#theroundup with Guest Host Nick Guidry

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to the Nashville Restaurant Radio Roundup. My name is Brandon Styll and I am joined as always with Delia Jo Ramsey. She is the editor of Eater Nashville. How you doing Delia? I'm doing all right. I am super excited today because we have a guest host as we have been doing for the last six weeks and this week I am excited to have somebody who's a very shy individual, doesn't speak his mind, doesn't, who shies away from all the topics. So we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to really coax him out of this shell that he lives in. Nick Guidry, welcome to the show sir. Thank you for having me. See right there, see look at this guy.

01:04Now obviously Nick is very outspoken and not afraid to speak his mind which is why I'm so excited to have you here today and I cannot wait to get into Woodgate because it's been my favorite thing watching on social media and we're gonna talk about that. But first let's say hello to all of our viewers, the people that are out there in the Facebook and YouTube world who are watching. Like I said, please say hi, let us know that you're here. We want to know that you're watching. Please leave comments, questions, whatever you got. We are here for you. Let's start off this week because Delia, you went on a little impromptu trip this week. How was your week this week? I did. I went to Maine. It was my second visit to the state of Maine and I just ate a lot of lobster rolls all week long and the weather was perfect and it was beautiful and it was a nice getaway. I traveled again, flew, felt very safe. Again, they are not sitting other people in your row on the flight. Then I came back and last night I was like, I'm gonna do something healthy and then I was like, you know what? No, and then I had hot chicken nachos and frosé because that's what I now when I come back to Nashville, I want hot chicken and I could get it across the street and then I went to Arnold's for lunch today so my calm down was not so healthy but I'm happy and cool. How was your week?

02:38My week? My week was amazing. I celebrated yesterday my 15-year wedding anniversary. I used to wait tables and people would come in and I would be like, hey guys, how you doing and what do we got going on? They go, it's our 15-year and I go, oh, that's nice. I'll buy you a free dessert. If I would have known what I know now, I think you'd go like, holy shit. 15 years, yeah, I'll buy you a free dinner. Are you still liking it? That's even better. Yeah, that's a bonus. It's definitely a bonus. Definitely was really cool. I didn't graduate college. I left college early to join the restaurant world and I don't have any major accomplishments that I can say I have all of these things but 15 years of being married to my lovely wife is definitely an accomplishment and I pat myself on the back because it's not easy and she has put up with me for that long. It's just a crazy thing. I didn't anticipate anybody ever doing that. Very exciting for me and very excited to be married to that woman.

03:52That was my week. We are taking a break from live interviews this week and next week. I put out a best of episode which was really fun putting together because I did an episode. I had Margot, Carrie Bringle, Monty Crawford and Claire Crowell and this was the first two weeks of March. March 13th through March 26th, four interviews that I did and just the conversations that were so we have no idea what we're doing. We are just trying to help people. Claire Crowell, she's going through her list of things. I feel like I can list that episode. It's a 20-minute episode but her list of things that people can do right now. This is way before any PPP money, before the CARES Act, any of that. I heard that there's this thing that you can do if you're a bartender and I heard that if you have this you can try and get money here. You can try and do this and just her voice is shaky and she's trying to figure it out. It just kind of brought me back to a moment where we were all scared and didn't know what to do. Not that we're not there anymore but it was just interesting to go back and I'll have some more. I've got a best of episode coming out Saturday and then we'll have two more next week that'll kind of hopefully get us up to speed but it was a lot of fun going back and reliving what was happening six months ago because it was a crazy time. Crazy. For sure. What about you, Nick? How's your week? My week is pretty good.

05:18Just getting started really. We're closed on Mondays and Tuesdays so this is kind of a ramp up for our week at this point but it's been pretty uneventful so far. I guess that's good until today. Then we have the WTF Day today. The WTF Day today. I think this is a good time to jump into. You have a, I billed that it was going to be Nick and Audrick, Yadri. You also have, your better half is a pastry chef and you guys run the slow hand, slow hand, right? Slow hand coffee. And then you also have the Pelican and Pig. Now you're not doing lignite po' boys anymore, right? No, we paused that. It's sort of back shelf right now. It's not completely off the table but I think it may be something that we pop up in the near future, maybe just on a Friday, midday Friday, just do it for a couple hours and announce it maybe the day before. I think it's lifespan going forward may be something in that range of just maybe once a month, once every other month we might pop it up but trying to get Pelican and Pig's feet back on the ground right now and everything that entails. Slow hand is kind of self-sustaining at this point.

06:41Pelican and Pig is too but it's got a lot more moving parts than the coffee shop does so we just don't want to bombard ourselves right now and we've got a baby on the way and I think adding one more thing right now might make our head explode. Totally understand that. How is she feeling? How is she doing? This has been a breeze of a pregnancy for her. She's feeling great. We're hitting the end so she's a little tired right now but energy levels have been great. No sicknesses, no kind of your stereotypical pregnancy things. It's been very, very easy on her but running a restaurant on top of it is a different animal. During a pandemic, yeah. During a pandemic, right. Did you find some hay finally? I did find some hay. A Bear Creek farm came through in the clutch and brought me a trash bag full of hay with our beef order that week and it was awesome. It was exactly what I wanted.

07:48It came out exactly how I wanted it to. It was really great. You sent that message out there and I replied and I was at Eastside Bond Me having lunch and I then left Eastside Bond Me and I was like, hey, I'm just going to roll over and I'm going to pop in and holler at Nick and Nadra and just say hi. So I pull up in front of the restaurant and I go in and the guy's like, now I'm the only one here. We're closing up and I'm like, oh, okay, cool, man. No problem. It was a Tuesday so you guys weren't there. I didn't know that but I noticed out front you have this big planter and where you would normally see shrubs and different things there, you have fashioned this planter into a really neat wood stock where you have all of this wood. Now you are Cooks with Fire, right? That's your Instagram handle. Correct. You cook everything with wood in your restaurant. If you want to cook meats and things, you have wood and then when you burn it, it creates ash and heat which then makes you a cook. So you have all of this wood out front and I noticed you put it, so I looked and I was like, wow, that's a lot of really nice looking wood right there. A lot of people feel that way, don't they? Unfortunately, they do. What's going on there? That is the main source of cooking for a restaurant. We have a double convection oven that we use for pastry and breads and we have one gas line going to our fryer. Outside of that, everything is done over wood. We don't have a stove. We don't have anything else. It's all in our brick hearth. Yeah, wood is our entire source of cooking. It's what we use for operation from small tasks to long smoking meat projects.

09:40Unfortunately, when we built the space out, the fire marshal would not allow us to store the wood inside. We can store what we use for service inside so that we can access it, but because the increase in, I guess, the fire rating or whatever the terminology is, we have to keep it outside. Given we have a parking lot out back, there's nowhere out back to put it, so we put it in front of our windows out front. That both aesthetically looks nice, but also keeps it very close to where we need it to be when we need to retrieve it. Unfortunately, that also gives people the mindset that it's just there for the taking. Why do people have that mindset? Well, you tell me. Yeah, I mean, during COVID, during the shutdown, we came back. We were probably gone for a month.

10:40I'm looking out the window at the wood as I'm talking. We were probably gone for a month, and we came back over to check the mail, get anything that we needed to get. There was a note in the mail with 15 bucks saying, hey, thanks. We took some wood. Here's some money. This is not the first time this has happened, but yeah, just last week it happened again. Someone left a note. We didn't have any firewood, so we took some. Here's 10 bucks, and it was five bucks crinkled up in it, but how much did you take? The theft that we've dealt with has been, I guess, minimal when you talk on the scale of theft, but it's also weird things. We had a deer head stolen out of the bathroom. We had an ink drawing of a pig that a friend of ours had done, an artist friend of ours had done as a congratulations from opening. That was ripped off the wall, left a big hole in the wall when they ripped that off. Wood gets taken. We had a planter, one of our planters with a plant in it stolen at three o'clock in the morning.

11:44Someone just loaded it in their car. I watched the cameras, and a lot of it is people having too many of the delicious drinks next door and coming out thinking it's funny to take a piece of wood or two, but one night I actually came out of the restaurant. One of my servers came back and said that she just saw somebody loading up their car with her wood, so I ran out there, and sure enough, I catch a guy loading wood into the back of his trunk. I tell him to open his trunk, and he's probably got, I don't know, 40 pieces of wood in the back of his car. When I asked what he's doing, he was like, oh dude, it was just a joke. I thought it was funny. Well, who's that funny to? I'm confused on that one, so I told him either put it back or I call the cops. It's your choice, and thankfully he put it back, but it was one of those things. He had had too many to drink somewhere, and I could smell it on him, but don't do dumb things.

12:47Be kind to people. Don't steal things, yeah. Don't steal things. I just don't understand the idea of, well, it's clearly not my property. There's this wood that's perfectly chopped. It looks like it's hickory. Wow, who chopped a bunch of hickory and just left it here? It must be free. We should just go take it, because if you leave anything out, it's subject for anybody to take. It's nice to have left a note and actually left money, though. I mean, I think that's like a... I mean, I guess it's the small parting gift there. It's a small condolence, but we deal with this every winter. It gets cold around here and a little bit disappears, and we factor that in with how much we order. It's unfortunate, but we know we need to get a cage built to put around it, but we've had a lot of people suggest, why don't you just wrap it in chicken wire or chain link fence, but they don't understand that it's sitting right out front of the restaurant, so there's got to be a certain aesthetic to it, and right now we're trying to survive like everybody else, so we don't have $5,000, $6,000 it's going to take to weld all this metal together and create a nice looking cage to put around it, so it's just... Unfortunately, it's what we're going to deal with.

14:02It's something that I think we're going to continue to battle with, but I just hope people will take a step back and go, maybe that's not mine. Well, I think the best part of this entire story is that you decided that after multiple situations like this that you would take to social media to make an official statement on the Pelican and Pig social media sites, you said, hey, everybody, East Nashville, whoever's listening, well, thank you for the note and the $5, not $10, but $5, maybe the wind took the rest of it, who knows, but thank you for the note and the gesture, but this wood is not for sale and it's certainly not something to take. I don't know how much you took this. It's not like this isn't a thing. Please don't do that. And the next day you get a one star review for your restaurant saying one star for the owner being a crybaby on the social medias about his wood. Pandemic love, baby. Yeah, that's... We talk with other restaurant owners. I mean, y'all have covered it, just the behaviors of certain people right now. For the most part, I would say 99% of the people that walk through our door are amazing. They're supportive, they're fantastic, but that 1% that even on a normal basis would just be difficult to deal with are unfortunately coming out even stronger right now. That personality is being amplified and it's... Things like that are going to happen and it's probably in my better interest not to post these things, but I just get tired of it and we reach a boiling point of we've got to say something as a business. We can't just sit back and be trampled all over for absolutely no reason.

16:03It's not often that I think we discuss these things publicly, but this was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back and we just felt like putting it out into the community that please stop doing this. We'll hopefully do something, but clearly not. Well, it's insane. I was watching that saga breakdown. I was like, what is wrong with people? Like a one-star review for... That's what Kurt Rutkowski just commented. Yeah. That's what we're dealing with people out there is one-star reviews for people calling people out for stealing. Who are only allowed to operate at half capacity, so can't make money and have staffs that were off work for months and... Half capacity, but also socially distanced, so you might not hit a half capacity. Depending on the physical layout of your restaurant, we are probably just under half capacity, but you may not even be able to get there. How many seats are there right now, Nick, inside? I think we are at 35, maybe something like that. It's slow. I don't think we're quite at 50%. I'm looking around trying to get a better feel of it because 10 of our seats are at the kitchen counter, and we haven't been able to have those. Our bar seating, we haven't been able to have until recently, but we've only got four seats at the bar, so it's lower than we want it to be, but enough to keep us afloat. Well, let's transition to some current news that's going on. Delia, do you want to update us on some topical things that we can all talk about here that are unburning? As far as openings and relaunches and such.

18:08I'm saying let's jump into... We're talking about 20, but let's jump in. Yeah, let's do it. I was just going to let you lead it in because I mean, so apparently we can start phase three again on October 1, and restaurants and bars can increase capacity starting tomorrow, which some of them were already at 50%, but my understanding is now the rest can have capacity starting tomorrow, which is all well and good, but it seems awfully convenient because last night started circulating a post about some emails that said maybe there weren't as many cases coming from the Broadway bars as people might have thought, and I've spent the last 24 hours trying to shut up and keep my head down and not speak to this because it just seems there's something amiss here, and I don't even know. Phase three. Yeah, I mean, it seems that way. Dennis Ferrier, I believe, is the one who broke the story for Fox.

19:13The Ferrier files were... Apparently, there was only 80 cases total when they were doing their contract tracing, and they kept it under wraps. There was hundreds of cases from nursing homes as well as construction sites, but there was not as many cases as far as restaurants were concerned, and there was emails back and forth that said, don't let the public... This is not for public consumption. No, this is for our eyes only. Good, because don't let the public know. Restaurants aren't the thing that are spreading COVID-19. Do we know when this information was from? Was it from when we were in phase three before and then we rolled back to a phase two, or do we know the timeline of where these emails and information came from? I'm trying to find more info and just have it happen. I didn't think to look to see if there was a timestamp in the signatures of that email. Right. I was looking right now, but I don't see one. Nick, you saw this information last night. How did it make you feel?

20:19I saw it late last night as I was kind of drifting asleep, and it definitely ruined my night's sleep. It was not shocking to me, unfortunately. I think that the majority of us have been able to see through the forest throughout this entire thing, and this is seemingly... I'm trying not to go too far with all of this, but... Why? It just wasn't surprising to a lot of us. I don't think the majority of us business owners or really the hospitality industry as a whole have felt that the mayor has had our best interest, or even our interests in general, in mind throughout this entire thing. Bars have certainly been raked over the coals. It's been gut-wrenching, but to see this in his own words and the words of our health officials was a pretty big letdown.

21:36To support this city as much as at least the restaurant... Just strictly speaking about the restaurant sector, but to support this city as much as we do and to pay the tax revenues we do, and then to just kind of be slapped in the face repeatedly, this was sort of a nail in the coffin for me. I don't know that we can ever go back to trusting someone who can keep this stuff under wraps. You're posing us as the bad guys, but the construction sites are still open. I've got one across the street. There's a Starbucks being built across the street from my coffee shop, and they are moving at breakneck speed right now. If they were such a problem, why shut restaurants down? I think that's the thing is that we've got thousands of bartenders and restaurant owners that right now are figuring out how they're going to live, how they're going to pay rent. You're one of them. How are we going to survive this thing? Then you hear that it's a cover-up, and it really wasn't the case, and they put all of these people... The tax revenue that we could have brought off of this, and now we're going to add a 34% tax, and then now the mayor is complaining that we're going to shut down the libraries, we're going to have to get rid of all the police officers. If you repeal this tax and the whole state... It's like, dude, because you were lazy and couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure out a different way to do it. Now he's asking for federal funds, and it's like... That's the part that also gets me is you're asking the state for what? $80-something million to bail out the city, but you've been keeping this on the back burner. It's absolutely sickening. I'm on neither side of the political spectrum. I'm just looking at it like, what is happening? Yeah, I can't wait for more information to come out.

23:41The battle that he had with Broadway for the first month or so of this, was that a publicity stunt? Were you actually battling with them? Because Broadway... Yes, they've had restrictions, but they've been allowed to continue operating. It's very frustrating. I don't know. It very well might be a publicity stunt. I don't know. I don't know either. Again, I try not to get too far into all of this because I think our mouths can get us in a little bit of trouble, but it would be nice to feel support from our city official and to feel like the small potatoes in this town that make up the majority of your tax revenue actually do matter. Exactly. Well, you can look up, if you're out there listening, look up Dennis Farrier, Channel 5, or Fox News, whatever, not Fox News, but on... Fox 17. Yeah. He had a pretty good, Farrier Files. He did a pretty good article, and then today he asked, I forget the guy's name, the guy that led off the press conference, they said, hey, what's the deal? The guy started calling him names. The mayor's guy, and Farrier didn't put up with it for a second. He was like, no, you call me a name. Listen to me. I'm going to come back at you. I was real proud of him. He's a Bellevue, and Dennis Farrier lives over here. I see him at the YMCA all the time when I used to go.

25:22Good dude. I was hoping maybe he would be able to join us today just to kind of get his take, but this is not good, guys. This is not good. But not all heroes were caged. At least this came to light. I don't know what's going to come of it. Probably nothing, but... Very, but at least people are asking some questions now. Of course, everybody says, well, it was on the Fox affiliate, but you know what? It doesn't matter. I think Vivek, Dior, I commented, where there's smoke, there's fire. Something is happening. You need to pay attention, you know? And now we get to have restaurants opening just in time for football season. It's amazing. Oh, and they can be open later after game. I just, I don't even have any idea what's happening. I don't have any idea. COVID is a Titans fan. Yeah. Well, we were understood that COVID only came out after 1030 at night and only in half of the restaurant. And now not on Titans game night. Yeah. So the Titans have, there's an invisible cloak of, they have like the vaccine around them. So that's good.

26:31I wish, I would really love for Cooper to get on a camera and tell us the rationale behind all of these thought processes. You know, what's the thought process of, I understand 10 o'clock, okay, more people are going to want to gather the more they drink. I can see where you're going with that. I can, I can grab that, but now 1030, Mondays, Sundays, whatever day. Oh, now it's 11 o'clock. Just where is the rationale behind all of this? Where was the rationale in keeping small independent bars closed, but Broadway wide open? Right. Please just get in front of the people of Nashville and explain all this to us. Certainly. The decisions feel as haphazard as like I wake up and I'm like, I want a hot chicken biscuit or I want a donut. Like it feels like he's just waking up deciding what the hell he wants to eat for breakfast. And then that's what the city does for three weeks. And then he wakes up and decides today, he wants a breakfast burrito and now we're all going to eat breakfast burritos. This is how we're operating. So then my job is I have to try to like translate this to people. And I'm like, I don't really understand, but this is official ruling from the people that we, and this is not, I'm just.

27:52Yeah. I mean, let's, let's stop flipping coins. Yeah. Justin, Garret, Derek says, open it up. We're running out of Pinterest meals to cook. Join cooking through COVID-19, man. They'll have everything there for you. He's got a menu for breakfast. I mean, for brunch and for dinner. So I think you can call up, Alex Ballou or y'all just talk to you and get some meals to go. Yes. And that's a great, that's a great segue, Nick, into talking about Alex Ballou is going to be doing a chef's dinner this Sunday. Actually it's a chef collaboration meal at Mayor Bowl. I'm pretty excited about it. I'll be going to excited about that. Super talented guy. Super time is food. I think I've eaten his food one time at a wedding that he did. I'd never been to Dallas and Jane. I've been there, kind of talked to him as a salesperson, but his food is like the most beautiful, the plate of the presentation of it. Like if it tastes anything like it looks, he's super talented. I think we're in for a pretty big treat Sunday night. Yeah. I think he's got a really great eye for aesthetics on a plate.

29:03His color contrast, his textural contrast is really, really great. All right. Well, I think we can beat this to death. We can all know that we've lost a little bit of trust in our mayor in that office a little bit. You're rolling your eyes like a lot. And we'll see what happens. I think a lot of this we can cut. I think that everything we're talking about here, of course, is an initial reaction to what we're hearing in the news. There's going to be another side of the story. There's going to be more information that's going to come out. Hopefully information comes out that this is all a big misunderstanding and that everything was done legit in the right way and all this stuff. Or it could come out that he's just an absolute piece of crap and that's what he is. And that's what he's doing. He's put all of these people's lives and livelihoods at jeopardy for what? I don't know what the end game is here, but we'll have to see. That's why I tried to sort of pause in my responses or at least pull back a little bit to give it a second to pan out and see where it goes. But I mean, the initial sticker shock of it at surface value is, I think it's certainly a boiling point. So I'll give you a second to recoup, to backtrack a little bit and try and explain it, but it doesn't look good. No, it doesn't look good at all.

30:33So that is a good segue to talking about, I say on the show, top you'll see it says whip around coverage of the Nashville restaurant scene. You guys won't see that, but if you're watching it, it says that on the Facebook live. Whip around coverage of the Nashville restaurant scene, which means new restaurants opening, closings, all kinds of fun stuff we're going to be talking about. And Nick, we're excited to have you as a co-host because we're going to start talking a little bit later in the show about the Nashville hot list, which is going to be our new list, our top 10 list of the best restaurants in Nashville right now. We are going to be compiling this list and putting it out every single month. And then we're going to expand on that list as we move forward, but this first is going to be called the Nashville hot list. Let's play a hot chicken there. You see that? The Nashville hot list. And it's not new restaurants. It's not old restaurants. It is the top 10 best restaurants in the city right now. So I'd love to get your opinion on those here in just a minute, but first we're going to talk a little bit about Faux and Beau. Faux and Beau is F-O-H and B-O-H dot com. And they are the way, if you need a job to get hired in the restaurant industry, and if you are a restaurant owner, that guy, and you need people, this is the way to hire your next restaurant professional. This is a locally owned and operated company. They are not in a hundred cities. They are only in Nashville. Two women own this company. They've been on the show, Mary Pilla Thompson and Hallie Hayes. Amazing people.

32:15They set up their website, kind of like a dating site. So if you're a restaurant owner and you need to hire people and you don't want to have to create an ad, put it out there, wait for people to respond. You want people immediately. There's a bunch of people on this site right now waiting to get a job with you. Check them out. F-O-H and B-O-H dot com. They are Faux and Beau. So a couple of places I'll start off. A couple of places that are hiring right now. The Grand Hyatt is looking for people. If you're looking for a job, the Grand Hyatt, also another big hotel is the Joseph Hotel in Yolan. They are looking for staff. The White Limousine, I don't know if they've filled up. They've been all over the place posting for staff there in the Graduate Hotel. Also, we've got some positions that Martin's Barbecue is hiring and Ruby Sunshine right there in Hillsborough Village. That new location is hiring for people.

33:19Topgolf, I think I saw the Fox Bar was looking for a couple people, maybe in the kitchen. So there's your jobs update. A couple of places for you to go out and get a job. If you'd like to find a job, go check out Faux and Beau dot com. Create a profile and get your job today. That almost sounded like a tagline, didn't it? I decided I made that up just now as I started talking. It sounded good. So what do we have as far as new openings? What's the news, Delia, Joe Ramsey? All right, all right. Tonight, I'm headed to the Bobby Hotel for the Tavern at Bobby's relaunch. They have a new chef from Texas, Jorge Gonzalez, and he's got a new menu and it's reopening at a hotel. I've been kind of just staying abreast of the hotel information because people keep asking about staycations because people aren't moving. I'm trying to stay on top of what's happening in the hotel restaurant. So reopening of the Bobby, the Tavern at Bobby is tonight. And Otaku Ramen's West takeout and delivery only place opens at Sylvan Supply on Monday. Broke that yesterday. So excited to have a new ramen option on the West side. I mean, there's not a lot of ramen on that side of town. What else? What else? I just actually just saw email like 10 seconds ago that Two Boots Pizza is coming to the old Five Pie and Smyrna. Smyrna, is it Smyrna? Smyrna. Smyrna. I'm like, where do they call it Smyrna? I don't know. Two Boots Pizza with Smyrna and the Cheese Gallop. I think we talked about Cheese Gallop before coming to the Fair Lane, but Juniper Green is also going to be at the Fair Lane with takeout meal options.

35:01And as far as I know, that's like the latest on top of the recent openings. And I never did speak on here about Venus' downtown closing when I saw it. Did I? Again, I'm getting rumors of closings, no confirmations of closing. If you know of anything out there, let us know. If you're listening right now, if you're watching right now, please feel free to type in if you know any information, you want to make any kind of announcements. Let us know if you have any questions for us, any topics you'd like for us to jump in and talk about. Please feel free to type it into the comment section and we will talk about it. If you're out there and you're watching, also just say what's up. Type in and say hello. We will say it right back. Say hi to Nick. Also, there's a Sean Brock pop up at Arnold's. I was at Arnold's today and I almost snuck away with only my one tamale and mac and cheese and green beans. I thought we made it. I thought we made it. And then he shows up. Here's some fried shrimp and Brussels sprouts.

36:11Khalil can smell you in the building. He knows you're there. We already had an interaction. I was like, I'm really full. I was going to eat healthy today, but then I just needed to walk and have a quick dinner, like lunch. And then all the food was there. But then I remembered and Sean Brock's coming in October for a pop up with Rezzy there, and focused on culinary history of Nashville. So that's exciting also. And there are just so many pop ups from this town right now that I can barely keep up. There was a cool one with Nicky's and I forgot the name of the Italian place. Nicky's coal fired? Yes, with box box and another pizza thing last night. It looked really good. I didn't make it, but just so many cool pop ups. Still super excited and trying to keep track of them all, but it's hard. There's a new thing, man. I mean, I think a lot of people are recognizing that people want to try something new. They want to try something different. There's a little bit of excitement because you do the same thing every time. I think people are looking for a little bit of parody. They want to see something new. Did you recognize that a lot? People came to the Laniac Po Boys. Were people just loving that?

37:23Yeah. I mean, I think pop ups are hot right now because, well, one, because it's a quick cash injection, at least on the business level. You do something new, exactly what you said. You do something new and it gets people excited that there's something new to try. It worked for us. It got us through a four or five month period where we had nothing going on for months, but it's certainly a roller coaster. Pop ups do a lot in the beginning and then they start to taper off. I think people are just finding that they can keep shifting without investing much to do it. The Po Boy thing was amazing for us, but I think it ran its course. About halfway through, we kind of started to look into the pivot. If we were going to do a different pop up, if we were going to do something else, just try and ride the high and keep the high going while we could. Then the unemployment stimulus ran out and we had a call with our staff and they were ready to go. They were ready to open. We decided to back burner the pop up portion, but we were certainly getting our gears going about what else could we pop up? What other concept could we do that would get people excited? Po Boys was one of those. I'm from Louisiana.

38:53It got great reception because I think someone finally came through and did something in the style of a Louisiana Po Boy. Pop ups are great. It's great for business right now. If 50% doesn't make sense for you, it's a great way to get through this period. What are your thoughts about Ghost Kitchens? I honestly haven't read the articles on what Ghost Kitchens are. It's all these Uber Eats random names that pop up. You're looking for pizza and there's some called Mother Ship Pizza, but it's operating out of Hooters, Hooties Burger Bar. It's people operating under other names on the delivery apps. If you wanted to do Lagnat Po Boys, but you want to do them in the middle of service like at Pelican and Pig at nighttime, you just create Lagnat Po Boys and you put it out there for Uber Eats. You put on Uber Eats and Postmates only.

40:00It's not available in the restaurant. It's only for delivery. You could still make all that stuff throughout the night. You put it out so when anybody's at home, they start searching for sandwich. They go, oh, Lagnat Po Boys. Yeah, we'll order five of those. It just comes into your kitchen. You're making them, put them in a bag, and then Uber Eats is just picking up the back door and selling them. You could do your entire restaurant, service everything like normal, but you create a separate line to make these Po Boys and you just crank them out throughout the night as an extra stream of income through your ghost kitchen, which is your kitchen. I think that's great. Hi, Jim. I think any new line of revenue for anybody right now is great. I think having that forethought to continue running something in the background without really publicizing it and still have that revenue stream coming in, anything anybody can do right now that makes sense for them to have those revenues coming in, I think is fantastic. I was talking to somebody the other day and we're kind of at a point you can sink or you can fight. You can kick your heels back and fail through this or you can try.

41:12I think that's where these pop-ups are coming in. Some of them are working, some of them aren't, but anything you can do to fight. Put your hands up. Let's get through this thing. Whatever you have to do. I think it's fantastic. What are some, what do you think are the most interesting things that you've seen? Just more pop-ups? Is there any like, do you hang out with any restaurant tours? Do you have any other people that own restaurants? We never get to leave a restaurant. Right. We keep in touch with a lot of people. Caroline over at Nicky's, she and I have kept in touch throughout this. Craig at Peninsula, we've talked every couple weeks throughout all of this. Brian over at Redhead Stranger, we've kept in touch through, somewhat kept in touch through Instagram. A lot of us just, even those that don't know each other, just kind of behind the scenes will message each other. How's things going? Julio over, he was at Nectar, but he's doing his tortilla.

42:17Yeah. Kept in touch with him a little bit. Yeah. We don't really get to hang out with people because we're so consumed with what we're doing here. With two businesses, we don't have a whole lot of extra time, but that doesn't mean that we're not keeping up with our friends or people that we consider friends. It's been enlightening, keeping in touch with them and seeing what they're going through. I text you not that long ago, just this Nashville Restaurant radio thing has been cathartic for us to see where other restaurant people are and knowing that we're not alone through all of this. People that we know, but maybe we're not that close to, we're literally all in the same boat. It's been good. That makes me feel amazing to hear you say that. Getting your text was amazing because that's one of the things that I've said since the beginning I've wanted to do was if we can start sharing each other's stories, people that are buried inside the buildings all day long, you're just hustling as best you possibly can to hear what other people are going through. Maybe somebody listens and they say, hey, we're not alone. The other people are feeling the same way we are.

43:35It's okay. I was hoping if I said, if I give one person help and to hear you say something like, hey, listening to Caroline and Tony talk about their struggles and just kind of, I don't know if you guys, I wasn't going to talk about Bagelgate today. Sorry. I wasn't going to talk about it, but I did talk to Brad Schmidt after the fact and he was like, I did not mean to do that. He's been a staunch supporter of restaurants, which is what he was doing there in the first place. Are you familiar with what we're talking about? I'm about to pick up my phone and start digging into that one. He's deleted the actual post. Brad Schmidt, who is a writer for the Tennessee and been on the show, friend of the show, friend of mine, personal friend of mine, posted that, hey, he was at Nicky's coal fired and what's going on with the bagels are really expensive here. I posted back and I was like, hey man, there's a lot of things people are doing to make this happen and he was like, you know, I had a brain, I just didn't even think about it and I was thinking, wow, $4 for bagel and in his defense, he's going to one gen away, which he donates his time every Saturday, it gives away food. He's an salt of the earth guy and when you're buying two dozen bagels for people to take to an event and it's 80 bucks, I get that. Getting two dozen bagels, 80 bucks for two dozen bagels is a lot of money. Like I get that. But yeah, so he, we, we, I understand where that's coming from, but I don't know. There's a, I think we're kind of entering a phase and I wish it would move a little bit quicker where we pay for what it's worth and not pay for the value or we're not seeking a, if I buy a dozen,

45:39can I get a discount on, you know, five bucks discount for buying a dozen, whatever, you know, those are, and this isn't, you know, I'm not harping on him by any means. Everybody has little slip ups. I certainly do. And, you know, I think how we recover from those is very important, but the fact that he deleted it obviously means a lot, but I know that probably stung on the backend, on the restaurant end, but, you know, you're making these bagels by hand. They're being fired in a coal oven. The coals are expensive. You know, everybody's hurting right now. They're having to charge more for, for products in some way, shape or form to cover all the expenses that they have to cover. It's just, I think, especially right now being a little bit understanding of, of establishments in what they're having to charge. And, you know, we had an issue the other night where we're running a very small menu right now. You know, it's trying to keep food costs down and someone was very disappointed at the size of our menu. So it's, we're all kind of dealing with that, but at least he recovered from it.

46:42Yeah. And he totally got it. And he, and he, he waited a day. He goes, look, I wanted to wait a day. Let everybody get all their stuff out. He's like, I waited till there was like 12 hours with no comments before I, I wanted to open the debate. If there was talk about it's fine. And then he's like, I'm going to delete it. Which is, you know, I think that one of the things we've been championing so hard on this show throughout this entire time is just a little bit of grace, a little bit of grace for people right now. You know, I mean, and what I think we talk, we get into what's the deal. Yeah. A little bit later, we're going to be talking about, um, what to do at a restaurant when you have a bad experience, right? Is that the way I'm phrasing that the right way deal? Yeah. Stealing your thunder. So I think that it's so difficult because everybody's so angry. Everybody, you, you leave the house. I find myself when I go out into public and I'd have to deal with people, like I get mad, like I don't, it's, it's like an anger that I've never had before.

47:49It's, I think you just get used to, you kind of get numb and you're in your own house for a long time. You deal with people that you like and trust and you go out somewhere and you see somebody driving like an idiot and you're like, what is this? Or you see somebody just doing something dumb in the grocery store and you just like, I don't know. My fuse is so quick, but I feel like people, when you go out to eat and you're dealing with people in restaurants who are out there doing their best to ensure that you have a great experience, a little bit of grace goes a really like a long way right now. And I think that if we all like count to 10, it's really important. And I'm just trying to say like, don't leave one star reviews for when people steal wood, like stop doing these things. It's ridiculous. But also we know who stole that wood now, don't we? Writing a one star review. Right. Oh, right. Right. Yes. It's good point. I was like about stealing wood. Hmm. Gotcha. You know, it's so funny when you post that I immediately tried to find out who that guy was so I could start trolling. A lot of people did. I was all morning. Here's what this guy looks like. He may be 12. That's what I got. I was like, I think he's like a 12 year old guy. Don't do it.

49:08I left it alone at that. But I felt like immediately like offended, like strangely offended. Like somebody did that to me when I saw that I was like, I'm going to find out who this asshole is. I'm going to let them have it. But that's that that's that immediate thing that like happens. I'm doing things really personally. I don't know if that's what we're all doing right now. We're just like on such a short like thread right now. Because like when that was written by a food writer about the four dollar bagel, I was like, I just bought that bagel. I didn't say a word because I was like, I'm happy to support this restaurant. And I got offended because I would never do that. And I get offended when a food writer shares their article on my article because I would never do that. And I keep assuming other people are going to behave in the way that I behave and they don't. I get disappointed. And maybe that's my problem. But I just again, like with this thing last night, I got upset like a mama bear for national restaurants because I'm like, wait, so there weren't even that many cases and we haven't been able to go. And I was having to cook and I can cook, but I don't like to. I'd rather somebody else do it that loves to.

50:10And I just I feel so attached when these things happen. And I don't know if that's just the politically charged climate that we're living in or the post covid traumatized world or what it is. Julio, we were just talking about you. Yeah, I was going to say, I think he's like, oh, I'm getting a good one today. No, I mean, I think you're hitting the nail on the head. I think also all of us kind of on the inside of this and I'm including you because you're part of this industry whether you want to be or not. I think we all feel it for each other. We all know what we're all going through. And, you know, a redheaded stranger had their door kicked in a couple of months ago. And I took that extremely personally. That was gut wrenching to me. Everybody that has something happening. Lyra had their their window busted out. Carrie, I think Carrie Ringel had his door kicked in. If I remember correctly, it's just one. Some of these are friends of mine. So I take that personally. But the fact that you're in this industry going through what we're all going through and you don't even have to be in this industry. Everybody's going through something.

51:20But I think we're all feeling a little bit more emotional towards each other or emotion towards each other. If that makes sense. I think it's just we're all being a little more empathetic to each other. Most of us. I think that the community is rallying together. I mean, you know, there's the competitive side of what we're doing out there. There's nobody. I have an interview. I've done 90 interviews, 90 episodes of National Restaurant Radio so far. And not once have I heard somebody go, I hope that guy fails. Or, you know, everybody is doing. If anybody calls anybody and says, hey, I need a case of spring mixture. If I got it, it's yours, dude. I mean, everybody is willing to help. This community in Nashville, the restaurant community is so damn special. It's not like anything I've ever seen. I mean, it's just super cool. I mean, it's a lot smaller than what it seems to. You know, it's. This seems like a big city and it seems like there's a lot of things popping up and opening. But this is a very tight knit community. You know, every one of us, if someone needed something, we're there.

52:35You know, it's it's no question. It's none of us want to see anybody fail. You know, it's. That's just what it is. We want success for everybody. We may not all get along, but I don't know a single person that wants to see another business fail. Hundred percent, hundred percent. And Jason, you're absolutely right. That's Starbucks across the street. People will. The cars will be lined up, wrapped around that building for whatever they have to pay for whatever comes from Starbucks. You have to remember that if it's a four dollar bagel, if it's a three dollar coffee, if you think it's too much, you're still supporting a local business. But also if it's too much, there is there are other options out there for your price range. You don't have to go to the trendiest spot if it's not in your price range. Right. You know, that's kind of what I said. I think it's all relative. You know, I mean, everything is is relative. I went to gosh, I don't want to get in this kind of conversation, but I mean, what you're willing to pay for something is what you're willing to pay for it. Yeah. And that's it. I mean, you can't judge that. I mean, if somebody is going to charge something, that's how we get to vote with our wallets. And we all deem what we want to do, who we want to support, how we want to support one way in which we all get to vote and do a little bit of research on the place that you're going. If it's not the style of food that you want, if it's too expensive for you, know that before going. That way you don't leave and leave a one star review because their entrees don't come with sides. You know, I mean, chilis would be happy to have you if that's the case. There's plenty of places around here that do that, but do the research before you go. Yeah. That sounds close to home right there with that last comment.

54:22A little bit. Are you feeling that at all? I'm always cool about people that don't look at a menu before they book a reservation because I like read menus for fun. Like I'm going to bed at night, like reading menus in the city I want to go to. And I'm like, Ellen, before you book your anniversary dinner, you didn't look for your birthday. I don't know. I choose a restaurant because I'm like, oh my God, I'm really excited about this carrot or whatever is on the menu that I'm excited about. It cracks me up when people don't look. We base entire vacations. We based our entire honeymoon around food, around what restaurants we wanted to go to. We picked cities based on what restaurants were in those cities. That's where you go for your honeymoon. We flew into San Diego. We drove up to LA, flew to San Francisco, went to Napa, back to San Francisco. It was a two week binge. What? Am I just like super immature that every time somebody says San Diego, I go, oh, San Diego. Callers maintain. Isn't it San Diego? My brain just goes there. Is that like the child in me or is that normal?

55:32Does anybody else do that? I mean, not in respect to that, but in many other ways. Yes. In many other ways. Oh my gosh. All right. Let's move on. Do you have other topics of conversation, Delia, that you have right now for us to talk about or do we want to get into talking about Jason Dallas? We can talk about that. Supersource, because Supersource leads into a what's the Delia. Okay. Jason Alice, he runs Supersource and the guy is just amazing. I mean, he really is just amazing. I'd like the good guys in the city. If I could recommend somebody enough, as far as who you're buying your chemicals from and who services your dish machine, they have no contracts. They have no minimums. He is the best attitude. When you hire people, I always look for people with great attitudes who are friendly and who want to help. This guy, that's exactly who he is.

56:43Every time I talk to him, he just smiles. Every time I talk to him, you're smiling the other end of the phone, aren't you? Dammit, you're always happy. What is wrong with you, Jason Alice? Why are you so positive? I just love that guy. You could probably give a testimony, Nick, couldn't you? Yeah, absolutely. We love Jason. We love working with Jason. He is a stand-up guy, one of the most honest vendors we've ever worked with and genuinely just a good human being. It's like you said, he has no contracts, which is fantastic. Whatever we need is what we buy. If we don't need anything that week, there's no hassle. We don't get a sales pitch from him. If we do need something, he'll drop it off the next day. He's always available. Chemicals are great. They do exactly what they need to do better than the majority of the chemical companies I've worked with. But yeah, just on every level, business owners want to partner with their vendors in certain respects. He's the first vendor that we felt like walked through the door and genuinely had our best interests at heart. It was refreshing to have somebody come through the door and not be a complete jackass. Hey, that's exactly my thoughts. I had a restaurant that I represent switch companies. We went to Jason Ellis and SuperSource. We'd say Jason, the company is SuperSource. But it's Jason. We switched over to them. When I called them to say, hey, this restaurant has been closed during a pandemic. How come we got charged our full amount for chemicals and everything? The guy looked at me and he said, well, you got PPP money, right? I said, I'm sorry. He goes, you got PPP money, right? That's how you pay for your chemicals.

58:44And I go, we didn't use any chemicals. He goes, well, you got free money, pay for it with free money. And I was like, what in the hell are you talking about? And I was like, that's what happens when you're in a contract with somebody and they're a big gigantic company and they don't care about you. And he's the opposite of that. And you're out there and you're in one of those contracts with a big company that you're kind of nearing the end and you're tired of it and you feel like you're paying too much. Jason will come out and do an audit of all of your stuff. Find out, check your calibration of your machine, check the age of your machine, do all that stuff. He's just a good dude. We're excited. I love being an advocate for him because I know that when people sign up for them, they're going to be like, this is fantastic. Where has this been my whole life? Thank you for the testimonial, Nick. And this is a good segue into our What's the Delia.

59:47All right. So this week we're going to do a little Q&A with Nick because as a restaurant owner, I'd love to hear his take on how to do this. Certainly this has never been an issue with me at your restaurant because you're one of my favorite chefs in town and everything that I have had in your place has been amazing. And I would just like shout out to what you and Audra are doing there and have done there since you opened and continue to do now. So shout out to you for that. Thank you. You're just doing an incredible job. So I certainly respect you guys as owners and would love to hear your opinion. Today's What's the Delia is about what's the deal with a bad restaurant experience? Because before we talked about like I've had some like weird bill snafus and like strange things happen to wine, but I guess just what to do if you have a bad meal. Like some meals just, you know, maybe aren't your taste, but sometimes they just are bad. Right. Like Brandon, I think you and I talked about, you know, I had an experience when I first moved to Nashville and I went to a place that, well, I moved back to Nashville and I went to a place that everyone had super hyped and I was like, and of course I didn't say anything.

01:00:55Um, but I just don't know what the right way to handle this situation is. Brandon, do you want to share a little bit about your story? Well, I was just going to say, I, you know, I've eaten somewhere recently too, and just, it wasn't fantastic. Everything was good. So, you know, it's a good restaurant, but it was just kind of one of those things that was like, yeah, it just wasn't like the food just wasn't good. And there was some different facets of that, that, you know, we're having dinner and the server keeps coming, like the food isn't great. Like you're kind of like, is this, is this, is this, is this not as good as I thought it was? This isn't that great. And then you look at it and you say, Hey, how was everything? And you're like, it was good. That's really why we didn't need it. Like, you know, what do you find? Right there. What do you do? Because it's so tough in that situation to say, it really wasn't good because then you're, it's awkward. It's awkward for the person. And what do you do? Do you say, I didn't like it because then you're Karen.

01:02:01Right. And do you just, and so what I think the question here for you, Nick, is what do you prefer somebody does? Because I imagine you would like to know right then and there, because if you're serving food that isn't good, you want to, A, stop serving it to other people. If it doesn't taste good, because you don't want more people to have food that doesn't taste good because you take pride in what you're putting out there. And B, if it's legit, you want to get them something that they like. But how do you create an environment that's okay for feedback? I think on the restaurant side, when you look for that feedback, it has to be genuine. You know, it can't be that surface value. How is everything? I mean, that, you know, it's, oh, it's good. You know, I'm in the same boat. I've, I'm, I have been guilty in the past of just, oh, it's good. But it wasn't, you know, it's, it's, but it didn't seem like it was something that they actually wanted to know. You know, us, I want to know if, if something is wrong, we want to be able to make it right. And, and we can make it right if we know on the spot. So if your steak is not cooked properly or whatever the problem is, let the server know it's okay. You know, yes, it is awkward. And, and I think as people were non-confrontational, we don't like the confrontation of it.

01:03:30And I think that can be intimidating, but we can't get better if we don't know how to, what to fix. You know, I personally, just recently had an experience at an establishment, a local establishment that I've been supporting for years. I love them. But there was a part of the experience that, that we had that wasn't very good. And I just reached out to them. You know, I couldn't find an email, but just through Facebook was like, Hey, look, this was our experience. I just want to let you know, I don't want anything. I'm not looking for anything free. I'm not, I just want you to know what our experience was, but I will continue supporting you. Y'all do a good job. It's just this one time something was weird, but I feel like you should know from one business owner to another. But, you know, when you're in a restaurant, let people know, you know, it's, it's, it's going to take a little bit of effort to kind of suck up the, the confrontation there. But I think if you get into a dish and it's not to your liking, just explain that, you know, if it's, I thought I would like this, but I don't, okay, we'll get you something else. If it's improperly cooked, we'll be happy to cook it for you again so that it's to your liking. Genuinely, people in hospitality genuinely want you to have a good experience. You know, we're not, we're not out to take the money and run. It's, we want you to have a good time. We want you to have a good experience in our establishments. And if you're not having a good time, let us know. So in this particular, in this particular moment, it was funny because we're sitting there and the manager came by and did a table visit, right? And I'm going to get up. You see that I'm not wearing pants. And just kidding. He goes by and he goes, everything good guys? I put his hand down. I was like, is everything perfect tonight? And like, he's like walking away before we answered.

01:05:18And I was like, did you just do like, you know, Charlie's table visit? Did you just walk by and go, everything perfect tonight, guys? Okay, great. Talk to you later. And it was like, yes. Or what do you say at that point? Like, no. And one of the things I was going to say is, you know, with leading management through a proper table visit, do you, do you have like a front house manager there that would do something like that? Like a table visit? Yeah, it's, it's us, you know, if there's been a couple of times that I've had to make table visits, they're, they're thankfully rare, knock on wood, but, you know, there was, there was one night, probably January of this year or so we had a server that just did not, was not living up to par of the service that we stand by. And someone pulled me, pulled a bartender aside and asked to speak to me. I came over and, you know, he kind of sucked up the awkwardness of the moment and was very honest with me. He wasn't offensive. He wasn't, you know, it was just very matter of fact, here's, here's our experience. I just want you to know, I don't, I'm not looking for anything free.

01:06:25I'm, that's not my goal. I just want you to know, because we eat out of a lot of restaurants. I used to be a restaurant manager and that's, that's exactly it. You know, I was able to take that situation and move forward with a resolution on, on both the, the guests and on the, the restaurants in, but you know, what you're talking about at wherever you went is exactly what I'm talking about. That's not genuine walking up to the table. Hey, are you good? That's not, that's not, you're not asking for a genuine response. That is, that's very, I don't want to do this. You know, that's a fly by. It was almost like checking off a box. Like I have to, I have to go see 72% of tables per hour and I have a chart and it's like, you're walking like, all right, I need to see nine tables this hour. Like, and you guys good? Cool. One, you guys good? Cool. Two. And it was like, I've always been very like as a coach, leader coach, I've always, I've always told my managers, I've said, when you go do a table visit, make it personal. Don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me, don't even if I'm talking about sales reps walking in the back, they're walking into your kitchen. I don't don't walk in and say, Hey guys, how's everything going? Because then you get we're good. Or we say, hey, we sent you over a case of octopus tails last week. What did you think of those? What are some applications? How's business going? Is there anything I can report to my other people like ask specific questions or become caustic questions where you want to learn more about them?

01:07:59Walk up to the table and say, hey, I used chicken and Parmesan. We started using Grana Padano cheese. Did you like that? Versus, everything good? Everything good, so we used to go, yep. Or specific questions when you walk up to a table allow people to give, it softens them, makes you feel okay. And I think that's a major important part. That's very much my approach is more, a little bit more intimate in the approach in, hey, we just switched such and such. What do you think about that? Or we just tried, tonight we're trying a different sauce on whatever it is. If I'm testing out a dish and I see somebody at the kitchen counter sitting there, or even out here that just seems to be having a really good time, I will approach that table and I will make that test dish and bring it up to them. Hey guys, I'm thinking about running this this weekend. You all wanna try this, be my guinea pig. Give me your honest feedback. And we kind of use that to develop rapport and get a feel for how the rest of their meal is going.

01:09:02I think when you kind of break down the wall of kind of the establishment versus the guest, they're far more apt to give you honest feedback. You know, we had Josh Hobbiger on the show. I did an interview with him and he divulged some information. He goes, I probably shouldn't say this, but I'm gonna go ahead and say it. He goes, after you leave, like at the end of the night, we get together and we talk about every single table. And I went, you do what? And he said, I talk, he goes, we write down every table. We go, did they like this dish? Did they not like this dish? He goes, then every server and us, we all talk about every table, what worked, what didn't work, and what kind of a guest you were. And I was like, whoa. But like, that is a genuine restaurant at Bastion that cares about your experience. I don't know who has time to do that, but I was just blown away that that is something that people do.

01:10:06Like, we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna do a review at the end of the night of every table that came in here. I just, I don't know, I was blown away by that. I was floored by that. I thought it was amazing. I think a lot more restaurants do that than what you probably know. You know, that's, I know personally, quite a few that do it. We do it to an extent. You know, we're a little bit bigger of a restaurant, so discussing every single table is not always feasible, but I certainly check in with all of my service staff, how the night went, how were your tables, any problems, any positive feedback, kitchen too, you know. We get to talk to guests sitting at the kitchen counter when we're allowed to do it. And you know, we'll talk on how dishes went, if there was a problem with dishes, if we saw anything coming back, if plates are coming back empty, that tells us a lot, you know. So, I mean, we certainly have those discussions at the end of the night, a little less formally, but yeah, I mean that, I watched that episode with, or listened to that episode with Josh, and you know, he's somebody that we have immense amounts of respect for.

01:11:12He's one of my favorite chefs in this town, but yeah, it was certainly not shocking to hear him say that that's a step that they take because that very much seems like something that establishment would do. Well, I've got a couple of areas in which we can go. One is I wanna talk about the best restaurants in town, and two, I wanna talk about to fit to wrap or what's the deal here today. We've talked about communicating in a restaurant, having a tough conversation. If you feel like you're in a situation like I was, or I couldn't say anything, the appropriate course of action after you leave the restaurant is not to go on Yelp and leave a one-star review and blast that restaurant. That is not what you do. What you do is, is you get home and you search how to get ahold of that restaurant, and you call them back after the fact, and you say, hey, I dined there last night, I'd like to tell you about my experience.

01:12:17I'm not in the middle of not sitting across from my first date that I'm on that I didn't wanna come across that way, because you never know what people's circumstances are. If you're, sometimes you're not gonna get the feedback. Don't go on Yelp and say, I was on a first date and they suck. Wait. Hang back. Call them and say, this was my experience, which is what I did. I called the chef after I went there and I said, hey, I know that this is not your cuisine, this is not your situation, but I wanna tell you about the stuff, the food that I got and he was like, dude, thank you so much. I'm gonna be on that immediately. I don't wanna serve any food like that. That's not my thing. And I'm like, I know it's not, but we had a really great adult conversation about it and I know he appreciated that conversation. I didn't say, hey, look, I wanna refund, I want this, I want that. I said, look, I just want other people to have, I want you to know what's going on inside your restaurant. He was very appreciative. It was a positive conversation and hopefully I was able to communicate to him something that he didn't know because he wasn't at the restaurant during the night and he wasn't eating that food that night.

01:13:26Sometimes people aren't perfect. Sometimes stuff happens. The more information you get to fix the problem, the better, right? Well, and I think you really hit the plan B on the head there. If you're not in a place or if you're not the personality that's gonna bring it up at the time of service, one, we wish you would because we want you to have a good experience, but two, if you're not that personality, we leave our business cards right here, right behind me on the host stand, pick one up, call us, shoot us an email, shoot us a text, whatever you wanna do, at the very least, get some sleep, breathe, collect your thoughts and send it to the restaurant. Write an email and just say, this is what our experience was and nine times out of 10, you're gonna get a far more positive response than if you don't give them the opportunity and you just take to XYZ review site and slam that establishment. It comes down to communication.

01:14:26Everything is about communication. In the restaurant is communication. Out of the restaurant is communication. The two sides in the restaurant is communication. Communicate with each other and things get better. Absolutely and you do more of a service to help other people when you communicate effectively with the chef or the restaurant owner or the manager, whatever it might be. A couple of people, your lovely bride has chimed in and she just wants to say that she loves all three of us and I'm sorry she's too pregnant to be there, but she's happy to listen and I think she loves one of us more than the other two, but that's okay. We just missed you and I think I've been eating for you and your baby this week, so, good for me. You're so sweet. And Jim Myers is giving, he's jumping in, talking to Audra saying, I hope you are well Audra. Jim Myers, so nice to have you on watching and listening.

01:15:27I got to speak to him last week at Elton Clay Soda Shop. He gave me a look inside and- So what'd you think? What was your experience there? Talk about it. It's gonna be awesome. It was good to see you. It's been six months probably since I've seen you, Jim, but it was good to see you on the other side of it. I was like, what's it like to go from dining critic to managing this iconic national restaurant, right? So I'm- So he's the GM there? Yeah, he's gonna be managing there. So I'm curious to hear him talk about how it goes when they open, which I think they're not in a hurry to open just given the current climate, but I'm excited. It's beautiful inside. Like it's such a large space, but it gives homage to the last space and I'm kind of shocked that the prices are still super affordable and I'm excited about the milkshakes and- I'm glad to know that I didn't know, I didn't know Jim was gonna be a part of that. We miss, I miss Jim's writing. Jim, we miss you. The integrity behind your writing, we miss it. Yeah. Damn, I don't know if that was a compliment to Jim or a slam to a bunch of other people.

01:16:31He says, Eddie says, it is hard to switch sides. Well, we're excited to have you on the side, Jim, and maybe we'll have you on to, maybe you can co-host a roundup with us, kind of like Nick is saying, we can talk about your experience. Do the restaurant and do it. Ooh, we can do it live from the Elliston Place Soda Shop? Yeah, with milkshakes. All right, Jim, you want us to come do the roundup live at the Elliston Place Soda Shop, let's do it. You didn't know what you wrote yourselves into. Samantha Wright says, hi, chef. That's actually my server, she's over here. She's behind, she's like, get off the phone, we need you to make food. Jim says, many thanks. All right, Jim, Jim has said, we would love to. Why not? All right. There you go, and that's how we get things done in this world, we do live shows. He says, yes, here we go, I love it. All right, so Jim Myers, you're welcome to jump in on this too, in the comments section.

01:17:36If you're out there listening, we got some people listening right now. This is where we become interactive. Mobile fixture, it's not mobile fixture, but we're gonna talk about mobile fixture real fast before we get into this next segment. Normally mobile fixture is our local legend sponsor, but today we're gonna pivot to something different, a new thing that we're gonna start doing right here on the roundup the last week of the month. We're gonna do our Nashville hot list. This week, the conversation is gonna be brought to you by Mobile Fixture. They are the everything you need for your restaurant company. They will outfit your kitchen with every single thing. They will help you design your kitchen. They'll make sure you know, they'll get it there. They'll make sure it works properly. They have a showroom in Smyrna. Feel free to go to our website at NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com, and you can click on the Sponsors tab, find Mobile Fixture, click the link there, schedule a tour.

01:18:38Go by there. If you're thinking about opening a restaurant, you wanna open a restaurant, you have a restaurant, you wanna upgrade, you need some equipment, you just wanna talk to somebody about stuff you have. They are the people that, Ben Whitlock is your guy. Although I think he's in Florida right now. If you follow him on socials, he's funny. He's a celebrity spoon salesman. He's been a co-host on the show. One of the funniest dudes in town. Good people. We love working with amazing people like Ben and Jason Ellis. If we can say Jason Ellis three more times on this show, I get a bonus. All right. Nashville Hot List. We're gonna start the end of the month every month. We're gonna have a top 10 of the best restaurants in Nashville right now. I have a feeling that the Pelican and Pig will be on this list because I feel like you are one of the top 10 restaurants in the city.

01:19:42Which place you are will remain to be seen. You guys are doing a hell of a job. Where would you nominate? Where are some places right now? This is the promotional. Let's talk about cool places that are just killing it in town. If you're out there, Samantha, who's right behind you, Jim Myers, Audrey Gendry, Jason Ellis, Julio Hernandez, Tiffany Elliott, any of these people who are watching right now, what are the restaurants out there that are absolutely killing it? I'll start with you, Nick. Uh, there are so many, but the first one for me that comes to mind would be Lou. Really? I love everything they do. That is one of the places I cannot wait to get. Yep, my wife agrees. I can't wait to get back there. I think they have one of the most interesting wine list in the city too, but just really cool people, really good food.

01:20:51And then- You guys are in sync. Setsun also, I think that's a shoe in. We had dinner at Setsun a few weeks ago, and it was, you can hear about my entire dinner. If you go to our YouTube page, you can watch an interview with me and Jason Zygmunt, where I go over every single dish that we ate, and I put pictures of my phone up, and he explains all of the dishes and his inspiration behind them. It's pretty cool. If you want to do that, go check out our YouTube page. I had an oyster there, and I proclaimed that I do not eat oysters. I'm not an oyster fan, and I loved it. Yep. Oh, the Meyers said Pelican and Pig. Thanks, Jim. Come on, Jim. That's very nice. Well done, well done. What about you? What's one of the best meals you've eaten so far? I know what mine is, yeah.

01:21:54I eat so many. I'm still thinking about this meal in Portland yesterday. That's not even on topic, but it got me thinking about unexpected meals, because I planned to go to this oyster place, and the wait was an hour and a half long, so I kind of like, we bopped around on the map, and I found this place, the Paw, Honey Paw, which I hadn't heard of, but I looked it up, and it was Eater Maine, when Eater Maine was a thing. It was their restaurant of the year, when it opened in 2015, and I was like, well, we have good taste in this. I mean, just had the most incredible meal, and we ordered four things, and then at the end of the fourth thing, I was like, I have to eat some vanilla. I don't live here. Bring us one more thing, and it got me thinking about unexpected meals, and just things that kind of surprise you, because there are some places that you go, and you know it's going to be good. I mean, it's not that I ever expect anything to be bad, because I don't know what to go there, but just kind of meals that you remember and wow you, and one of those was Pelican and Pig, when they first opened. I didn't know I'd never had your food before, Nick, and I remember that night, I was going through a lot, and I remember I was crying, because I was like, I'm just so happy that there's something like this in the town.

01:23:03That's such an embarrassing story, but it was just an incredible meal, and it was one of those that sticks with you, and you remember just being impressed by the creativity, and just the love behind what you're doing. You can see it, and- Thank you, that's a high compliment. Every menu that you roll out is the same, and I think you make good use of your time when you're shut down, obviously, because you rolled out your food boys, and then the menu now and the brunch menu are all just really spectacular, so I'm excited about what you're doing as always, and then I can't stop thinking about the, even after going to Maine last week, the Nashville Hot Lobster Roll at Pinchy's, I still can't, it was really good. The Pinchy's. Yeah, it was a really good dish, and I would have to go back, and I don't drive much, but I'll go back to Franklin for it, and- I will say that I took my wife to Pelican and Pig before the whole thing. It was cold outside, so I know it was like January, and I went there that one night. We sat at the bar, and we all hung out, had a great time back when I was a drinker, which I like to forget, but we went there, and we had dinner, and the server couldn't have been more lovely.

01:24:12She made us some mocktails, because I'm not a drinker now, and they were really good, and I had the short rib, and we had these Brussels sprouts. You know, Brussels sprouts appetizer, or side, or some kind. It was the best damn Brussels sprouts, and to me, when people put vegetables out that are better than any center of the plate thing that you can have, I immediately am like, these people rule, because I love vegetables, and when people can make vegetables taste that way, I know you're buying the best vegetables you can, but I don't know. Everything about that meal, you leave there, and I'm like, see, honey? See, honey? I told you, she's like, that was incredible. That was an incredible, incredible experience, and I love that. That's just one of those things, and you guys absolutely nail it every time. Thank you. We appreciate that. We put a lot of work into it. I have to say, Eastside by Me, if you haven't had that yet. Have you had that yet, Nick?

01:25:14I haven't. I haven't had time to go over there, but it is number one on my list, but it has been early one day to be able to get over there, but I am looking at their menu. The guys next door at Pearl Diver speak very highly of them, but looking at their menu, everything looks amazing. I will say, another guy who has an amazing restaurant just chimed in, who will probably make it on that list, Trace Yacha over at the Farmhouse and Black Rabbit listening today. What up, Trey? We love you, man. Nice seeing you on here. I miss Black Rabbit. I know. It's been a while. They're open. I haven't been in a while. Yeah, well, there you go. We need to go to the Black Rabbit. Everybody go to the Black Rabbit. They have the best happy hour ever. That place is amazing. They have happy hour now? What's that? They have happy hour right now? Yeah, I think so. Right, Trey? Trey, you got happy hour at Black Rabbit.

01:26:15Let us know. I think we do. I'm not the drinker anymore. I'll stop saying. I said to somebody the other day, I said, I don't want my non-drinking to be like being a vegan where I'm like, oh my God, I don't drink anymore. We get it. It's okay, man. You don't have to tell everybody in the first five minutes you meet them. If you're like, it's nice to meet you, I'm a vegan. Just let you know. Work out. Didn't need to work out. It's like, I don't want that to be my thing. He said every day, happy hour every day, Black Rabbit. Circling back, Trey was one of those people. He had his windows kicked in. That was gut-wrenching for me. Absolutely gut-wrenching. You see, there's those friends that work so hard for what they do and you get your windows kicked in. We'll get them. We all got it. Yeah, every day, Black Rabbit, best in town. So I said East Side Bun Me, I would throw a farmhouse in there. Passion, again, the dinner was like, I walked out of there and I felt like I was floating.

01:27:23It was just such a cool experience from the second you walked in the door. They're doing everything the right way. They have their own little tiny hand sanitizers on the table with their little logo on it and everything, the best. And then you mentioned him earlier, Julio Hernandez. Anything he's doing with Alabresia and Maiz de la Vida is just like, whatever that is, that's it. Yes, and he's funny. I'm trying to get him to write something because he is funny. He's not good. He's really funny. That'd be hilarious. Yes. We have Trey and Jim are reconnecting. I'd like to see that. I would throw a Lachlan table in the mix too, man. 100%. I think those are the salt of the earth people and just love everything I have every time I go there. Delia, our job is getting tougher right now because you've got Lou, Pelican and Pig, Bastion, East Side Bun Me.

01:28:28What is this? The Cappard's Steak, Maiz de la Vida, Lachlan table. I can't wait for it. What have you guys got, Lou? Yeah, I wrote down Lou. Have you guys had the dumplings yet over at Peninsula? I have not yet. Super good. Did you have them? I had their broth and that was amazing. So good. You can eat them on their own or with broth or with a little bit of chili crisp on top. So good. Your wife just jumped in. I completely agree with my wife here. I think- This could turn into just a shout out to people who are amazing. Well, Jamie is one of their bartenders but also the pastry chef. And I think she's one of the most understated pastry chefs in this town. Really? She constantly produces some of the best desserts. Jamie Miller. I don't think I've ever heard of Jamie. Actually. I still remember one.

01:29:28And this was probably probably been a couple of years ago but it was like some sort of churro doughnut or cinnamon sugar doughnut. And she had popcorn and just the textural elements and the sauces on the plate were top-notch. I love it. Well, I just interviewed Hal. And third time he was on the show for, one thing for the roundup and then he did, he gave us his cornbread recipe a little while ago. And then I did the full interview just last week. Oh, Jason Ellis jumping in here. I got to say his name two more times and I get that bonus, we're almost there. Jason Ellis, Lyra. Yes, Harant is good people, man. I haven't been over there in a long time. I need to go check them out. Who else you got, Jason? Jason Ellis, Jason Ellis.

01:30:29Yes. It's almost hard to keep up with how many restaurants are opening or. I mean, yeah, it is. I imagine. That's why we have you. Yes, and what we are gonna do is we are gonna pull these together. We're gonna put together a top 10. We'll probably piss some people off but we are going to create a top 10 of the best restaurants in Nashville right now. And we are looking forward to releasing the top five. The top five are gonna release at the end of the month and the other five will be out there too. But top 10, the last episode of the month in two weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Two weeks. Yeah, so this is a five week month. So sorry, folks. All right, so yeah, your wife just jumped in also that Brian Lee Weaver, did you spell Brian right? Look at that. I was gonna say, when you're talking about vegetables and tasting good is he got me to eat the Cachoe Pepe turnips when I first moved here.

01:31:31That's like one of the best, most memorable dishes was him making me eat turnips and liking it. Just he's killing it with the vegetable game too. And then of course he's got Red Headed Stranger and there's queso and that's. And he's also a fellow Texas Rangers fan. That's the point. Rangers? Oh yeah. I'm an old Texas boy too. I forgot that. Yeah. I'm an angels fan. So I'm a, you know, that American League West is. All right. Oh, Aaron Dissler jumps in. Bill's Sandwich Palace. Yeah. What's that? Aaron, you may be letting us in on something new. Also, I tried Mr. Aaron's goods last week and they, his queso was fantastic. Yeah. He, when we were doing the Po Boy pop-up, he brought by some queso and taco pasta. Dying for it.

01:32:34Dying for that. Bring it back, Aaron. Bring it back. And tell us what Bill's Sandwich Palace is before we work. Yeah. We wanna know what Bill's Sandwich Palace is. Maybe we can talk about it next week. All right. He says that he loves the love. Aaron's bagels. Oh, his bagels legit too. I get like five in the morning. So I got like a terrible picture because I was on the way to the airport. But Mr. Aaron's bagels. I gotta get on the bagels. So many bagels popping up. I haven't had any of them. All the bagels, I know. We should do an episode next week where we just have chefs come on and give shout outs to their friends. You just want like a whole episode. We just say, jump on and just, let's just all do, we'll do like a recognition episode where people can just come on and give shout outs to their favorite bartenders and their favorite like people. Yeah. And it'll just be like a whole big gratitude episode. I like that. That's what we were talking about earlier. This is not that big of an industry.

01:33:35Right. We can turn this into a happy heart moment. Yeah, we'll make it fun. All right. So what have we learned today? We've learned that Mary Cooper is shady and he's a liar. And we're waiting for more information. We have learned that your wife is... Oh, Greco. What's that? Greco, Jason Walker, Greco. There's another one. Jason, you got anybody you want to give a shout out to? Anybody out there? We're just reading them out. We're just doing it. You got anybody out there you want to highlight? We got like five more minutes. I didn't mean to get you off, but that one got me excited. I love Greco. Me too. Heck yeah. I just, we just did the interview with Pat Martin. He was wearing a Greco shirt throughout the entire interview. I was like, I love it. Give him love. Pat, Pat's a good dude. Yeah.

01:34:36I'm excited to get back to real live interviews in another week. I'll start doing them next week. You're coming next week? I am not announcing it yet. Okay. I'm going to have like three months. You know what? I have a ton of gratitude for the people in this city right now, just chefs and people in the industry, because the people that are reaching out that want to be on the show, that are talking, you know, hey, look, let's, I love to be on the show. Love to talk to you. I want to tell my story. I want to talk about this. I've had one person tell me no, that I've called and said, hey, would you like to be on the show? One person was like, no, I don't want to be on the show. I'm not going to announce who they are. I'll just say that they're a dickhead. I'm just kidding. I'm going to say no first, because I was like, I don't like talking in front of people. Here we are. Here we are. A little known story about Delia Jo Ramsey. We did two interviews.

01:35:39We did a full interview, and then I called her back and I was like, I didn't like that interview. Can we do it again? She was like, sure. So we did a whole nother interview. Yep. I'm going to have to play that first interview sometime just to see how bad it was. I don't know. So we've learned also that if you're at a restaurant and you're eating, you need to, if you don't like your food, it's not something that's good. Trey, Trey wrote the best. He read the best one-star review. It was a little too long to put on our TikTok page, but I do have one of him on the TikTok page, but there's a review. Oh my God. I wonder if I could play it for you guys right here, right now. And there's a, so the thing starts off and he says, I'm going to put on Instagram later, right? And it's a, because our server had zero personality, but then our server, he goes, so you're telling me, I'm sorry, no personality, zero personality, yet the spurt caused all of these things.

01:36:47So my zero personality server decided that she's going to ruin your meal with her zero personality. I don't understand how that works, lady. What's going on? It's freaking hilarious, Trey, it's the best. But if you're in a restaurant, let them know if it's something you don't like. If it's an independently owned restaurant, I don't know if they're going to do it with Charlie's, but if it's an independently owned restaurant, they're going to care. They want you to have a good experience. They want you to leave there happy and full. Please say something in a nice way. Hey, this just isn't agreeing with me, whatever it might be. And if you're in a situation where you're on a first date, you're with clients and you don't want to come across that way, please call the restaurant the next day and let them know what's going on. More times than not, people are going to say, totally didn't mean that. Thank you for letting us know. And you know what, you're helping the restaurant by giving them that feedback. Going on Yelp and putting a scathing one-star review because you want something, just call the restaurant. Tell them what you want.

01:37:48I mean, it's much better than hurting their entire reputation during a pandemic. So many restaurants live on recommendations, especially guys downtown like Trey, where people are going downtown, they're staying downtown and they're looking on Yelp to see where to go eat. And they see, my favorite is when reviews start, forget all the five-star reviews. You're like, I don't know how this place has so many five-star reviews and wonderful comments. Like, maybe you should check yourself because they're obviously doing something right. Maybe it's just a personal thing. Maybe it wasn't your taste. Right. Yeah, that's okay. That's okay. Take a page from Blockbuster. Be kind, rewind. Rewind the attitude, reach out. So restaurants are trying, they're trying to do their best. Don't go to Yelp. Don't leave a terrible review. Take care of them. Call them, communicate effectively. And also, if you have a favorite, like all these people that are typing in their favorite restaurants, we would love to hear about them.

01:38:54Put together your own top 10 list. Send it to me. Send us a DM on Instagram. Follow us on Instagram. We're gonna be putting up different things, asking for more feedback. We do have some criteria. We're looking for the restaurants that have the best food, the best service, the best wine list, all of the ingenuity, kind of the restaurants that are doing the best job right now. That's what we're looking for. And we're gonna put out a top 10 list at the end of every single month. And we have more plans. More plans for individual neighborhoods. Best restaurant in East Nashville. Best restaurant in West Nashville. Best restaurant in Mount Juliet. Best restaurant in Hendersonville. We are going to be hitting all the areas on our websites. We got lots of fun stuff coming up, and hopefully we're gonna continue to talk about and promote our locally-owned and operated restaurants here in town. Just the people that are doing a great job. So thank you, Nick Guidry, for joining us today.

01:39:55It has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's always fun. We've had, it's been so fun having these guest hosts on the roundup, because it's like, we just get you for like an hour, two hours here, just kind of hanging out, talking shop. It's so much fun. Did you- We don't do that very often. Did you think of a, Erica Waldron says, hey there from Fort Pierce. Hi Erica, how are you? We're, did you think of a good sign-off? For me? No, for Nick, did you think of a good sign-off for the episode? Cause we are about to wrap this whole thing up. Oh man. That's a lot of pressure. No, I don't. So heads up, if you're gonna be coming on the show to co-host on the roundup, you gotta get your sign-off. So we'll let you start, Nick. We're gonna end up- Nick's talking more in front of my restaurant.

01:40:55It's definitely not- I'll go back to me, be kind, rewind. There you go. It's a good one. Julia? Stay pretty, Music City. And remember you can still be pretty with your mask on. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you for watching, all of you. Thank you for your comments. We hope that you are staying safe and we love you guys. Bye.