it's 4 30. I got to go. Lost y'all spam call. So let's do, let's talk real quick. You Chris Chamberlain used to, used to be affiliated with the Springer Mountain farms chicken. Yes. You did. You there? Did you freeze up on us?

56:20Ask again. Can you hear me, Chris? I think we've lost Chris for the moment. He has a earbuds died. Well, this is the opportunity where we're going to talk real quick about Springer Mountain farms chicken. Oh, there he is. Hey Chris, welcome back. Nope, Springer Mountain farms chicken is a, is the title sponsor for our show. There we go. There he is. Sorry about that. I got a, I got a spam call in the middle of it. My, my decided to go with my phone instead of my janky old 15 year old Dell computer. So I'm back. Gotcha. Welcome back. I was just saying that this, the show is brought to you by Springer Mountain farms chicken. You have some experience with spring out and farms chicken. And I was wondering if you could tell our listeners a little something about them. Sure. No, I'm a, I'm a big fan of theirs. It's pretty much the only chicken I buy for the house. And you know, unless I'm going super, super boutique, as far as a, you know, a day to day chicken, that's worth paying the extra buck a pound for. It is my favorite, you know, it's no antibiotics, no, no extra, no extra chemicals added to it. They control their own grain. And one thing that people probably don't know, unless Brandon's been a good enough sponsor to tell them is you can go to the Springer Mountain webs website anytime. And there's a coupon there for a dollar off.

57:55And it's just always there. So just print out another coupon. So for 12 cents of inkjet, you know, you can pick yourself up whatever package you want to save a buck. And then you can't even complain that it costs a little bit more than commodity chicken. All right. Well, I do not tell people that. They told me not to. Just kidding. They want you on their website. I guarantee it. They do. What I tell people to do is to go join the flock. You can go to their website enter your email address and they will send you a weekly newsletter with really cool tips, recipes, farm updates, podcast updates, all kinds of news in the world of chickens. And you can also, there's a really cool button on there you can fit, you can click to find their product. So you click find Spring Mountain Farms chicken and you can hover over the city of Nashville and it will show you every single restaurant that buys and serves Springer Mountain Farms chicken, which if you want a high quality chicken and you want to know where to go, it's a good, no antibiotics. They feed them all local feed. They're all, all the chickens are raised in house. They're not out. They're not in cages. They're kind of a, they're free, but inside of a, they're indoors, right Chris? Yes. Yeah. So so they don't have to fear other birds, have to fear predators, but they're also not exposed to other diseases. And they don't jack them up with water and hormones and things like that. I love the fact that you can buy a three and a half to four and a half pound fryer as opposed to, you know, you buy a lot of commodity chickens and they're eight pounds, nine pounds. You can't put that in a skillet. So I like that they're the right size for roasting or for pan roasting. So that's one of the main reasons I really like their stuff. They just seem to be, they look like real birds. Yeah. Khalil just texted me. He said, Hey, I'm going to be there in one second. My computer is not being fun. So yeah, Paul, Paul Brennan just back in and said, Dale Founts has been

59:57at Spring Mountain Farms Chicken has been a great supporter for restaurants in Nashville. And he's been a great supporter of this show. Dale's who we work with over there. And basically he has said, look, dude, we love you. We just want to support you. We want to support you supporting locally owned and operated restaurants. Keep doing it at Spring Mountain Farms. We want to, that's what, that's who we want to be supporting. And he said, just go, just go do it. We love you. And it's really nice. It's really nice to have a sponsor say that for sure. Yeah. And it's your products where you know, you're getting the same product that your restaurants are using. I mean, you're good restaurants, the ones you really like. So you know, you can go buy the exact same drumstick that they're cooking at Peg Lake Porker. Yes, you can. While we're waiting and one more advertisement while we're waiting for Khalil. Khalil is going to come on today as our local legend. So our local legend are people that have been around for 10 plus years who are the backbone of our culinary community here in Nashville. And we want to support them. We kind of feel like a lot of the new restaurants get a lot of the love.

01:01:02We brought on Chef Ryder to earlier in the show from The Optimist. We want to support them as well as the older people. So we're bringing on Arnold's Country Kitchen Khalil Arnold. He's going to be supported by Mobile Fixture. Mobile Fixture has been around for a long time here in Nashville. They're based out of Smyrna. That's where their facility is, their warehouse showroom, the word I'm looking for. If you are going to be opening a restaurant, they can sell you everything you need to outfit your kitchen with the best supplies and equipment possible. You take in your drawings, your blueprints, and they will help organize. What's the word I'm looking for? I'm on the spot here. I don't have it written down. They will help you plan your entire kitchen to where it has flow. Come in with the menu. They will help identify how to create your food faster with the best state-of-the-art products. And they do it because that's what they love doing. And they will help you be more successful. Give them a call. A couple weeks ago we had Ben Whitlock on the show. He is the president of that company, and they're just doing a great job. They're a big supporter of what we do here, and we couldn't be happier to have them as a sponsor. So hopefully Khalil is figuring out his computer. I told him he could join on his phone. He couldn't get on his phone?

01:02:30He is working. He's working on getting on. I'm waiting for him to pop up here. Do you want to walk around the corner and go get him, will you? He says he is there. I don't see him. Hold on a second, guys. Talk amongst yourselves. Oh, here he is. Now he's coming on. Oh my God. My computer for some reason just decided this is totally didn't want to work anymore. So I had to grab my computer. Welcome, man. What's going on, guys? Three of my favorite people. All in one chat. I mean, what is this? This must be my lucky day. I think we've got you over there, and that's the Bobby Brady window over there, I think. Like, good one. Oh, that's this. Yeah. I'm going to step up the game. I mean, look how pretty Delia looks, and then look at you guys. I mean, what's going on here? I mean, we talked that earlier. When Chris came on, he goes, I need Delia's filter because I get a sponsorship from my spray tan girl, bottled bronze.

01:03:42I like it. Yeah, talk about her. Who is it? Bottled bronze. I found her on Instagram. She's spray tanning for the Mrs. Tennessee pageant today, but she made room for me this morning before I go on a road trip. And it's a good spray tan. And I just like to tell you about products that I like, so. I mean, I look pasty now. Thanks. Khalil, your room looks like the kind of place you would do a hostage video from. Well, maybe I have. I mean, you never know what tomorrow holds. Hold up today's paper for proof of life. That's beautiful. Well, Khalil, you are joining the show today as our local legend. We're excited to have you here. Thank you for all that you do for our community. And we're excited to vote for you in the upcoming mayoral election. That's what I'm here to announce. You know, I'm ready to run for mayor. I think it's time that somebody locally, you know, who cares about everything, you know, people and small businesses, you know, takes into consideration small businesses that they need to be, you know, they need to be counted and appreciated.

01:04:54No, that's not what I'm going to do. Bringle Arnold 2022. That's right. No, that's what I'm here for. But you know that I think, I think, you know, there needs to be a little bit of a mix up in the next election, but that's not what I'm here for. So I was in the other day in the restaurant and as with Shane Nasby and my buddy, Brian Stover, we all love. And you said, I got some big news. And I said, what is it? And you go, can't tell you. And I was like, what? How do you say something like that? So it's at the beginning stages, but hopefully within about two months from now, we have several things that are happening. You know, we did that pop up first time, at the restaurant with, how do you pronounce it? It was incredible. And it gave me an idea. I was like, you know, we should be using the restaurant more than we've got to pop up with Sean Brock. That's Rezzi's promoting and that's going to be awesome. That's October 23rd through 25th.

01:05:58It's going to be super excited. He has an incredible menu, which I'm not going to say, but let's just say Sean Brock always brings his A game. So that's October 23rd to 25th. But my good friend, Edgar Pendley and I have sat down and talked about it. And you know, we've been doing construction and we're about to open the new line. Well, where the old line is, we're actually going to be putting a bar and we're going to start opening up on weekends and nights starting hopefully by beginning of October or around that area. So you are Arnold's at night. Arnold's at night. I'm just taking notes over here on the right. You see both of them over here. It's already on their sites. Yeah. So the plan is Edgar Pendley is going to come and I'm going to be carrying a lot. I'm going to carry a lot of his beer, which I really like at Tenfold. And we're going to come put it at the restaurant. And then we're going to try to have a full service bar. Will Schultz, my good friend at Urban Grubb is going to come help me set it up. And we're super excited. We're going to do, it's going to be kind of Arnold's food. You're going to see the mac and cheese, definitely staples like the mac and cheese, the green beans, the turnip greens. But then we're going to spruce it up. You know, we're going to have probably ribs. And I've been talking to Leanne at Bear Creek about some really, you know, maybe smoked pork loin, a bunch of new different things that we don't really do at the restaurant that we think would be take off at night.

01:07:31Awesome. Well, as my very close neighbor, this is exciting. This is exciting for me. But what are you going to do? You're already there so much. How's that going to change your day to day? I'm just going to put a bed in the back. I mean, my day to day is going to be a shower, a bed. You know, I think one of my brother's mom is going to run the kitchen for the most. The plan is he's going to run the kitchen today and I'll run the kitchen tonight. That's the plan. And Delia, we might even have chips and queso every now and then just for you. Yes. We are going to do a nice Hispanic twist on stuff. We've been, you know, a lot of the stuff that specials that I do, like the crispy brisket tacos and stuff like that. That was kind of just a preemptive strike of stuff that I want to serve at night. Awesome. That was so legit the other day. They're so good. Yeah. The crispy brisket tacos. Brandon, have you had the tamales? Yeah. We were going to have tamales at night. A lot of that stuff that you see me do specials we'll have at night will be staple menu, you know, stuff. So we're pretty excited.

01:08:35Very excited. Yes. And like I said, I couldn't do it without good friends though. Like Edgar Penley is going to take good care of me. Will Schultz, those guys, you know, it's what you've got to love about Nashville, man. People helping people. I mean, weekend's going to be just lunch only. You're going to be open weekend nights too. The plan is to start off with this Friday and Saturday night and then Saturday day. You know, those are the three days that we're going to start off. You know, I think a lot of people, you know, we're trying to adapt to COVID. A lot of people are staying at home and working during the day and they're eating at their neighborhoods at night. Well, there's not a lot of people downtown day or night, it seems like lately. So a lot of people seem to be more venturing out more on the weekends at Friday and Saturday night. So that would be the beginning. And, you know, since we're not really care about the woo girls, we care more about the local people when they're going to be coming and eating out. So Friday and Saturday night, Saturday day plans on the three additional times to start. Awesome. Jimmy Phillips asked about breakfast because I know that was something that y'all had talked about back in the day too.

01:09:39You know, we did, that was probably before, so that was before COVID started. That was something we were planning on doing. We actually built the line behind the new, there is actually a cooking area behind the new line, which was totally there for breakfast. That was the whole plan. But right now there's nobody there for breakfast. I mean, nobody's downtown for breakfast. Right. You know, I mean, you walk around downtown, it's like a ghost town. So, you know, nighttime seems to be the happening time now. So we're just trying to, you know, we don't want to be like Dairy King and unfortunately, and places like Piccadilly that are just kind of disappearing. You know, we kind of got to adapt and kind of, you know, take what we're good at. Some of the like fried chicken and stuff like that. And why not bring it incorporated nighttime? You know, that's so exciting, man. Yeah. You asked me about the best three carryout meals. I forgot to mention Arnold because y'all's food delivers so well. I mean, even the fried chicken, you know, you could, I could track it all the way to the door. I think I did it with, who do you have? Was it Grubhub I used? Yeah, we use them all.

01:10:45Yeah, we use them all. So that's gonna be nice. Huh? I do, I do walk and get that one myself. I was talking about getting stuff delivered. I was like, yours I'll go get. Yeah. See your smiling face. Oh, well, I know, I guess for a while there is just, just trying to figure out what to do during all this, you know, what do you really do? And it's just like, you know, I might as well just jump off the cliff and, and I've called my buddy Edgar and he was like, I got you. We got this. So we're in the process of filling out, trying to get our permits right now. And, and then in two weeks, he's going to start on the bar. And, and then from there, we're going to just go, go, go full force. You know, I think Sean Brock's thing is going to be one of the perfect launching points to do stuff. So why not jump on that bandwagon and you know, see what we can do. A lot of people don't realize what a fabricator Edgar is, but that guy builds everything that the man's amazing. I mean, he built tenfold pretty much from scratch. He's somewhere right now at some other, oh, he's actually with Jim Myers doing the Ellison place soda shop, fabricating a lot of equipment and stuff in there and getting them set up. And then after he finishes that he's going to come in and, and I mean, I was like, this is what I want. And he just pretty much came in there and was like, right here is what we're going to do. I'm going to put run lines here. We're going to put the ceiling. We got this. No problem. And it was like, hop a bar here in two, three weeks. When I start, I'm just like, oh my gosh, like the guy can do it all. And luckily he's a friend because I mean, I was just kind of like, this is what I want to do.

01:12:20But is there somebody can kind of see what I see, you know, and get it done in no time. And he was just like, you know, I can have you once I start on a, you know, two to three weeks, we can have you a bar set and ready to go. Well, if you need somebody to speak up for you in front of the beer board, I think you've got three volunteers right here. So we'll vouch for you. I appreciate it. When I get there, like I said, hopefully the plan is estimated two months, two months from now, hopefully that this will all be, you know, we just, I mean, why not? The time is, the time is now, there's really lunch isn't happening. We're down like 50% every day. And it's just like, you know, we've got to go in a different direction. I've always kind of wanted my own thing. And it was kind of like talk to my family and they're all like, you do what you do, you go, we got this, you know, so I'm just going to, like I said, just jump off the cliff and see how it goes, kind of do without my specials that I've always done. We'll do shrimp and grits. We'll do all kinds of different things at night, you know? So just excited. What's Rose going to do? Rose going to be the queen of the operation. Yeah. You know, Rose will probably pop her head in every now and then she probably won't be there every day. She'll probably be there in the daytime.

01:13:29You know, if nighttime she's there, she'll probably be there eating or drinking, you know, enjoying herself. That's what we want. Yeah. That's the plan. I love it. Well, dude, thank you so much for coming on and announcing such big that's got to be so exciting for you. I'm so excited for you. Yeah, I feel like I got another life. You know, it's just after just COVID and seeing everything going on, it's like, all right, I got something to look forward to, you know, and what better than you guys to sit there and share the news with, you know? Let me do the math for you. You doubled the size of the restaurant. You lost half your business. So you add a meal. You should be right back at perfect, right? I hope so. You know, we've got a lot of tactics to make up this year, you know, four months and not make any money. So we're hoping that we just hope it, you know, we're just hoping that, A, we put out a good product and it continues with the same legacy that we've done before. So that's, you know, that's important to us putting out the same kind of food and quality, trying to be safe for everybody and, you know, trying to create something a little new. You know, I don't think of too many meat and threes that have kind of gone to the dinner route and been successful at it. So we're kind of, you know, incorporate alcohol and stuff like that with still maintaining the quality of food that we do and incorporating new things like tamales every night. We'll have wings. We'll have, you know, like I said, it's it's kind of just, we're going to do all kinds of Southern specialties. You know, I've talked to Leanne about doing, you know, different meats, different, you know, smoked pork loin, different, just all kinds of different ideas. So it's going to be interesting. You know, we're not going to have roast beef tonight, but I plan on doing a smoked meat every night that we will slice, but it'll be a little different. I love it. Well, man, congratulations. Last time we talked to you, you were a little down. You were a little frustrated and rightly so. And you have a, you have an excitement about you that I love to see in your eyes, man. It's really cool.

01:15:32I feel like it's back. You know, it's just like, just at one time I was like, I felt like I was burnt out. And I think what it was, was I just needed another direction to go. And, you know, and you just, you just got to kind of put an idea in your head and you just got to go with it. And just, that's what we've always done. That's what I've always done. And hopefully this will work, you know? So pretty excited. And like I said, couldn't do without good friends and get people like you guys getting the word out and get people like Edgar and Will helping out. And hopefully this will give a go of it. Well, awesome, man. That's so exciting. Anything else you want to say to the city? Anything else you want to say while you're on? I just want to say, I appreciate, appreciate you guys for always kind of being there and always kind of mentioning us and everything, you know, and you guys have always taken great care of us. I want to say, I love the people in Nashville and they've always been there and had our backs. And that now more than ever, restaurants like us and places like Farmhouse and I mean, you know, all local restaurants, Marche, not Marche, Margo, City House. I mean, go out there and support, support local restaurants.

01:16:38You know, McCabe's Pub, been there forever and ever. Go out and find the places that have been there forever because not everybody's doing well. A lot of places are hurting right now. So just please get out there and support local restaurants. Don't go eat McDonald's. You know, it's the same price pretty much. McDonald's is just expensive now as everywhere else. So go spend that money with a local place. Go, go downtown. You know, so many people for so long, just, I don't want to go downtown. The woo girls and the whole thing and the party bus is like, dude, if you live here, go downtown, eat at the downtown restaurants right now through the week. We're in the week right now. It's so easy. Yeah. I mean, those people need your support. So yeah. So yeah. Are you going to have that parking lot at night, Khalil? Oh yes. It'll be free. I mean, how great is that? Free parking. You know, but yeah, I just want to say thanks to you guys and thanks to the people in Nashville for always taking care of us. Thank you. You got it, man. Appreciate it. Thanks, Khalil. Have a great day, man. You too. Thanks. You're the best. All right. All right, buddy. Amazing. There it is, guys. What do you guys think about that out there watching live?

01:17:45It looks like everybody's pretty excited about that. We got Jason Ellis jumping on. It's in awesome news. Jimmy Phillips excited. Paul Brennan is excited. It's a pretty big announcement. I'm excited about it. I mean, I think it's a few of the things that we've kind of been tossing around that have been rumored and it's exciting. It's exciting to see them happen. It's again good news amid a tough time. So I'll take it. When I was on the board of the wine auction, we threw a fundraiser event there at night and it was one of the greatest nights of eating I've ever had. Just being in Arnold's at night. But we had Sean Brock and Tyler Brown and Tandy Wilson and Trey was there. I think Edgar did one too. Everybody cooked one day special from Arnold's. So one guy did roast beef, one guy did fried chicken, and they all stood behind the line and put it on red trays. So we had all these really rich wine drinkers there drinking their $400 bottles of wine, but eating mashed potatoes and gravy and Khalil was making the vegetables.

01:18:47So Arnold's at night is a very special place to be. So I'm looking forward to that option. That's pretty cool. Thanks, Khalil, for coming on the show and announcing that. I feel pretty honored that he did that. Good job, Brandon. So first scoop. Okay, you can hit send now. We're not supposed to publish on Fridays now. So I'm like, well, do I just publish on Friday or do we wait till Monday? I don't know. I got nothing. Chris is like, wait till Monday. It's cool. Do you know that I said, do you break snooze and I fix it? Less of that lately, though. Anyway, so I saw Jason, Jason Ellis was on here and he is the general manager for SuperSource. SuperSource is your dishwasher and chemical company. They do no contracts, no minimums, and I was telling him the other day, I said, you know what, I'm excited to do advertising.

01:20:01I'm excited to represent and be an advocate for SuperSource because I feel like they're the next company that's going to take over Nashville. The people that they're working with, the restaurants, if you look at his, I put a post out on our Instagram just with some of the restaurants they're working with. It is like the best restaurants in the city and it's people that know that service and quality matter. And Jason Ellis is really out there just kicking all kinds of butt. And he is going to, we're going to be talking about them for a long time, guys. And I'm going to be honored that we were one of the first people out there to really advocate for them because they are going to take over the city. No contracts, no minimums. They have, they create their own chemicals. They will come in and he will do an audit for you right now. So go to our website, www.nashvillerestaurantradio.com and click the link that says sponsors and find SuperSource and click on that link. You will get three months of dishwasher rental for free. If you get a new dishwasher with him, even if you don't call him, go in there and call him and have him come out and do an audit for your restaurant. He has nothing to lose. He's not going to come in and quote you some of this crazy, but find out if you are getting the best deal. They're not going to make you sign some five-year contract. They earn it every single week, but he will at least be an honest person that will come in and let you know whether or not you're getting the best deal.

01:21:21So SuperSource, Jason Ellis, thank you, Jason, for all that you do for our show. He is amazing. And that is our lead in to my favorite segment on the show. What's the Delia? And today is a special edition with two of my favorite writers. I'm so honored. I'm just so honored to be on this show with both of you. Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really feel special being in your presence, both of you. This is really cool for me. So Delia, take it away. All right, so today we're talking about with Chris Chamberlain on the show and a question that I get asked a lot. So we're going to go, what's the Delia with becoming a food writer? I get a lot of comments and I'm sure Chris does about how did you get into this? And you have the greatest job in the world and wow, you get all this free food. And I kind of just wanted to shed some light on like how you got started. So I guess, I don't know if Chris, if you want to start into telling us how you got started with food and travel writing? Yeah. So when I got out of college, I went into the family business and the family business was selling paper to printers. So around 2007, I saw my first iPad and I thought maybe this won't be a retirement job and got out of that business. But I was lucky enough that when I was in the paper business, I got to eat at all these fantastic restaurants all around the country. I mean, boondoggle trips, go to French Laundry, go to La Bernardin. And I really learned to have an appreciation for great restaurants and great chefs.

01:22:57But I discovered that the people that I was out with weren't, you know, they weren't paying attention. It all came to a head once when I'm at La Bernardin with 24 other white guys in suits, we all own paper companies. We were there as a guest to one of our one of our suppliers. And Eric Repair walks into the dining room to greet us all and he looks around the table. He says, there's a lot of beef on this table. And we were at, you know, the finest seafood restaurant in North America. And like 22 out of 25 guys had ordered the filet. It just pissed me off. You should know, you should know what you're supposed to eat when you go to a place once in your life. So I started writing about that on my own blog, just about the travel and the eating I was done and I was doing and that just, you know, one thing led to another and people started asking me to write this. One of the only people I know that has gotten a job off of both LinkedIn and Facebook. So I mean, you know, the jobs just came across the transom. So made a lot of great friends. I think that's the greatest part of it was meeting the people that that care about specifically Southern food, because that's one of my specialties and making, you know, realizing that chefs are just like you and me. They just cook better and metabolize alcohol a little differently than we do. But it's just a great community. So I've managed to scrape it together.

01:24:18I think I had 13 1099 last year. So if anybody thinks it's easier, you get paid a lot. It is a hustle. You got to write for everybody. You got to, you know, I say I turn in clean copy and I never miss a deadline. And that's the kind of person that people want to work with. So I've made it a point to not have my own space on the internet. You know, I end up traveling and meeting a lot of people where they creating their own content for themselves. But I find that leads to, you know, 10% creation and 90% promotion, which some people are really good at that. I turn my article in and if it gets 100,000 clicks, I'm really happy for whoever got that article. But it doesn't make a difference. I don't get paid by the click. So what would be your advice to someone who wants to do what you do? Contrary to what I just said, you know, you need to have your own place to write, you need to, you know, I started out writing on my own blog. I didn't care whether anybody read it. One big thing you worry about is you think that the first thing you write is the best thing you'll ever write. How could I come up with something else? Now that I've decided to put myself out there, how am I going to improve on it? And all you can do is just write and write and write and realize that people are going to find your old stuff someday if you're lucky enough to be searchable.

01:25:42But, you know, you've got to be an expert. I was a history major in college. So to me, every 12 weeks, I had to come in not knowing anything about a subject. You know, I'm taking a class on Joan of Arc. And at the end of 12 weeks, I had to be enough of an expert on Joan of Arc not only to synthesize what I'd learned, but to add something to the canon of knowledge, you know, come up with something new and interesting. So that's how I consider a lot of food and drink writing, you know, discover about bourbon or, you know, learn about a new distillery somewhere and say something different about it. Go find a restaurant and get the story behind the menu, find out what's working. So I'm lucky that I write for places that let me say I and me a lot of them, you know, and that's something that's often frowned upon when you're a writer. But, you know, I'm I'm everything I say is what I think. So I never have to worry about what I said before, because I don't I don't make things up. So it's great to be able to put a personality out there. Absolutely. You're so good at storytelling. And that's something I enjoy about you is your voice shines through in every article and everything you post, even just following you on social media. You're just such a great personality. And you're such an expert on Southern food and Nashville food specifically. So I'm just I'm honored to know you and to thank you as a food writer goals. So thanks for sharing. And if I didn't if I didn't have the chance to write in different voices, there's no way I could write the same story for 13 places, you know. But, you know, when I write for the scene, I write from the perspective of somebody lives in East Nashville or lives in the in the nations. And when I write for Thrillist, I got to write like a, you know, an angsty millennial. And when I write for Style Blueprint, I've got to write like a, you know, a really smart 32 year old woman that lives in Brentwood. So being named Chris, nobody knows that they think I'm I think I'm the only guy that writes for Style Blueprint. So so it's, you know, it keeps it challenging to but that rumor that we get all

01:27:43this free food now. I do get a lot of booze samples and wine samples in the mail. So my FedEx driver thinks I'm the world's laziest alcoholic. Make it just looks normal. Well, yeah, now everybody's caught up to me. But you know, sometimes I'd go to the Y early in the morning, and I'd still be wearing my sweatpants. And, you know, I've got my dog, you know, so the doorbell rings. And it's the third time that week that I've had to sign for a package of alcohol. And I'm shuffling up in sweats, you know, with a poodle under my arm. And he's thinking this guy is really, really pitiful. So I finally had to invite him into my office and say, Look, man, look, I write about this stuff, I write books, you know, this is my job. And I opened up a package and showed him it was just a little 100 milliliter bottle or something like I, I promise I'm not too lazy to go to the liquor store. Love it. Love it. Well, so have you have you given your origin story? Do you know?

01:28:45I think I touched on it the first time I was on the show, Brandon, did I? Yeah, you told the story when on your individual interview, but we, we don't talk, we talk about kind of your, your life and what you're doing. And I kind of just your personality on the show, but we don't talk a lot about your writing. Right. I mean, I guess I'll breeze through the story too. I mean, mine's kind of similar to yours. I worked in, I worked in TV news. And it's funny to say this right now is I thought I wanted to be a news anchor and started working 3am on the morning show as an intern and making coffee and run the teleprompter and writing the stories. And I was like, I'm not that cutthroat and I don't like talking in front of people. You're born for that job. I was like, no, I just like writing the stories and being behind the scenes. And then I started doing that, but then I got really burned out on talking about murders and depressing things. And I met with a life coach. I moved to Dallas in 2008. I was here for three years before that. And a life coach said, well, what do you like to do? I said, well, people always ask me where to go eat. Cause I eat out all the time because I was a single 20 something girl. I didn't like to cook for myself. I like to be out and see people and try new foods. So I kind of just, she said, why don't you start a blog? So I too started a blog in 2010 dining with Delia Joe and did the same thing. Like people are like, well, did you, you know, like I didn't do it for free food. There was no Instagram. I just started writing and making lists, essentially lists of places I went when I traveled and in Dallas, there were a lot more publications and they kind of just approached me and asked me to start writing for them same way as you. And just kind of built up that way. So, but yeah, it's again, it's not, it's not for the free food. It's a labor of love. I think it's something that we just care about. And yes, sometimes people throw out a free dish and there's like a birthday meal that someone would comp. And I try to tip accordingly when that happens, of course, because I do, especially now, appreciate all these restaurants and people in them. So yeah. The worst thing for me is that my doctor follows me on

01:30:49Twitter. So he knows what I do. Right. He'll throw a note in every now and then like, wouldn't kill you to eat some kale, Chamberlain. Vegan smoothies, vegan smoothie and juice balance. You know, I think that the other side of this thing that we do, and I'm not going to let myself in with you guys by any means. I did not go to journalism. I'm not a good writer, but I'm 25 years have worked in this Nashville restaurant industry and I've seen some stuff, you know, I've been to, I've been to a lot of funerals and I've been in a lot of kitchens standing with people behind the hundred degree grills. And I've come into kitchens in the middle of a really busy shift with product for somebody when they needed it for service and they forgot to order and I got to save the day. I've been with people and gotten phone calls at midnight from people that were drunk that needed help for, I mean, just the years and years and years that this community has given to me and allowed me to provide for myself and my family and all these stories that I have heard and told in countless kitchens. I mean, I can't tell you how many kitchens I've been in across Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, Huntsville, Florence, Decatur, Bowling Green. And, you know, doing this show, there's so many amazing stories. There's so many amazing stories and I feel like these big food network type people, they find the Sean Brock's, they find the James Beard award winners and there's so many of those nationally. But in our town, there's so many creative and amazing stories to be told. And you do a great job, Chris, and you, Delia, just of kind of telling those stories of those people. And I thought, what if I did an hour long show and just started telling those stories and people gaining perspectives and we'll get to some really cool stuff. I just wanted to kind of, I mean, this community has been so amazing to me and I just

01:32:53have so much passion for it and love and respect that I just want, I felt like I really wanted to tell a story. I really wanted to tell a story in a long form that you could listen to or not. But if you did want to listen, hopefully you would learn something really cool about somebody you already knew or that you did, that you thought you knew that you went, wow. Now, and this is where I had the Paul Harvey part of it. That's the Paul Harvey rest of the story. Like, I didn't know that guy. I thought Jason Zygmunt, you know, at Setsun the other day talking about being in NOMO and then going to, per se, Thomas Keller's, per se, and it being borderline abusive and him having to leave there because he couldn't take the abuse of working in that kitchen. And then how that transferred into his leadership style going into five and 10, that kind of story to me is so vulnerable to just telling that story from a chef's perspective. And you see where he's at now and how much work it took to get there and all over the world and staging. It's like, wow, like it's that kind of story that just to me has been the greatest piece of this, has nothing to do with free food, has nothing to do with any of that. So I mean, you see people on Instagram, all the bloggers that are, hey, watch me eat around town. And they're doing that. Like, that's cool. I love that. Like support our local community. Keep doing that. But I think that for the people that do this, like you do it, Chris, or you do it, Delia. And I'm certainly in the infant stages of really telling my stories.

01:34:23This is episode 85 that we've done. You guys probably can't count how many articles you've written, but it's more of a love letter to the industry for me. And it's giving back to the industry something that they've given me throughout my career that's been so special. Well, don't get me wrong. Nashville could use a critical voice, but that's not what I do. And I say that's not what Delia does either. I mean, I'm a believer in telling the success stories. That doesn't necessarily mean that there's not a value in someone going into a restaurant and let them know where they've fallen short. I'll generally not write about those because our meals aren't free in a lot of cases. So I'm not going to go back to a restaurant I didn't like three times and spend $200 just so I can talk smack about them. And that's unfortunate because there's not a budget out there for someone to be that kind of writer. But I prefer, you know, when I was just joking, when I said, Delia breaks the news, but that's something that people care about. They care about when a place opens, they care about kind of the inside baseball of a chef changing positions or, you know, somebody doing something different. I like to go in a month after they open, two months after they open and talk to the creative minds behind it, be the the wine person, the chef, the manager and say, what are you trying to do here? What's working and what are people really like? Because that's what I care about when I go to a restaurant. Tell me what to get that's good.

01:35:56You know, tell me what you care about, not not what I saw on somebody's Instagram because it was the prettiest thing on the menu. Right. How do people contact you? Somebody has a story, it's something good that they want to break with you, either of you. Do you prefer people contact you and let you know that they've got something and then you kind of decide what you want to do with it? Or is there a best way to contact you? Do you want to go for it for that? I don't have a pipeline. I'm terrible at checking my emails. So I feel like when I was looking at the online stuff, I was like, oh my gosh, I had like 10,000 unread emails at this point. And I emailed Janet and I was like, look, here's my phone number. This is the best way to reach me. If you have something that's important, like don't text me and say like, oh, like there's a new like pork chop on the menu. But like if you have something big, this is the best way to reach me because my email is a mess. I'd say DMs are kind of getting crowded too. Like I've just been overwhelmed with information. So if you have my personal cell phone is usually the best way to tell me.

01:37:02Well, and I'm going to walk a fine line here. Good PR people are fantastic to work with. I love they make my job a lot easier. Sometimes I know that they're just sharing the same story with everybody. That's another reason why I don't try and break it first, because I don't want to publish the same story as everybody. I want to find out what the story is behind the story. Sometimes they'll approach you and say, we think you can write a different story than everybody else. Would you like to go after this angle? That's a great thing for a writer to find out. But also, you know, if you're a chef and you just got some news and you want to let me know, if you're Khalil and you want to tell people you're having a pop up with with Sean Brock, you know, email me, call me, Facebook me. I love to listen to chefs. I love to listen to managers, anybody in the restaurant. I don't disadvantage them if they don't have good PR or if they don't have PR. I may disadvantage them if they have bad PR. But we're lucky that we don't have a lot of that in this town. But, you know, there's some people that obviously don't know what I cover, obviously don't know what my concerns are. And, you know, people trying to get me to write about wine that is not available east of the Mississippi.

01:38:14I'm not going to write about that. That just ticks my readers off. So I'm pretty easy to reach cchamberlain.gmail.com. You know, just make sure to put the A in the last, the two A's in the last name. I will also say it will disadvantage you if you're creepy with me. If there's a creepy DM at 3 a.m. You up? I'm eating the best taco. You got to write about this. No comment. All right. We're not going to go. We're not going to get into that again. That's not the way to do it if I did say text me, but like at appropriate hours with appropriate words. Deal. A couple quick hits before we let everybody go here. Jimmy Phillips. I think this is probably for you. Ed Rice from Rice's Country Ham. It passed away. Truly a Nashville legend.

01:39:16That ham is fantastic. I knew he'd been sick for a while. And that was the kind of place, it's right on, I want to say Nonaville Road, right near where Wintree Golf Course was. And it was the kind of place that you never knew when the hams would be out, you know, because he's making his hams. And when they're ready, he puts them together and puts them out on the shelves. So he was a real old school family ham maker. And that was a great Christmas tradition, was to go get slices or to get a whole ham from Ed. So I'm sorry to hear that. He was a good guy. Jason Ellis jumps in. That's a picture of his family. What are y'all's favorite lunch spots besides Arnold's? Obviously, I like that. Start with you guys. Um, right now, lunch is hard because the things that I used to would name are not open for lunch right now. Like I would normally say, uh, Klusk and Deakins and a few other places that I tried to tell someone the other day and I was like, they're not open right now. Um, right now, I think Etcetera and Etch are both open for lunch. Um, Red Hooded Stranger, Joyland, um, Otaku, Ramen are kind of, they're all kind of in my neighborhood and things I hit on the rotation. And I get smoothies for lunch a lot. So I love Juice Bar and Ian Rosa that I get a lot for lunch. Hmm. Chris? I continue to be obsessed with Butcher and B. Um, I just love that. I just love that you can share food for lunch because normally lunch is not your sharing meal. You're not ordering the whole menu at lunch, but at Butcher and B, you can damn well order, you know, all the mezzi's and, and three, three people can have a great meal that way. So I, I like that one a bunch. Um, I love Shotable kind of the same reason. I think I've never had a, an uninteresting meal there. So that's always a good place. And like Etch now. Yeah. I mean, this is a place to have Deb Paquette's food at half price without big crowds. So it was, it was a fantastic lunch I had

01:41:20there last week. I love Juice Bars. Like I love like, like Urban Juicer. I, you know, it's so hard to find something healthy. And, you know, you mentioned the COVID-15, like I, I feel like every time I want to eat something lunch, I don't have time to like sit down and eat like a lunch. I just want to eat something fast. So I like grabbing a juice. I like Urban Juicer. And then, you know, my favorite places to grab lunches is, is, um, Amerigo. Amerigo right there at West End, 1920 West End Avenue. Um, just a, just a damn good lunch. I mean, it's a great atmosphere, kind of a business lunch environment, but they've got, they've got lunch specials and, um, it's just so consistent and so good. You just, I know every time I walk in the door to Amerigo, I just know that I'm getting a great meal and I'm getting really good service and it's not going to cost me an arm and a leg. And I just, I love that for lunch. It's the best place to see a Nashville Predator when they're in town, when they're playing, that's their lunch spot. So every home game, but I don't think they want us telling everybody that. No, they're fine with that because we're, we're a socially distancing town, you know, even when they're, when we're not socially distancing, um, that's one of the reasons they go there because it's such a consistent clientele that, you know, you're, I don't think the tourists make it that far up and the tourists that do don't know what Peccarini looks like. So.

01:42:46Yeah. And so then Stefan, I go there and I, I see him and I'm fanboy out cause I'm like, Becca. I would never recognize anyone. You can't miss it. If you go there on a home game day at 11 30, the entire team sitting at the bar. All right. Just so you know, they like, sorry. That's good. Carbo loading forum. Plus, you know, they can get lean chicken. That's what they want for lunch. Give me a, give me the pasta and the chicken. All right. Uh, okay. We were going to get into some other stuff, but, um, I think we're at the end of our show. It is five 15. We've gone for an hour and 45 minutes. Chris Chamberlain. Thank you so much. What do you, what do you parting words? Mike is yours, man. I do this anytime. So, um, I love that you're telling these stories and I like that, you know, I, I wondered how long it would take you to get to the bottom of the barrel to find me, but then I figured out that if I'm right after Pat Martin, you must still be pretty close to the top of the barrel. So I feel honored to be here.

01:43:55I, you've always been on my list. Um, you've always been on my list. It was you, Jim Myers and, um, Delia that are really the three, kind of the media people in town that I really want to talk to. And Jim, cause they've just been doing it for so long. And I wanted to get into how he does, cause he did a lot of reviews from restaurants in the past. I wanted to get into some of those stories. I was just really interested in that. Um, did you guys hear what Khalil said when he was on there? Did you guys hear? He said that Edgar Penley is working a lot with Jim Meyer at the, uh, they do lots of consulting stuff. You know, he's, he did, Jim did work out with Southall when they were starting that up too. You know, he's, he's a super smart restaurant guy and he knows his, he knows his spirits really well too. And he's just a brilliant guy. You want to have him in the room if you can. So I'm going to listen tomorrow. Have you been yet? Do you? I have not. I'm going to walk through it tomorrow. I'll have to, I'll have to get the news from you.

01:44:57Yeah. I can't wait to see it. It's so funny. I saw a post online the day that was like, I can't believe Tony Geritana tore down the old Elliston place. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, they didn't do that. But the misconceptions out there are crazy. Well, they moved it next door. He did tear down the old Elliston place, but they, they, they moved it next door. Randy came on the show and talked about it. And so did, and I don't, I think Jim told me about it, but he didn't say anything on the show. I don't know if they talked on the show, but it's going to be a very cool thing. Can't wait to see what you come up with over there. Well, it's, you know, it's like Princes. Princes has been four places. You know, people go, Oh my God, I can't believe that, you know, the original Princes is gone. Like, no, not the original Princes. I mean, things move. That's fine. That's, you know, Green Hills Grill has been three places. Yeah, it has. What about the, Hey, what do you, any news about like the iron fork in plans to come back next year? Oh yeah. I mean, it was scheduled to go what? March 23rd. So it was one of the first things to fall. So we had, we had a really good, good crew of chefs ready to do it. So this was going to be the first year in 10 that I didn't judge because they needed me to be one of the two MCs.

01:46:13So I guess I'm, maybe I'll get away with not skipping a year of eating because that's, it's always a lot of fun. I love it. That was always a fun event. I always had so much fun doing that. Getting to announce this. And so I, I don't know if I ever told you my story, because I know I talked to you at that hockey game one time, because I got to choose the secret ingredient for a couple of years of being with us foods. And I really wanted, I'm going to talk about this because why not? They're not going to do it. I wanted the secret ingredient to be butter. Is that crazy? We just beg for it to be, we just beg for it to be a protein one year. You don't want it to be too easy, but I thought butter, which would be like, you have to feature the item. I went real cerebral with it. And I was like, if you do butter, how do you feature that and make it the, the, this is butter. Like, of course you use butter, but like, how do you feature butter in a dish? I don't know. I got talked out of it.

01:47:18I mean, it was easier than yogurt. I think I chose plantains and watermelon radishes. Yeah, no, I remember those two years. So yeah, those are, and they fit in well with the, with the skill sets of those chefs. So I remember the year that Crystal did it and it was yogurt that year. And she was getting all of her ingredients and didn't realize that all the plain yogurt had been gone, had been taken by the other chefs. So whatever dish she was going to do, it was with blueberry yogurt or something that had to happen that way. Yes. That's the rules. Yeah. I was looking at a picture. I had Julia Sullivan on the roundup a couple of weeks ago, just kind of talking about what she was doing. And that year I handed her the trophy because she won that year with, I think it was the plantain year. And it was such a sad picture because it's me handing her this trophy and then right behind her is Larry Carlisle. And it's just kind of one of those things that you're going to go, just a, just a sad thing.

01:48:25Absolutely. All right. Well guys, anything else you got Delia? So stay pretty music city and remember you can still be pretty wearing a mask. You got a sign off, Chris? Nothing as good as that. Some people were made to wear a mask. That's me, me and you. Thank you guys so much for watching and listening today. I hope that you are all being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye. Thank y'all.