#theroundup with Nick Guidry Tipping part 2

00:00Sharpier's bakery has been baking fresh bread, delivering it daily in Nashville for over 37 years. Yes, 37 years. Erin Mosso has been making bread. Her father started the company, and after his passing, Erin has come in, taken it over, and is doing an amazing job providing fresh baked bread to restaurants. Like I said, every single day. This is amazing. Are you tired of buying frozen bread from a broadliner and or making your own bread and all of the dust and flour in the kitchen? It is a long process and it is a pain. They will deliver it to you daily. They'll even make your recipe to deliver it to you daily. If you're looking for fresh hamburger buns, fresh bully bowls, sourdough, whatever it is, they can do it and they'll deliver it right to your back door. I use them. Their bread quality is amazing, and you know what? I love supporting a local company that's been doing this for a really long time.

01:04Guys, I implore you, give Erin Mosso a call. Her number is 615-319-6453. If you wanna go online and just check it out, see what products they have, go visit them at sharpiers.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S.com. Or find them on Instagram, Sharpier's Bakery. They're amazing people, doing an amazing job. Highly recommend you check them out today. Are you out there believing the hype that you don't need to buy a house right now? Is homeownership a dream that you've always dreamed about? Are you hearing stories of all these people that have made all this money on how their house is appreciated? Yes, you too could be in that world. You could be somebody who owns a home. This is not a myth. This is not the worst time to buy a house. You know, it's interesting, Jonathan Ho over at Parks Reality is house fatality. He works with restaurant workers to get them in homes. Guys, this guy is amazing. He used to be the, I think he was the GM at the Red Door. His wife is Alyssa Ganjeri, who owns the, or is a partner over at Buttermilk Ranch, and part of our big fantasy football league.

02:10And he wants to help. He understands this business. He understands how you get paid. He wants to find you your dream. As this is more than just a realtor looking to buy, to help you buy a house, he actually cares about you and what you do. His partner, Amanda, over at Foundation Mortgage, they will get you pre-approved. They will let you understand the process of buying out a house. People can buy down points, guys. There's all kinds of things you can do right now. There's a ton of options, but you're not gonna know until you give them a call. 615-483-0315. It hurts you absolutely nothing to call this man and say, hey, look, I don't know much about this process. Can you help me? Can you just consult? Can you tell me what I can do? He will help you buy the house of your dreams. Even if it's just a house. Guys, stop paying rent. Stop making other people rich. Start building equity yourself. Are you tired of hearing all the people talk about these houses that have all this equity now because they live in Nashville? You could be amongst that group of people.

03:12You just have to make the first phone call. I'm gonna say it again, in case you did not hear it before, write this number down. 615-483-0315. That's John Ho with Parks Realty and Amanda Gardner with Foundation Mortgage. They will get you set up. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. We'll be joined with Caroline Galzin here shortly for this episode of The Roundup, part two of Tipping. We're gonna be joined today also with our special guest, Nick Guidry.

04:14He's the owner of the Pelican and Pig and the Slowhand Bakehouse and Bake Shop. And also at the beginning of the show, he announces breaking news, a new location that is coming to Lebanon that they're gonna open, tells us the name, the whole thing. So stay tuned to the very beginning here as he, breaking news, new location coming from Nick and Audra Guidry from the Pelican and Pig. So this is a lot of good, good fun stuff. We did this episode on Tipping and so much response from this. I think a lot, it's a hot topic a lot of people are curious about. So we jumped in even farther. Nick had contacted us and said, look, I got some thoughts here. And he was pretty vulnerable in this conversation about things that they had done, mistakes he had made and what they're doing now. So we talk about a lot of things at the end of the show, we're joined by Jason Ellis from SuperSource where he comes in and tells us about a volunteer opportunity that he took at one of these stadiums and we get him on the phone and we ask him for more details. So nice little pop in from Jason Ellis from SuperSource. We love Jason Ellis from SuperSource. SuperSource is sponsoring our fantasy football league right now, which has some amazing chefs and restaurant owners in it.

05:18We are raising money for the giving kitchen. We're gonna have an episode. We just had our episode come out with me and Tony. Tony and I are doing an episode every single Friday. We talk about our matchups, we talk about fantasy football, we talk about all kinds of stuff, but lots of fun things. Stay tuned this coming Friday for a new episode where we talk about our league, the giving kitchen, different things, just a fun variety show. Have a good time with it. I don't even know what to expect with it. We're just gonna get on there and talk. So if you like football, you like fantasy football, you like just two dudes talking about random things, this is your show. If you'd like to be a sponsor, part of this, all the donations are gonna be going towards the giving kitchen. The giving kitchen is amazing. They are here to help restaurant workers. If you don't know about the giving kitchen, go check them out at thegivingkitchen.org. If you don't offer insurance or you don't have any way to help your employees, they come in and they will help cover costs for issues, not medical issues, but housing issues, electric bills, food, water, those type things, while people are out due to injuries.

06:21Go check them out at thegivingkitchen.org. They're amazing, amazing people. All right, I didn't wanna do a long intro today as I know this episode is an hour and I know you wanna get into it. So we're going to do just that with Nick Gidry, Carolyn Galzin, myself, we're talking about Tipping the Roundup, part two. ["Tipping the Roundup"] Super excited to welcome you back to the Roundup, part two, kind of an extended edition of the Tipping episode. But other episode of the Roundup, we have a special guest today. There's none other than Nick Gidry, who him and his wife Audra are the owners over at the Pelican and Pig, as well as Slow Hand Coffee and Bake Shop, did I say that right? We have Bake Shop and Bake House. Bake Shop and Bake House, and the Bake House is the new one. And where is that location? That's in Lebanon on South Greenwood Street, about a block south of the Lebanon Square. Nice, how's that going over there?

07:22It's good, it's good. Lebanon is small town, but growing rapidly and hungry for food, hungry for new options. You know, it's been stuck in its little bubble for as long as I can remember, but it is busting at the seams now. And the Bake House opened with lines out the door and it really has not stopped. Wow. That's awesome. Is it the same concept as Slow Hand and East? Is it coffee shop, pastries, all of that kind of stuff? Yeah, it's more focused on bakery. We do have the coffee option, we've got the espresso machine, but it's certainly a smaller portion of the sales than the East Side. East Side is definitely more coffee shop, but the Bake House is definitely more focused on bakery with different baked items than we have in East Side. Nice. We just jumped right in. Hi, Caroline. Hi. Caroline's here too. I'm here, I'm here. Well, I have been a super fan of Audra's baked Oh my God.

08:22delicious things really since we first moved to Nashville. I think we knew Audra for a couple of years before we met you. She was working at another place that is by Cummins Station and I can't remember the name of it. Coffee Lunch. Coffee Lunch, yes, yes. And Tony and I lived around the corner and we started going in there and we're like, whoa, the pastries here are incredible. And then we kind of started secretly stalking Audra. We're like, who is this person that makes these incredible laminated pastries? And it was Audra. Yeah, that was a fun time. She did Coffee Lunch and then she left, went to a different company and then she and I joined forces and we actually took over that Coffee Lunch space when they moved out. So she came right back to that same spot. That was a great neighborhood. I wish, unfortunately they sold that building so we had to move out. I wish they hadn't, would have been great to hold onto that flagship spot. Oh yeah. I can't even imagine what the run is like over there now. We just had the NoCo guys on and they were saying they looked at spaces that were like 60, $70 a square foot.

09:25So I imagine it's somewhere. It's a lot. We had a great deal with that location. It was the landlord owned the building and he had five businesses he was running out of that. And this was just an extra space for him that just, yeah, whatever, just pay me this much. Utilities included, no big deal. And then he sold it and the new landlords just didn't wanna, they didn't wanna honor the same price structure and they wanted everything separately metered. So it just, it wasn't worth it for us. Now I think it's been empty for two years. Really? They had a tenant, a marketing firm that my brother actually used to work for. And then they left and I don't think there's been anybody in there since. Man, well, it's a shame. It's too bad you guys aren't over there, but you guys have had so much success on the East side. And I know you have so many loyal customers over there and now it sounds like things are going great in Lebanon as well. It was a blessing in disguise. It was a headache in the process and dropping all the money to build that space out and then moving and having to build something else out.

10:26But it was definitely a blessing in disguise. It was, we looked back on it. It was time to move on from that space, but we wish we could have held on to it even if it was just a low sales location, just to say we had it. But that's Nashville now. That is Nashville now. Those were the days. So what's it been like running business in East Nashville and also in Lebanon, kind of going back and forth between two different spots? For me, it's fine. Audra pretty much runs the bake house. I help out on the back end things, payroll and bank and accounting and that kind of stuff. But the day to day is all her. She's got a really great staff out there that thank God has allowed her to take some maternity leave. I think she's got three more weeks left and things are running great, products looking great. So we haven't had to worry about that. It's just a great spot. It's, I think having two of us that can divide our time between it is a little bit easier, but as our new projects start coming on, that story may change.

11:31We'll see. Okay. And is there another project in the works for you guys right now? Yeah, we've got three. Wow. I joke with people that it's a little bit of masochism, maybe a lot of masochism and a little bit of just loving a challenge. But yeah, we've got a sandwich shop that we're opening with a buddy of ours in Mount Juliet. It's actually a dedication to his grandfather, Leon. Leon's famous deli is what we're calling it. So we've got that going. That'll probably be open the next couple months, I would imagine. I mean, they're pretty far along in that project. And then we've got another full service restaurant in Lebanon on the square called Juniper tentatively. That may change. That we were hoping would be open early this year, but construction, construction, that's. Oh man. So we're trying to open Chagos right down the street here and we're supposed to open June 5th and we're probably looking at Friday this Friday, finally.

12:38I mean, like, holy cow. We're a little bit further behind than that. We haven't really even started. Oh. I mean, we ran, it's an old historic building. It's a hundred plus years old and ran into a structural issue with the roof. So we had to fix that. And then our landlord, thank goodness, was good enough to work with us on that. And then he replaced the roof for us. And then we had to get the HVAC he was working on, the sprinkler, so it was just a lot of moving parts with an old building trying to get it up to modern times. And now we're just, there's a lot of other things that we're bouncing back and forth with. And then actually one block down, three doors down on the corner. I guess this is kind of the official announcement. We hadn't really announced it yet, but we're working on a cocktail and wine and oyster bar named Olivia after my daughter. That probably- In Mount Juliet? No, in Lebanon. In Lebanon, okay. Also on the square. Well, that'll be amazing. Yeah, that's, again, we're focusing a lot of our efforts and a lot of our time out that way right now.

13:41It's just, we see a lot of potential there. There's a lot of growth. The rent's probably a lot better. Rent's pretty good. Yeah, I mean, you can execute something like that. I mean, Nashville is just so damn expensive. And you know what the thing is, is that people out there will appreciate it. They need it. It's something they're gonna be excited to doing versus, oh look, another restaurant in Nashville. Like, the community will really love that. That's been one of our favorite things about opening the Bake House was people genuinely seem appreciative that there's something new. There's a new option. I hate to say just a bakery, but even if it's just a bakery, it's something new. It's something new to do. It's something new to try and something new to experience. So I know these other two concepts are going to be received the same way. We get asked at least four or five times a week about the new restaurant. When's it gonna happen? When's it gonna happen? Is it still happening? It's still happening. We're just severely delayed, severely delayed. Hopefully by spring next year, we'll be able to get that open.

14:42But the cocktail bar, I think, really potentially by end of year, if not beginning of next year, we'll probably be moving on that. But the sandwich shop will be, the deli will be the next thing that opens. I'm hoping by November-ish. Well, congrats. That is so exciting. I'm really happy for you guys. I love it. Yeah. Well, we, I just did a little research while you guys were talking. The last time that you were on, you know what's funny is that now we're hosting, we're doing an episode of the Roundup. And Caroline, you guest-hosted the Roundup early 2020. And Nick, the last time you were on the show, you were the guest-host of the Roundup on September the 17th, 2020. It was almost three years later. That's right. You're back. That's right. I know why, because you've been busy as hell. We've been busy. I remember that day. I was still very much in the trenches of the restaurant coming off of, or coming back from COVID. Tarps were up, very, very low staff sitting in the restaurant at our table in front of my computer talking to y'all.

15:48You two were so integral in, really, you two and your spouses were so integral in the early stages of this podcast because we were, started on March 14th, 2020, and then started moving into the pandemic. And you guys were so honest and forthright about what your experience was. If you go back and listen to those episodes, they're so real and so raw. And I just loved both of your perspectives. I really enjoyed talking to you because you were in the middle of it. You were young people who were restaurant owners who were married to their partner, and you talked about it. And I just wanna say thank you because it was really special to me in those times to be able to have those conversations with you and share. I can't tell you how many countless people you guys helped and how much feedback, feedback from you and feedback from you. Just hearing from people like yourself to know that you weren't alone. That's so nice, Brandon, thank you. And I feel like we were actually connecting a lot during that time, Nick, with just all of the chaos and craziness of things.

16:48And we've always been really friendly with you guys. And I'm so happy to see you today. And I hate that we all get so busy and don't get to see each other as often. A day in the life, right? Right. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it was, that was a weird time. It was a really weird time for us. And I actually, I had listened to you, was it you and Tony? Yeah, it was her and Tony. You and Tony on that episode. And I had reached out to Brandon and was like, man, that was a great episode. We were going through a lot of the same things and there's just so much that y'all brought to the table that really hit home for us. And it was almost cathartic to listen to that one, to see that we weren't, we knew we weren't the only ones, but to hear someone else going through the same thing was like, that's great. I needed that. Thank you. That feels really good to hear. I think that I was at a point where up until that point, I'd always been so guarded and so like PR mode about everything all the time that I was just like, I'm just over it. I'm just, you know, and that was kind of one of my resolutions during that time.

17:52I'm like, I wanna be more vulnerable. I want to be more honest because I think that this business is so hard, we have to figure out how to get out of that, like shiny, polished, everything's great mode and have real conversations about how fucking hard this is because I feel like really up until the pandemic, so many people were operating that way where it was like, everything's great, everything's great. And then it's like, no, we're all struggling. So let's share resources here. Let's talk about it. I think that's what I'm talking about. That was so powerful to hear. I don't think anybody ever heard, I think we live in our four walls every day and we're just like, you know, hamsters on a wheel, just going, going, going. And then you go, oh, I liked that idea or I didn't like that idea or wow, I'm just not alone. I think that that, and when you were forced to be alone, we're not allowed to be around other people. I thought that was a really, I don't know, you guys were both really instrumental in a lot of that. And I just wanted to say thank you. Thanks, Brandon. I don't think you guys should be friends though, because you hate winter.

18:57I do hate winter. You love the heat and the summer. And Nick, you are the opposite there, right? I think I saw on your stories or something not long ago that was like, any of you fuckers that love this heat we're no longer friends. Yeah, just unfriend me. Just unfriend me now. And I was like, It's over. Is that it? That's it. The thing? Well, so something that I love about you, Nick, is I think that like myself, you are someone who is not afraid of a hot take. True. And so with that said, when we released the tipping episode with Brian Weaver a few weeks ago, you very kindly texted me and Brandon and said, Hey, I really enjoyed the episode. I have a lot to say. I'd love to come on the show. And so here we are. We were like, Hallie, it's been way too long. Thanks for reaching out. And I know you got a lot of feedback about the show, Brandon. So, I mean, let's get into it guys. Let's go. Let's just start with you, Nick. What do you wanna, what was your initial reaction to our conversations?

20:00My initial reaction was more, I think what I had reached out was, listening to this episode, I wish it had been kind of a radio live situation that you could call into, because there were just so many points. It was like, oh, I've got something to say there. Oh, I've got some input there. Brian would say something or Caroline, you would say something. And it was, I had something to build off of. And it's, the tipping thing is such a polarizing and feel, you know, a landmine. It's a field of landmines. It is. You say the wrong thing and it's, you look a certain way if, but, you know, trying to look at it from kind of neutral perspectives and see this side, see their side, you know, looking at it from an operator who's also been on the other side, as I think we both have, you know, maybe we have some different perspectives, but I think we're also like-minded in that we're truly trying to do the best for our people, you know, and I genuinely love and care about everybody that works for me and I want the best for them.

21:06And, you know, coming off of COVID, you know, I think a lot of mindsets change. You know, yours was, as you said, you know, kind of being more transparent. I feel like I've always been transparent, maybe to a fault, which is probably why Brandon reached out the first time about being on the show during COVID because I was running my mouth online. Yeah, well, I love people that aren't afraid to say what they're thinking. Yeah, that was one of the good things for me was to, you know, I think it's why I like Joe's podcast initially because seeing somebody else be transparent about it, but, you know, the transparency in this topic is, I think, important too and just there's so many different facets to this and, you know, y'all have changed your business model at this point. I'd love to know how that's going, you know, in this. I know you've only been doing it a short term, but I'd love to know. Doing your own segues. This is beautiful. I love that. I'd love to know how that's going, but, you know, I have some perspective from some things that we tried that did not work for us.

22:15Tell us about that. What do you guys do now and what are the things that you've tried that you didn't have a great experience? Now we are, I say back to, because we tried to change it, but we're back to a traditional structure. You know, servers get tips. That's it, whatever. So, probably. You don't pool those tips. The servers get their own. They have a four table section, three table section. They take their own. We pool with our front of the house. So the front of the house, they pool it all together at the end of the day. Right. Including bartenders. Including bartender. Good man. I have people that I would never work in a tip pool. Okay, we do. And is it pooled per shift? Per shift, yes, yes, yes. You know, if you're on shift, we also have a tip log at the end of the night. So again, I'm a very transparent person. I want everybody to know what you're making, where it's going, exactly how it's detailed out. Our bartender keeps that tip log so there's transparency among them.

23:18And we just verify that when we run payroll with what the numbers are on our reporting side. But. So you don't use a technology to do that for you? It's all done by hand? It's, well, it's done by hand on the staff level. Our bartender's been with us since the second week we were open. Yeah. You know, she's moved up the ranks and become our head bartender. And she's kind of taking that under her wing. But, you know, they have a little notebook that they keep and then we have our digital logs that we know who worked what shift and how much that is. But we like to have two so that they see and then we have our numbers so we can say they line up. Perfect. You know, that's just, again, transparency, but. Transparency and tip pooling is everything. Everything. If you don't have that, then, yeah, in general, I completely agree. We do tip pooling because we have different sized sections. You know, there may be one day that you have a six table section. It depends on the day of the week and how busy we are. We're kind of coming out of our slow season right now.

24:20So we're about to get really busy. But especially during slow season, you know, the staff likes to run smaller on Wednesdays and Thursdays when we're not as busy. So we might have three servers on. And one server may take six or seven tables and the other may have a four table section. But it may flop the next day. You're gonna work the four table section. You're gonna work the seven table section. So it works out for everybody. Well, when that person has a seven table section, the four table section helps run their food and cleans tables and manicures and brings water. And like I said, as a pool, you can do that. They all help out. Yeah, that's where we're a little bit different in our service structure is, you know, we don't have service staff or support staff for our service because we're such a small restaurant. You know, any point you stand in our restaurant, you see the front door, you see the kitchen, you see the bar. So we just have a really good service crew. You know, servers run food. The kitchen helps run food. I help run food. Kitchen, you know, at our kitchen counter, they'll refill waters, clear plates. Everybody just puts in the effort because they genuinely want people to have a good time.

25:23And that's really the overall point. But so, you know, back to kind of the start of what I was saying is we are back to a traditional tipping structure. What we did probably two years ago now was we had met with some other restaurants owners and chefs in town just to see what they were doing. And, you know, I think we had talked maybe during COVID about what y'all were doing. And you shared a lot of insight with your Excel sheets and all of that. And then we ended up becoming pretty good friends with the people over at Loo and met with them and people at Butcher and Bee and various other places. But just trying to figure out, you know, we see a new direction for this industry. There's a lot of change coming in the industry. And most of that change is great. Most of it is needed very much.

26:27But what was kind of in its infancy at that point was figuring out ways to pay front of house more and either paying your back of house less or finding ways to balance that out, but doing a whole house tip pool. And, you know, talking with labor attorneys and all of that, just trying to figure out where is it legal, where is everything safe and we're following the rules. We changed to where we started paying our front of house more. Depending on how long you had been with us and what your roles were and, you know, that could be eight, $9, that could be $15. It's just dependent on what it was. But we changed it to where, again, because we have an open kitchen and we have a kitchen counter that people sit at and our kitchen crew interacts with them and helps with the service of that counter. We tried to change to a structure where 80% of tips went to front of house and 20% went to back of house.

27:33And that helped in kind of creating that balance that Brian talked about when he was on was, you know, there's been this enormous imbalance of what back of house makes versus what a front of house makes. But it didn't detract from front of house. You know, theirs went down a little bit, probably, you know, $20 per pay period, something like that. But back of house, it meant a lot more for them. So, you know, we were, it was working and back of house was easier to retain. We were getting better talent. But there was a point that it just stopped working. And it kind of, I mean, shit, the proverbial shit hit the fan, you know? And we saw it coming. And we kind of saw the hard point that it just wasn't working anymore. Are you able to elaborate on what specifically that was?

28:35Specifically front of house was losing their shit and quitting. Ooh, yikes, okay. You know, it's, there was a weird dynamic back then. And, you know, I think some of that was people not getting along and, you know, the typical restaurant stuff. But, you know, there was one, we do kind of a one big weekly meeting on Fridays. Everybody come together, let's have a meal together. Anything we need to talk about, anything we need to hash out, anything we need to fix, anything that's working well, whatever. That's when we talk about that. And unfortunately, there was, you know, this one meeting that was just kind of the pinnacle of the conflict of all of this was, you know, front of house, it was very, they were very vocal about we don't like this anymore. We don't want back of house to have our money. You know, I don't care what my hourly wage is. I'd rather make 213 and get all the money than have back of house get any.

29:37Unfortunately, this was being said in front of back of house. You know, so, I mean, as a person, how does that make you feel? The people that I hang out with, people I go drinking with, people that I'm friends with are telling me I'm not worth a shit. I shouldn't have any of this, even though I'm helping with the service aspect of it. So, you know, it's, we kind of had a crew flip, and then we had another crew come in, and unfortunately, that crew flipped too. When the new crew came in, were you still doing this model? We were, we were. Okay. We still had a couple of people that stayed on in front of house, and, you know, they saw that this was well-intentioned. You know, this wasn't us trying to be malicious or anything to that effect. It was just trying to create a balance of making everybody a better living. But that second crew left, and at some point in time, our name got put online and just drug through the mud.

30:40I mean, absolutely getting burned. And that- We've been there. That sucks. You know, it's, you build this thing for so long. You build your name, your reputation, your business for so long, and you're genuinely trying to do something for people. You're genuinely trying. And the correct intention was there. Correct intention. And I've said from the beginning, I'm not always going to get it right. I have not always gotten it right. I know points in the past that I've gotten it wrong, and if I could go back and do something differently, I probably would, but I can't. All I can do is learn from where we've been and be better. We strive to be better every day, but so to see- I didn't even see it, but I had a mutual friend that Caroline and I have reach out to me and say, hey, I don't know what's going on, but there was a Facebook post. Your name was there. You probably need to get ahead of this. But nobody had the post. I guess it got taken down and- Yeah, for the record, I didn't see a post. Yeah. I didn't either.

31:40So it didn't circulate as much as you, but when you're in that situation, you're like, this person probably has like 25 followers, but you're like, great. Now everybody sees this thing and thinks I'm an asshole, and it's horrible. It's a horrible feeling. I think it got posted on the industry page, so it was enough people to see it, but it got taken down pretty quickly. I don't know what the con- Still to this day, I don't know the context, but it was basically, to my understanding from what I've been told was just, this is how they're running things. Don't go work there. So our mutual friend, I was looking for servers. He reached out, hey, I've got someone really great. I'm gonna send them your way. And the next day I heard from him was, they're not coming over there. They heard how y'all are running this and they don't even wanna talk to you. So it was like, okay, well, we've gotta pivot. We've gotta do something different. We've gotta change something. This is not working. So long conversations, meetings with a lot of our, well, really all of our staff that we had at the time and met with front of house and was like, what would make y'all happy?

32:42And we've always tried to do this. It is our business, but we've tried to be a little more diplomatic, have a bit of more of a democracy in, what are y'all's thoughts? What do you think? How are you feeling? What do you need? So we came to them with the same situation. Like, is this working for everybody? Is this working for nobody? Is it working for anybody? And unanimously, we'd rather make 213. We'd rather make 213, go back to the way it was, earn everything. And once we did that, we started seeing applicants coming in. And it took us a month or two to kind of rebound from that, but new servers that came in, we kind of told them, this is how we were doing things, but this is how we're doing things now. We're back to a traditional structure. And even they said, oh, I never would have worked here if you had done it the old way. I mean, I don't care what my hourly is. I'd rather just have the money. And- There's an endorphin rush that's partly gambling, that you get when you provide that payoff.

33:47When you look at the check and you see, I got 30% or I got $100 here, $200, that moment where you get the payoff. And if you don't get that, I think that's an addictive side that people have to serving, is that there's this unknown that's like scratching off a lottery ticket every time you flip that thing over. You did the work and now hell yeah, or shit, but if you don't get that, then you lose some of that. And I'm just trying to get into the psyche of it, because I know when I waited tables, I used to love that. Well, I think there's so much too of the status quo of what it has been for so long and what people are used to is just ingrained in our restaurant culture is, I think so many servers and bartenders are just used to getting zero checks. You never think about what your paycheck is because like my check is zero, I get my tips. I mean, everybody pays on a paycheck. Now I'm dating myself a little bit because this is in the days when we walk with cash every night, but it's kind of that thing. It's like my hourly pay is zero because of taxes and then I just walk with my tips.

34:48Yeah, I mean, that's, so coming out for that, we took the money that we were paying the additional to front of house and we just put it in back of house. We were able to get as close as we could to what back of house was making with their tips, but it didn't quite hit there. Now, for us, we reinvest money into our staff. Anytime, I mean, this year alone, I've paid off huge amounts of startup debt from the business and we just pushed that back into our staff, so we've able to climb a little bit further and we, at this point, pride ourselves in being one of the higher paid back of house employers in town and we've got great people because of that. I've got back of house that I would trust just walking away from my restaurant and not worrying about it, but I think just having that forethought of we've got to find that balance and I don't, back to this whole tipping conversation, the tipping culture, I don't have the answers and I don't know that anybody does and that's what frustrates me is because every solution creates a problem.

36:04Every solution, I don't even want to say it creates an opportunity because it creates more problems and I don't know the answer, but changing the tipping structure, changing minimum wage, changing all these things, that only goes so far to a certain point because there's so many other factors. We're not controlling rent prices, we're not controlling this and that and there's too many factors that we can't control that someone else needs to do something about. If we pay people $15 an hour, okay, but that doesn't do anything in Nashville right now. We all have to raise, stay tuned. I'm about to go on a pretty epic rant about DoorDash right after these words from our sponsors. Do you know who I love? I love Cytex. Let me tell you why I love Cytex. Because they genuinely care. They care about our business. We were testing out some food at Chago's the other day and by the way, Chago's is open. We are ready to go.

37:04It is Monday. We are open for business. Come by and see us. We'd love to see you on Belmont Boulevard. Number two, last week, it was Labor Day weekend. It was Sunday. I needed some bar towels. I needed some polishing towels and I needed these things and I called Cytex and I go, I know it's Sunday. When can I get these? And the guy goes, I'll bring them right over. So I am there in the restaurant. I kind of told them, don't worry about it. Bring them later. And here comes Jason from Cytex with two bags of towels and microfiber towels. And he's there in his regular clothes. Just, hey man, I know you guys are open. I know it's important to you. I wanted to go ahead and get you taken care of. When it ended at the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, ain't that service? That's what you're looking for. It wasn't a, sorry dude, it's Labor Day weekend. We're not doing anything to help you. We're not helping. We're getting in there. We care about your business. And if your linen company doesn't do that, that is the standard for them. That is what they do. You want to call Ross Chandler. His number is 270-823-2468.

38:05And you too could be working with a linen company that actually cares about your business, not just about their pars and what they're going to sell you. They get in there because they want to help you succeed. So I'm a big fan of Cytex and everything they do have been for five years. They're just doing a fantastic, fantastic job. I want to give out that shout out because a long time ago, I was wondering, I needed to know a linen company and I put on Facebook who she used and Laura Wilson over there at Citizen Kitchen. She said, you got to check out Cytex. They're amazing. They do a good job. And I called them and I've never looked back. So thank you Laura for the recommendation and thank you Cytex for being a part of what we do here at Nashville Restaurant Radio. I want to tell you a little bit about Gordon Food Service. Next week, we're going to be talking to David Berner from Gordon Food Service. And they do such an amazing, amazing job. This interview was because I was curious about what's happening in our industry, what's going on. And David comes in and tells us all about his job, what they do.

39:07This is not an infomercial. This is a commercial. This episode next week is really, you can learn about some of the nuts and bolts of what a district sales manager goes through on a daily basis, what the trends are in Nashville, how many people are out there struggling right now. He's in hundreds of restaurants every month. And this is the information you really want to hear. So Gordon Food Service is an amazing partner with us. They genuinely care about this community. They want to help you win. And they want to help you find an all-in solution and build that partnership. If you're a broadliner, if you're splitting broadliners, using multiple broadliners, stop doing that. Find one really good company. And I recommend Gordon Food Service because they are doing just that. They have tons of experience with them, with their entire leadership team. Rich Wolowski, the CEO, has been on the podcast. They're genuine. They really want to help you win. And I think that if you're looking for a broadliner or just curious, you should call Paul Hunter today.

40:07Paul is their new business specialist. And I think you should call him right now. His number is 615-945-6753. That's 615-945-6753. Yes, Paul Hunter is Instagram famous. He does jujitsu, and he has his dog that he does jujitsu tricks on. You should find him on Instagram and follow Paul Hunter because his stuff is awesome. And he's also the GFS guy in town. So Paul Hunter is amazing, and that's his cell number. Give him a call today. I want to get into you, what you're doing over there, but I want to bring a scenario that I thought, in my brain, this logically makes sense. But also we're talking about people and being empathetic and all these things. Somebody after the episode reached out to me and said, hey, look, so I've been picking up a side job dashing, door dashing. And I said, okay, cool. And he's like, you know, and I know the people that tip. So I kind of try and do the people that I, people don't tip very much on that.

41:10And it's kind of frustrating when you go drop some helps. And I said, okay, so door dash, you're asking me, what do I think about tipping door dash? And I said, are you doing something special or specific when you deliver food? Like, can I request that Bobby, Bobby is the hypothetical name. Can I request that Bobby delivers my food? Because when Bobby delivers my food, I get it 15 minutes earlier than general driver A or B. And he goes, no, I can't, there's no way I can do that. And I go, well, when you drop the food off, do you tell a joke? Is there something, he's like, most of the time I don't even see people. I just, it's contact, so I just set it outside. I went, okay, so you are going somewhere you're, you decided to take a job where your job is to pick up food and deliver it to somebody. This person is paying 30% over the cost of the food for that service. I'm paying 30% more because I don't want to get out of my house, I want you to bring it to me.

42:10So I'm paying a fee to have you bring it to me, right? That is the job. That is what you're doing. You said, yes, DoorDash, you're going to pay me money to go pick up this food and bring it to me. And now you're upset that people don't give you extra money. I'm trying to figure out how you can provide service there because I used to drive Uber and I didn't care if people tip me because it wasn't my thing. But I also learned about all the restaurants and I learned about cool things that were happening in the town. I would go to see him or visit musiccity.com and I would learn, oh, did you guys know this was happening in town? And I would try and be an ambassador. And you got in my car and we took you somewhere. You learned about what was happening in Nashville. That history of the city, I tried to make it as enjoyable as possible. And if you tip me, great. I thought that I made that experience in the car better by what I did to provide a service while you're in my car. But as a DoorDasher, you're paid to go pick up food. But now this idea that I now need to leave you extra for doing your job that you're being paid to do, to me, logically, I get a still tip if I do it, but logically, why do we have to leave that person extra money when you're dropping food off on the doorstep and then leaving?

43:28Why do I now need to give you an extra 10%? That doesn't make sense. And if I'm the company DoorDash and I'm saying I'm leaving the option for a tip, as a company, a billion dollar company that DoorDash is, I'm able to raise my stock price a little bit more because I pay people less because now I'm taxing my guests and making them, I'm using guilt that you need to tip this person extra money so that I, as a CEO, can make more money. Does that make sense? It makes sense, but in the scenario that you just presented, the CEO would have to care. They don't give a fuck. Why would they care? When the culture of tipping is, everybody's gonna leave a tip, everybody's doing it, we have technology now, they'll just leave a tip and then our people make more money, we can pay them less. Until somebody says, no, fuck that. Nobody's gonna say that. I'm paying 30% more to have this, I'm paying to have this food delivered. From the day I was 16 years old or 18 years old and I delivered my first pizza, same concept.

44:30I am paying, well, I guess pizza delivery back then was the same price. There wasn't a delivery fee added to it. You just, nine and it's 10.81, you go to the house and you drop off a pizza and if they tipped you, you tip them for bringing the pizza, that makes sense. But now, there's 30% more added and there's these delivery fees. If you order pizza right now, it says, the delivery fee does not, it is not a tip for the person. It's like, well, I'm already paying a fee to have it delivered and now this is this person's job. Traditionally, you tip a pizza delivery guy, but now you guys are adding an additional fee, you should be paying the delivery guy that fee. Why are you, what is that fee going to? So to me, it's like, when do large corporations stop taxing the guest or the customer so that they can pad their own pockets? So I don't think that that will ever happen, but I think that in that scenario, what's happening is instead of the company saying, this isn't the right thing, consumers are saying this isn't the right thing, so people aren't tipping anymore the way that they were at one time.

45:32Well, DoorDash, delivery services rather, not just DoorDash, but all of them, I think, you know, there's a couple points here of, if I go, if I were to Chinese, I go to the Chinese restaurant down the street, it's 25 bucks. If I go through DoorDash, it's $50. You know, whatever that is, it's just, there is a sticker shock. It's at least 35. Yeah, there's a sticker shock there of, I had budgeted this much, but I know I'm gonna have to pay this fee for the convenience of it, but you know, exactly what you're saying, it's what service was provided to 99% of the time, my food is cold. They're not even putting it in hot bags. You know, it's- That's what I'm saying. If I was getting hot food and I knew it was the same, I would, I mean, I still tip them normal 20-something percent, but when I do that and my food is cold or it's dropped outside or you drop it to the wrong house and I have to walk over to my neighbor's house, hey, do you have my food? Did you get my order? There's a problem there. You know, it's, I'm with you.

46:34You're getting 30% from the restaurant. Restaurants paying you 30% of their margin. You're getting a service fee on top. Where is all this money going? I mean- I can't even tell you. The CEOs. And it's going to shareholders. We know that, but there's never going to be transparency about it. No, and we as consumers are expected to foot the bill so that they can make, but we're empathetic because we're service people and we go, man, I know that's a tough job, but it's like, but you're already making them. Like, is it now my responsibility to pay that? Why are, I don't get it. So I feel like actually what we're doing right now and me participating in this argument is now starting to tiptoe into territory of me arguing against what my restaurant is doing with the service charge, because somebody could say, well, why am I paying this? Why don't you just pay your employees more? Where's the money going? Like, you know, these- Well, here's the thing. Also, we live in a cultural- People have no fucking clue what it costs to run all of this stuff, right?

47:37So if I was to include that 18% or 20%, whatever that is, into the costs of the food, people be up in arms because, well, nobody else charges that. And you go, well, that's why. I mean, there's a lot of costs, fixed costs that are involved in paying them. That's why in the service industry, if you're providing a service for somebody, I mean, you know, every server at your restaurant that's going to the table, they've studied the menu. They know the wine list. They know the cocktail menu. I'm walking in as a layman going, I don't know anything about this restaurant, but somebody explains your wood fire grill and they explain your short rib and they explain all the different things and let me pair a wine with you. And they make that experience amazing because of a service and a knowledge they have. Yes, they deserve that. And you, as a server, as a leader, motivating those people, help them get there. And that's why places with amazing service, you tip more. That's why you don't tip at McDonald's. Well, I mean, at the root of it, service jobs are sales jobs. Yeah. You know, there's really no difference.

48:37It's whether you're selling the actual product or you're selling an experience to people, your job is sales. And the better you sell it, the more people are going to enjoy it. The more people are going to want to provide additional money on top of what they're currently paying. You know, it's why we've, this kind of fits in with the DoorDash thing, but it's why we've always hammered into our quick service businesses, our personal quick service, you know, our coffee shops, our bakeries or whatever, any iteration we've ever had is that, you know, that is a transaction first business. Before I've even had a tangible product in my hand, I've had a transaction. So I want a coffee, I want a muffin. I ring my card, I tip. I've done this before I have a product. So to my staff, it's now it's even more important. We've made the promise upfront of we're going to provide you great service. We're going to smile.

49:38You're taking the leap of faith that we are going to provide you good service by paying for it and providing a tip ahead of time before we've even done anything. Maybe we've smiled at you said good morning, but between that point and when you've run your card, you're saying I'm trusting you to give me a good experience. So now let's make good on our promise. It's all sales and not everybody's a salesperson. To go food in our restaurant, to go food, right? So you order food for three people and then you drive out back. We have to go parking. You pull up in a designated parking spot, you call the number and say, hey, I'm out back and we bring you your food. And there was a time before COVID, we were like, man, I just don't get good tips out there. And I'm like, well, you are providing a service because when you have three people's food and you separate the, you have to put all that stuff together. All this to go food comes to the window. You got to close it up, put the dressings on the side, make sure that the hot food isn't next to the salad. You've got to separate it all.

50:39You got to add bread. You got to do all this stuff. And you put it in a bag nice and neat and then you carry it out to their car, put it in their back seat. And people are like, all you do is put it in my back seat. Like, no, I actually did a lot. So I've been sell it. I go out there and say, Dr. Johnston, I'm so happy you're here today. Hey, I used your name. Welcome back. We're happy to have you. I went ahead and I wrote everybody's name on the box. I separate everything out for you. I put the bread in, but I wrapped the bread in foil and I put the olive oil on the side and I did this and I did this and I got it all nice and neat for you there. Thank you. We're so excited. Thank you for your order. We'll see you again tomorrow. Something like that. It's like, you did all that. But from the consumer perspective, it's you did, that was the job you were hired to do. That's their, the consumer's mindset is the business should be paying for that. Not me, you know, anything from when you stop doing what your actual job title is to when I pay for something, that is the extra that they're wanting to pay for. So in the consumer's mind, it's, well, you did just run it out and put it in my car. We know that's not true. You did your job. You did your job.

51:40And to a degree, they're not wrong, but there is a lot of extra things that go involved into putting it to go order together that, look, I can throw everything in a box and you get home and your salad is wilted because it's sandwiched between two hot pastas. And then you go, well, that sucks. Like maybe you should have tipped. There's extra things we can do. And maybe it's a, you shouldn't do that. Cause hot food, hot and cold food, cold. I don't know. But I mean, digging myself in a hole. Caroline, how's it going in your restaurant? Well, you know, I'm, I'm very, very pleased to report that it's actually going great. Let me knock on wood. I'll do that for you. Thank you. It is, it is honestly going really, really great. So, you know, we, just to recap, we do a counter service model and then we have a couple of positions on the floor that we call our floaters, which is after you've ordered at the counter, we give you a number, you close out, you grab a seat.

52:44And then our floaters on the floor are people who are walking around that can, you know, bring you more water. They might help run food. They can bring you a to-go box. If you decide during your meal that you'd like to, hey, you know what, I think I want to order dessert or I think I want to order another beer. They have iPads. They can take those orders for you. Most people, very few people order additional items. I think that people think, you would think that a lot of people order more stuff. People do not order very, very few. It's more of a service to the guest than a boon to the restaurant sales. Are those floaters trying to make the sale? You know, if they see a drink running low, hey, can I get you another drink? Yes, they do offer very nice hospitality in terms of, I don't think that they're really trying to make the sale in terms of like, oh, the drink is, you know, almost finished. Hey, can I bring you another drink? It's more stopping by the table. Is everybody, does anybody need anything here? It's kind of more that style as opposed to like specifically trying to serve a drink or like, hey, I see you guys are done with pizza.

53:47Do you want a dessert? We don't really do those steps because the expectation is you're going to order at the counter, you're going to close out and then you're going to leave. Which for us, we want it to be a nice hospitality experience, but our business model is intended to turn tables. And we actually, believe it or not, have found that from the original Nicky's model, which was a full service, a little bit more elevated concept restaurant, we actually sell way more with this model just because our check average is lower, but only slightly lower. And we turn tables way faster, way, way faster. So we're, we are able on our busiest nights to do a volume of business that we would never be able to do under our traditional table service model. I remember talking to you during COVID and you had mentioned to me that y'all were about to change your entire business model to this new model. We got a phone and I thought, man, that's smart. Oh, wow, thank you. I mean, I've always loved what you guys do. I love Yale's restaurant. You're one of the top, my favorite top five pizzas in this town, but the pastas and everything, everything y'all do, I've always loved.

54:56But when we got out of that conversation, I was like, man, that's just, this is going to work for them. Thank you. I really appreciate that vote of confidence because I definitely was not feeling that confident, I'm sure, when we got off the phone. It was a big, big leap and a lot of this where it's like, oh, wow, we can sell so much more than we could before. That's not because I'm so smart and I had that incredible foresight. That's something that we figured out. So now people come in, they pay a service fee. Yes, so we charge an 18% service fee on all dine-in orders. It's just automatically added to the check and then we charge a 10% service fee on all to-go orders. Now, if somebody is, if I pay with a credit card, is there a line on the credit card that says additional tip? No, so we had our point of sale guy configure the credit card screen so that when you pay, you are not prompted for a tip. Amen. So that's the number one question people have asked me, like, I bet they're going to ask for an additional tip. And I go, I don't think they do. I think this is a service model.

55:57And if you want to tip extra, if you want to give somebody cash, that is an option you can do, but they're not guilting you into additional tip at the end of it. At no point are we requesting a tip. At no point will you be prompted on a screen for a tip. We actually have signage throughout the restaurant that says we, here, I'll read you the sign. I actually have it pulled up. Kudos to you though for that. I mean, that, cause that's really doing it, you know? I do feel like I really, really did my research. I mean, this is a conversation that we've been having with our team since the first of the year. So it's been, you know, it definitely was not decided on a whim. And I feel like I've done my research kind of investigating, you know, like Reddit threads where people are talking about tipping and, you know, this article and that article and listening to podcasts and all of these things. And that is a big piece of feedback that I feel like I was hearing a lot of consumers repeat is when there's a service charge that's a mandatory service charge, I don't like being asked for an additional tip or I didn't realize there was a service charge.

57:01Why did I leave another tip? You know, these kinds of things. So our sign says, we don't ask for tips and 18% service charges added to every check. The service fee we charge allows us to cover our costs while paying our team a living wage, which includes paid time off and benefits. And this sign is throughout the restaurant. I really want to make it impossible. It's also on our menus. And there's a QR code that you can scan on our menus that says for additional information, please scan the code. And then it'll take you to a page on our website that's kind of a more long and thoughtful explanation of why we charge a service charge. I think it's probably more of an explanation than I really have to give. I think I've gotten some feedback from people where it's like the thing about this allows us to pay our staff and pay benefits, whatever, is more information than we need to share. And maybe it is. Maybe we shouldn't have to justify it to anyone, but I feel like there is a learning curve with this type of thing.

58:03So I'd rather over explain than under explain. Have you had anybody irritated with it? Have you ever, anybody that wanted to take it off? Not to my knowledge. To my knowledge, it has not happened. Now I am not frequently there for service, but we do have a nightly email that our managers send out every night and they do a great job of, even if there's somebody who like a table had to wait too long for a pizza or something like that, they'll say, oh, this one table had to wait too long for a pizza, but we did this and that and they left happy, blah, blah, blah. So I do feel like they would have brought it up if that happened. I'm sure it will happen at some point. There were a couple of things that we kind of didn't think about ahead of time that in that first week we did have to figure out. And we talked to our team about what happens if somebody says, I don't wanna pay this. And the decision was made that that is not an option. It's like paying sales tax.

59:04It's like paying for your meatballs. It's like paying for a Coca-Cola. It is a part of what we do. And unfortunately, it's just. We can't. It is what it is. We can't take it off. When we made an Instagram post about it the first day. Massive love on that post. I think it's the most liked post we've ever had. We got like over 100 comments. Tons of restaurant people, of course. A lot of really nice feedback from restaurant people. A lot of nice feedback from customers. I think I only got two negative comments. I liked your response to those too. Like, okay, great. All right, yeah. You were like, eh. Those are my favorites. We all have our choices when we spend our money. One guy said, just raise your prices 18% and call it a day. The circus trick of pre-authorized tipping is so patronizing. If we have to pay it, that's your price.

01:00:05Why make a whole song and dance about it? I didn't respond to that guy because I'm just, I don't know, I'm tired. But I think that is how we raise our prices. And I, there's everything is so psychological. If I raised my prices 18%. You're gonna see 10 times that many posts about people and they're so expensive. They're so expensive, they're so expensive. Over price, over price, over price. And this is, to me, more digestible to the average consumer than just raising the prices and, you know. You know what, I think it is brave what you've done. I think that's what leadership looks like because you know what? Like you said, like, dude, we're just trying to do the right thing every day and we're trying to, like, old models that don't work and we're trying new things. Like we're trying to make this equitable for everybody. You're working your ass off and it is fucking hard when you're the first one to do it. So I give you massive kudos for being- Well, thank you.

01:01:07I mean, we're not the first ones, for sure. There's definitely other places that are doing it. But none of them have been as publicized on this podcast, I suppose. That's what I'm saying. Well, you're the one who I know. I don't know of any other restaurant really that does that. So I do wanna give an update. Did you have any other questions or do you wanna jump into that? I mean, that's awesome. Well, one benefit I will say, and listen, we've only been doing this for a little more than three weeks now. So who knows what the future may hold or it's off to a great start. One additional benefit we've seen is we have a couple of team members who are just like absolute, over-the-top, superstar rock stars, just like the nicest person you've ever met type of people. And people can leave an additional tip if they would like. Our staff is very trained to never ask someone for a tip and never say, you can leave an extra tip if you would like. But if a customer says, may I leave you more? Then the answer is yes. We have like an open tip button.

01:02:08You can swipe a card, whatever. And we have a few employees who are actually making a lot more money. I have one employee who made $300 almost in tips the first week that we did this, in extra tips over what he gets paid hourly. Well, and I think that if you provide great service, I'm not an 18% tipper. Yeah. I'm like 25 to 30, and I would much rather give them more if that's a thing. So that's awesome. Yeah, so I'm very happy about that development as well. You go to Nicky's, bring cash, and they do have an option if you wanna leave more. But they're not gonna ask you for it. But you don't have to. We'll never ask. Not gonna ask you for it. When you went from a sit-down, full-service business model to counter-service business model, did you see a differential in that tip amount? Yes, absolutely. Way, way, way, way less with counter-service. And I will also say, when we first did it, it was during the pandemic. And as the years have gone on, we've seen a decrease as well.

01:03:08It's not just that switching to the counter-service. It's also like the further away we get from like 2020, people are tipping less. Well, we've definitely seen that too. I mean, the further we are from 2020, but the further we get into costs rising, we've seen a direct correlation. But from, so you go from counter-service, riding on the tip line to this 18%, do you feel like that number has gone up? Yes, 18% is higher. We would, on average, get between 13 and 15% from people leaving their own tips. Actually though, I will say one thing that I found interesting is that we're charging 10% on to-go for whatever reason. People were on average leaving more than 10% for to-goes. But it was very important to me that we have something that's consistent. I didn't want it to be, well, you can leave whatever you want on to-goes, but we're gonna charge a service charge for dine-in.

01:04:10I wanted to have that structure of the consistent service fee. I appreciate committing to it though. I mean, it's, if you're gonna do the 18% or 20%, whatever that is and not having the additional tip line, I'm one of those people that's kind of a pet peeve of mine. So now there's circumstances where that, I deviate from that. If I go to a restaurant and it's somebody I know owns the place or whatever, and they send out a couple of dishes, that's not on the bill, they take something off the bill, I want to tip that amount to the server. So I like that option, but being that it is counter-service, the chances of that happening are slim. But it does drive me nuts to, well, we've included X amount percent on the bill. If you would like to leave anything else, okay. It's just I now feel like I need to. Does everybody else leave? The guilt push that you were talking about earlier. So I think when you turn the screen over, I have like a new rule if they say, it's just going to ask you some questions, then I leave like $1.

01:05:18But if it says, it's going to ask you if you want to leave a gratuity, then I always leave a bigger tip because you had the balls to say, but I don't know the wrong term to use, but the guts to say that. I think that, so I learned something that I went to the Titans game and I had somebody call me. So Jason Ellis from SuperSource, hey man, great show. Just to let you know, at the stadiums, it's volunteers that work there, right? So when you go to Geodes Park, this is my argument is if I go to Geodes Park and I go a lot to the soccer games, I don't drink alcohol. So, and they have soda machines, you refill your own. So I get two cokes and M&Ms, whatever for my kids. And the M&Ms, I just grabbed myself and then she hands me empty cups. And it's like $27 and they flipped the screen over and it says 18, 22 or 25%. And I'm like, do I wanna leave an extra $7 for her to hand me two cups? I've just never, I always hit other than I leave like a dollar or two, because I can't say no.

01:06:20It's like physically impossible for me to not leave a tip. I just can't do it. But I don't understand why I'm giving $7 for you to hand me two cups, just because I mean, I'm already paying $7 for a fucking fountain Coca-Cola, which has cost you nine cents. It's ridiculous. I'm not a sports person. So you're telling me the people that work in these concession stands are volunteers. So what's happening is they now take charities, right? So let's just say it's the giving kitchen, right? I love the giving kitchen, the giving. They'll say, if you would like to send people to run our concession stands, we'll let you all of the tips that go can go to your community. So if I'm a soccer team, if I'm the Mount Juliet High School soccer team and we're having problems raising funds, I can volunteer to come down there, work this, and then all the tips that we make, they're giving you the opportunity to make these tips to go towards, but they think they pay them like $2.13 an hour or something to actually do the job. But then all of the tips you make can go towards the Mount Juliet soccer team.

01:07:22So they're being paid something. I was about to get irate. The amount that we pay for all these sports events, the amount of money, these sporting events, talk about CEOs lining their pockets and all of a sudden we're volunteers. Does the team also make a donation to the charity because they're getting free labor? I don't think so. I think that this is, they have identified that if we bring in volunteers and then we ask for taxes, then we're giving charitable organizations an opportunity to make money. Why do we let corporations get away with this? If this was Carolina High. Well, if I'm a small charity and I don't know how to raise money, then that might be a good option for me. Hey, look, we get to go there. The average tips are $500 per game in this section. If I have three concession stands, we could bring $1,500 into the soccer team and that could buy us all new uniforms. I mean, I can see the, because how do you, if you're not good at raising money and you don't know how to do it and you don't have corporations backing you, then how do you do it? Like, so just as a final thing, like, so now they're saying, and when I was at the Titans game, then I went to the last pre-season game and I was there and the woman said, we're volunteers, we're asking for don't, the gratuity is a donation to our charity.

01:08:34And that's what she told me. And I was like, wow, I'll leave a few bucks for that. Like, you were very transparent with what you're doing here and how you're doing it. And I can leave, I'm down for that. I will give you some extra money for that because that is, I am down. I love to help people out. Yes. I certainly agree with that. That's not my point. But she said it. My point is exactly what Caroline said, is the team or the organization or whatever it is matching that, is there, you know, I mean- I don't think so. This morning- I think it's free labor for them. I'm assuming that, you're talking about the soccer field. I'm assuming this is the same thing for football, but the Titans- I'm talking about the Titans stadium too. That's where I was. The Titans this morning were evaluated at $4.4 billion. I think they can match the donation. Right. I think we're okay. I think we can shell some money into the people working these stadiums. Or into the charity or whatever, you know, that's- I'm with you, but that is- As a consumer, I'm good with it. I'm good with- If they match it- Tipping whatever, but come on. So that is what, but if you're wondering like, why do you even ask for a tip there?

01:09:38They're already making all this money on concessions. They then don't really pay labor. They have people come in to do it for them for essentially free. I'd love to get to the bottom of that. So if you know more information, if you work for, you know, Aramark or Sodexo or one of these places that manages that food service or if you were kicked out, because I know Nissan Stadium was Aramark forever. It was a Vendra for a while, different companies run. And maybe for the suites, it's different, but for the concessions, I'm curious if I have a nonprofit, what they pay me, how they do. I should call Jason Ellis and ask him. Because he was, he did it. He was like my wife and I, we did it. And it was great because our charity made a bunch of money, but we made hot dogs and nachos all day long. Maybe it was like $75. You got paid for the thing. I mean, it was a thing. I'm gonna text him. Text him. I can get him on the show right now if you want to.

01:10:39I can get him on here. I can just call him and let's, you know what? Let's do this. I have it on this. I can get it on here. Thank you for your patience here. We're gonna talk to Jason Ellis if he answers his phone and he always answers his phone now that I've said that. All right, let's see. We got. We'll get him on the, in the show. He's gonna be like, ah. I've called Jason Ellis a hundred times. He's answered his phone 99 of those times. What's up, man? How you doing? Hey, good. Hey, you're live on the show right now. No pressure. Oh, cool. I'm here with Caroline and Nick Guidry. Oh, hey. Hi, Jason. What's up, buddy? We are talking about concession stand tipping. And I said, I talked to you and you said, hey, look, we volunteered and they let us keep our tips.

01:11:40And then the question is, do they pay you also? And I was hoping you could give us some clarity around how that process works. Yeah, so the volunteer organization that we had partnered with when we were doing the concession stand, they paid them out a flat rate and then whatever tips were made from that service time or slot that you were in, it was split up amongst the organization. So, but the flat rate, I think some were 75, some were 45. So it just flexes depending on what organization you're with and what venue you're in. Okay, so there is a flat rate that they pay. Do you get that money or does that money go to the charity? No, so you get that money. So what you do is you volunteer for this, it's got different signups and things like that. I guess it's a way for them to supplement their labor. No kidding. But the good thing is it is tax free.

01:12:42So it's not something like I have to claim it on my income taxes or whatever. And then it's just, if you're donating your time to go and basically work the concession stands or whatever for this stuff, you get that money to use it towards your kids, activities for school or for camps or sports or whatever. All you do is you submit it to the organization and then they send the checkout on your behalf and it can go for a lot of different things. So you don't get paid, it's money that's credited towards something that's a tax free activity? Correct, correct, correct. So yeah, you don't ever get the physical cash. It goes to whatever. So it can go to school supplies, it can go to whatever. So they figured out a way to not pay taxes on it also. Okay. Correct. Do they match the money raised or? Yes, like let's just- No, so it's literally whatever. So you get paid that flat amount to go work, whatever that is. And then for the tips, it's whatever you raise. So if you only get, as far as the organization, a hundred dollars that night, it's split amongst everybody.

01:13:45But usually there was like, I think the past couple of times that we did it, it was at least like a hundred dollars extra on top of that flat that you got. So I mean, some nights you're coming out of there with 150, $175 for a Pred game or whatever that you worked. But then that money, you didn't get cash for that. You got that money towards like your kids cheerleading. Correct, correct, correct, exactly. Okay. Exactly. Okay, I think that answers the question. We were wondering if like the predators matched that dollar, like, hey, we're going to have you in here. Or you get a portion of sales. Yeah, like something else like where the company kicked in, but no, they're just looking for free labor, essentially. Yeah. So yeah, there's no extra money. Yeah, so there's no extra money that they kick in or match or anything like that. It's just, which that's what we were talking when you and I spoke. That's why on some of them at the concession stands when we were talking about the tipping portion, yeah, there's some that I'm like, oh, I don't want to tip.

01:14:47But then you'll see on their name badge that it has like whatever organization they're with. And so I would even, I've gotten to the habit of asking, so, hey, are you volunteer? Yes, who are you volunteering for? What is the charity? What is the thing? And that honestly, for me, from doing it, I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll tip them because I know it's going to that. But if they're like, oh no, I work for whatever the big company that's running it. Yeah, I'm like, okay, yeah, you don't need to tip on that one then because Sodexo should be taking care of their employees. Yeah, and you're paying $18 for a Bud Light, that's a thing. Right, right. 2021, 2022, Nashville Predators revenue, $169 million. Yeah. And we need free labor. Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. Okay, Jason Ellis, thank you so much for joining us on the Roundup, a little random bonus. Thank you for clarifying that. We needed that information, that's amazing. You're good, thanks Brandon. All right, buddy, bye. All right, bye. That guy's amazing, isn't he? Wow.

01:15:48Well, there's the answer right there. The Nick was about to fucking jump out of his skin hearing that. You're just sitting there going, it's unbelievable. How'd the audacity? Can you imagine if you were, I did something like this though, we would, I mean, our places would literally be burnt to sticks. We don't want to pay anybody. We're just going to bring volunteers in and then we're going to have them pander to your guests. And then we're not going to really pay them. We're going to help make a donation to you so that if you want to pay for your kid's soccer team, we're going to help you make that soccer team payment. We're not going to give you the decision as to how to spend the money. Oh yeah, and we don't have to pay taxes on it because now we're turning that into a contribution. And people want to unionize independent restaurants. Why aren't we trying to unionize? There's the overall point right there. Why aren't we trying to unionize concessions workers at Bridgestone? Or corporation labor. Starbucks. We have the topic for our next round up. This has been an excellent show today. Thank you both for joining us.

01:16:48I think that, I don't know, did we get everything in that you wanted to get in? Do we, cause we got to, we got to kind of wrap here. We both have days or getting busy. Nick Gidget, thank you so much for coming in. Do you have a final, a Gordon food service final thought that you wanted to throw out for everybody? Not really. Just, we're all, we're all doing the best we can. We're, we're trying to do right by our people and keep supporting independent, obviously now, even more so. It's vital. It's vital. Caroline, do you have any final thoughts? I don't. I hope everybody has a fantastic week. Me too. That's going to be my final thought too. We're going to be back with GFS next week. We're going to be talking to David Berner, who's the- I can't wait to hear what their Gordon food service final thought is. Yeah, no kidding, right? So they're actually going to be on the show next week. We're going to be talking about all the things that they do and all the fun stuff. So I keep talking about how amazing they are. Next week, you're going to have to learn exactly how amazing they are.

01:17:50We're big fans. Thank you for listening. Thank you guys. Hope you're being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye. All right, guys, just a quick thank you for listening to this one. If you have comments, if you have thoughts, find us on Instagram at Nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio. Find the post about this episode and let us know your thoughts. I know this is a heavy topic that encompasses a lot and a lot of people's financial status and financial security comes from gratuities. I think overall, everybody in this room is more than generous and we love to be able to tip people. But sometimes when corporations are not paying people so that they can tip in situations that don't necessarily regard a tip, I think it's getting out of control. I think that was kind of the consensus there, especially with the arenas and the sports teams that could easily pay more. So that's a wrap on tipping. We're going to be back this Friday with Tony Galzin.

01:18:52We're going to be talking about fantasy football, go back and listen to our last episode. And then on Monday, we're talking with David Berner. He is with GFS, very excited to do that. And hope that you guys are being safe out there. Love you guys, bye.